Milo

LOVING GOD
Deuteronomy 5–7

“Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:5).

These chapters identify the fundamental principles of personal relationship with God. The rules which come later are merely illustrations of how these fundamental principles are to be applied by a people who love God.

Definition of Key Terms
Deuteronomy 6 calls on us to dedicate “heart,” “soul,” and “strength” to loving God. “Heart” in the Old Testament is the seat of both the mind and emotions. “Soul” is best understood here as one’s “being.” We are to love God with our whole self, not limit Him to smaller compartments of our lives. “Strength” suggests the will’s direction of every capacity toward love. Use of three such powerful terms in a single verse makes it clear that relationship with God calls for wholehearted devotion. The implication of these chapters is that only a person truly devoted to God will obey Him.

Ten Commandments. Ten brief, basic rules showing human beings how to love God and other persons. For explanation of the Ten Commandments, see Exodus Reading 19.

Overview
The 10 basic commandments given at Sinai show how to love God and others (5:1–21). Keeping them promotes well-being (vv. 22–33). Love and reverence for God produce obedience, and are to be taught to future generations (6:1–25). God demands complete allegiance; competing faiths were to be driven from the land so that God could keep His covenant of love with Israel (7:1–26).

Understanding the Text
“It was not with our fathers . . . but with us” Deut. 5:1–21. The adults who stood before God at Mount Horeb (Sinai) and first heard the Ten Commandments were dead when Moses proclaimed them to this new generation. Yet Moses said God’s covenant was “not with our fathers” but was “with all of us who are alive here today.”
What did Moses mean? That God’s Word has a powerful, present message for each listener. God’s Word was first spoken centuries ago, but it is as fresh, vital, and compelling as if it had been just uttered today. In a real sense, God’s Word is spoken today. The living God meets us in His Word. All He says there is said to us as well as to generations past.
You and I must never read the Bible as though it were merely a record of something that happened long ago. We are to read Scripture attentively, expecting God to speak to us in our today. As the writer of Hebrews says, “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” (Heb. 3:15). The Bible is God’s voice. Through it He is speaking not only to our fathers, but to us!

“Hear . . . learn . . . and be sure to follow” Deut. 5:1. Each of these words is found in Moses’ first words to the assembled Israelites (v. 1). The Ten Commandments state fundamental principles which are to be applied in our relationship with God and with others.
It’s important not to confuse loving God and others with love feelings. Love is a choice. The person who loves God will hear God’s Word, study to understand what that Word means, and then carefully apply it in daily life.

“That it might go well with them and their children forever” Deut. 5:22–33. Some act as if the moral standards revealed in the Ten Commandments are arbitrary and restrictive. They resent the “You shall nots” of Scripture, as if these were intended to spoil mankind’s fun and make human life as miserable as possible.
Nothing could be further from the truth. God’s laws are actually intended to promote human happiness. We humans are moral beings, created by God with a sense of right and wrong. Like a train that functions only when running on a track, human beings function in a healthy, happy way only when living morally good lives.
There is a special urgency in Moses’ call to Israel to obey God. Israel enjoyed a covenant relationship with God. In this relationship God was committed not only to bless obedience, but also to punish disobedience.
Unbelievers as well as believers are better off living a morally good life. But God is actively involved in the life of believers. Because God cares so much about us, you and I are more likely to feel the immediate effect of our sins.

“When you eat and are satisfied” Deut. 6:10–25. Moses said “when” because he knew that God would surely bless His people. For Israel this meant inheriting “a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant.” Still, such blessings are dangerous. When life is too easy, and we become satisfied, we tend to “forget the LORD.”
Moses explained the way for believers to guard themselves when blessed. First, “fear the LORD your God.” The word here means to treat Him with respect, remembering that He is able to discipline as well as to bless. Then, “keep the commands.” The believer is to “do what is right and good.” Finally, the believer is “in the future” to pass on faith to the next generation. This is the only way to guard ourselves and our children from empty, meaningless lives.

“You must destroy them totally” Deut. 7:1–6. The demand that Israel utterly destroy the people who inhabited Canaan before her has troubled many. How does this command square with all the talk in Deuteronomy 6 of love? How do we understand it in view of God’s revelation of love for all people in Jesus?
To answer we need to make several observations. First, archeology has confirmed Scripture’s portrait of Canaanite culture as morally and religiously depraved. Some 600 years earlier God had told Abraham that He would not expel the people of the Promised Land then, because “the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure” (Gen. 15:16). Now that full measure of sinfulness had been reached, and Israel was to be God’s instrument of punishment. It’s important for us to remember that the God who loves human beings also hates evil. Any concept of God that fails to take His commitment to punish sin into account is essentially unscriptural.
Second, the command to destroy the Canaanites emphasized Israel’s call to be a holy people. Intimate association with the Canaanites would (and did!) lead Israel into idolatry. Only by destroying the Canaanites who currently inhabited the Promised Land could Israel be safe from moral and spiritual corruption. It would be a strange parent indeed who would stand idly by and watch a much-loved child be infected with a deadly disease. God was protecting His children.
One other observation. Israel was not commanded to go beyond the borders of Canaan and wipe out the several racial groups represented in Palestine. God’s first concern was for the well-being of His people.
Yes, God does care about everyone. But those who know and love Him are His first priority.

