Word of Salvation – Vol. 22 No. 19 – January 1976

 

How Have You Loved Us?

 

Sermon by Rev. J. Postma, B.D. on Malachi 1:2-5

Scripture Reading: Malachi 1

Psalter Hymnal: 37; 439:1,2,3 (after grace); 317:4 (after creed); 298; 385; 493

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Our text divides very readily into three parts:

i.  God’s declaration of love for the present.

ii.  The proof of God’s love in the past.

iii.  The confirmation of God’s love in the future.

i.   Our text comes from the last book in the Old Testament.  From the time after the exile, when God had brought His people back to the land.  Approximately 400 years before the birth of the Messiah.

The book paints anything but a rosy picture of the church at that time.  After the exile, God in His mercy, had enabled the temple to be rebuilt, Israel’s worship had been re-established.

That was something tremendous.  For to that God had bound His blessing for their whole life.  It had been a time of refreshment and restoration.

But by Malachi’s time, 100 years later, it had become something of the past again.  The whole life of the nation had taken a turn for the worse.  They played games with the worship of God, with the church, with its offices, with God’s rules for family and social life.

Into this situation God sent His messenger Malachi, whose name very appropriately means “The messenger of the Lord”, with the declaration of His love.

Before God reminds them of their wrongdoing, He points to the reason why everything else is wrong.

They have lost that blessed awareness that God’s favour rested on them, that they were His people.  That they were as a nation chosen by Him, because of His love for them.

That loss was the basic cause of all their sins of ingratitude.  So God begins: “I have loved you”.  And by that God means not only that He loved them once in the past, but also that His love applies in the present as well.  “I loved you in the past, but that amazing love is not finished, I still love you today.”

But the tragedy is that the condition of Israel is so low that they dare to reply, “How hast thou loved us?”  Behind it lies the thought, “surely if you loved us we would see the evidence.  But all we are is a handful of insignificant, defeated people.  Surely if you loved us things would be different.”

They are so preoccupied with themselves, their own circumstances, their difficulties, their disappointments, the opposition they face, that they are no longer aware of God’s electing love, what God has done and is doing for them in His mighty deeds.

They no longer see the miracle that God had brought them back again from the prison of Babylon and had given them a new beginning.  The nation became just as blind and ungrateful, as Israel before, when God had brought it out of Egypt.

When the church thinks like that; when it is no longer speechless in amazement at God’s love, but dares instead to question whether God has loved it at all, then it has drifted very far indeed.  Then something is tragically wrong.

Much may go wrong in the church: misunderstandings, disappointments, but there is hope for recovery, as long as the church remains aware of God’s electing love which he has shown so concretely in its history.

But it becomes terrible and fatal, humanly speaking, when God’s people forget His mighty deeds, and dare to ask whether God has shown His love at all.

Where there is only awareness of failure and disappointment.  Where covenant children turn their backs on the God of their parents in an attitude of indifference, and refuse to give their life gladly to God.  Where churchgoing, bible study and prayer become distasteful.  Where the world is loved more and more.  Where there is so little spontaneous speaking and singing of God’s love, shown in His mighty deeds, because of coldness and discouragement.

            THERE the first remedy is to look at and remember God’s mercy, His electing love shown in His dealing with us until, our hearts melt again at His mercy.

ii.  Despite Israel’s terrible doubt of God’s love, He remains patient.  If that were to happen among men, the other party would probably turn away and give up.  But not God!  He does not only say that he loves His people, He also provides the proof of His love in the past.

To begin with, He takes them back to the distant past, to the time when Israel as a nation was just beginning in the tent of Isaac and Rebecca, where after years of waiting, twins were expected.  Two brothers closely bound together.  “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?”  Yes, in fact his twin brother.  Esau was named first for he was the eldest.  Had only natural rights counted then Esau should have been the great inheritor, the father of the church.

But God chose differently.  Not Esau, but Jacob was chosen by God’s good pleasure to be the bearer of the promise.  For God wants to make it absolutely clear that the only decisive factor in the building of His church is His good pleasure, His mercy, His electing love.  He wants to make it impossible that one member of His church should ever boast of natural descent or ability.

Therefore the Lord says even before the birth of the twins: I choose the youngest of the two, the weakest, the lesser, without natural rights.  “The elder shall serve the younger” (Gen.25:23).  Jacob is chosen as father of the church not because of his greater piety, but only because of God’s good pleasure.  “Oh Israel” says the Lord “do you see the greatness of my love toward you in my love, my electing good pleasure, toward Jacob?”

And what was Jacob meant to learn from this and Israel after him?  Nothing else than that he owed his position, and they in him, not to himself, for he was not the firstborn, for the Lord had made His choice known before Jacob’s birth, before he could do a thing.  He was to know clearly that he could only boast of God’s merciful, free and sovereign grace, which alone moved God eternally to choose him to be the bearer of God’s Messianic promises.  His good pleasure.

