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#192. The Refiner's Reflection: Malachi's Lesson for Christian Wives and Mothers · Dwelling Place: The Bible for Moms

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  This is The Dwelling Place from Entrusted Ministries.
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  I'm Stephanie Hickox, and today we are covering the prophet Malachi and have reached the final day of our Old Testament reading plan.
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  I'm so proud of you, and we're gonna celebrate a little bit in the episode tomorrow God has sent prophet after prophet, and now he prepares the people for four hundred years of silence.
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  God will continue to be active and providentially working, but the messages that needed to be delivered for the people to wait well were complete.
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  God uses the prophet Malachi to reaffirm that he loves the people of Israel, but often, especially to those who walk in pride or disobedience, His love is not a passive love, but a refining and perfecting love.
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  And when we live in light of this, it transforms the way that we love in our families as well Malachi means my messenger or the Lord's messenger.
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  Some have suspected that this is the title of the book rather than the prophet's name But most would suggest that this book follows the same pattern of the other prophets and that Malachi was indeed the prophet's name Jewish
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  tradition suggests that he was a member of the synagogue so he would have had a role in preserving the scriptures.
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  The most likely timeframe for Malachi to be written was before Nehemiah thirteen This would be after Nehemiah came from Persia to help the people rebuild the wall and set up the reforms.
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  He encouraged them to make a covenant with God to financially support the temple sacrifices and the priesthood, and only marry those that were devoted to Yahweh, and to let the land rest and honor the Sabbath after that, Nehemiah
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  returned to Persia To serve Artaxerxes as cupbearer for about two decades It's before he returns that Malachi is written.
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  The people were not adhering to their covenant.
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  They had become apathetic and corrupt And this was evidenced in both how they related to the Lord and in their relationships Malachi is written almost 2,000 years after God called Abraham and made a covenant with him.
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  though God has been entirely faithful to Israel, over and over His people have been faithless to Him.
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  The way Malachi structures the book is to call out the thinking of the people it's presented in a Q&A format where God anticipates the questions and challenges that people have to obeying Him these disputes are so important and
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  truly worthy of your time.
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  And it helps us to have an understanding of the condition of the people's hearts at the close of the Old Testament.
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  However, since our emphasis is on family for our theme this year, there are some passages that I'd really like to highlight for our time today So I'll just briefly summarize those arguments as the Moody commentary summarizes them the
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  book opens with God affirming his love for Israel.
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  They object, "It doesn't feel like you love us."
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  he reassures them, By drawing a comparison to his treatment of Edom and then God leads them through these disputes.
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  initially he rebukes the priests for their failed spiritual leadership.
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  This involves offering blemished sacrifices and corrupted teaching.
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  Then God rebukes the people for marital unfaithfulness.
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  After that, he affirms that he is just in sending future judgment.
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  He calls out the nation for failing to tithe and support the temple.
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  The priests have had to become farmers, neglecting their priestly duties because they were not financially supported.
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  And finally The people claim there's not really any benefit from following and serving God The Lord has continually reached out to a people that rebels and rejects Him And their very existence affirms his faithfulness the book of Malachi
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  concludes by pointing us to how God will restore Israel in the final days.
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  Let's look at a couple passages that are oh-so important for our holiness in family life In chapter two, we get another shout-out to Phinehas.
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  not by name, but the text so closely mirrors what we've read about Phinehas in the past.
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  If you recall, he was in the priestly line of Levi, listen to these descriptions Beginning in two five, "My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him.
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  It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me.
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  He stood in awe of my name.
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  True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips.
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  He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity.
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  For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts."
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  Remember, Malachi's name means messenger, and God is rebuking the priest saying, This was your purpose.
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  You were supposed to be my messengers."
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  But to us reading this as New Testament believers, because of the blood of Jesus, you and I are now part of the royal priesthood.
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  so I'm going to include these verses in our prayer at the end because as we're going about parenting our kids, we want true instruction to be on our lips.
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  As we walk in peace and uprightness, we want our example to help lead our kids away from iniquity, and to realize Jesus Christ is worthy Then in chapter two, verses 13 through 16, God addresses the priority and the
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  purpose of marriage And the second thing you do, you cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.
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  But you say, "Why does he not?"
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  Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
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  Did he not make them one with a portion of the spirit in their union?
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  And what was the one God seeking?
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  Godly offspring.
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  so guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.
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  For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of Hosts.
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  So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless God calls us to prioritize marriage And he reminds us of the purity required in our lifestyles and in our hearts.
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  He also reveals the purpose of marriage.
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  What was the one God seeking?
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  Godly offspring.
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  In a marriage in which both the husband and wife are seeking the Lord and guarding themselves, This is The best environment to produce godly offspring.
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  but if that's not your situation, don't be discouraged.
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  There is still hope because we have seen testimony after testimony, example after example throughout the Old Testament of people that did not have a godly witness in their parents and still chose to serve God with their lives We
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  also saw the reverse which reminds us to stay on our knees for our kids In the New American Standard Bible translation It says, God hates divorce It doesn't forbid it But it does say God hates it His will
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  is that both a husband and wife would walk in submission to Him, and that it would transform the way they relate to each other But there are certainly circumstances in which this is not the case and thankfully for
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  those who have to endure the pain and heartbreak of divorce, we can be thankful for a God that is the husband of the widow and the father to the fatherless and the healer of hearts This passage is just
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  saying it's not God's plan A But it doesn't mean that we should be alienated from God if it's part of our story There's an interesting connection between chapter one and chapter two, because the priests weren't giving their best
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  to the Lord on the altar.
