God Hears When We Pray

God Hears When We Pray

Well, as we preached about church meeting this morning, my text for this afternoon, just three short verses in the book of Malachi, Malachi being the last prophet before we turn to the book of Matthew in the New Testament.

A little background, in the book of Malachi, Malachi is by many, and I would agree, thought to have been a temple priest in the days of Ezra, Nehemiah. So it was Malachi who so famously declared that God hates divorce, but it was probably Malachi whose preaching led Ezra, Malachi being a contemporary, to tell the men of Judah to divorce the women that they had wrongfully married from outside of Israel.

Like I said, he was a temple priest, or excuse me, he was a temple prophet, not priest, he was a temple prophet, and much of his book here is his disputation with the temple priests. And we're going to just be able to cover a little of that in the preaching, and this disputation.

We want to focus in on these three verses, and the reason I chose them, and just a few more comments, and then we will stand and read God's Word. It's because this afternoon, or this morning, we were preaching from the end of the first Thessalonian letter about our church worship, what it means to come together as a body, what it means to be those who come together to pray, to greet one another in the Lord, to hear the scripture proclaimed and read, and finally, to worship together in the presence of the grace of Jesus Christ.

So there it is in those four verses, one of the few places in the New Testament that actually gives us that kind of clear direction for what a church meeting should look like. And now from the book of Malachi, I want us to hear God's view of our meeting.

God's View of the Prayer Meeting

As I tried to proclaim, make plain to you, and bring the reality of Christ's actual presence with us, and that's here on this earthly ball, as we like to call it. Now let's raise our sights and get God's view of the meetings of his people, this very meeting.

So with that, please stand. From Malachi chapter 3, verses 16 through 18. So like I said, we are not going to go through the whole book of Malachi, though that would be great fodder for preaching on any given number of Sundays.

We come here to these people, not named specifically, who feared the Lord and spoke to one another. This is a prayer meeting, brethren. This is what we spoke about this morning, where he says, brothers, pray for us.

These people came together and prayed. Who were they? Who is this people who came together and prayed? And let us see how the Lord viewed it, and what the Lord then said. What was the result of this meeting?

Again, from the heavenly, from God's perspective, as the prophet speaks, as it were, for God, and by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we know God's view of not just that meeting a few thousand years ago, but of our meeting here.

And for the reason, and you'll see the reason, perhaps, why I so passionately, Lord willing, you heard my passion, called us to be here at the prayer meeting, as I look out, and I see most of the people who are here this morning returning for prayer.

Prayer being the emphasis in the afternoon meeting. God bless you for that. And now let us see God's view of that, and the result from God's perspective of that. What does God do about this? Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another.

Who are they who fear the Lord? We know that the fear of laws, the fear of the Lord, is to look upon him with awe and reverence and respect. That's biblical fear. It's not being afraid. It's not shaking the boots.

It's not covering your head and hope you don't get smited from heaven because of your next sin. No, that would be terror. That would be an erotic way to live in the Christ Jesus. And that is not what God would have us to do.

These are those who feared the Lord, and they're speaking to one another. And who are they in distinction against? In other words, it's then those who feared the Lord, as opposed to what came before. And we can only go a few places for the sake of time in this book, but in verses 13 to 15, just before what I read, the Lord speaks to some cynics, some people whose view of God is not fearful, is not respectful.

They've been disputing with God. They've been bringing to him wrongful sacrifices, blemished sacrifices. They've been doing everything, really, that a priest, and these are the priests, these cynics, should not, and by that misleading the people.

Let's just get a real short view of these priests, these cynics, these ones who are in contradistinction to this beautiful prayer meeting, of which I'm going to give you God's perspective in a moment.

He says, your words against me have, your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. Remember, these are the priests. These are the ones who are supposed to teach the people how to come to God, how to reverence God, how to approach God rightly.

And God is saying to them through the prophet Malachi, your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, how have we spoken against you? Emphasis mine, but I think appropriate. How have we spoken against you?