And Esau, what should he have learned from this?  Perhaps this, that he should give up all hope, because after all he was rejected?  No, not at all, for he too was given the sign and seal of God’s promise in circumcision.  No, Esau was to learn that God’s gifts are given only out of mercy.  Just for him the danger was so great that he would regard the inheritance of God’s promises as something automatic, something natural, because he was firstborn, the greater and stronger.

In order to prevent that, to teach Esau to live on the basis of mercy alone, God promised the firstborn rights to Jacob so that Esau might acknowledge Jacob as above him and in doing so bow before God’s good pleasure.  That good pleasure was meant to be sufficient for him.

But that is what Esau refused to do.  He hardly attached any value to God’s gracious covenant gifts.  For a single meal he squandered away the rights of the first born.  And when he was 40 years old he married Judith, a heathen Hittite woman, showing in that, that he despised his circumcision, the sign by which God had placed him in holy isolation.  And he and his wife made life bitter for Isaac and Rebecca.

Commenting on Esau, the book of Hebrews notes: “Let no-one be immoral or irreligious like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal” (12:16-17).  And then it adds that then also Esau was rejected because he refused to value his covenantal privileges.

God refers to this old history of the two brothers to prove His love to Israel.  “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother, yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau have I hated.”  “These two brothers belonged together, but I treated them differently.  They went different ways.  In my electing good pleasure, my endless mercy, I bent down over Jacob, who in himself was no better than Esau, but Esau, the disobedient, the unbeliever, I hated and rejected according to that same good pleasure.”

In God’s grace to Jacob in the past, His love to Israel shone so beautifully.

Then God goes on to show His love by reminding Israel that just as He had been gracious to Jacob in the past, so He had been gracious to Israel in her recent history, while His anger rested on Edom, the descendants of Esau.

For that old history had a continuation.  The way of Esau’s children continued against God.  Edom, the descendants of Esau, continually opposed Israel, right through Israel’s history.  When Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem, Edom willingly joined in to put the children of Israel to the sword without pity, and took possession of the south of Judah at the time of the downfall of God’s people.

If at that time, when Edom helped the enemy and took the land, Israel had complained, “How have you loved us?” then they might have been excused.  But not now!  For God had once more shown electing mercy to Jacob.  Israel had returned, while Edom lay in ruins.  In accordance with the word of the prophets, God had destroyed its proud power, because of its treatment of His people (Ezek.35:5f).

“Look Israel”, God says, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau I have hated”.  “You who did not deserve my mercy either, I have brought back from prison and set free, but Esau, Edom, I have delivered to destruction.”  “I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert, as I fore- told.  I have the last word, not proud Edom.”  Edom became oppressed by Arab tribes and then completely destroyed – as Jeremiah said, “God stripped it bare” (49:10) fit only for jackals, a dry desert place, of death and desolation.  “Oh Israel can you not see how I have loved you from my treatment of Edom.  Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.”

A terrible word for Edom who from the time of Esau continued to be disobedient.  But above all God meant it as a word of endless comfort to His people, who doubted His love.  For it is a very weak nation, that Israel which returned from Babylon.  Surrounded by strong political powers, while Israel was so small, so insignificant.

But the comfort of God through Malachi is, “The question is not at all whether you have political power, only one question is important.  Do you share in my love?”  The Lord says: “My loving kindness is better than life: That you are loved by me, is more important than whether you are rich or strong in the terms of this world.  For if God is for you, who can be against you?  Just in your weakness, your lack of natural possibilities, I will show the power of my love.”  That is God’s reply to those who doubt His love; that is His comfort.  “Do you see how much I love you by my treatment of those who oppose you?”

Congregation, do you understand these words for us today?  Do you see how rich you are in God’s electing love toward you?  His mercy in Jesus Christ, who came in the fullness of time to Bethlehem and Calvary and shed His blood in order to redeem us?  Do you see that you are here today as members of His church, the new Israel, because of nothing else than God’s amazing sovereign love?  That He in Jesus Christ has chosen you, the weak and foolish of the world to be His covenant children, not because of natural descent, your wisdom, your righteousness, but solely because of His eternal mercy?

Do you dare to look at His mighty acts of salvation for you and say, “How have you loved us?”  Do you dare to shrug your shoulders and pretend that love isn’t there, when in your weakness He chose you to be His covenant people at the beginning of your life?  When as a weak baby He put His name upon you?  When He put you in homes where godly parents could teach you?  When He brought you to church where you could hear His word?  All only because of His good pleasure.  While many are passed by and are left in their rebellion, and perish forever.  He put His love upon you, but gives them over to eternal destruction because they reject His grace.

Do you see that love as sufficient, no matter how weak you are, no matter what difficulties you face?  What more can He say than He has said here?  How that free grace should make us sing and boast in God alone.  For the word of God’s electing love is a word of endless comfort for those who bend the knee before God’s good pleasure.  But also let everyone of us be warned that the terror of God’s rejection comes at the door of all those who refuse His grace; who like Esau sell their covenant birthright for the things of this world.  Young people and older people listen and tremble and bow down before His mercy and sing of God’s good pleasure alone.

iii.  Then God goes on to give another reason to show that He loves Israel.  He also gives confirmation of His love for the future.  Not only is His love shown to Israel in His choice of Jacob and His rejection of disobedient Esau and in the return of Israel while Edom lies waste, but also in the future, His love for Israel will be confirmed in His continuing judgment over Esau.

