The words of Malachi speak volumes to us today. Malachi rebuked the people and the priests for neglecting and watering down the worship of God and failing to bring the best of their sacrifices. Their blemished sacrifices were half-hearted devotion to the Lord. Again the people had one foot in the world and one foot with the Lord.  The temple had been built for over 100 years but the people had lost their enthusiasm for worship. Do we neglect or water down the worship of God in our church and fellowship services? Do we always give Him our best?

Malachi 1:2  I have loved you, said the LORD.

 God’s first message though Malachi is “I have loved you.” What a powerful statement.  It sums up our entire relationship with God, the Father. “I have loved you.”  And God, the Son put the big exclamation point at the end of that powerful declaration.  God loves us with a passionate intensity and the enemy hates us with just as much intensity. God is faithful and true to His promises for His chosen people.  But consistently these chosen people had rejected God, breaking the covenant, following false, pagan gods, and living for themselves. And yet, “I have loved you, said the LORD.”

God’s love for us is contrasted by His hate toward Edom.  The word hate is used to describe the enemy of God.  Edomites were the descendants of Jacob’s brother Esau.  This land is called by God The Wicked Land and God says its people will always fall under His wrath. As a current connection - Edom is the modern day geographical areas of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq – Islamic territory.

Another message from the reading for today in Malachi 1:1-5 is similar to the message we have learned from the book, The Harbinger and the companion video.  Edom may say, “Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins”.

And the Lord responds with, “They may build, but I will demolish.”

Malachi 2 mentions that Judah has desecrated the sanctuary by marrying the daughter of a foreign god.  The current connection for Believers is that marrying foreign gods happens when we break that covenant of marriage with Him.  Continuing in the following verse, God has said that He has made us one with Him.  He says, “in flesh and spirit they are his.”   He has made us one because He is expecting “godly offspring.”  This is not physical children that we have here on earth, but spiritual offspring in the faith, passing on the faith to others. The people were joining with pagan traditions and pagan practices.  Earlier in the chapter we read that God had admonished the priests because their teaching had caused many to stumble.  Guess they weren’t teaching the truth – so the people didn’t know the difference between God’s ways and pagan ways.

Many, many times we have heard Malachi 3 quoted in stewardship campaigns and sermons. And rightly so…but we would propose another application for these verses.  Since God had just warned the people about the consequences of continuing in pagan practices and being less than sincere about their worship of Him…ponder this.  Do we also rob God of the honor and glory He deserves when we do not honor His commandments, when we do not honor His Holy Days?  He says that if we honor Him with the whole tithe, when we give ourselves as “living sacrifices” as stated in Romans 12:1, we are giving him the full tithe.  And when we do He will open the windows of heaven and pour out so much blessing that we will not have room for it.

Probably all of us are able to look back over the years and clearly see that God has blessed us abundantly especially whenever we honor Him.

Malachi also gives us a prophecy concerning the Day of the Lord.

Malachi 4:1-3
"Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire," says the LORD Almighty. "Not a root or a branch will be left to them. But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall. Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things," says the LORD Almighty. 

We can scarcely imagine how the earth will be when that day comes during the firestorm when the sun scorches the land during the Day of the Lord. There will certainly be plenty of ashes in which to leap. The word for leap also means to frisk; those who are saved from the fire will leap about joyfully in the knowledge that they have witnessed the triumph of God over Satan, the consummate battle of good vs. evil. God will have cleansed the whole earth with the fire in preparation for the new life that will spring from the ashes. The believers will know they have been saved by the grace of God to live into the Millennium to build the world anew.

While these are prophecies of the Millennium to come, we must remember that the prophecies are layered.  God promises to spare his treasured possession today as well.

Malachi 4:5
See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.

Just as John the Baptist was sent before Jesus to prepare His way, so will another "Elijah" be sent to prepare the way? (1Th 5:5)  Seems as if most of the prophets have already been preparing the way. Are we listening???