Word of Salvation – Vol.41 No.02 – January 1996

 

God’s Covenant Love Revealed in History

 

Sermon by Rev. Prof. H. De Waard on Malachi 1:2-3

 

Beloved congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I know quite a bit about President Clinton.  I have seen him on TV.  I read about him in the papers.  But if I told you that I know President Clinton, you may wonder as to whether I am telling the truth.  To know about a person is different from knowing him.  In Malachi’s day many professed to know God when in actual fact they only knew about him.  They used the correct theological language and practised the prescribed ritual but their heart was not in it.

Faith, brothers and sisters, is not just a matter of knowing some propositional truths; it is leaning on God, waiting for Him, resting in Him, relying on Him as our Rock and Redeemer.  Faith is a matter of the will and the heart.  It is a matter of obedience.

So often the Lord had to say about His people: This people draw near with their mouths and honour me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me.  God’s name is not to be taken on our lips for any old purpose.  The name of God is the glory of God’s person and work; the glory of God in all His wonderful attributes.  God’s name is not to be used carelessly; like high voltage wires, to be used with caution.

Malachi had to bring God’s covenant people to brokenness and renewed obedience to God’s covenant.  He did so by calling to mind God’s saving acts in history.

Theme: God’s Covenant love revealed in History.

The people of God at this point were disillusioned.  You must understand that they had returned from captivity in Babylon some 450 years before Christ.  They had done their religious duties.  The temple had been rebuilt; the walls of Jerusalem repaired in spite of great opposition… but the blessings did not come.

The Golden Age had not arrived.  They had enormous problems and God did not seem to care.  So they spiralled down into listlessness, cynicism and carelessness in their worship of God.

Worship, dear congregation, begins with a sense of being overwhelmed by the holiness and majesty of God.  When that sense of being overwhelmed is not there, worship tends to become careless, formal and boring.  And God grieves.  Malachi, on behalf of God, begins to dialogue with God’s covenant people.  This little prophecy is structured as a series of divine accusations to which the people respond.

The Lord (1:7): It is you, O priests, who despise my name.
How have we despised your name?  We do everything you ask for.
The Lord: Would your earthly master be pleased with crippled and diseased sacrifices?

Again, 2:17: You have wearied Me with your words.
How so?  Just because we wonder whether you exercise any moral government over the human scene?

The Lord assures them in Chapter 4 that there will come a time when He will redress all injustices and all evil.  The wicked will perish in the end and God’s own will be vindicated.

The Lord (3:8): You rob me!
People: How do we rob you?
By refusing to bring tithes.

Having lost the sense of God’s goodness, they downgraded the importance of serving Him.  God was displeased with that as God is displeased with careless worship today.

It was through this question and answer method that the Lord sought to bring renewal to a people who possessed a form of godliness but had no vital experience of God.

Our text begins the dialogue.  God says: I have loved you!  God doesn’t threaten, insult or patronise His people.  He points them away from their difficult situation to the unchanging love of God.  How gracious.  How like God.  We sense the heartbeat of the Lord that pulses through the Scriptures.

God ordained Israel to live for the praise of His glory and to be a light to the nations.  “My Name is to be feared among the nations” (1:14).  He preserved them through the ages to be the channels of His love.  But the people shrugged their shoulders: How have you loved us?  We don’t see any evidence of it.  Prove it!  We see our miserable circumstances, our failed harvests, our lack of funds or lack of health.

Note well that they admitted no failure on their part.  They were amazed that God could deal so unfairly with them.  They wanted to call God to account, to argue with Him.  Inwardly, they had detached themselves from God.  When God failed to deliver, they ignored Him.  When our heroes fail us, we crucify them!  That is so sinfully human.  It is a sin from which we need to repent.

Examples: Many Jews who survived the genocide in Europe during the 1940’s no longer believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Black people in Africa often wondered why Blacks must suffer so much.  Many turned back to the old African gods.

Who among us has not at some time questioned the love of God?  Particularly in times of sickness, bitter experiences, or when tensions increase…  where is God in all this?  Does He really care for us?  Is He fulfilling any purpose at all?  Before we know, we inwardly detach ourselves from God.  Beloved brothers and sisters, we must look beyond our own wisdom and acknowledge the wisdom of God in all He does.  We may see a jumble of threads which leave us baffled, but God will weave something beautiful out of it.