Words can be harsh against the Lord. Most of us wouldn't speak out and say something against Jehovah, our God, the God and Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But is it not speaking hardly against the Lord, being harsh about the Lord to disbelieve his promises?

To pray without faith? To think that God is so stingy that he won't open up the storehouses of heaven, that every good and perfect gift is from above, from the Father of lights, in whom there is no shadow of turning, no variation whatsoever?

Their words were openly hard against God. They spoke wrong things. They taught wrong things. They said from their lips wrong, blasphemous, harsh things against God. Not just error, not just we're reformed and other people are dispensational.

Well, that's just a difference of opinion. But my friends who are dispensational, do not say hard things against God. They do not blaspheme his name, the priests here, your words have been hard against me, but you say, how?

What have we said against you, Lord? Again, disrespectful emphasis mine, and here God gives the answer, you have said it is vain to serve God. It's useless. What does God do for me? Where are all these blessings that he promised?

Here we are in this broken-down temple. The foundation has just been laid. Perhaps it'll get built. Haggai and Zechariah were preaching at this time. What has God done for us? We just came back from exile.

He's just an angry God who sent us away 150 years prior. All he does is get mad at my sin. Takes away all our good stuff. Lets other people live in my home. Take the fruit of my labors in my orchards, my vineyards, and so forth.

It is vain to serve God, say the priests. Now remember, the priests were the Kohen tribe or clan from outside of the Levites. The Kohens, which means priest in Hebrew, they were the priests, and the rest of the Levites served the priests.

Made the priests possible, sort of like, by analogy, pastors and deacons. Sort of like that way. They're the ones who are supposed to teach. They're the ones who are supposed to teach and help the people discern between what is profane and what is holy.

But instead they say, it is vain, it is useless to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts again? What is to walk as in mourning? What is this hard word against God?

What's repentance all about? We throw dust on our heads. We're a sackcloth and ashes. And what happens? We just get in more trouble. Things just get worse. We have drought. We have Persians running us.

We have Simbala and all the enemies all around us. Read Ezra and Nehemiah if you want to know more about them. Where's the profit in this? What good is this? What do we say today? What's in it for me?

What's the profit of keeping his charge or walking around as in mourning before the Lord of hosts? Why should I repent of my sin? He doesn't do anything for me. And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper, but they put God to the test and they escape again.

What are these hard words against God? Well, it's like Psalm 73 where the wicked seem to prosper. It's Isaiah 5 where the people who call light dark and dark light and evil good and good evil. You can read about that in Isaiah chapter 5.

They seem to get by with it. They seem to have a nice life. They've got everything they need. Evildoers not only prosper, they put the put God to the test and they escape. So these are the priests. This is the disputation that the prophet Malachi on God's behalf is dealing with.

And again, Malachi is a short book. Interesting reading. Just read through. You see this dispute flowing into what we had started with this morning. Then those who feared the Lord, they spoke to one another.

Those who had a high view of God, those who understood in contradistinction to what they've been taught by the priests. It is useful to serve God. And why is it useful to serve God? Because he's worthy of service.

Because he is worth serving. Because he is worthy of all praise simply because of his person. And yet did not this God send us the Lord Jesus Christ? Did he not give you faith to believe? Why are you here this afternoon listening to this message and going to engage with us in prayer later on?

Spend the whole day here. Because Jesus Christ, for no other reason than the fact that he is Jesus Christ, the resurrected and risen Lord sitting out the right side of God, is worthy of all praise. He's worth worshiping.

And it's good for me, and it's good for you, if God does nothing other than receive our worship gladly to give it to him. Then those who feared the Lord, those who respected the Lord, those who had reverence for his name, they spoke to one another.

This is a prayer meeting. And what does God see? How does God view this meeting? These fear the Lord. They're speaking to one another. We could read into this just a little bit and do so circumspectly and cautiously and say, well, they're speaking to one another and say, well, you know, I don't think those priests are quite leading us in the right way here.

And one might say, no, they're the priests. They're the educated ones. They're the ones ordained by God. Yes, but they're men. No more or less men than we are. I don't think this is good. I don't think those sacrifices they're bringing to God are right.