The Edomites were just like their father Esau, immoral and irreligious.  They opposed God’s good pleasure in the same way as Esau who said, “I can take care of myself.”  They too will try to take care of themselves.  “True, we are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins.  The land will flower again, we are not so easily finished; today’s ruins will be built up again tomorrow.”

“No,” says God through Malachi, “I will see to it that they will fail to understand my good pleasure.  They may build but I will tear down, till they are called the wicked, the ungodly country, the people with whom the Lord is angry for ever.”  This nation must permanently undergo God’s anger because of their ungodliness and the rejection of His good pleasure.

Note the contrast very carefully.  When the nation Israel i.e. Jacob came back from captivity, it found everything in ruins, the temple, the altar, the city.  Then the time of restoration came and the Lord encouraged them to build and blessed their effort.  The people were defeated.  How could the temple ever be as it was in Solomon’s day.  They were opposed on all sides.  Such a small nation!  But to them, the discouraged, the Lord said: “Go forth and build, the destruction is not forever.”  I will help you.’

And that had happened.  But of those evidences of God’s faithfulness the people noticed so bitterly little.  And now the Lord says: “Stop and think what I have done for you.  The city is rebuilt, the temple worship of reconciliation restored.  Be thankful and don’t forget the acts of my love.”

Over against that the Lord put the attitude of Edom, that had opposed God’s people.  They were optimistic; they would fix it themselves by their own wisdom and power.  But to them the Lord says: they will never succeed.  “For I have hated Esau.”

A terrible word, almost illogical.  To the defeated people God had said “take courage, it comes right” – while to optimistic, self-sufficient Edom, “Don’t try for you will never succeed”.  And all because of God’s good pleasure to Israel, the people of His choice, whom He loved with an endless love.  For God’s blessing Israel could only thank God, not its courage or perseverance or wisdom.  For if He is for them who can be against them?

While to Edom that always opposed God’s people, that always boasted of its power and ability, the Lord says they will never make it, “for if I am against them, who can be for them”?  By this contrast God’s love to Israel shown in restoration, and His hatred of Edom shown in its destruction, not only now but also in the future, God wants Israel to learn how much He loves them.

That is how we are to understand vs.5: “Your own eyes shall see this and you shall say, “Great is the Lord over the territory of Israel”.  From God’s attitude to Edom, Israel is to see how great His love is to Israel, where matters are so different from Edom, now and in the future.

Now we can understand that it is not just a terrible word over Edom, but a word full of comfort for Israel, “the Lord is very great”.  All nations and people who boast of their own power and courage shall break themselves on that greatness, while by that greatness God’s people are saved.  While to Edom the greatness of His judgement, to Israel, the greatness of His love especially in the future coming of the Messiah of which the rest of the book speaks later, Who shall redeem His people and show how great the Lord is over His people in His mercy.

Congregation, since the coming of that Messiah in whom the greatness of God is seen not only over His enemies but especially over the church, do you still dare to say, “How have you loved us?”  Then listen to Paul in Romans 5, “God commends His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.  Since then we are now justified by His blood and we shall be saved by Him from the wrath of God.”

God confirms His love toward us.  Yes also as we see how His wrath is manifested over those who refuse His love and mercy that is still extended to them and who because of their refusal remain under His wrath.  His wrath over conceited, self-sufficient modern man who thinks that he is lord and master of the earth, of industry, of family, of space, of politics, who tries to save himself by all these means.  What is broken down they will build up; boasting of their own power and ability, they say: “Who needs God’s help and grace?”

Do you doubt God’s love to you?  Then look upon all that failure upon failure and endless frustration.  For God says: “If I am against them who then shall be for them?”  Their end will be bitter frustration and failure.

While to His church, to you, who deserve the same, but who are no longer the objects of His wrath, only because of His good pleasure in Christ, only because of His infinite love, He says: “Note carefully how in that frustration of the world, which is there because of my anger, because they hate me, my love to you is manifest.”

“To you I promise that you will be built a glorious church, made up of living stones, a fit dwelling place for me.  The gates of hell shall not prevail against you.  Go on working, steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your work is not in vain, not useless.”

To you He says: “Fear not, little flock, no matter how great your difficulties, your disappointments, your smallness, for it is my good pleasure to give you an unshakable kingdom.  With your own eyes you will see how great I am; in my anger toward my enemies, see how great my love is to you.”  Congregation, how much God has loved us!

One day that love will be finally confirmed in the final judgement on His enemies and the deliverance of His people.  For we expect the Lord Jesus Christ from heaven as a Judge, who as we confess in the Catechism, “Shall cast all His and my enemies into everlasting condemnation but shall take me with all His chosen ones to Himself into heavenly joy and glory.”

All this because of God’s gracious election, His love to us.

May He help you to see it and help you to sing of His mercy, and to give your life in grateful devotion and praise.

Amen.