2023 BBC Bible Conference - The Fount Of All Joy Session Seven "The Justice of God" with Pastor Steve Meister

The Prophet Malachi and the Question of Justice

If you would, take your Bibles again and turn with me to the Prophet Malachi, Chapter 2. And while you're turning there, let me again thank you for your hospitality, and for the privilege to be among you this weekend.

It's been a wonderful time. It's our first visit to New England at all. We really have enjoyed it, and enjoyed the hospitality, and particularly of you as God's people here in the Church. It's been just wonderful.

I hope that what's been shared and taught is fruitful to begin a journey of considering things. We've really just scratched the surface of so much, and so I hope it's an introduction and a prod for you to begin a continuing journey of what I like to tell our Church, Know the God you know.

Do you know Him that you might grow in devotion and love? And if you're ever on the left side of the map, or what I call the right side of the country in California, we're there in Sacramento. I would love to be able to host you there as well.

So Malachi, let's return here. Malachi, as we considered this morning, the Prophet God sent to fix His people's mind on theology, and who He is. Let me read Chapter 2, verse 17, through Chapter 3, verse 5.

Malachi, Chapter 2, verse 17. It is written, You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, How have we wearied Him? By saying, Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them.

Or by asking, Where is the God of justice? Behold, I send my messenger, and He will prepare the way before me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple. And the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, Behold, He is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's finer, and like fuller's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. And He will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them like gold and silver.

And they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. Then I will draw near to you for judgment.

I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker and his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner.

And do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank You for this day set apart to You to rest and to rejoice in Your goodness in Your Son who arose the first day of the week to justify us by His perfect righteous life.

We pray, our Father, that in Jesus' name Your Spirit would continue to illuminate us to the treasure of Your Word and help us contemplate You. And we pray that in the various spaces You've put each one of us in life, the various things You've ordained for each of us, many of them difficult, that You would help us fix our minds on the goodness of Your character, the unchangeableness of Your being, that we would have hope and confidence and seek Your glory in all things.

We ask You to do this even now as we meditate on Your Word together. In Christ's name. Amen. Finish this sentence with me. What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now. Are you sure? Have you ever noticed that we want justice to be served immediately on others?

But when it comes to our own accountability to justice, universally, people usually have a different slogan. Don't judge me. Crying for justice we could usually interpret as just not us. And even our desire for justice we see is tainted with injustice, inconsistency.

And like many other contradictions that arise from our sin, at the end of the day, we want God's gifts without the giver. We foolishly seek, as if it were possible, independence from God. We want justice without God.

God the Just and the Meaning of Divine Justice

But here's the thing. Justice does not exist apart from God. He is justice. Now Israel knew this, at least intellectually. So they knew to ask, in verse 17, the end of chapter 2, where is the God of justice?

Israel was oppressed all around. There was injustice everywhere. They were politically oppressed by the Persians and violently threatened by the locals. And you can read the narrative of what's happening with Malachi in books like Ezra and Nehemiah.

And we consider, even as you move up into chapter 2, verse 16, just before this, there's the violence of divorce, the abandonment of marriage, and then at the end of our passage in verse 5, all the wickedness listed there by the prophet.

And of course they also had God's promises that had yet to materialize. For example, one of Malachi's contemporaries, Haggai, had promised that the latter glory of God's temple would be greater than the former, but there is no glory there.

They, in chapter 2, verse 13, are weeping over the Lord's altar with tears. They had groaned, but there is no sign of God's favor. So they assumed, as we see by this question at the end of chapter 2, verse 17, that God was indifferent.

God was absent without examining themselves. Now we have a long history of this as humanity. We assume that we are the measure of God rather than the other way around. Perhaps C .S. Lewis expressed this well in his old essay, God in the Dock.

And dock there means the defendant's stand in a courtroom. And C .S. Lewis wrote this,. For the modern man, he is the judge, God is in the dock. Now man is a quite kindly judge. If God should have a reasonable defense for being the God who permits war, poverty, and disease, he's ready to hear it.

