Malachi 2:17

Malachi preached at the close of the Old Testament, at the close of the dispensation, at the close of an age. We believe that we’re living at the close of the New Testament times, at the close of an age. And there is a remarkable similarity to what was happening in Malachi’s day and what is happening in our day.

Now in Malachi’s day, the people had a form of religion, but they denied the power thereof. (2 Timothy 3:5) In Malachi’s day, they were very superficial. They were completely unaware of their needs. And like New Testament Christians today, many Christians, the greatest need is to see their need.
They were unaware of the fact that they were worshipping God, but God was not accepting their worship. They were making gifts, but God was not receiving their gifts. It was all just superficial.

They were playing at religion.

They wearied God with words of doubt.

Mal 2:17 Ye have wearied Jehovah with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? In that ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of Jehovah, and he delighteth in them; or where is the God of justice?

THEY HAD WEARIED, the task of working with you is tiresome, and there is no good benefit from it,, like farming, and still there is no harvest.

Ecc 10:15 The labour of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city.

Their response was, how have we wearied him?

They are entirely ignorant of their sins, who us, how did we do that.

This is the fourth sarcastic question of the people in what way. How have we done this? They have had phony and pseudo worship.

In this thinking a new morality is created, that evil is equal to good and good to evil, It pays to do evil, Crime does pay, it does for a time,

It is widely seen in the corp. The government spends our money, without any responsibility to the people, politics favor the rich and please the powerful, the little man is stepped on and nobody cares, why doesn’t God do something

This is something for a nation to who is practicing evil as if it were acceptable and practicing injustice as if God would never intervene in their affairs. How could they want justice when they have lived as they did,

How can you kill millions of babies and think it is ok and God is not going to get us for it.
A thief does not want to be robbed, a liar is mad when someone lies to him, the cheat is outraged when he is cheated.

Romans 2:1 Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.

“People from every walk of life, of every race, are starting to feel that there is no justice. And guess what, they’re right. You can’t have justice if you don’t have agreement on moral standards. And that’s why justice is eluding us.”

They questioned his character by doubting his Justness.

Mal 2:17b “Where is the God of justice?”

The Jews linked the presence of God with circumstances.

SO WHERE IS GOD, if he were here things would not be so bad. Is not that the way we think often, well look at those sinners, they prosper and here we are trying to do right and we can hardly make it,

Psalm 73:2 But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. Psa 73:3 For I was envious at the foolish, [when] I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

The Jewish skeptics of that day said virtually, God delighteth in evil-doers (inferring this from the prosperity of the surrounding heathen, while they, the Jews, were comparatively not prosperous: forgetting that their attendance to minor and external duties did not make up for their neglect of the weightier duties of the law; for example, the duty they owed their wives, just previously discussed);

Mal 3:1) is, “The Lord whom ye seek, and whom as messenger of the covenant (that is, divine ratifier of God’s covenant with Israel) ye delight in (thinking He will restore Israel to its proper place as first of the nations), shall suddenly come,” not as a Restorer of Israel temporally, but as a consuming Judge against Jerusalem (#Am 5:18,19,20). The “suddenly” implies the unpreparedness of the Jews, who, to the last of the siege, were expecting a temporal deliverer, whereas a destructive judgment was about to destroy them. So skepticism shall be rife before Christ’s second coming.

2.They said that God had failed to make a proper distinction between the good and evil, because they were the chosen they thought that things should be going good for them. This kind of thinking and acting Was wearying the Lord. for He said I have loved you with an everlasting love.

Jer 31:3 The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

They were looking at those whom they call heathen, around them, the Persians, and said, look God rewards them and look at us, things are terrible.

Jer 29:10 For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.

God says you want justice, I will bring it.

3:3 Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant, whom ye desire, behold, he cometh, saith Jehovah of hosts. 2 But who can abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: 3 and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer unto Jehovah offerings in righteousness.

They were thinking God coming would be good for them, justice would be on their side,

Amos 5:18 Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! For what good is the day of the LORD to you? It will be darkness, and not light. 19 It will be as though a man fled from a lion, And a bear met him! Or as though he went into the house, Leaned his hand on the wall, And a serpent bit him! 20 Is not the day of the LORD darkness, and not light? Is it not very dark, with no brightness in it?

