They asked:
Malachi 2:17b
"...where is the God of justice?"
God answered:
Malachi 3:1-2
"See, I am going to send my messenger, and he will clear the way before me. Then the Lord you seek will suddenly come to his temple, the Messenger of the covenant you delight in—see, he is coming,” says the Lord of Angel Armies. "But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will be able to stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire and like launderer’s bleach."
I think people misunderstand the point of holy judgement. I mean to say, it is about justice, but the purpose of the Day of Judgment is to refine worship and purge the polluted sanctuaries of all the foreign gods and wicked idols that the people allowed to penetrate the holiness of their lifestyles.
Judgment is meant to restore purity.
Judgment is meant to remove the corruption and the apostate ministers.
Judgement isn't meant to bring about yet another social justice program for the community center called "The Church".
The Bible depicts God as a workman. He's a plowman, tilling the fields and sowing truth among the people. He's a vinedresser, pruning, cultivating, and teaching, giving his children the tools they'll need to grow in wisdom and in truth. He a construction engineer, laying out the plumb-line, making straight the foundations of truth. He's a potter, molding and shaping the lives of the people, in his hands, intimately connected to their souls and all that they are made of, and who they are meant to become.
And he is a blacksmith, he's working in the foundry, smelting the ore. He's dressed in heavy denim clothing, and he's hammering at the molten metals. He's fanning the flames, heating the furnace to great temperatures. He's burning off the dross. He's pouring off the slag, all that bad stuff that pollutes the metal is floating to the top and he skims it away until all that is left is pure gold. Over and over the judgment skims off the pollution. Hammered and heated into precious, perfect gold. Unmistakably beautiful.
God in overalls, working on us, being made into something better than we are. God making us better than before. Not leaving us as we are. This is judgement. And we need to let him work on us. Our first offering being repentance. We need to let him refine our relationship with his holiness.
Jesus did come to cleanse and refine the temple. He chased out the money changers, and scolded the priests for their corruption. And they despised and rejected him. The Lord told them he was sending a messenger to clear the way for Jesus, and he did. And they killed the messenger.
And that messenger, pointing to the jagged mountains to the east, said:
“Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill be made straight, and rough ways will be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God (Luke 3:5,6).”
Gold is a malleable metal. In fact, gold is among the most malleable of all the metal elements. This refers to its ability to be beaten down into extremely thin sheets of gold foil. Malleable means “capable of being shaped by hammering, and beating." The gold foil can be beaten so thin that they can become semi-translucent. Gold's atomic structure allows it to hold together under this extreme pressure. Its atomic structure allows for this to happen and it's why Gold is such a valuable commodity. And this metallic structuring makes it so malleable that it becomes a great conductor of electricity. Also this structural nature helps it reflect heat and light. These natural tendencies makes it very valuable.
Gold is refined and valuable because it accepts change in a good way. In today's lesson what we should take away is understanding that judgement is a call to change, to repent and turn away from our unrefined ideas. Drug abuse, suicide, sexual diseases, domestic violence, unbridled abortion, vandalism, drunkenness, sexually active teenagers, no fault divorce, a pandemic of homosexuality and gender dysphoria, all are major problems that should concern every one of us. Change is always coming at us, astonishing levels of wickedness, but we need to know that God is in charge of the changes.
Sometimes the change is judgement. Our culture has willfully abandoned God’s laws about human relationships and they've been writing their own laws to suit their own desires. Common decency is no longer common. Eighty to eighty-five per cent of our churches in America are are quickly declining. Two-thirds of our children in America are receiving no religious instruction of any kind.
And yet God is in control.
And the people say, "...where is the God of justice?"
And God answers:
Malachi 3:6: " For I am the Lord, I change not."
So who changed?
In the age of the prophet Malachi, the religious community became so flippant that they stopped giving a damn about making their offerings pure. Did God change or did they?
Sound familiar?
Malachi talks about divorce being a national disgrace. Today we're learning that no fault divorce has destroyed the institution of marriage in America. All the degregation we see stems from this destructive system.
What changed?
God?
No...the people changed.
God made his creation like gold, to be molded and shaped, beaten into his reflection. To mirror his image. But that very nature also enables them to be reformed, also makes them susceptible to corruption. Too easily be damaged by that corruption.
What if anything must we do?
“Abide With Me” is a hymn and a prayer for the Lord to remain present throughout all the trials of life, even unto death. We must accept the changes and continue to trust in the unchanging God. "Thou Who Changest Not, Abide With Me" speaks to this day. The hymn sings, "Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me." And therein lies our hope. Hope in the unchanging God. Seeing the changes happening all around us, but abiding unchanging faith remains just the same. It can remain because our God is unchanged by the changes of a wicked generation.
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” Hebrews 13:8.
Only when we confess our sinfulness and the distance we allowed to grow between God and ourselves, can we then ask Jesus to be our Lord and Savior. Only then can we can know the comfort of the unchanging, and abiding presence of Jesus Christ.
God bless you always, with his unchanging love.