The trial may even end in God's acquittal. But the important thing is that man is on the bench and God is in the dock. And our sinful self-absorption, we can assume that God is in the dock. That somehow justice is an independent standard outside of God, that we have the ability to determine and wield even against God Himself.

That's the very temptation Satan gave to our first parents in the garden in Genesis 3, verse 5, that they could know good and evil without God. That is, they could be God. They could determine right and wrong themselves.

But justice comes from God. Justice is God. God is justice. And His answer, as we'll see in this passage, to injustice and unjust accusations is Himself. That's what God says here, and the Holy Spirit says to us in this portion of His Word that God's answer to injustice is Himself.

And we see also here the goodness of His patience, which is actually our salvation. What I want us to do is make three observations again from this passage. I want us to consider God the Just, God Incarnate, and then God the Justifier.

God the Just, God Incarnate, and God the Justifier. Let's meditate on verse 17 together and think about God the Just. To say, as Israel was, that everyone who does evil is good is a frank rejection. It's blasphemous.

It's a blasphemous denial of God's character. And essentially, Israel is accusing God of being unjust and indifferent to justice because He was not responding in the manner in which they expected and in the timing that they demanded.

Again, God was in the dark. Now, we might not make these accusations like ancient Israelites, but the progress of history hasn't made the question any less relevant. In view of rampant evil, is there justice?

And we often might wonder, will the injustice we see ever be righted? When we ask for justice, we're always asking for God. Always. The God of justice. Now, if you've been with us this weekend, you're prepared to think about this as we consider God's aseity.

He's of Himself. He's independent. He's without need of anything. Also, God's simplicity. He's uncomposed. He's uncomposed of anything before Him. From Him and through Him and to Him are all things, so He's not made up of things.

All things are from Him. That includes justice. Before there was anything else, there was God. So justice is not a principle that God meets, and we recognize, oh, He must be God because He meets that principle of justice.

No, He is it. It's not a rule by which we measure God. Justice must be God. A friend we've heard from a couple of times over this weekend is the Puritan Edward Lay, and he said this, God's justice is His essence, and He must be unchangeable.

God's essence is justice. Immutable. Another Puritan, Jeremiah Burroughs said, whatever you can say of God is God. The wisdom of God is God. The mercy of God is God. The justice of God is God Himself, and so all the attributes.

Justice, like every other attribute of God, is what we attribute, what we ascribe to the perfection of the divine being. God is the standard of justice. Justice is the revelation of God. And so if we want justice, we must have God.

If there were no God, there would be no such thing as justice. This helps us with the well-rehearsed accusations of our atheist friends, who would say that God must not exist because there's too much injustice in the world.

That claim is self-defeating on its face. If there's no God, if life is simply eternal matter, then there's no such thing as justice. It's an illusion. You see, atheists need God to exist in order to deny His existence.

They have no basis for their claim that there's too much evil in the world. That's why I always love to talk to angry atheists. And I always say, I love the fact you're angry. It means that you don't believe what you're saying.

Because if we're just matter, then nothing matters. Nothing at all. Or what about our culture's preoccupation to talk about the right side of history? Think about what's assumed in that statement. If history has a side, it only has it if there's a sovereign designer directing it, giving it purpose, and who would determine right and wrong.

You don't get a right and wrong side without a judge. Who's that? It's God. He makes that determination. So claiming to be on the right side of history is really begging the real question. How do you know which side is right?

And who makes that determination? Well, the answer, and we know, the only way to know that, is God. So regardless of what anyone says in a debate, we all know there's a God because we all have a sense of right and wrong.

And the only way to explain that is that there is a just creator who made us in his image and gave us a conscience and wrote his law on our hearts. That's it. And Israel not only had such a conscience, but they'd seen God act in justice throughout redemptive history.