Then GOD SAYS OH, YOU PIOUS ONES, YOU WHO DO EVERYTHING RIGHT, AND YOU speak of the evil ones around you, you want me to come you say, where IS GOD WHY DOSEN’T HE COME TO US, You want me to come do you, you had better think, OH I AM COMING.

Governor Nehemiah in his public prayer in Nehemiah 9 recognized these things, confessing the Lord’s righteousness, faithfulness, and compassion since the time of Moses (see esp. Neh 9:8, 13, 17, 19, 28–32). Nehemiah also knew that Judah’s present hardships were the result not of the Lord’s unfaithfulness but of their sins.

But Malachi’s audience had concluded (as we sometimes do), in effect, that God was either unjust or negligent—either way, he was not being faithful to his covenant. No wonder the Lord was weary of them! (Cp. Moses’ complaint of “the burden of all these people” in Num 11:11–17.)

His weariness represents the fact that God’s patience is near an end, as it had also been in Isa 43:22–24, a passage to which Malachi may be alluding.

Do you know what God’s goal for you is? To purify you. Do you know what God is interested in? Not primarily in making you happy; God’s goal for you is to make you holy, to make you pure, to purge you, and to purify you. That’s what God is doing in your life if you’re saved.

Psalms 66:10: “For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.” (Psalms 66:10) Zechariah 13:9—God speaks of His people, and He says, “I will … refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried. Job said, “When he hath tried me,”—that is, “When He’s tested me; when He’s put me in the furnace” I shall come forth as gold.” (Job 23:10)

You see, in my heart and in my life there are many things that God wants to purge away. I told you that when God saved me, He took away that basic desire to sin that I had before I got saved. (Matthew 5:8) That is, God will be a reality to them. And the word pure here means a heart without mixture, without alloy to be pure.

Mal 3:1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.

They said where are you Lord? And Gen Prepare the way, was said of John the Baptist. Mt 11:10 For this is [he], of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. Mt 3:3 For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Isa 40:3 The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Joh 1:23 He said, I [am] the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.

God said Oh I am coming, you don’t have to worry, the King you are looking for, the Messiah, will suddenly come in his temple,

Luke 2:25 And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him.

Luke 2:46 And it came to pass, that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. Luke 2:49 And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?

God said, can you handle it when I come, can you handle justice?

Mal 3:2 But who can abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: 3and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they

Supreme Court Justice Horace Gray once informed a man who had appeared before him in a lower court and had escaped conviction on a technicality, “I know that you are guilty and you know it, and I wish you to remember that one day you will stand before a better and wiser Judge, and that there you will be dealt with according to justice and not according to law.”

Where is the God of justice?” Thus the people are reminded that the “justice” they sought is the very thing the Lord was going to bring. But the Lord’s justice is evenhanded and is impossible for hypocrites to control. It would bring condemnation and punishment against the sins of the very people who were calling for it. The verb “come near” is used in a forensic sense as often in Isaiah, but there it is always others called to come before God

The first sin listed is Sorcery or witchcraft (kšp),310 the attempt to control the physical and spiritual world through magical incantations, charms, and rituals. It is encountered about a dozen times in the Bible, beginning with the Egyptian practitioners of magic (Exod 7:11).311 If
It was for such detestable sins that the Canaanites had been under God’s judgment. Jezebel, the Phoenician wife of king Ahab, is charged with sorcery or witchcraft in 2 Kgs 9:22. Sorcery had been unable to prevent the downfall of Judah (Jer

The second sin listed is adultery. The seriousness of the sin of adultery is nowhere more vivid than in Job 31:11–12. Verse 11 describes it as zimmâ, defined as “indecent and disgusting sexual conduct”312 and a “criminal offense” (NRSV; ʿāwōn pĕlîlîm). In v. 12 it is called “a destructive, hellish fire, consuming everything I have” (TEV; cf. Prov 6:27–33). Not surprisingly, then, it was one of the sixteen capital crimes in Israel (Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22).313 Some may be

Third, the Lord also promises judgment against “perjurers,” literally “those who swear to a lie [šeqer].” An oath involved a guarantee of the truthfulness of one’s word (but see Matt 5:37; Jas 5:12), sometimes a promise of loyalty, as when King Abimelech asked for an oath