“It was because the LORD loved you” Deut. 7:7–26. Why did God choose Israel and decide to bless them? Why does God care so much for you and me today? The puzzle is resolved by stating an even greater mystery. Why? “It was because the LORD loved you.”
God needs no reason other than love to bless us. Though there are many reasons why it is to our benefit to obey, we need no other reason than love for Him.

DEVOTIONAL
“Communicating God’s Love”
(Deut. 6:4–8)
Loving God is so important. Surely a love for the Lord is the most important heritage we can pass on to our children.
When my oldest son was a seventh-grader in our local Christian grammar school, and I was a professor of Christian education at Wheaton College Graduate School, I did an experiment with his class to learn how boys and girls from Christian homes “caught” their parents’ faith.
What I found was that most of the things parents did or did not do to pass on their faith made very little difference in their children’s lives. The one thing that did make a difference is explained here, in words spoken by Moses millenniums ago.
Moses says that communicating faith begins with a parent’s own love for God. A love “with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (v. 5). This kind of love opens us up to God, so that He can write His commandments on our hearts (v. 6). Why is this so important? Because as long as God’s commandments seem only like demands engraved in stone, we will never be able to communicate either them or a love for God. It’s only when God has written His laws on our hearts and they find expression in our lives that we are able to “impress” them on our children (v. 7). When God’s love has made us sensitive to His commandments, so that He and they become such an integral part of our lives that we “talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up,” then the God who is real to us will be real to our children too. Then our own love for God will find a home in the hearts of our boys and girls.
What makes the difference? Simply this. If God is real to you—if you love Him and follow Him faithfully—then God will be real to your children too.

Personal Application
Show your love for God daily by your commitment to doing His will.

Quotable
“Too often Christians regard the Law merely as a set of legalisms, and they view Jewish people as trying to follow the letter of the Law. On the other hand [they] then proclaim that the New Covenant describes how God works in grace to redeem His people and shower His love on them. In no way should such a compartmentalization exist between the Old and New Testaments. Deuteronomy describes how God blessed Israel and showered His love on them because of His grace and mercy. What the Lord expected from Israel in return was an outpouring of love. While some people misappropriated God’s intentions and developed a legalistic substitute, a remnant in every generation always deeply loved, honored, and served the Lord their God.”—Lewis Goldberg

Zephaniah

INTRODUCTION
Zephaniah prophesied during the reign of Josiah of Judah (640-609 B.C.). Distressed by the shallowness of Judah’s response to the godly king’s reformation, Zephaniah announced that sweeping judgment was about to fall on Jerusalem as well as on pagan nations.
Zephaniah, the last of the preexilic prophets, summarized much of the judgment and salvation teaching of the earlier prophets. His emphasis fell on the darkest aspects of the Day of the Lord, within decades to be prefigured by Babylon’s invasion of the Holy Land.

GREAT DAY COMING
Zephaniah 1–3

“The great Day of the LORD is near—near and coming quickly. Listen! The cry on the Day of the LORD will be bitter” (Zeph. 1:14).

I magine history as a speeding train and the prophets as conductors, calling out the next station. Zephaniah’s cry would be, “Last stop! We’re coming into Judgment. Everybody off!”

Background
The age of Josiah. Josiah was Judah’s last godly king. He took the throne following a half century of apostasy under Manasseh and Amon, and soon determined to lead his people back to the Lord. He attempted to purge the land of idolatry and reinstituted temple worship. Yet both Habakkuk and Zephaniah, who ministered in Josiah’s time, viewed the reformation as superficial at best. Habakkuk portrayed the corruption of the legal system and society itself (Hab. 1:1–4), while Zephaniah cited evidence that Assyrian and Canaanite religions maintained a hold on the people (Zeph. 1:4–5). Prophets and priests were false to their calling (3:4), and political leaders still resorted to violence and perpetrated injustices (vv. 2–3). There were in Josiah’s reforms outward indications of a return to God, but the lifestyle of the people gave no evidence of repentance or return.
It is against this background that Zephaniah cried out concerning the Day of the Lord, and emphasized its judgment aspects. The onrushing Day of the Lord “will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness” (1:15). For God’s sinful people there can now be no escape.
Near the end of Josiah’s reign the ancient world experienced great political upheaval. As Assyria engaged in a death struggle with a suddenly emergent Babylon, Judah won brief independence. Josiah became involved in trying to tip the balance of power between these two and Egypt, and was killed in battle in 609B.C Within a few years Judah was reduced to a subject state in the Babylonian Empire. Within three decades the Babylonians denuded the land of Judah of its people, and left Jerusalem, with its once beautiful temple, a heap of ruins.
When we read Zephaniah we find no unexpected revelation. All that Zephaniah said, earlier prophets had proclaimed over and over again. What we do sense, however, is a tone of finality. God had given His people opportunity after opportunity. Now, it was too late. Judgment was “near and coming quickly” (v. 14).
How desperately we need to respond to every word of divine warning. If we fail to respond, one day it will surely be too late.