When Israel cried out in slavery for redemption, God justly judged their enslavers in Egypt, and he upheld his covenant promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And God then established a system of sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem so that his justice against Israel's sin could be satisfied by a substitute, and Israel would be reminded over and over again by every death in the temple that he is just, and their sin deserved death.

And the just God only dwelt among his people at the cost of shed blood of a sacrifice. And then God revealed his moral laws to his people. What Sharnach said again, we looked at this morning on holiness, God's law is the transcript of his righteousness, an outline of his goodness.

It is reflected for us as a way to live justly and to image God in the world. Israel knew the justice of God, but they were not crying for God to examine them. They wanted selective justice. They wanted the illusion of justice without God.

And that's what our world obsessed with justice today misses. You don't get justice without a judge. It's impossible. And asking for justice now is asking for God, an infinite, immutable, righteous, and holy judge.

The truth is when we take to the streets and demand justice now, we have no idea what we're asking for. For true justice to come upon our world, it would come unswervingly, unerringly, in perfect righteousness, according to God's own character.

And that's what God promises to do. We see, secondly, God will deal with injustice himself. And beginning in chapter 3, we see not only God of justice, but God incarnate. God incarnate. God says he's sending a messenger in chapter 3, verse 1, to prepare the way before me.

He is coming. He says he will deal with injustice because he's the judge of all the earth. And consider what he says is promised by his coming. First, God is sending my messenger. Now, when royalty in the ancient Near East approached a town, a messenger was sent ahead to be sure the town was prepared and fit to receive royalty.

And this would include even physically smoothing roads and making sure the entrance of royalty was befitting the dignity of the king, of the monarch. So this messenger is coming to prepare the way for me.

That is the Lord of hosts. I mean, it's almost hard to comprehend what God is saying here. He says, I'm coming. But even further, in verse 1, in a series of poetic parallels, God describes himself from the first to the third person.

So notice he says he will prepare the way before me. And then the Lord whom you seek, that is the God of justice, the Lord whom you seek, he will suddenly come, that is, surprisingly, without expectation.

And then, in a parallel way, the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come, the messenger of the covenant. Now, messenger, that phrase is used in chapter 2, verse 7, to refer as a human or an angelic description of a messenger for God.

So you see what we have here in chapter 3, verse 1, is very curious. God says he is coming, and then he says the Lord is coming, and then he says the messenger is coming all at once. And he's coming, in the middle of verse 1, to his temple.

Now, if we had time, we would go throughout Malachi and see how the temple is at the center of much of the people's grumbling. The people sniffed at the temple. They were disappointed in the temple. They wept over the temple, and Ezra chapter 3, this temple fell far short of what they expected, and God says to this temple that you sniff at and disdain, I am coming.

The Lord is coming. The messenger is coming. God himself, the Lord, and a man are coming all at once. This is very curious. Now, Israel in Malachi's day was not the first to wonder about God's justice and timing.

When John the Baptist was suffering in prison for justly rebuking Herod's sin, it's recorded in Matthew chapter 11 that he asked if Jesus was the one to come and sent his disciples to ask Jesus, and Jesus answered John's question by citing his acts of justice towards those who had been mistreated.

The blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised, the poor hear good news. And then Jesus begins to speak to the crowds about John, and in Matthew 11 verse 10, he cites this verse here, Malachi 3 verse 1.

And the way it's recorded in Matthew, Jesus says, Behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare your way before you. So that means that John the Baptist is the messenger, which means Jesus is the Lord whom you seek, the messenger of the covenant, God Himself.

The eternal Son of God has come in human flesh. And you notice he did not misquote Malachi 3 verse 1, even though he changed the pronouns. He's hinting at the meaning of it for him. As the eternal Son of God come in the flesh, he heard that promise in the eternal covenant of redemption as the Son sent by the Father to assume humanity as the Christ, as the God-man, as the way that would be prepared for him.

So the way the eternal Son hears Malachi 3 verse 1 is not I send my messenger merely, I send my messenger before your face as the mission from the Father. What we're being reminded of here is that the Old Testament is a Christian book about our triune God.

