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Book: Malachi
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Malachi 2:9
I. The condition of the people.
A. "The burden of the word of the Lord to Israel."
1. These are the people who had returned from the
captivity.
2. The captivity was intended to teach them to keep the
commandments of the Lord.
3. God begins with His declaration of love for them.
a. But they even challenge this.
B. The people were not honoring God, they had no reverence for
Him. They were supposed to be serving Him, but they did not
obey Him.
1. The priests led the way in the disrespect for God.
a. They were saying that the table of the Lord was
contemptible.
b. They were offering as sacrifice to God the
sick, blind and lame animals. They would bring
in road kill as a sacrifice.
2. They were serving God as mercenaries. The ministry to
them was to them a profession rather than a calling.
a. They wanted pay for every little service. They
would not even shut the doors of the house of
God without pay.
b. They wanted pay to kindle a fire upon the
altar.
3. They were complaining about serving God. "What
weariness it is."
C. This corrupted priesthood had caused many to stumble. 2:8
D. The people without proper spiritual guidance had become
corrupted.
1. They were dealing treacherously with each other.
2. 35 years earlier Nehemiah was dealing with these same
kinds of things.
a. The people had forsaken the law of God, they
were on the Sabbath day.
b. They had forsaken the house of God.
c. They had begun to marry the of the land.
E. In spite of all these things, God said that He loved them.
1. One thing you can count on is the faithfulness of the
love of God.
2. You may fail, but God's love will never fail.
3. This is not to infer that God will let you get by with
evil.
a. You punish your child when they are doing
things that could be harmful to them.
b. You are often very severe in your punishment,
if say they keep playing with matches.
c. You may deprive them of use of their bicycles
for a month.
II. God's announced judgments.
A. He declared that He had no pleasure in them. 1:10.
1. He would not accept their offerings. 1:10 i.e. the
sick, lame, and torn animals.
2. He was going to send a curse upon them. 2:1
3. He was going to make them contemptible and base before
the people. vs.2:9
B. The Lord was going to cut off those that were doing these
things.
1. He was not going to regard their offerings any more.
2. Even though they covered the offering with their tears,
and with weeping, and crying out.
3. There are things that can break your connection with
God so that your prayers are hindered, even though
they be accompanied with tears, and weeping.
C. They asked why would God not receive their offerings when
presented with tears.
III. God's case against the people.
A. Because God had been a witness of the treacherous way the men
were treating the wife of their youth.
1. They had made divorce a easy thing, all a man had to do
was to say, "I divorce you." three times, and she had
to leave. The woman had no rights. He could just write
her a paper that declared, "I divorce you." and it was
final.
2. He could just walk out on her at any time he pleased,
and leave her destitute.
3. There were all of these young pretty girls from the
nations round about who had no moral scruples, who were
looking for someone to take care of them, and they knew
what suckers older men were to the flattery of a young
pretty lass.
4. They were flirting with these older men of substance,
who fell prey to their guile, and were divorcing their
wives to take up with these young girls, who were
looking primarily for a free meal ticket. They were
looking for the men who could provide them with fancy
things.
B. God said concerning the wife of their youth, that she had been
his companion, and He had made them one.
1. In the law God had declared, "For this cause a man
shall leave his mother and father and cleave to his
wife, and the two shall become one flesh."
2. She was your companion. She stood by you through all of
the lean days when you were first starting out. She
joined with you in the many sacrifices that were
necessary as you were getting started. She bore your
children, and remained a faithful mother and housewife.
3. Now the years of sacrifice and struggle have paid their
dividends. The children are for the most part are
grown, maybe her face shows the strain of the harder
years. She is no longer the young vivacious doll that
you married, and at the office there is this young
pretty little girl with no moral values, and she keeps
catching your eye, and smiling at you. You are
flattered that she would be giving you attention, and
you invite her out to lunch, which she eagerly accepts.
4. Its exciting, and exhilarating, you are having some of
the feelings like in the high school days. You begin to
tell yourself that you are no longer in love with your
wife, and you question if you were ever in love with
her.
5. As the new relationship develops, you begin to ignore
your wife even more, your actions of being gone and not
giving any explanation begins to cause her to suspicion
you, which causes you to get angry and soon you are in
yelling matches which only confirms that you never
should have married her in the first place.
6. After one of her tirades against you, you announce that
you are moving out, leaving her to think that it was
her fault.
7. This is what is meant as dealing treacherously with the
wife of your youth.
C. How easy it is to forget the days of courtship, the excitement
that you shared when you were together. How you wanted to be
with her every night. How hard it was to say good night to her.
How you wooed her and won her.
1. I can remember when the minister was counseling Kay and
I and we were holding hands. He told us that we would
have disagreements, and would be angry with one
another, I squeezed her hand, because we knew that that
might happen in other's relationships, but it would
never happen in ours. We had already determined that we
were so compatible we liked everything the other liked,
that we would never argue over anything.
2. I will never forget my shock on our honeymoon, when I
had gone down to swim in the lake, and stayed longer
than she intended me to stay, her rebuke for my having
been gone so long.
D. Sure you know all her faults, and moods now. Of course she is
not the girl you married, and you are not the man that she
married too.
E. The bottom line is that God declared that he hated divorce.
1. If God hates something, I had better take care that I
do not engage in that thing.
F. The advise that came from God. "Take heed to your spirit, that
you deal not treacherously."
1. Take heed to your spirit.
a. Watch out for attitudes that sometimes develop
through the years.
b. Peter said to not be bitter toward them.
Bitterness is an attitude of the spirit.
2. You are to love your wife, as you love yourself, even
more, You are to love your wife as Christ loved the
church and gave Himself for it. You are very accepting
and forgiving of your faults. Be accepting and
forgiving of hers.
3. Take heed that you deal not treacherously.
4. All your tears and weeping cannot reverse the mistakes
that are sometimes made when a man forsakes his wife
and family to take up a new relationship that looked
so sweet, but has turned out to be so bitter.
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