Malachi 1:1 – The “Silent Years”

SPEAKER 03 : 0:01

O firm of foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith.

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Welcome to Through the Bible. We’re glad that you’re here as we begin the final leg of our journey through the Old Testament. So to find your place in Scripture, look for the book of Matthew in the New Testament and then turn one book back and you’ll arrive at Malachi. Malachi was the last prophet to speak for God before he went silent for 400 years. It’s true, between Malachi and Matthew, it looked like God had deserted his people. But now we can see how he was at work behind the scenes. Our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, compared Malachi to a radio announcer who would say, and the next voice you’ll hear is John the Baptist. Malachi prophesied that there would be a voice crying in the wilderness, and 400 years later, John the Baptist announced the Lord Jesus had come. It’s going to be a great study, but before we dive in, let’s hear more of Dr. McGee’s special introductions on the character of God.

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The motivation for the love of God is not found in the human race. It’s found in God. Moses was called at the burning bush. And at that time, God gave the explanation of why he was going to deliver the children of Israel. He didn’t say, I’m going to deliver them because they’re such nice, sweet, lovely people. Because to tell the truth, they were not sweet, lovely people. They’d gone into idolatry. And he said, I’ve heard their cry. The only thing that appeals to God in you and me is not that we’re such lovely creatures, it’s the fact that we have a need in all our affliction. Our God is there, and that’s what he sees. He sees our problem, our difficulty. And the source of all love is found in God. He does not fall in love. He is love. God would not be who he is if it were not for love. God could not express his love if there were not someone to love. Hence, his creation. God created man, created everything. He saw it was good. And man was created in the image of God. Man’s not a creature like an animal. Man could return the love of God. We love him because he first loved us. And that’s only man that can say that. I do not think that any angel could possibly say that to God. And God is not sitting apart and supreme ease and self-satisfaction, merely a spectator of the sufferings of this world. God has made an arrangement, but God’s not compromising with sin. Henry Drummond said after he’d received the confessions of a great many men, he said, I’m sick of the sins of these men. How can God bear it? May I say to you, our God’s a holy God, but he’s not sitting like a Buddha with his legs crossed and arms folded, totally detached from the sin of man. God has come down and made a marvelous arrangement in order that he might save man. He’s ever bestowing his love on mankind. And Men today are trying to communicate with somebody who’s not out there in space, but they’ve turned down communication with God. Man is not even looking for God in this universe. He’s trying to find some other creature as mean as we are to talk to. May I say to you, God has put together in a marvelous way his love, his mercy, and his grace.

SPEAKER 02 : 4:18

What a wonderful threefold gift of God. Let’s thank him now. Heavenly Father, thank you for loving us and for your mercy and grace. Every day in your word is a gift to us, Lord. So open our eyes now to what you would have to show us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Here’s Dr. J. Vernon McGee with our study of Malachi on Through the Bible.

