Holy Scriptures and Israel

Gideon Levytam: Shabbat shalom, everyone. Let's open our Bibles to the book of Malachi, Malachi. We are now today in the second and third chapter of the book of Malachi. So today we'll turn to Malachi chapter 2. We will begin to read with verse 17. And then we're going to go into chapter 3 and read from verses 1 to verse 6. Only seven verses for this ministry meeting today. Malachi chapter 2, verse 17, and I am reading.

Ye have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet ye say, "Wherein have we wearied him?" When ye say, "Everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them," or, "Where is the God of judgment?"

Chapter 3, and verse 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, sayeth the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap.

And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. And he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.

And I will come near to you to judgment. And I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, sayeth the Lord of hosts. For I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

I'm stopping here with verse 6. It's a beautiful verse 6. "I am Jehovah, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." Ki ani Adonai lo shaniti. That's what the Lord is saying to the people of Israel in the days of Malachi, some 450 years before the Messiah was presented before Israel.

Beloved brothers and sisters, we are in the book of Malachi. Malachi, as I mentioned many times, was the prophet, the last prophet in our people's history before the Messiah finally came and presented Himself as the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of this world. So Malachi is presenting the final message to Israel. From the time that he presented his message, about 450 BC, until the time that Yeshua the Messiah introduced Himself to Israel the nation through the proclamation of John the Baptist, who said, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of this world," Malachi gave the final message. The spiritual state of Israel was rather poor.

The Jewish people who lived in the land of Israel were continuing on through the religious activity. The temple was situated there, and the people of Israel were continuing on with the sacrificial system. Everything was fine, but their hearts were so far from the Lord that they really did not do what the Lord had wanted them to do. If you remember in chapter 1, verses 2 to 5, God said to them already, "I love you Israel. Jacob have I loved." And Israel said, "How is it that you loved us?" Then later on, God said to them, "Where is my honor?" in chapter 1, verse 6 to chapter 2, verse 9. A father have an honor, a master have a servant. "Where is my honor? Where is my respect?" God said to Israel, and Israel said, "How is it that we didn't honor you?"

Then in chapter 2 of Malachi, verses 10 to verse 16, which we have already covered, God said to Israel, "You have profaned the covenant that you have made with me." The Levites had the Levitical covenant. Then if you remember, there was the marriage situation which had been broken. The Jewish people in those days have taken the wives from the Gentile world who didn't believe in the true and living God. Then they actually divorced their wives of their youth.

And God was challenging them. If you remember, He said to them in chapter 2 and verse 16, "The Lord, the God of Israel, he sayeth that he hateth putting away." The Hebrew word for putting away is shalach. Shalach comes to the English as the thought of divorce. God hates divorce because it breaks homes, it breaks relationships, it gives pain to the people of God. God wants His people will enjoy themselves and live for Him, and the divorces and the marriage with the unbelievers cause so much havoc among the people of Israel in those days of Malachi.

And so you will notice that God is saying, "I love you. I'm expecting honor from you and I want you to have fidelity to live your life as a godly nation." But look what was going on in those days of Malachi. We always make a comparison to the present day of the assembly age in which we find out that the conditions are rather similar in so many ways. In the last days of the church age in which we live in, the same type of condition persists. There are all sorts of things, religion without reality. There is a form of godliness without the power thereof. It is a very similar condition that applies to us today. Soon Yeshua is going to come. He is going to take us to be with Him in glory, and then He will reward us for anything that we have done for His own glory. Anytime we have honored Him here on earth, He will reward His own people.

We are moving from chapter 2, verses 10 to 16, where Israel's condition was rather poor, not only the priesthood, but the people and the nation. Now in these verses that we are going to deal with in chapter 2, verse 17 to chapter 3, verse 6, you will see what the people of Israel are saying to the Lord and the response of God towards the people of Israel. He is now telling them that He will eventually have to discipline the nation until He will eventually restore Israel back to Himself. These are hard words from the Lord, but they are in the scripture. They are in the Bible. They are in the word of God. And as we are moving systematically from book to book, chapter to chapter, verse to verse, we are reading those verses for the benefit of each and every one of us who are believers in the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.

Notice now, chapter 2, verse 17 really should be part of chapter 3. Somewhere the break there was not properly placed because it really should be part of chapter 3. Judah have accused the Lord of being a God who never judges, a God who will delay His judgment. He is not going to come and do what He says that He will do. Malachi is now speaking in verse 17, and he said to Israel by the word of the Lord, "Ye have wearied Jehovah. Ye have wearied the Lord," he is saying to the people of Israel. Look at the way you have behaved and conducted yourself. He says that you have wearied the Lord, constantly giving the Lord a hard time. Now the Lord is not being wearied. He is a holy and a righteous God. No one can change the program and the plan of God. But the behavior of God's people, according to Malachi chapter 2 and verse 17, they have wearied the Lord.

He continues and says, "Yet ye say, 'Wherein have we wearied him?'" You cause trouble to the Lord, you dishonored the Lord, you defiled the things of the Lord, and then you ask how you have done so. Malachi is giving them the twofold ways in which Israel has wearied the Lord here in this verse 17. Number one, they said, "Everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord and he actually delights in the people that are doing evil." That's the first thing that they were saying. God does not deal with anyone. Everybody can do as he wants. Even the one who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He's actually delighting in them. Therefore, they thought they could continue to do evil.