Lev 19:12 . 9–18, which lists it along with laws concerning care for the poor and strangers, theft, deceit, oppression, withholding pay from a laborer (the same concept as here in Mal 3:5, though different terms are used except for “laborer”), taking advantage of the helpless, injustice, slander, injury

The fourth sin listed is “those who defraud laborers of their wages [or “who extort the wages of a wage earner,” śĕkar śākîr],325 who oppress the widows and the fatherless.” No Hebrew word corresponds to “who oppress” in the phrase “who oppress the widows and the fatherless

This list of sins builds to a climax in contempt for the Lord. As failure to fear the Lord had resulted in religious activity that actually insulted him (1:6–14), so here it resulted in wickedness and injustice toward the helpless. In fact, according to Isaiah, if Israel’s temple worship had been meticulous, it would still have been meaningless and even detestable in view of the absence of the essential ethical component that included justice for the fatherless and the widow (Isa 1:13–17; cf. Isa 10:1–3; Jer 7:11). The widow, the fatherless, and the stranger

As King Ahab’s treatment of Naboth illustrates, such an attitude was increasingly replaced by greed in preexilic Israel, necessitating such prophetic words of grief and anger as those of Isaiah and also Amos, who rebuked those who would steal grain

A Word of Warning and a Word of Hope

He is a refiner’s fire, and that makes all the difference. A refiner’s fire does not destroy indiscriminately like a forest fire. A refiner’s fire does not consume completely like the fire of an incinerator. A refiner’s fire refines. It purifies. It melts down the bar of silver or gold, separates out the impurities that ruin its value, burns them up, and leaves the silver and gold intact. He is like a refiner’s fire.

It does say FIRE. And therefore purity and holiness will always be a dreadful thing. There will always be a proper “fear and trembling” in the process of becoming pure. We learn it from the time we are little children: never play with fire! And it’s a good lesson! Therefore, Christianity is never a play thing. And the passion for purity is never flippant. He is like fire and fire is serious. You don’t fool around with it.

But it does say, he is like a REFINER’S fire. And therefore this is not merely a word of warning, but a tremendous word of hope. The furnace of affliction in the family of God is always for refinement, never for destruction.

The first individual mentioned is “I Behold, I send” This “I” is identified at the end of the verse: “Says the Lord of hosts.” The speaker is Jehovah, God the Father.

Who is to prepare for the Lord’s arrival. Malachi apparently interprets the “messenger” here as identical with the “voice” in that passage, which the New Testament sees as fulfilled in John the Baptist (Matt 3:3; Mark 1:3; Luke 3:4; John 1:23). John the Baptist is also understood in the New Testament (Matt 11:14; 17:10–13//Mark 9:11–13;

The second individual mentioned is Jehovah’s messenger who prepares the way. “Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me.” Who is this? Well the New Testament quotes this very verse to identify John the Baptist, the one who came to prepare the way for Christ (Matthew 11:10; Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27).

But you don’t have to read in from the New Testament that this is a kind of prophet whom God would raise up in the last day. It says in Malachi 4:5, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.” So the first messenger mentioned in 3:1 that God will send to prepare his way is a kind of Elijah or one like Elijah. That is why Luke 1:17 says that John the Baptist went before Jesus in the Spirit and the power of Elijah.

The third individual mentioned in verse 1 is “the Lord who comes to his temple.” “And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight.”

We Need to Be Refined

We were created in the image of God with the potential to reverence God and trust him and obey him and glorify him, but we were born in iniquity and in sin did our mothers conceive us. We are shot through with the impurity of rebellion and unbelief, and we fall short of God’s glory again and again.

You can prove this to yourself in many ways. For example, you can notice how readily your heart inclines to those things that will show your strengths to other people, and how resistant your heart is to communion with God in solitude.

So we are impure by nature and by practice. But God will have no alloys in heaven. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” And yet he will have someone in heaven. He will have a redeemed people. His banquet hall will be full. And therefore he must be a refiner’s fire. If he were only a forest fire, heaven would be empty. If he were only an incinerating fire, heaven would be empty. And if he were no fire, heaven would be empty.

Why God Won’t Abandon Impure People Like Us

But how do we know heaven will not be empty? Or to put it another way, how do we know that God will not simply abandon impure people like us? We don’t deserve salvation? Why are we not simply consumed? Why does Christ come as a refiner’s fire and not a forest fire?