Overview
Zephaniah predicted the “Day of the LORD,” a dark day of judgment, due against Judah (1:1–2:3), Gentile nations (vv. 4–15), and against Jerusalem (3:1–8). Yet beyond the judgment lies a day of joy, in which God’s scattered people will return and be restored to relationship with Him (vv. 9–20).

Understanding the Text
“Zephaniah” Zeph. 1:1. The prophet’s name probably means “watchman for the Lord.” But what is interesting is that Zephaniah provided more genealogical information about himself than any other Old Testament prophet. He traced his ancestry back four generations, to “Hezekiah.” Most commentators believe that this is King Hezekiah, the last godly king prior to Josiah.
Some see here simply Zephaniah’s attempt to link himself with Judah’s royal family. But the genealogy suggests something even more important. It reminds us that two whole generations, over 50 years, passed by during which Judah lacked godly leadership. The royal family faltered in its commitment to the Lord, and as a result the whole land turned eagerly to idolatry and sin.
You and I can no more afford to neglect the nurture of our children than could the kings of Judah. God may well bring a future generation back to Him, as He brought back Hezekiah’s great grandsons, Josiah and Zephaniah. But how great the tragedy if son and grandson are lost.

“Those who turn back from following the LORD” Zeph. 1:2–13. These verses announce sweeping judgment, and express the reasons for God’s anger. They also do more. They help us understand the futility of man’s search for “freedom.”
The people of Judah turned back from following the Lord. They thought obedience to Him was too restrictive. But what did they actually obtain?
They refused to worship the one true God, and found themselves worshiping a confusing host of pagan deities: Canaanite baals, the Assyrian “starry host,” the Phoenician Molech. Some even added the Lord to this roster of gods, as if He were on a par with idols (vv. 4–5). The people of Judah still were bound by man’s deep need for relationship with the supernatural.
They refused to obey God, and in seeking freedom adopted “foreign clothes” (v. 8). As today, the clothing one chose then indicated basic attitudes or orientations. The choice of foreign clothing suggests a rejection of Jewish identity and an effort to identify with Egyptian or Babylonian peoples (cf. Num. 15:38; Deut. 22:11–12). They were “free,” but in their pursuit of freedom they lost their true selves.
They refused to obey God, and demanding freedom fell prey to superstition, such as the practice of refusing to step on the threshold of a house of pagan worship (Zeph. 1:8; cf. 1 Sam. 5:5).
They refused to obey God, and created a society in which each person was selfish, where violence and deceit were the norm (Zeph. 1:9).
They refused to obey God, and in asserting their freedom they lost all sense of spiritual reality, so that however great their need they never thought to seek the Lord, or ask Him what way they should go.
People today seem to have that same insistent desire for “freedom.” God’s ways seem restrictive, and so they “turn back from following the LORD.” But always when human beings demand such freedom, they find themselves caught in a monstrous web. They become trapped, falling victim to counterfeit religions both humanistic and supernaturalistic, to superstition, to confusion, loss of identity, and finally loss of all touch with reality. They live in a world of illusion, not only lost, but subject to the wrath of the God who warns, “On that day I will punish” (vv. 8–13).
How glad we are to surrender such an illusory “freedom,” and to choose to follow the Lord. We who follow Him gladly are free indeed.

“The great Day of the LORD” Zeph. 1:14–18. The “Day of the LORD” is a phrase used by Old Testament prophets to indicate events associated with God’s direct involvement in human affairs to carry out some phase of His plan for humankind. While the “Day of the LORD” is most often an eschatological term used when describing history’s end, any act of God can be identified with that day. Thus there is “the” eschatological Day of the Lord, and also “a” non-eschatological Day of the Lord.
What is important to note is that “a” Day of the Lord merits that identification because it bears marked likeness to “the” Day of the Lord.
This is what Zephaniah predicted here. “A” Day of the Lord was rushing down on Judah which, like “the” Day of the Lord, would be a day of wrath, distress, anguish, trouble, and ruin. The horrors of the imminent Babylonian invasion can be compared only to the horrors of the great day of divine judgment that will mark history’s end.
This is an important reminder. God’s final judgment day seems far off to most people. But for those who, like Judah, persist in sin, there is often “a” judgment day, as well as “the” judgment day! God is no less hostile to sin today than He was in our prophet’s time. A Day of the Lord may be no farther from us than it was from Judah.