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  And in a sense, that's what's happening in chapter two as well instead of laying down their lives on the altar of marriage and recognizing a covenant that requires sacrifice The people were being faithless to their spouses, forgetting the
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  covenant that they made before the Lord Scripture tells us that the two should become one flesh Certainly marriage is difficult, this uniting of two people, two personalities from two different backgrounds, two different sin tendencies thrown into a fallen
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  world where things are constantly breaking and circumstances rarely pan out as you hope or expect.
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  How can we possibly stay unified and glorify the Lord without the Holy Spirit?
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  It feels nearly impossible.
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  But I appreciate that this passage doesn't just call us to be faithful in word and in deed.
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  We're to guard ourselves and our spirits.
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  And I found these verses to be incredibly convicting in seasons where outwardly I was absolutely honoring my husband by submitting to him, but the soundtrack of my heart was very different.
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  instead of guarding myself and my spirit, I was sowing bitterness There have been several times where I knew that my actions and maybe even my words were honoring to the Lord, But I knew anyone aware of the meditations
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  of my heart, would know that I was living inconsistently.
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  That's why I'm so thankful that chapter three tells us about a key role that Jesus Christ plays in our lives 3:2 says, "For he is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap.
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  He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord."
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  Malachi provides two pictures of purification.
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  One, using the soap that would take away the stains while doing laundry, and another as a goldsmith or silversmith that purifies the metal and takes away the dross and anything that's impure from the silver or gold.
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  This is a powerful analogy.
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  Do you notice that it says he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver?
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  God doesn't just leave you in the fire and walk away.
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  He's watching for exactly the right moment.
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  Because any silversmith will tell you, if you leave that precious metal in the fire for too long, it will be destroyed.
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  Jesus knows exactly the moment to pull you out of the trial And the moment that a smith knows that the metal has been perfectly refined is when they pull it out and see their reflection in it That's precisely
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  what scripture tells us that Jesus Christ is doing in your life and in my life as a believer.
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  Romans 8:28 and 29 Encourage us that God works all things for the good of those who love Him, that we would be conformed to the image of His Son he's looking.
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  Is she reflecting me yet?
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  We've talked a lot about the purification process of suffering over the last nine months, and as God wraps up his message in the Old Testament, he says, "Don't forget that I love you with a perfecting love.
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  It may not always be the kind of love you're wanting, but know that it's the kind of love that's best for you This is a comforting message to those who fear and trust the Lord God.
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  But it should be a terrifying one for those who do not, because if we back up just half a verse, we read, "But who can endure the day of his coming?
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  And who can stand when he appears?
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  For he is a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap."
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  I hope that your goal is to submit to the Lord, to honor His Word, and to trust Him to use trials and circumstances to purify you and sanctify you rather than running and rebelling like the prophet Jonah did.
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  Do we guard ourselves in our spirit?
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  Do we experience that covenant of life and peace that God promised to those who obey Him?
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  because chapter four, verse one warns us, "For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble.
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  That day that is coming shall set them ablaze," says the Lord of Hosts, "so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
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  But for you who fear my name, the Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings."
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  We have the opportunity to be purified.
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  We can come out gleaming like silver and gold in the image of Jesus Christ, our Savior Or we can choose to be set ablaze in our pride.
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  But He is coming.
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  And then in the final verses that are the conclusion of the entire Old Testament, Malachi tells the people, "Remember the law that Moses sent, and remember the words of the prophets, and watch for the prophet who is coming.
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  This points forward to John the Baptist But the final verse in the Old Testament might be exactly a verse that you need to be praying for your family It says, "And he will turn the hearts of fathers to
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  their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction."
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  I know so many moms that are longing for that prayer to be answered in their homes right now.
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  Just as God longs for the hearts of His people to follow in the hearts of their spiritual forefathers, He longs for children to honor their parents The law of Moses and the words of the prophets are aligned, that
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  so much of our love for the Lord is modeled in the way we treat others.
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  And I don't know about you, but so many days I'm more than aware that this pure sacrificial love is not something I can do apart from my Lord and Savior and through His Holy Spirit.
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  thankfully, that's exactly what He provides for you and I to honor Him in this life Heavenly Father We are grateful that you are a loving father, And we rejoice that you love us with a refining, perfecting love We
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  confess that we've had seasons of questioning your methods that don't always feel tender and nurturing like we want But we ask that you would produce in us a deep trust in your patterns and your purposes.
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  We long to have the blessings of the covenant of life and peace As we train our children, we want true instruction to be on our lips, that you would use us to turn them away from iniquity as we
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  instruct them and guide them in the truth We want to be messengers of your Word and walk in the peace and uprightness that leads many away from iniquity In our marriages, we ask that we would guard ourselves and
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  our spirits.
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  Where there is bitterness, disappointment, hurt, neglect, or apathy, we pray your Holy Spirit would be at work calling us to faithfulness and a greater commitment to you and our spouses In those families where there's a breach in the
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  bond between the fathers and their sons, we believe you for restoration and healing would you equip these fathers to model your sacrificial, merciful, faithful love?
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  And Jesus, thank you that you are a refiner and you are purifying us We lay our lives on the altar before you, and we pray you would be glorified at the condition of our hearts.
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  It's in your name we pray, amen