“I am the LORD, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed. Ever since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned my decrees and failed to obey them. Now return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies. “But you ask, ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?’ [Malachi 3.6-7]
Is not the question in the passage above not what the "Church" today stands on?
As Malachi 1 reveals, God has ALWAYS made a distinction between those who are His and those who are not:
“I have always loved you,” says the LORD. But you retort, “Really? How have you loved us?” And the LORD replies, “This is how I showed my love for you: I loved your ancestor Jacob, but I rejected his brother, Esau, and devastated his hill country. I turned Esau’s inheritance into a desert for jackals.” [Malachi 1.2-3]
When there is no distinction between those who are God's and those who are not, God is not the problem.
The things Malachi points out among God's people in his day, are, in fact evident as problems in God's people today. There is no significant distinction between God's people and the world. Let's look at the main points Malachi makes:
1. A total disregard for holiness. Malachi 1.6-14 points to the giving of blind, crippled and diseased animals for sacrifice making no distinction between what is cursed and blessed.
2. A lackadaisical attitude toward idolatry. Malachi 2.10-12 points to idolatry: idols tolerated and even welcomed through marriage to foreign (idolatrous) women.
3. A disregard for marriage. Malachi 2.13-16 points to adultery and divorce.
4. A denial of evil. Malachi 2.17 points to the blurring of lines between good and evil to the extent of calling evil good.
5. A refusal to acknowledge God as Provider. Malachi 3.8-12 points out the error of not giving back to God the tithe that signifies that all comes from God.
6. A false estimation of God. Malachi 3.13-15 points out the futility that results from living the world's way.
In fact, God's people today fail to see the call to repentance found in blindness, incapacitation and disease (representative of all the curses found in Deuteronomy 28.15-68 - see Why Blind, Incapacitated, Diseased Animals Were Unacceptable). Instead, God's people, like the world, attribute all these conditions to "random occurrences." In that attribution, these curses are not seen as a call to repentance, but instead serve only to confirm the need for man-made solutions - idols...
In fact, God's people today fail to see idolatry in all our man-made solutions to remedy 'randomly occurring conditions' (the Bible calls curses).
In fact, God's people today fail to see that we, like the world, suffer all the same damage to marriage in our own ranks as does the world.
In fact, God's people today fail to see evil for what it is, just like the world, even calling it good.
In fact, God's people today fail to see that more of our people don't tithe than do, just like the world.
In fact, God's people today fail to see the numbers of "believers" among ourselves that are unsure of their standing with God.
There is an unmistakable digression obvious in Malachi's prophecy that cannot be denied: God's people, rife with worldly knowledge and ignorant of God's Word, 1) misinterpret curses, 2) remedy those curses with idols, 3) fall into all manner of domestic and sexual pitfalls promoted by those idols, 4) lose the ability to distinguish between good and evil, 5) lose connection with God as Provider, and ultimately, 6) struggle to see the point in serving God at all.
The digression above all starts with not understanding curses. If God's people don't understand curses, we have missed the most clear indicator God provided for us to understand Him and the significance of His Son, Jesus Christ. In our misinterpretation of curses, we miss God. In our misinterpretation of curses, we have no understanding of blessings - no distinction in our lives about what is "God" (good) and what is not.
The condition above should be expected of the world without God, but completely different among those who know God and His Word... but therein lies the problem:
My people are being destroyed because they don’t know me. [Hosea 4.6]
People who do not know God, even though they exist among "God's people" today, still proudly and defensively ask ‘How can we return when we have never gone away?’ just like the people of Malachi's day. And, if they do not understand that they have gone away and are cursed, they have no basis whatsoever to understand Jesus:
But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” [Galatians 3.13]
The "Church" largely avoids this topic today because it is just too overwhelming. The implications are simply too much. And so, instead of taking Jesus' words in Matthew 16.24 seriously, we console themselves with abstractness not realizing that in so doing we exhaustively disqualify ourselves as followers of Jesus:
If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. [Matthew 16.24]
As God would have it, Malachi's prophecy is among the last prophecies written some 400 years before Jesus' Advent. Was that a coincidence?
Father, I know the implications of what is suggested here are overwhelming. But, that is as it should be if we really want to know what Your Word teaches us... Help us to see the plethora of idols we currently trust to remediate curses instead of repenting and trusting You for Your blessings. Help us to see how we have blurred the lines between what is good and evil in our embrace of idols. Help us see our need to give up our own way, take up our cross, and follow Jesus. So be it.
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