Secondly, Malachi is saying to them, "Where is the God of judgment, the God of justice?" There was no judgment from God. God is not going to deal with us. We are going to continue on in our own way. In other words, God doesn't deal with His own people; He allows them to carry on in their own way. That's how they were challenging God. They were saying, "He delights in those that do evil. He doesn't deal with them and God is not a God of judgment. He's not judging people who do evil. Everything is carrying on and can be continued. God is not dealing with those who have gone astray and have done evil."

It reminds us exactly what the apostle Peter said in his letter when he wrote to the early believers some years ago. In 2 Peter 3, verse 3 to verse 4, he said, "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts and saying, 'Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, the fathers died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.'" In other words, where is the one that had made promise to come and to deal with this world? Where is He? Everything continues as it always was. The people of Judah said the very same thing. These are the people of God, not the nations of the Goyim, but the people of Judah, the people of Israel. They said, "Everyone that is doing evil is good in the sight of the Lord."

They said the Lord delights in those that do evil. They asked, "Where is the God of justice, the God of judgment?" He is not here. He doesn't do what He said that He will do. In saying this, in Malachi 2:17, they challenged the Lord. They actually accused the Lord of being the God who does not deal justly or does not deal properly with humanity or with the people of Israel. So now, in chapter 3, verses 1 to verse 6, Malachi speaks to the people of Judah and he shows them that the Lord will eventually respond to His people's accusation. Eventually, He will come in justice and in judgment in His own time.

It is very interesting because those verses are sandwiched between the accusation of the people of Judah against the Lord as if there is no God who does judgment and the end that shows them that He does not change. Even though He allows things to happen, in due time He will judge and He will discipline even His own people in His own time. The first verse here of chapter 3 is extremely interesting. Chapter 3 and verse 1 is an extremely interesting verse because it says, "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, sayeth the Lord of hosts."

Pause with me for a moment. This verse is filled with information that you and I can glance over when we just read it. You notice that first of all the Lord is using the word behold, hinei. You are saying that I am a God that is not going to judge? You ask the question where is the God who is doing justice and judging eventually? I want to tell you, as He is speaking to the people of Judah to remind you, that this is the final message for Israel. This is the final passage in the Tanakh as we know it, the Old Testament. Malachi is the final prophet. Israel did not receive any message from anyone for 450 years until the Messiah came. When the Messiah Yeshua came, Israel did not accept Him. As far as Israel is concerned, there are right now nearly 2,500 years where Israel is still waiting for a messenger to come.

Of course, we as believers in Yeshua the Messiah know that the messenger from the Lord did already come and that he already presented the truth of God and the Messiah Himself at His first coming. But as far as our people Israel is concerned, since 450 BC up until today, nearly 2,500 years passed by and Israel the nation is still waiting for some message from the Lord to restore them. In these verses, Malachi helps them to see that there will be someone that is going to come and that he will be the one that they are waiting for. They eventually, of course, did not acknowledge that he was the one that came from God.

Notice verse 1 gives us twice the word messenger. "Behold, I will send my messenger," this is in the first part of verse 1. And then at the end it says, "He shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant." The word messenger simply means in the Hebrew word malach. In Hebrew, malach means angel. An angel is called malach, but a messenger also is someone that is sent by God for a purpose. To remind you, the name of the prophet that is preaching to the Jewish people in those days, his name is Malachi, meaning messenger.

The second one that we already have talked about in chapter 2 and verse 7, the people who are the priests of Israel, they are also called the messenger of the Lord of host. So twice we have already read of the word malach. Chapter 1, verse 1, the word of Malachi, he was the prophet. Chapter 2 and verse 7, the priest who is a malach is the messenger of the Lord who is called to go with a message for the people of Israel. Now in chapter 3 and verse 1, we have two additional times in which the word messenger is mentioned in the book of Malachi. The first messenger is in verse 1a and the second messenger is in verse 1 at the end, 1b. Those are two separate messengers or malachim.

Notice how beautiful it is because I've been fascinated with this verse of Malachi chapter 3 and verse 1. God is now the one who speaks. In chapter 2 and verse 17, it was Malachi who spoke and he said you are wearying the Lord. Now in chapter 3 and verse 1, the Lord Himself is speaking. He's saying to Israel, "Behold, you complain about me not being the God of judgment, the God of justice. Behold, I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me." God is speaking. He says, "I will send my messenger and that messenger that I will send will prepare the way before me."

That messenger is very clearly presented in the New Testament, in the Brit Chadashah, as none else but John the Baptizer, Yochanan HaMatbil. John the Baptizer was the one who was sent by God and he was the one that prepared the way for God's appearance before the people of Israel. For one minute, please turn with me to the prophet Isaiah. In Isaiah chapter 40, Isaiah spoke about the same messenger that Malachi is speaking about right now. Isaiah, in chapter 40, spoke about the coming messenger in about 750 BC, 300 years earlier. Malachi is speaking about the very same messenger 300 years later.

Both of them were men of God. Both of them were nevi'im, prophets of Israel. Both of them presented the Lord's messenger who is going to come. Both of them spoke about John the Baptizer. "I will send my messenger, my malach, and he shall prepare the way before me," God is saying to the people of Judah. Every one of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in the New Testament presents the very same person John the Baptizer as the one that is recorded both in Isaiah 40 and in Malachi chapter 3.

He was the one that will introduce the Messiah that was going to come to deal with the nation, to deal with the nations of the world, and to come to provide redemption for mankind. In chapter 3 of the Gospel of Matthew we read, "In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, 'Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah saying, 'The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his path straight.'"