SPEAKER 01 : 4:41

Now today we come to Malachi. That’s the last book in the Old Testament. And Malachi brings down the curtain on the Old Testament. He is the last voice of the Old Testament. And he’s the last in a long succession of prophets who foretold the coming of the Messiah. In fact, you have to go back a thousand years. And you find that down through the centuries, God was increasing the tempo of telling the people about the coming of the Messiah. And the last voice is this man Malachi. I like to think of him as sort of a radio announcer for the Lord. And we’ll see why I say that in a moment. And it’s as if he is saying, the next voice you will hear is John the Baptist’s. In 400 years. Well, 400 years is a long time to wait for station identification. Malachi, though, is a very interesting person, though actually we know nothing about him. We’re going to find out that he has a wonderful sense of humor. I don’t think you can be a prophet or a preacher without a sense of humor. And if you haven’t found humor in the Bible, my friend, you are not reading it right. But you find that this man here, in a very definite way, was a messenger. In fact, his name, Malachi, means my messenger. The Septuagint gives its meaning as angel. An angel was a messenger. That was the title. And sometimes an angel could be human. are divine. And we, of course, have associated angels with supernatural creatures, and probably rightly so. But an angel was a messenger, and the name Malachi means messenger. In fact, there have been a few church fathers that actually thought that he was a an angel, that an angel wrote this, but there’s no reason to make that kind of a statement, to take that position. And of course, at the opposite extreme, you have the liberal school of higher criticism that claims that the book was originally anonymous, and that Malachi just means messenger, and it wasn’t a name at all. Well, they always come up with something like that. And you don’t need to take that extreme position at all. I think that it’s very easy to make this statement Malachi was his name. And our information on him, I think, is limited as it is regarding angels. But others have suggested that he was an angel and others that this is an anonymous book. I don’t think it would be anonymous. If it was, it would be the only book on prophecy that we have that’s anonymous. And I do not think that Malachi would want to be the exception to the rule, especially since he wrote last. There’s a reason why we don’t know too much about him. He’s a messenger, God’s messenger with a message. And frankly, we don’t need to know about the messenger. The Western Union boy that rings your doorbell at one o’clock in the morning with a very important message for you when you go to the door. You don’t have the boy begin and tell you, my ancestors came over on the Mayflower and I’d like to tell you about my ancestors. And myself, you don’t care about the Western Union boys’ ancestors. You don’t care whether they came over on the Mayflower, especially at one o’clock in the morning. You’re not interested in that. In fact, the matter is you don’t even get his name. The important thing is the message that he gives. Well, Malachi was a messenger. And we don’t have his name. Actually, you have that same method used by the Spirit of God in the Gospel of Mark. You see, all four Gospels present Christ in a different way. Matthew presents him as the king. Well, if he’s the king, he’ll have to be in the line of David. That’s the way the Gospel of Matthew opens, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, son of David. That’s the important thing, that he’s the son of David, because he’s presenting him as the king. Well, when you come to the gospel of Mark, which presents him as the servant of God and Why, you’re not concerned, at least Mark’s not concerned about giving us his genealogy, and there’s none there. The important thing about the servant is, can he get the job done? That’s the thing that you want from anyone that comes into the place of service for you. Can he get the job done? And Mark shows that the Lord Jesus could get the job done, by the way, and did get it done. So that we have here in Malachi this method that is used. Now, the time that he wrote, there’s some difference of opinion here. It’s the belief of conservative scholars today that he came in the last part of the 5th century, and it would be near 397, but probably much earlier or some earlier than that. The important thing is that Malachi was the prophet at the time of Nehemiah, as Haggai and Zechariah were the prophets at the time of Ezra. and Zerubbabel and Joshua. So that we have here this man Malachi, he concluded the prophets as Nehemiah concluded the historical books that we have. And he probably prophesied during the time of Nehemiah’s governorship or immediately after it. It was at that particular time. Now, we said he’s a messenger, and the thing that’s important is the message. And I’d like to say a word about that before we get into the study. He uses the term messenger himself. Three times, and he made three tremendous and significant references to other messengers. In the second chapter, verse 7, he refers to Levi, the tribe of Levi, as the messenger of the Lord. So we have here, and I probably should read this, for the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. This suggests, I would say, that every messenger or every witness or every teacher of the Word is an angel of the Lord, that he’s a messenger of the Lord. And I like that because