And we observe in this promise of justice the plurality of Yahweh, the Lord. The one God who is distinguished as subsisting in three persons so that the Lord of hosts in this verse can distinguish himself as the Lord just like we see in passages like Psalm 110, the Lord says to my Lord.

God's triunity is writ all across the pages of Scripture. It is foreshadowed and outlined in the Old Testament and then brought into the clarity and light of the New Testament with the coming of the Son as a man in the Lord Jesus.

And in Jesus, John wrote in John 1 .14 that the word became flesh and dwelt among us. That word dwelt literally means tabernacled, set up temple, dwelling of God with man. And the Lord would walk around his temple that he refers to here, the very temple that Israel was disdaining and desecrating and he would cleanse it and drive out the money changers and denounce their injustice and he would rebuke them for making a house of prayer a den of robbers.

And God came as a man to his temple and brought justice. Christ spoke as one with authority and Christ clarified the unjust teachings of the Pharisees and the Sadducees that tied burdens on people that they wouldn't even bear.

And he fulfilled all justice or righteousness in himself and walked in perfect obedience to God's just law because he is the messenger of the covenant or what the New Testament will say he is the mediator of the new covenant.

Not like the one God made with Israel which they broke repeatedly even here in this new covenant God fulfills the conditions himself in Jesus so that God's people can be changed from within. The temple is where God dwelt with man and in Jesus God dwells with us.

And before Jesus let them destroy that temple Jesus declared not one stone would be left on top of another in this temple in Jerusalem. And on the cross the Lord Jesus suffered God's justice against sinners so that when he died the veil in this temple was torn in two and we now enter the presence of God through Christ alone not through a temple in Jerusalem.

And as Christ arose and ascended to God the Father from which one day he will return and complete his work and the rest of this passage we'll see now everyone who trusts in Jesus is made just and credited with his righteousness.

Our temple is his presence. That's why repeatedly in the New Testament 1 Corinthians 3, Ephesians 2 the church is called what? The temple of God. Because we gather in union with Christ who is present by his spirit with us even now.

And one day Christ will return and he will be the temple of his saints forever. In Revelation 21 verse 22 we read I saw no temple in it the new heavens and new earth for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

God promised himself in the Lord Jesus as Israel cried for justice five centuries before. God promised he would come and bring justice and he has. But there's more about his work. We see thirdly the Lord is the justifier and the judge.

The Coming Judge Who Purifies and Purges

God the justifier and the judge through the end of this passage. We cry for justice and we cry for God but really the question is the one that Malachi asks here in verse 2. Who can endure the day of his coming?

And who can stand when he appears? Now that's not an idle question is it? Remember Psalm 1 verse 5 the wicked will not stand in judgment. Psalm 130 verse 3 if you O Lord should mark iniquities who could stand?

What is justice but marking iniquity? It's taking account and bringing retribution for wrong. And if the Lord would do that to us who could stand? So God uses here in verses 2 through the end two images of purification.

In verse 2 the refiner who heated metal and removed the dross till it was pure with fire. And then the fuller or the launderer who would soak clothes and lye and scrub it clean of dirt. Now consider the implied question by these images.

Are you pure enough or clean enough to endure this day? When the God of consuming fire comes are you pure metal or dross? If you're honest you'll have to confess I have yet to find a part of me without dirt, without dross.

How can I welcome his coming if he comes this way? We often ask why bad things happen to good people. It's not unimportant as a question but there's another question that should get way more consideration by our world.

Why do bad people expect good things? We often wonder why the world isn't any better but we seldom ask do we deserve a better world? When justice comes how can anyone be confident they'll be exonerated?

God promises to bring justice to the world but there are two ways to do it. To purify people to make them just and to purge the unjust. And God promises to do both in verses 3 -5. To purify and to purge.

Let's look at purification in verses 3 -4. In one collective statement Malachi portrays the work of Christ in both advents, both appearings as a single panorama. God will bring grace and justice to purify and purge.