Verse 6 gives the answer? “For I the Lord do not change; therefore, you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.” But by itself that doesn’t make sense. What if God were changelessly bent on being a forest fire? What if he were changeless in unrelenting wrath? What sort of changelessness is it that guarantees that we are not consumed?

It is covenant-keeping changelessness. According to verse 1 the Lord comes as “the messenger of the covenant.” The reason Jesus is a refiner’s fire and not a forest fire is because God made a covenant. And Jesus is the emissary of that covenant. He confirms it and seals it with his blood. So his blood is called in Hebrews 13:20, “the blood of the everlasting covenant.”

The book of Malachi began with a statement of how the covenant began. “ ‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord. But you say, ‘How hast thou loved us?’ ‘Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?’ says the LORD. ‘Yet I have loved Jacob!’ ” (1:2). This is what never changes—the free and sovereign choice of God to save sinners. “ ‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord … ‘And I the Lord do not change. Therefore you are not consumed.’ ” Therefore, Jesus is a refiner’s fire and not a forest fire.

Fire’s use for purification and destruction overlap since purification is accomplished by the destruction of the undesirable (cf. 1 Cor 3:10–15). Although vv. 2–4 deal explicitly with purification, especially of the Levites (v. 3), judgment is also involved, as indicated by the questions “Who can endure?” and “Who can stand?” and by the declaration in v. 5, “So I will come near to you for judgment.” That judgment will be against “sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me.” Against such as these the Lord’s anger burns (Exod 22:24; Deut 31:17; 2 Kgs 23:26; Job 42:7; Ps 97:3; Isa 30:33; 66:15, 24; Jer 15:14; Hos 8:5; Nah 1:6; Zeph 3:8; Zech 10:3; Heb 10:27; 2 Pet 3:7; Rev 20:10, 14–15). Sharing many features with the present passage is

Ezek 22:18–22: Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me; all of them are the copper, tin, iron and lead left inside a furnace. They are but the dross of silver. Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: ‘Because you have all become dross, I will gather you into Jerusalem. As
The emphasis on washing in the Old Testament was a continual reminder of the separation between sinful man and the holy God (cf. Exod 19:10). “

If there is to be a cleansing of God’s people, it must begin with the temple and the priesthood, those “responsible for the religious decline of the people.”298 Their need for cleansing was made vivid in 2:3, where the Lord threatened to “spread on your faces the offal from your festival sacrifices.”

Can We Experience His Fire as Refining and Not Consuming?

Verse 5 makes it clear that when God comes, not everyone will be refined. Some will be consumed.

Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.

This is not the work of refinement, but the final judgment of condemnation. It is ever clearer in 4:1,
For behold, the day comes burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

So when the Lord comes, some are refined and some are consumed. How can we be sure to experience the fire of God as refining and not consuming?

Notice very clearly what the answer cannot be! The answer cannot be: get rid of your own sin. If you got rid of your own sin, you would need no refining. Refining is for sinners! You can’t answer the question, How do I qualify to get refined? by saying, Get rid of your sin! That’s what refining does—it starts to burn up your sin? But how, then, does a sinner qualify to have his sin burned up? If it takes the merciful fire of God to destroy the rebellion of sin, what can a man do to have that mercy?

The Answer

The answer of the whole Bible is: trust in the purifying mercy God! Or to put it the way Malachi puts it again and again: fear God—which means mainly fear to dishonor him with unbelief. Fear the irreverence of distrust. Fear the impulse to jump out of the refining fire of mercy into the forest fire of judgment because it looks cooler. Trust the goodness of God. Believe that his ways are the ways to infinite joy. Don’t doubt his expertise as a Refiner.

And perhaps the next most important thing to say is that there is no painless path to heaven. Why? Because Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” And it is no more possible to become pure painlessly than it is to be burned painlessly. Purity comes through the refining fire. And the fire has two forms: one is the fire of affliction and the other is the fire of intentional self-denial.

“Because I, Yahweh, have not changed, you, the sons of Jacob, have not perished.” The point is that if Yahweh were the kind of unfair and unfaithful God they charge him with being, who acted capriciously on the basis of momentary convenience, he would have put an end to them long ago.

The love of God outweighs his judgment. Though he may discipline even acrimoniously, his ‘love’ (ḥesed, Ps 89:33; cf. v. 28) will still extend to the offspring of David.