you have that in the book of Revelation. We have the way that the book of Revelation, you know, and we’ll see that shortly when we get there. Actually, to the seven churches, the message is addressed. to the angel of the church of Ephesus and under the angel. Now, I believe it’s the messenger of the church and not divine, but just the human messenger would be the pastor. And I don’t know. I was a pastor a long time. I rather like this idea of calling the pastor an angel because I’ve heard him call everything else. So I don’t see why we shouldn’t include angel. But this is a remarkable reference that we have here in Malachi. Then he announced the coming of John the Baptist as my messenger. Over in the third chapter, we read in verse 1, Behold, I’ll send my messenger. He shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom he seeks shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant. Now, there’s a third messenger, and that’s the reference to Christ as the messenger of the covenant. You see, the angel of the Lord of the Old Testament is definitely the pre-incarnate Christ. Now, I want you to see something that makes Malachi one of my favorite books of the Bible. Now, of course, I have 65 other favorite books of the Bible, but Malachi had such a wonderful sense of humor. And he had to have to deal with the group he had to deal with in that day. And he adopted a method that is actually a question and answer method. The first thing that he would do, he would quote a declaration or an interrogation God made to Israel. Then he’d give Israel’s answer, which in every case… was supercilious and sophisticated sarcasm. It was arrogant and haughty and presumptuous. and even insulting. We’re going to see that as we get into the text that’s before us. And believe me, he had some good answers from the Lord. And since they are the Lord’s answers, the Lord has a sense of humor. And I hope you enjoy this book, because this is a great little book, by the way. Now we’re going to be able to see that right here at the very beginning. Well, you notice it opens with The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi, by my messenger. He’s the Western Union boy to bring the last message from God to the people. He’s going to deal with those same problems that Nehemiah dealt with, which reveals he’s speaking into that particular day. And one would be the defilement of the priesthood. and the foreign marriages with divorce of their Israelitish wives. And believe me, God comes down hard on this. And we’re going to speak on the subject of divorce when we get there. I’ve had quite a few letters that have come from folk that have wanted us to speak on it. Well, I just don’t pick subjects. I take anything that comes up in the Word of God. If God talks about it, I’m going to talk about it. So divorce does come up here, and we’ll be talking about it, and we won’t hedge, I can assure you. And then the third thing, the people were neglecting giving to God the tithe and the offerings. And believe me, you won’t like what God has to say about those that were kidding everybody about their giving to the Lord. Oh, my. Maybe you ought not to tune in when we get there. I’ll give you a warning so you won’t have to listen to that particular part. Now, that he gives us is a burden. Now, a burden is a judgment, as we’ve seen, a judgment from God. And it will be a very strong judgment. and rigorous rebuke that God would give to them. And that’s something else I think you should note. He’s addressing Israel, that is, all of the 12 tribes. You know, it’s interesting, they didn’t really get lost, did they? They seem to be lost for some people today, but they never were lost in any sense of the word. Now, he begins like this, the burden of the word of the Lord to Israel, to Israel. All of twelve tribes, there are just a remnant from each tribe back, very few from each one, but God addresses them, and very frankly, I think it went from here out to the others that had not returned, because there was communication back and forth, and the book of Nehemiah reveals that. Travelers going back and forth from their place of captivity where they had been in slavery and back to Israel. And so we are going to see that the message apparently went out to all 12 of the tribes. Now, God says here, verse 2, and it starts in this very marvelous, wonderful way, I have loved you, saith the Lord. Isn’t that a wonderful way to begin? How do you think that these people are going to respond to that? I remember they’ve returned, and by the time of Nehemiah, although they’re discouraged about rebuilding Jerusalem, the walls under Nehemiah, they built them, and there’s a show of prosperity, and they’re going through the form now of worshiping in this rebuilt temple. They’re going through the ritual of it, and on the surface, everything looks good. But may I say to you, oh, are they sarcastic people. supercilious, sophisticated, blasé group. And God says to them, I have loved you, saith the Lord. And listen to them. Yet ye say, in what way hast thou loved us? Oh, can you believe that? That these people would have the audacity to speak to God like that. In what way hast thou loved us? I’m not sure today, but what a great many in the church would raise that same question. They say, look at the things that are happening to us. How can you say that God loves us? Well, God made it clear to these people from the very beginning that he loved them. And it’s interesting that you go a long ways in the Bible before you find God telling anybody that he loved them. But if you go to Deuteronomy, and by that time you’ve come to Moses, and you’re out in the wilderness, and you’ve been out there for 40 years, and it’s going to be pretty hard to make anybody believe that God loves them. But now in the 10th chapter, verse 15, listen to what he says here. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them. God just hadn’t been saying that. You go through the time of the flood and afterward, God never told anybody. God didn’t tell Abraham that he loved him, but he did, of course. But the point is, God was in no hurry to let mankind know that he loved him. But here he says, “…only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is.” Now, God’s prepared to prove that. God’s answer is this. Was not Esau Jacob’s brother, saith the Lord? Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the jackals of the wilderness. Now, this is a tremendous statement here that God is making to them. The people were questioning. They were doubting the love of God. Now, God reminds them of the origin of the nation. Jacob and Esau were twins. God made a difference at the very beginning, but it was about 1,500 years before he stated, as he does here, that he loved them. This presents a problem. Why would God say that he loved Jacob and hated Esau? A student came to the late Dr. Griffith Thomas with that question. He says, I have a problem. Why does God say he loved Jacob and he hated Esau? And Dr. Thomas said, well, what’s your problem? Well, he says, why did he say he hated Esau? Well, Dr. Thomas says, I have a problem with that verse too. But my problem is, why did God say he loved Jacob? That’s the real problem. And my friends… I want to say to you, that’s a real problem why God would say love this people. But let’s understand one thing. God never said it until Esau and Jacob became two great nations, and they had long histories. And Esau demonstrated by his life and the nation that followed him. But here is the people, though they were disobedient to God, yet there was always a remnant that turned to him. And God says over in the ninth chapter of Romans, verse 13, he says, “…as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” And it just simply means that though this nation failed, Neither one of them deserved the love of God, yet there was the remnant that turned to God. And God therefore said that he loved Jacob because of the fact that God knew what was in his heart. He knew that here’s a man that had a desire for him, and Esau did not have a desire for him at all. But you have to work that out in 1,500 years of history before God’s prepared to make that kind of a statement. And it is a statement that we need to understand that the difference that we have here between loving and hating is simply this, the life. of the nation that came from Esau, which is Edom, and the life of the nation, which came from Jacob, demonstrate that God was right when he said he loved one and hated another. And by the way, it reveals something that we need to face up to today. We’re going to be talking about this more and more, but we’ve majored so in the love of God. Do you know that if God loves, God also hates? Because you can’t love without hating. And someone said they’re very close together. Well, I think they are. But if God loves the good, he has to hate the evil. It couldn’t be otherwise. And that’s exactly what we are going to find here. God says that because of his life, because of the evil that was there in this man’s and worked itself out into the nation. And the history of the nation of Israel is altogether different. That God was justified, though he did not make the statement at the very beginning. God never said at the beginning that he loved one and hated the other. He had to wait until they became nations. And these two nations are demonstrating that God was right in his statement. Now, we’re going to follow through on that next time and then move down to the second one of these statements that the people question that God makes. This is a great book, by the way. Until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

SPEAKER 02 : 24:14

Well, when we finish the book of Malachi, we’ll have covered the whole history of Israel in the Old Testament. And then for three months, the Bible bus is going to travel through the amazing book of Revelation. Now’s a great time to get your notes and outlines for Revelation. To get a free copy of our digital book that contains all of Dr. McGee’s notes and outlines for our five-year journey through God’s entire word, well, just go to our app or go to ttb.org and click on Briefing the Bible. Or if you prefer a paperback version, you can get an abbreviated copy by mail. Just call us 1-800-65-BIBLE. And when you contact us, tell us how you listen to Through the Bible. Is it by app, online, podcast? Maybe your favorite radio station? Well, maybe it’s even through Alexa or YouTube. All those are great options. But let us know, because that really helps us know how we should be making important decisions and really be wise stewards of the resources that God has so faithfully provided to us from friends like you. And be sure to give us the call letters of the radio station you listen to. That helps us as well if you’re on the radio. I’m Steve Schwetz, and for all of us at Through the Bible, we’re praying God’s best for you as you walk with Him.

SPEAKER 03 : 25:22

Jesus came in all All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.

SPEAKER 02 : 25:45

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