So the sons of Levi in verse 3 purification will begin with the priesthood because their iniquity is so prominent in leading the people astray in this book. And Christ came as our prophet and our perfect priest.

And he holds his priesthood the Bible says in Hebrews 7 permanently to purify the sons of Levi. Titus chapter 2 verse 14 says Jesus gave himself for us to purify for himself a people for his own possession.

In union with our perfect holy high priest we are purified. And we are priests. Peter in 1 Peter 2 -5 says you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood.

To offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. As we come into God's presence through faith in Christ we gather as his temple, his church and in him as his priest we offer spiritual sacrifices.

Hebrews 13 verse 15 says through him let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. As we confess as we sing as we pray as we read his word we are lifting incense to God by his temple through Christ.

Christ is the head of a priesthood of sincere believers in his church. So that Christians are sincere servants washed and justified and purified by our great high priest. But not only purification we see secondly in verse 5 God comes to purge the unjust.

None of Christ's work in his first coming means that the day of vengeance or judgment has been put off. John the Baptist declared the same when he was preparing the way for the Lord Jesus in Luke 3 and Matthew 3 we read this he, referring to Christ, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

The chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. Jesus himself taught clearly that those who reject him will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life. God is going to correct our unjust world in Christ by purifying those who trust the Lord and making them righteous in Christ and verse 5 by drawing near for judgment as a swift witness against everyone outside of him.

Now what we have in this verse, verse 5, is not an exhaustive list of all the sins of which everyone is guilty. It's a list of seven. And in scripture, seven is a number of completion concurrent with the days of creation and this is representative of all that Israel would know.

And what God is saying by listing these seven sins of his people to them, he's saying and communicating, he will judge universally, exhaustively, meticulously, and comprehensively. But there is a day of coming judgment where no wrong and no injustice is going to be overlooked or cast aside.

Nothing is hidden from God's sight and when he comes in justice there will be no hiding. This is Malachi's question in giving the promise in verse 2. Who can stand when he appears? No one will stand in the day of judgment if they stand outside of Christ.

No one. Now Malachi began this dispute in chapter 2, verse 17 with you have wearied the Lord with your words. But if we've been together this weekend and you're paying attention, you know the Lord who is who he is doesn't get weary, does he?

In fact, Isaiah says explicitly in Isaiah 40, verse 28, the Lord is the everlasting God. He does not faint or grow weary. God is without body that wearies or passions that weary. He's impassable. He's the perfect fullness of infinite life and can't be acted upon outside himself.

He's immutable, unchanged by anything. But God here says he's been wearied. God is accommodating himself to speak in a language with which we're familiar like weariness to describe his divine actions.

So we're to ask, well the Lord is wearied. We get weary. When do we get weary? We get weary when we're about, when our patience is about exhausted. Weary to the end. This statement here of God's weariness is a vivid description of patience nearing its end.

Where is the God of justice? He's being patient. But the patience God says is expiring. We see this in the New Testament in 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 9. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promises. Some count slowness.

But is patient towards you. Not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. Our God is patient. Now between the advents of Christ we could say in these last days that we are in an age of patience.

But if patience is patience it means it does not go on forever. And ultimately it's exhausted. And it comes to an end. God will both purify and purge. Later in Malachi chapter 4 verses 1 and 2 we see that the same heat, the same rising sun will both incinerate and bring life.

And what we have in this image here purification and purging and later in chapter 4 incineration and bringing life is a reflection of the simplicity of God in the effect of his justice. Have you ever had a superior, maybe a boss, a coach, a teacher, a parent and you want to ask for something but you need to check their mood first.

Whether you've checked them, caught them on a good day. I notice my kids doing that sometimes. They usually send one of them as an emissary to see how's dad today before we bring on him what we've conspired together to ask.