I don't think they're leading us the right way. They're not bringing us to God. And brethren, anytime a man should stand at a pulpit where you are hearing the Word of God, and he doesn't give you the Word of God, he doesn't bring you to Christ, he doesn't bring Christ to you, then those who fear the Lord spoke to one another and said something like, this isn't right.

This isn't right. So here's this prayer meeting. Those who, as opposed to what they're being taught, said no, the Bereans, for example, who encounter distinction to the Jews in Thessalonica, who chased the Apostle Paul in a rage because of their hatred of the gospel.

These are those who came together. And what does the Lord do when God's people come together? What are our prayers worth? I spoke a lot about prayers this morning. I failed to mention, and I'll mention now, what are our prayers?

In the book of Revelation, our prayers are incense that rise before the altar of God. In a few moments, Lord willing, in a few moments, I'll be done and we'll be praying. And when you pray, think of it this way, please, from Revelation 5, as if you are a stick of holy, sanctified, set-apart incense.

That sweet smell that reminds God that he will never again destroy the earth by flood. That sort of a sweet-smelling aroma that soothes God and reminds him that his wrath has been expunged, then in the flood that I alluded to, but now in Jesus Christ at his cross.

Think of yourself as that stick of incense and your smoke is wafting up and going straight, none of it wasted, none of it blowing away in the atmosphere, straight to the altar of God. And what does God do?

The Lord paid attention and heard them. The Lord paid attention and heard them. We can just leave it at that, can we not, brethren? That when God sees this meeting of repentance, sees those who fear his name, see those who hold him in reverence, he turns his ear.

That's what I was getting at this morning, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Literally, Jesus Christ by his grace with us. And here's the Lord paying attention and hearing this one small meeting.

How many people were there? Were two or three gathered in the name of Jesus Christ, and he was among them? It could be. Was it 40, 50, a hundred, a thousand? Makes no difference. The Lord heard them as opposed to the disputations with those false priests.

He heard this group at this prayer meeting. A book of remembrance was written before him. Well, God doesn't need to remember. We know that. It's a picture. It's a picture of God's faithfulness and knowing the names of each one there.

It's Ephesians 1, 3, and 4. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, you individually, before you knew good and evil, before the world was made, before time began. You were chosen to be in the Lord Christ Jesus.

This is the book of remembrance. This is the book of life. We read of three times in the book of Revelation. God doesn't need to read it and go, okay, I better not forget, you know, the John Doe here.

No, it's just a picture. This book of remembrance is written before him of those who feared the Lord. We have the same people and esteemed his name who held him high, and God listens to them. And God listens and will listen to us this afternoon.

Notice what he says in verse 17. How high he regards those who come to him in the name of Christ Jesus. This is only a picture of the kind of meeting that we have today. Perhaps this is the faithful remnant, those Old Testament saints who by a faith in Christ, by the light that they had then, are actually saved as we are.

And yet it's still just a picture of what we have here and now with the actual presence of Christ by his Spirit with us. The Lord says, they shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, the Lord of all the world.

The martial Lord, the military Lord with the armies of heaven behind him. They shall be mine in the day when I make up my treasured possession. When God calls an end to history. We're reading the hope of the future by Venema in our home group studies.

This is what he's talking about. In that day, the day when I make up my treasured possession, the day when all mankind, all of us are resurrected. Some to the resurrection of condemnation, others to the resurrection of life.

And who shall be his? Well, Jesus Christ is sorting us out. The goats on the left, the sheep on the right is one picture. The angels sent with their dragnet and pulling in the fish and sorting out the good fish and the bad fish.

They shall be mine. Who? Those who fear the Lord, those who had this prayer meeting, those who repented and declined to follow the false teaching. They shall be mine. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

They're all his. All the fish of the sea is his. You know, there's not a molecule, however far away it is, that is not God's possession because he made it. And out of all of this, who's the apple of his eye?

