Overview of the Book of Malachi

Moore's Corner Church

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The overview of the week for this Sunday is the final book of the Old Testament, the book of Malachi.

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Malachi's name means my messenger, so it's debated whether this is actually his name or he's just God's messenger and we don't know his name.

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Most people believe, most evangelicals believe, though, his name is Malachi. Either way, he wrote in the 5th century

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BC, and the theme of his writing is formalism rebuked, formalism rebuked.

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So Malachi wrote to correct kind of the lax religious and social behavior of the

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Israelites, in particular the priests. Not long after the Jews returned from Babylon and reinstituted their worship in the temple, their commitment to the

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Lord once again began to wane. We read in chapter 2, verses 1 and 2,

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And now, O priest, this commandment is for you. If you will not hear, and if you will not take it to heart to give glory to my name, says the

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Lord of hosts, I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have cursed them already, because you do not take it to heart.

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So, chapter 3, the Lord accuses the nation of Judah of robbing him.

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He says this in verse 8, Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed me.

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But you say, In what way have we robbed you? In tithes and offerings. So this is a very serious message from the prophet, and it's also a fitting message.

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It's fitting that the book of Malachi ends the Old Testament scriptures, since it leaves the

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Jews with this responsibility to watch for the coming messenger. And that messenger, of course, was

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John the Baptist. Chapter 3, verse 1, speaks of John the Baptist, who would come as the forerunner of Christ.

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So some 400 years later, at his first advent, that was John the Baptist's ministry, followed by Jesus.

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And then chapter 4 speaks of the coming of Elijah, who Malachi says will come during the tribulation and the end times before Christ's second advent.

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The book ends with these words, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the

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Lord. And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.