John Newton, from being a vulgar sailor and slave-trader, was converted and became a minister of the Gospel.  ‘Amazing Grace’.  As a pastor he wrote that the promises of God are particularly appropriate for the hard times.  It is then that we prove them.  Did he?  On the Sunday morning following the most difficult day in his life, when he had buried his beloved wife, Newton staggered into the pulpit and preached from Habakkuk: …though the fig trees do not blossom…  though the fields yield no fruit…  yet I will rejoice in the Lord!  He affirmed the love of God, though he must have felt terrible.

Even though His people questioned His love, the Lord reasoned with them.  God affirmed His love by pointing to their history.

How have you loved us?  Answer: Look at your history!

Jacob and Esau were brothers.  Twins in fact.  What happened to them and their descendants?  Esau’s descendants were the Edomites.  What happened to them?  Esau turned his back on the covenant promises of God.  He was boastful, self-sufficient.  His descendants took on a hostile attitude towards God’s covenant people.  They mocked and jeered when the Jews were taken into captivity (Obadiah).  What happened?  In the end, Edom was utterly destroyed (read verse 3).  Today, the stronghold of Edom is a ruin in the country of Jordan.  Tourists go to see the ruins out of historical interest.  To us it is a sign that God wonderfully fulfils His word.  You can rely on it.  The Word of God is utterly reliable.  Everything God has promised will happen.

Now by contrast look at Jacob and his descendants, the Jews.  Romans 9 lists all the blessings given to Jacob’s descendants.  To them were given the covenant promises.  God revealed Himself as the God of Jacob.  They were led through the wilderness and brought into the Promised Land.  God displayed His glory in their midst.  He gave them His Name.  The temple was in their midst.  God gave them the promise of a Messiah, who would be the hope of the world.  God supervised their history so that one day Christ would be born in their midst.

And God’s purposes with Israel will not fail.  Even though Paul struggles with the mystery that so many Jews rejected Christ, ultimately God’s purpose will not fail.  That is why we have confidence that God’s purpose for the church will not fail.  Our God is the God of history.  He is leading us to the final renewal and consummation of all things.

All that is implied in the simple words: Jacob have I loved!

Was Jacob so much more lovable than Esau?  No.  We are faced here with the miracle of God’s grace and election.  It is easy to forget that.  It is so easy to think of election in terms of exclusive privilege rather than moral responsibility; to think in terms of reward and merit for good work done.  Yet… Malachi reminds us that before God makes any demands, He declares His love.  Before the requirements of the law, God declares the Gospel of sovereign grace.

God sets His love on a people and the whole plan of redemption was bound up with Jacob and his children.  So He cared for them and preserved them through the ages.  That’s the proof of His love.  You may say: I wish I had proof of God’s love for me?  When the writer of Psalm 77 was in a deep depression he took himself to task and said: “I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord, yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.”

So often God says to His people: Remember!  Recollection of God’s great redemptive acts will halt the downward spiral.  Remember your own personal history.  The way God has dealt with you.  The blessings of the past.  The way He brought you through the anguish of a broken relationship or the trauma of life-threatening illness.  Remember how the Lord helped you through the bleak wilderness or the dark night of the soul.  Remember!

Remember the church.  The way God preserved it through history through persecution, apostasy, faithlessness.  The church is still here, somewhat wounded and battle scarred – yet preserved.  Think of the Reformation.  Think of the times of revival.  Think of the growth of the church in China, Africa.

Or, if you still doubt, look at Jesus.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1John 4:10).  The most wicked deed in history is the supreme demonstration of God’s love and a source of blessing to all mankind.  God loves you to the extent that He became vulnerable, defenceless, humiliated, suffering hellish agony, so that we might be rescued from the power of the evil one.  If you are attacked by doubt, go back to the great redemptive acts of God in history: the death and resurrection of Jesus.  These events demonstrate that in Christ God poured out His heart in love.

How can we be sure that God loves us?  Not necessarily when the sun shines; the children are doing well and the job is satisfying.  In short we feel blessed.  Yet our most difficult circumstances do not disprove God’s love for us.  Obstacles and dead ends may be the sign that God is conforming us to His will through painful discipline.  God’s ways are often mysterious, but Romans 8:28 assures us that God works for the good of those who love him.  We cannot avoid setbacks and suffering.  Sometimes the lights will go out and the sun will hide its face.  Precisely then we may catch a glimpse of the glory and majesty of God.  It is then that we know deep down that in Christ I am loved, safeguarded and kept forever.

Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus!  Let us go forward in faith, my dear brothers and sisters.  One day faith will give way to sight.  The pilgrimage will be over.  The goal of history reached.  We will no longer doubt, but we will forever be lost in wonder, praise and love to our God who lives and reigns forever.

Amen.