What is his treasured possession? Brethren, it's those who fear his name. What does that mean to us today? It's you whose faith is in his son Christ Jesus. It's you who by faith in him and in the name of Christ, in the power of his spirit, come to him.

That's the treasured possession. That is those that Jesus said none can snatch them out of my Father's hand. That is those, we are those who Jesus said all who the Father has given me will surely come to me.

And why? By your own will? Of course not. Do you want to come to Jesus? Many of us do. And how is that possible? By the rebirth, by giving you a new heart, by giving you a spirit and a soul to believe the gospel.

Why do I want to have Jesus? Because he made me want him. So they shall be my treasured possession because they are those who are in my son Jesus Christ. That's the meeting we're going to have in a few minutes.

I will spare them as a man spares his son and hears the gospel. How does God view these prayer meetings? He remembers the gospel he sent his son Jesus Christ to bring to us. I will spare them. Why are you spared?

From what are you spared? Let's enter the second question first. What are you spared from? Eternal condemnation. Eternal torment. Justified, never-ending, dying because of your sin. Because the one against whom we have sinned is so holy and so honorable that the slightest affront against him is worthy of eternal suffering.

That's justice. It really is justice. I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Who served God? Who's the son who served God rightly and never wavered? It's Jesus Christ and none other.

But he who did not spare his only son. How shall he not also in him give us all things? You see Jesus Christ was not spared. In order that you might be spared from that suffering on the cross he suffered as God poured out his wrath upon him all that you or I deserve.

So Jesus Christ, not spared, our go-to, one of my favorite verses in the Bible, 2nd Corinthians 5 21. We should never get tired of hearing it. He made him, Jesus Christ, who knew no sin as the author to the Hebrews says.

Tempted in all ways as we are. Tempted as a man as you are tempted. Man being generic. Tempted as you are ladies as well as all of us. Tempted as all of us are yet without sin. He made him who knew no sin who took no part in sin.

Though it was in his face just as much as it was in everybody else's face then as it is in your temptation line now who knew no sin. To become sin for us. That in him we might become the righteousness of God.

That's what is being spoken of here. That he will spare them, those who feared the Lord, those who had this prayer meeting as a man spares his own son as you and I would spare our son as you and I would forgive and really not know how to punish and how much to punish because we're fallen creatures.

God being perfect in his justice not having such a dilemma. No, he will spare you and me as a man spares his only son because his only son, his only begotten son, his eternal son, Jesus Christ was not spared.

And then you shall see verse 18 the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve God. As Jesus separating the sheep from the goats, his angels separating the good and the bad fish.

This should have been the priest's job that we have here. This knowing the distinction between what is profane and what is holy, Ezekiel 44 23, they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the common and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean.

That's the priest's job. And just in those short little snippets of the disputation against God you can see they were not doing that. Leviticus chapter 10 verses 10 and 11, this is after Nadab and Abihu died for their irreverence of God, for coming to him with profane fire, after they were dead, after God had consumed them by fire.

You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean, and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses. Well the priests in Malachi's day were not doing that, but the priests in Jesus' day were failing at that as well.

Who can teach this distinction? God. God by his son Jesus Christ. God by his son Jesus Christ who because of the blood he shed on the cross and your faith in that sanctifies you, makes you holy. Not this morning, but the week before when we preached from towards the end of 1st Thessalonians 5.

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you, make you holy completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless, be kept ethically and morally pure at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the distinction that is being spoken of here. Our great high priest Jesus Christ has taught you the difference between the profane and the holy. And as we come together as God's holy people, even this afternoon, we come to him as a holy people, made holy, made distinguished from what is profane from the world out there by the blood of Christ and by the faith he's been, he's given us to believe in what he has done for us.

So 1st Thessalonians 5, 25 to 28 taught us some of the elements, the sine qua non, without which nots of our worship service. Here we have when we come together by faith in Jesus Christ and gratitude for what God has done for us in him on the cross.

This is God's view. When God's people come together and speak to one another in prayer and repentance and glorying and reveling and respecting his name, the Lord pays attention and hears us, and he will hear us this afternoon as we pray to him.

Amen.