“You humble of the land” Zeph. 2:1–3. Zephaniah’s warning concluded with an invitation. Before the time appointed for judgment comes, we can find shelter in the Lord. All it requires is humility.
What is humility? It is an attitude in stark contrast to that of those who demand the right to live their own lives. The humble gladly submit to God. The humble express their submission by seeking the Lord, and by doing what He commands. The humble are eager not for wealth, but for righteousness; not for high position, but to bow low before the Lord. There is shelter for the humble, even when the storm breaks around us.
There is hope for the humble. There is no hope for those who demand to be “free.”

“I will destroy you” Zeph. 2:4–15. The coming Day of the Lord would not only devastate Judah but also the pagan peoples who have been hostile to the Lord. Afterward the remnant of God’s own will at last be secure. Zephaniah said of their land, “It will belong to the remnant of the house of Judah; there they will find pasture. In the evening they will lie down in the houses of Ashkelon. The LORD their God will care for them; He will restore their fortunes” (v. 7).

“I have decided to assemble the nations” Zeph. 3:1–8. Now Zephaniah focused on Jerusalem, the capital city of Judah and its very heart. What he saw, despite the renewed activity on the temple mount which rose above Jerusalem’s homes and businesses, was a city of oppressors, “rebellious and defiled” (vv. 1–5). The city had failed to respond to God’s correction, and now must be punished.
God is never impressed by appearances. His concern today as in Zephaniah’s time is with the heart.

DEVOTIONAL
O Say Can You See
(Zeph. 3)
I’ve always been fascinated by the story. A British fleet stood off Baltimore, bombarding the fort that guarded its harbor. All through the night the guns roared. Through the clouds of acrid smoke explosions could be seen over the fort, as hollow powder-filled balls called bombs burst in the air. The darkness shrouded the stone walls of the fort, but the cacophony of sounds—the shrill whistling of shells, the booming of the cannon, the hollow thump of hit after hit—convinced every shipboard witness that the fort must fall, and Baltimore would be taken.
And then, as dawn’s first light drove back the shadows, the witnesses saw an astounding sight. The fort still stood! And there, flying proudly above her ramparts, was the American flag.
Hurrying down below one witness seized a pen and dashed off lines that every citizen has heard a thousand times. “O say can you see,” wrote Francis Scott Key, a prisoner that night on the British flagship, “through the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.” The fort, and the flag, had survived.
What a picture of the scene we see in Zephaniah 3. The city of Jerusalem was under siege, being punished for her many sins (vv. 1–7). The Lord Himself was the assailing force, pouring out His wrath, striking the city in His fierce anger. The devastation seemed enough to consume the entire world in an awesome conflagration (v. 8).
And then, in the rest of the chapter, we make an amazing discovery. As that dreadful night of judgment comes to an end, and day dawns, we realize there are survivors! We see God’s scattered people, purified, return to worship their God (vv. 9–10). We realize that the arrogance that characterized Jerusalem had been burned away, and the city now held only the meek and humble, who would do no wrong (vv. 11–13). And we hear a voice raised in song, tentative at first, but soon swelling in a glad chorus of joy as the people of the city realize that God, mighty to save, is with them, and will quiet them with His love (vv. 14–18). And suddenly we see the city itself begin to glow, as God gives His now holy people the honor and praise they thought that they had forfeited forever by their sin (vv. 19–20).
Just so we need to remind ourselves. When you or I suffer under the discipline of God, everything seems so dark. We feel crushed, unable to go on. Yet if we were only to look beyond, to tomorrow, we would catch a glimpse of the sight seen by Key, and by Zephaniah too.
O say can you see, just beyond the horizon of your dark today, the dawn of what God intends for you? Purified and restored, humbled enough to accept God’s love, you too will be quieted with His love, and be given praise and honor in a peaceful land.

Personal Application
Look beyond your present circumstances, and fix your eyes on the good God will surely do you.

Quotable
“I bear my willing witness that I owe more to the fire, and the hammer, and the file, than to anything else in my Lord’s workshop. I sometimes question whether I have ever learned anything except through the rod. When my schoolroom is darkened, I see most.”—Charles H. Spurgeon

GOD’S PRIZED POSSESSION
Malachi 3–4

” ’They will be Mine,’ says the LORD Almighty, ’in the day when I make up My treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him” (Mal. 3:17).

The little Jewish community in Judea may have strayed from the Lord. But God kept careful track of individuals who loved and remembered Him. In the same way God maintains our names on His “scroll of remembrance.”

Background
Tithing. Under Mosaic Law a tenth of all that the land produced belonged to the Lord. This tithe of flocks and produce was brought to the temple, where it was used to provide offerings and to support the priests and Levites who ministered there.
An additional tithe was to be set aside every third year, and retained locally, for the support of widows and orphans and others in need.
While the principle of the tithe can be seen before the Law was given (cf. Gen. 14:20), the concept underlying it is specific to the Old Testament Law. The Lord owned the Holy Land, in which His people were settled. As the One who gave them Canaan, God had a right to the “rent” due on the land His people worked.
Malachi challenged his generation, calling on them to “test” God in this. Begin paying the tithe, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it” (3:10).
While the tenth is not mentioned in the New Testament as a standard of giving (see 2 Cor. 8–9), certain basic principles are common to the teaching of each Testament. All we have comes from and belongs to God. We are but stewards of His possessions. We honor God by our giving, showing by our contributions to support modern ministries that the Lord is important to us. And showing too that we trust God enough not to rob Him of His share out of fear that we will not have enough.