So you wait, you maybe start, you go into your boss's office you start with some conversation to see is their disposition more like mercy or more like wrath today before we ask. What the reflection of God in his word, his ascety and his simplicity mean most basically is God is nothing like that.

Wrath and grace they're not parts of God that are in constant need of balance and you need to just hope you catch him on the right day. No. God is God. Again, he doesn't submit to principles or parts of which he's made up.

The justice of God is God. It's God himself. And as we see in verse 6 of this very chapter, he is the Lord he does not change. And so when righteousness is coming it is immutable unswerving eternal justice.

And our judgment or salvation do not depend on whether or not God is having a good or bad day. God only has perfect days in himself. No, our righteousness or judgment or salvation or judgment depend entirely entirely on our status before God and our relationship to him.

Death or life judgment or salvation both happen by the righteousness of God coming to humanity in finality. And the difference of whether we're rescued to life or ushered to judgment depends depends on our status before God and our relationship to him in the Lord Jesus.

We see this same point reflected in the New Testament again in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 7. Listen carefully as I read. God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed because our testimony to you was believed.

Notice that same thing we see in Malachi. Same events. God coming brings judgment to those who do not obey the gospel and do not trust Christ and it brings glory to those who belong to him and who marvel at his coming.

God in justice when the Lord Jesus is revealed in his return will relieve the afflicted and his saints will glory and marvel and worship and all who believe will rejoice in his coming and they have nothing to fear of judgment because there is no condemnation for them because it has been satisfied in Christ and their relationship to the righteous God is righteousness in Jesus.

And yet God will come and to those who do not obey the gospel who have not trusted the Lord Jesus it will be a day of vengeance and eternal destruction away from the Lord and his glory. The same event the coming of Christ in justice brings eternal destruction and eternal life.

So, the great question left to us the great question that we are to steward and to ask of others is how do you stand before the Lord now? How will you stand in the day of coming? What is your relationship to God?

Are you righteous by faith in the Lord Jesus so that you fear no condemnation because his righteousness has been credited to you by the grace of God and you can welcome the Lord and marvel at his return or are you arrogant and unbelieving and need to fear the coming of judgment because it will be your condemnation?

This is the great question dear Christians that we are called to herald to our world to share with our friends to press on the consciences of others by the mercy of God and we can be absolutely assured that if God has fulfilled the promises of his first coming, he will be faithful to fulfill the promises of his second and what we see in verse 5 he will draw near for judgment and only those who are righteous in Christ will stand.

Many have accused over the years God of being silent in the face of evil but nothing could be further from the truth. God has spoken in many portions and in many ways and in these last days he has spoken in his son and in his son all of God's promises are yes and amen the word has become flesh and tabernacled among us to bring us back to God and God has spoken in the dying and rising and ascension of his son and saving all who trust him.

And God now speaks to our world patience patience that they might repent but promised judgment is to come. This is not silence it's patience with the assurance of justice whether in redeeming grace or retributive judgment God will deal with every single act of evil ever committed on his earth every single one.

We can't even fathom what that means but the infinite God of justice will do it and there is no other basis of justice. And when God speaks again it will be as Jesus comes in justice. The God of justice will come again and until he does we wait and we declare to our world turn to Christ be rescued.

That you would stand with us who are in Jesus when he comes and marvel at his coming and not be ushered into judgment. Amen. Let's pray father we thank you for the assurance of your unerring justice. It gives us comfort to know even what we suffer in this world.

That vengeance belongs to you. You will bring justice to pass. And we thank you even more that the judgment we deserve has been suffered by your son on our behalf that in him we are now righteous before you.

We pray our father that you would turn the hearts and minds of people in our community in our state and nation and around the world to trust your son. That they would with us glorify your name in his return.

Father we pray. You would give us a great burden to share the great hope of Christ with others. And the fact and reality that every conscience knows that there is a judge who does justly and he will come again.

Father we pray. You would show mercy now in this age of patience bring many to yourself through faith in Christ. That we would together with one voice rejoice in his return. We bless you in his holy name.

Amen.