Overview
Malachi predicted a day of purifying judgment (3:1–5). The Lord urged His people to show repentance by their tithes (vv. 6–12) and talk (vv. 13–15), and promised to bless individuals who fear Him (vv. 16–18). Malachi closed with a vivid image of the Day of the Lord (4:1–4), and a promise of Elijah’s return (vv. 5–6).

Understanding the Text
“The Lord you are seeking will come to His temple” Mal. 3:1. These words were not a promise, but a threat. The people of little Judah complained about God. “Where is the God of justice?” they asked (2:17). Now Malachi warned them that the One they said they desired, will come.
We too look forward to the Day of the Lord and to Christ’s second coming. But we need to ask ourselves a question that these folks never thought to ask. “Are we ready?”
There’s nothing we can do to speed His coming. But we can and must prepare ourselves for His appearance.
In Judea in Malachi’s time the people talked about Messiah’s appearance. But they paid no attention to the commitment, the personal moral purity, and the zeal to do God’s work, which would prepare them for that day.
It’s certain that the One whom we desire will come. Let’s make sure that when He appears, we will be filled with delight rather than regrets.

“He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver”
Mal. 3:2–5. Precious metals were placed in a crucible over hot fires. The ore melted, the impurities were skimmed off, and the unadulterated metal was poured into molds. “Launderer’s soap” was a powerful chemical compound that was used to soak newly woven cloth. The bits of gummy matter that remained were dissolved, and the new cloth was thus brightened and purified.
Neither image suggests a pleasant experience. Each implies purification. As a result of God’s painful purifying work, Malachi said that “the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD.”
Divine discipline today too may seem as uncomfortable as a refiner’s fire or as distasteful as a powerful launderer’s soap. So when undergoing discipline, you and I need to keep our eyes focused on the product. When God has purified and cleansed us, our offerings to Him—our worship, and our lives—will be acceptable once again.

“I will come near to you for judgment” Mal. 3:5. How much better not to need purifying, because we already live pure lives! Here Malachi listed some of the attitudes and actions that call for judgment. More importantly, he summed up their cause: these things are done by those who “do not fear Me.”
If you and I maintain a reverential awe of God as well as love for Him, we need not worry about judgment. If we truly fear and love God, we will always do right by others.

“How do we rob You?” Mal. 3:6–12 It’s possible for a believer to say in all honesty when he hears a call to turn back to God, “How am I to return?” This is because we are often unaware of straying from the Lord. Like Saul, we don’t know that the Lord has departed from us (see 1 Sam. 16:14).
Malachi suggested a simple test. Go through your checkbook! Are you giving God a fair portion of what you earn? Or are you robbing God by selfishly using what He has given you without concern for others or for the ministry of the Gospel?
The question comes with a challenge. If you’ve been holding back because of fear that you won’t have enough, God invites you to test Him. After all, the wealth of the universe is His. Shake off your fear, God says, and “see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”
God can be trusted. We need not hold back out of fear.

“You have said harsh things against Me” Mal. 3:13–18. It’s not uncommon even for believers to wonder sometimes if faithfulness really pays. And as for unbelievers, they scoff loudly, preferring the ways of the arrogant rich to those of the humble.
But there are two defects in all such thinking. First, the whole idea that we worship God in order to “gain” something is flawed. We keep God’s requirements because He is God, and we love Him. We do not obey God in order to be paid in the coin of earth’s realm.
Second, the idea that God’s blessings are material is also flawed. And so Malachi said of those who feared the Lord and talked about His name, “They will be Mine . . . in the day when I make up My treasured possession” and “I will spare them.” The distinction between the righteous and the wicked can’t be determined by this world’s bottom line. The balance in our bank account has nothing to do with the treasure stored up for us in heaven.
Yes, at times we may wonder if it pays to serve God. When we do, we have God’s Word that there is, and will be, a great distinction made between “those who serve God and those who do not” (v. 18).

“The sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings” Mal. 4:1–4. Malachi closed with another distinction between the righteous and the wicked. When the Day of the Lord comes it will “burn like a furnace” for “every evildoer,” but will be like the warming and healing sun for those who revere God’s name.
What a thought. When Jesus comes, He will seem beautiful to you and me. We will exult joyfully, and rush to be near Him. But the One we find so beautiful will strike terror into the hearts of those who have failed to bow the knee to Him.
How can we be sure that we will welcome Christ with delight? Malachi said, “Remember the Law of My servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.” If we do those things that we know please God, we will have no fears nor regrets at His coming.

“I will send you the Prophet Elijah” Mal. 4:5–6. The Old Testament closes with this promise. Jesus said that John the Baptist carried on an Elijah-like ministry. He preached repentance, and so turned hearts. But the people of Israel did not welcome their Messiah. They rejected Him, and turned Him over to the Romans to be crucified. Thus Malachi foretold another Elijah, destined to appear before Messiah returns and “that great and dreadful Day of the LORD[’s judgment] dawns” (v. 5).
What a close to the Old Testament. The ancient issues are unchanged. God still struggles with men, calling His own to faith and obedience, warning the arrogant, and urging repentance. The history of God’s people is replete with cycles of revival and sin, of restoration and judgment. Through it all one would think we, and all His people, must surely learn the lesson so clearly taught.
God does love us. He calls us to trust Him, and to display our trust in obedience. If we do, we can rest assured: there is blessing ahead. But for all who refuse to trust and turn to wickedness, the future holds only judgment.
It is coming. Just beyond tomorrow lies a great and terrible Day of the Lord.

DEVOTIONAL
The Eye of the Beholder
(Mal. 3)
Every once in a while, about every day, I tell my wife she’s beautiful. She usually smiles and says, “That’s what you think.”
She suspects that I’m biased, even though I keep telling her that I’m totally objective about her.
I must admit that in most cases, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What seems beautiful to one person won’t to another. It all depends on our perspective.
That’s what Malachi said in this chapter of his little book. Our attitude depends on how we look at life. Malachi even identified three things that we need to look at from God’s perspective.
The first is discipline (vv. 1–5). When some painful thing occurs, don’t despair. Look at it as a purifying fire. See the beauty that exists within you, that God is so eager to display. God is willing to burn away your impurities, even though it hurts you. Don’t think of the present experience. Look beyond it, and rejoice in what you will become.
The second is finances (vv. 6–12). Don’t look at the little you have, and worry about how you’ll make ends meet. This will only shut your heart to the Lord, and make you stingy in your giving. Instead remember that God possesses all the wealth in the universe. Trust Him enough to give freely, and expect Him to provide all that you need.
The third is blessings (vv. 14–18). Some media evangelists sound so much like the disgruntled of Malachi’s day. They ask us to measure blessings by financial well-being, and so beg us to give to their ministry, promising that God will more than repay in good, hard cash.
But Malachi urged us to serve God not for profit, but out of love. Even so, we are abundantly repaid, not in cash here, but in blessings stored up for when Christ returns. Only in eternity will we see the distinction God makes between those who serve God and those who do not, so we should not expect large cash down payments now!
And don’t expect those outside of Christ to see life as we do. Many Christians may not even share these perspectives. But you and I need to embrace the way of looking at life that Malachi adopted. We need to look beyond our pain, to look beyond limited resources, and to look beyond material rewards. When we see the beauty God seeks to create in us through discipline, the unlimited resources of our God, and the glory that awaits us in eternity, we will serve God with overflowing joy.

Personal Application
Be wise, and view life with spiritual eyes.

Quotable
God laid upon my back a grievous load,
A heavy cross to bear along the road.
I staggered on, and lo! one weary day,
An angry lion sprang across my way.
I prayed to God, and swift at His command,
The cross became a weapon in my hand.
It slew my raging enemy, and then
Became a cross upon my back again.
I reached a desert. O’er the burning track
I persevered-the cross upon my back.
No shade was there, and in the cruel sun
I sank at last, and thought my day was done.
But lo! The Lord works many a blest surprise,
The cross became a tree before my very eyes!
I slept—I woke—to feel the strength of ten,
I found the cross upon my back again.
And so through all my days from then to this,
The cross—my burden—has become my bliss.
Nor ever shall I lay my burden down.
For God some day will make my cross a crown.-Amos R. Wells

Malachi

INTRODUCTION
Malachi is the last of the three postexilic prophets. He ministered to descendants of those who returned to Judea from the Babylonian Captivity. When Malachi wrote, priests and people had become lax in their worship at the rebuilt temple, which had been completed in 515 B.C. Through a series of sharp rhetorical questions Malachi challenged his generation to shrug off its spiritual lethargy, and stir up the fires of complete commitment to the Lord.
Malachi serves this same function for believers today. We too need to examine our hearts and our practices, and maintain that enthusiasm which is appropriate to a people of the living God.

DISHONORING GOD
Malachi 1–2

” ’If I am a father, where is the honor due Me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?’ says the LORD Almighty” (Mal. 1:6).

How can we honor God in our worship and in our daily lives? The pointed questions that Malachi asked his generation help us evaluate our own relationship with the Lord, and point to ways that we as His people can honor Him.

Background
Postexilic life. Some 50,000 Jews traveled from Babylon to Judea in 538B.C The Persian Cyrus had supplanted Babylonian rulers, and he decreed that captive peoples could return to their homelands. So a little group of Jewish pioneers, motivated by religious enthusiasm, set out for Judea. They were intent on rebuilding the temple of God and on building a faith-community in the land promised to Abraham’s offspring.
The story, as told in Ezra and Nehemiah, and as reflected in the postexilic Prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, is one of mixed triumph and tragedy. After the temple foundations were laid, the difficulties of reestablishing farms and homes on what was then a desolate frontier seemed overwhelming. Commitment to rebuild the temple waned as the exiles concentrated on meeting their own needs. Some 18 years later the Prophets Haggai and Zechariah rekindled the spiritual fires, and the temple was finished in 515B.C But again revival fires cooled.
About 80 years after the first group returned home, the scribe Ezra led another small contingent back to the Holy Land. God later supplied another godly leader in Nehemiah, who served as governor and rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls. Each of these leaders, however, found a people less committed to God, with a lax lifestyle that revealed a marked lack of respect for the Lord.
Most commentators believe that Malachi, whose words condemned the same spiritual maladies, ministered sometime after the governorship of Nehemiah. If so, we can’t help being amazed—and warned—by how quickly the Old Testament community drifted again from its commitment to the Lord.
Perhaps this is the major contribution of Malachi to our own lives. We see how vulnerable all of us are to spiritual drift. We’re shown ways to find out if we ourselves are off course. And we are encouraged by the promise that as we remain true in our commitment to honor God always, we will be among those who make up God’s most treasured possession.

Overview
God had loved His people (1:1–5). Yet His priests treated Him with contempt (v. 6–2:9), and His people wearied God with their unfaithfulness (vv. 10–17).

Understanding the Text
” ‘I have loved you,’ says the LORD” Mal. 1:1–5. The foundation of our relationship with the Lord is not our faith, but the fact of God’s love. It is the unshakable conviction that God loves us and has shown His love for us in Christ, that creates faith, and keeps our love for the Lord growing.
How significant then that the people of Judah responded to God’s affirmation of love with a cynical question: “Love? Oh yeah? How have You loved us?”
This is just the first of a series of seven such questions asked by the priests or people of Judah which revealed their spiritual lethargy. All talk of God, all occasions for worship, had become dreadfully boring to God’s own. In modern terminology, worship had become a drag!
Unless you and I keep a clear focus on God’s love, and return that love, our faith too will soon become meaningless. We will lose our sense of joy, and those things we have done to please God will seem like meaningless chores.
Keeping the “personal” in our personal relationship with God is our first and most important priority.

“I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated” Mal. 1:1–5. Here “Jacob” and “Esau” refer primarily to the peoples descended from the two brothers. God had demonstrated His love for the Jewish people (“Jacob”) by restoring them to their homeland. But the Edomites (“Esau”) had been displaced from their lands by the Nabateans, and the territory had become a “wasteland” inherited by “desert jackals.” This was a divine judgment on a people who had from early times been hostile to God’s chosen people, and merited punishment (cf. Ex. 17:8–16; Jdg. 3:12–13; 1 Sam. 27:8; Obad.).
“I have loved” and “I have hated” is a way of expressing acceptance and rejection, and has two references. The saying describes God’s rejection of any claim Esau might have had to inherit God’s covenant promise to Abraham (Gen. 25:23; Rom. 9:13). And the saying contrasts what has happened to the Jewish people and the Edomites. Both the original choice of Jacob, and the subsequent experience of the Jewish people, display the love of God for His chosen race.
Today if anyone were foolish enough to challenge God, saying, “How have You loved us?” we would point to the Cross. And we would testify how Jesus has changed our lives. God’s decision to sacrifice His Son, and the subsequent experience by Christians of the great salvation Jesus won for us, prove God’s love beyond any shadow of doubt.
There may be times when you and I ask “why?” But we never need wonder whether God loves us. Grasping the extent of that love, we will say with the godly of Malachi’s day, “Great is the LORD.”

“How have we despised Your name?” Mal. 1:6–14 When God through Malachi confronted the priests of Judea for failing to honor Him, they responded blandly with another cynical question. The response was the same as a denial: “Despise Your name? Not us!”
Malachi went on to identify three ways these religious leaders showed contempt for the Lord.
First, they demonstrated disrespect by placing “defiled food on My altar” (vv. 6–7). Old Testament Law described in detail how sacrifices were to be offered (cf. Lev. 1–6). This was not mere ritual: careful observance of the rules governing sacrifices was a way to show respect for the Lord. The priests, however, disregarded the Law’s regulations and so defiled the sacrifices (rendered them ritually unclean). It was as if our parents came over for dinner, and we served them a can of dog food.
Second, they demonstrated disrespect by offering disqualified sacrifices (Mal. 1:8–9, 13–14). Old Testament Law required that sacrificial animals be unblemished. These priests accepted diseased or crippled animals for sacrifice. Malachi said pointedly, “Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you?” Yet they dared to offer such beasts to God, who is no mere governor but the universe’s great King!
Third, they disdained the privilege of leading in worship, finding it “a burden” and sniffing “at it contemptuously” (vv. 10–14). They had totally lost any sense of God’s presence, and were merely going through the motions of worship.
What clear and simple—and yet overwhelming—tools for us to use in evaluating the quality of our own personal relationship with God. Are we careful to show respect for God in the way we worship, or are we careless in our church attendance and practice? Do we give Him our best, or does the Lord receive only our leftovers? Do we look foward to worshiping the Lord privately and with others, or has worship become boring and meaningless?
If we have fallen into the ways of the priests of Malachi’s day, then we need to confess now. We need to focus again on God’s love for us in Jesus, and ask the Lord to fan our love for the Lord into flames. Then we need to return to worship filled with a vital sense of Christ’s living presence as we bow down to Him.

“If you do not set your heart to honor My name . . . I will send a curse” Mal. 2:1–9. The failure of the priesthood was critical, for “a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction” (v. 7). Any flaw in the priesthood was bound to affect the people they were called to serve. Malachi charged the priests of his day, “You have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble” (v. 8). A priesthood that failed in its mission of serving God and instructing the people would surely be punished.
The warning is directly applicable to us. New Testament believers are called a “holy priesthood,” serving under Jesus our High Priest (1 Peter 2:9). We too are charged with worshiping God and instructing others in His ways. Because our lives have such an impact on others, we must guard our commitment carefully. The higher the calling, the greater the responsibility. And ours is the highest calling of all!

“You have wearied the LORD with your words” Mal. 2:17. Most of us remember how small children pick up a phrase or saying, and repeat it again and again and again. After a time it seems as if you can’t stand hearing it even one more time.
I have that problem with popular music. Right now a group called “New Kids on the Block” has captivated our nine-year-old. All I hear is snatches of their songs hummed or sung over and over again, or “Joe likes pizza,” Joe this, and Joe that. I’m pretty sure I can’t stand it much longer. But at least I’ve learned what it means to be “wearied with words.”
Malachi portrays God as fed up too. He heard His people talking, and they were saying the same things over and over again. But God was not just annoyed by what they said. God was slandered! His own people claimed He was pleased with this or that person who complained, “Where is the God of justice?” In other words, “God’s not being fair!”
Somehow the perspective of the people of Judea had become distorted, and neither the Lord nor His ways were understood.
How dangerous it is to suppose that we can judge what God does. How dangerous to suppose that we can relegislate morality, and pronounce “good” those who do what God says is wrong.
There’s just this spirit loose in our land today, as moral issues are clouded by rhetoric and demands for the “right” to do wrong. As believers, we ourselves are bound by God’s Word. We must stand with God in His identification of what is right and of what is wrong.

DEVOTIONAL
Always Be True
(Mal. 2)
A children’s song captures the meaning of the seventh commandment. “Always be true,” it says. “Always be true to one you’re married to.”
Malachi too captured this meaning. “Judah has broken faith,” the prophet proclaimed. Men had married pagan wives. Men had discarded older wives to marry younger, more sexually attractive girls. In many ways, but particularly in these, the people of Malachi’s day showed that they totally misunderstood the concept of loyalty which lies at the root of every human relationship, and at the root of relationship with God Himself.
You see, God had long ago made a commitment to Abraham and his offspring. Those offspring had often proven rebellious and disobedient. Yet through the long centuries God remained faithful to His covenant commitment. God would love, endlessly, even if His people did not love Him in return.
That’s what covenant means. Commitment. Loyalty. Always being true.
Marriage was intended by God to be a covenant relationship. It was to be a pact of loyalty, by which two of His people committed themselves to one another. Oh, there might be the unusual situation in which the hardness of one person ultimately made marriage impossible and divorce a necessity. But there could be no excuse for what was then going on in Judah. Men were obviously marrying to satisfy their passion, with no sense of the deeper meaning of marriage. They took foreign wives, who surely would not attract them by their character or faith! And they cast off older wives in a heated rush to find a younger bride, who would be no more to them than a sex object.
Where was the commitment so essential to covenant relationship? Where was loyalty? Gone! And, Malachi said, God is a witness on the side of the wife who is treated so shabbily. Malachi said God no longer pays attention to the offerings of such a husband, nor accepts them. Such divorce God hates, for it is an act of violence, tearing at and destroying the very heart of the abandoned wife.
Reading this passage I can’t help thinking of one couple I know. He began an affair with a fellow worker, and then decided to leave his wife and two teenagers to marry her. He did leave. And I’ve counseled with both the wife and the teens, and seen the terrible damage his choice has done. Seeing their hurt, I understand why God hates such a divorce.
That husband has never faced the appalling nature of his betrayal, or acknowledged to any of the three he’s harmed that his abandonment was a sin. The husband and his new wife go to church regularly. They sing in the choir. But I wonder if he ever senses the terrible fact that the Lord “no longer pays attention to [his] offerings or accepts them with pleasure from [his] hands”?

Personal Application
We are to model our relationships with others on God’s covenant relationship with us.

Quotable
“There are more people who wish to be loved than there are willing to love.”—S.R.N. Chamfort