Messages in Malachi: Minutes, Marriage, and Mindset
Malachi is the final book of the Old Testament, and this book of minor prophesy contains three meaningful messages about minutes, marriage and mindset. Beginning with the LORD’s declaration of His love for His people, He speaks through Malachi to the ancient Israelites as well as to the modern reader about how we spend our time, keep our covenant relationships, and set our minds on who He has promised to bless us.
Will our response be apathy, rebellion, and disobedience like the behaviors of the priests of Malachi’s day, or will we lean in and listen to make our moments of worship matter, to keep our relationships honoring God and to obey His instructions from His word to meditate on the Messiah?
Likely written at the same time as Ezra the Priest and Nehemiah the Governor, the message of Malachi is given to God’s faithless people, His priests and His people living in Jerusalem after returning from being exiled in Babylon. The book is a collection of disputes, cleverly composed in Q&A dialog, as God exposes and confronts His people’s corruption. Malachi delivers the difficult message that breaking God’s covenant is serious because it has spiritual consequences as well as a hopeful message of invitation.
“Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty. “But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’ – Malachi 3:7 (NIV)
That’s a great question. So glad you asked!
For the simplicity of this article, I will address three of the six disputes in order that we may consider how to return our faithless hearts to God. Let’s consider our minutes, marriages and mindsets.
Minutes: Wasted Worship or True Devotion?
When we think of how we spend our time, many minutes of our days are spent on our work. Malachi addresses the priests in the line of Levi about how they served in the temple. They have despised the holy name of God by defiling His altar with lame, sick, stolen and defective animals of sacrifice. They are pleading for God’s gracious favor, yet they are offering Him their leftovers!
To be fair, sacrificing lambs and spilling their blood was a smelly, messy business and it likely made the priests weary. They somehow forgot that the sacrificial system was God’s gracious means of dealing with their sin so He could give them the provisions He promised. They are despising that which was the source of their life and blessing. God is not pleased with their lowered standard of worship, and He does not accept their offerings because He sees the apathy of their ministry. Their best moments are wasted with their less-than-best sacrifices. Like they would never present such gifts to their governor (Malachi 1:8), we would not likely serve leftovers to the President of the United States if he were to come to our house for supper.
This begs the question: Do we give God our leftover time, talents and treasures? How do we despise God’s name when our minutes are spent on coming to His communion table with unconfessed sin or causing others to stumble by our godless, unbiblical counsel or acting treacherously with unfaithfulness to the One who has called us to be in His family?
The Lord is greatly displeased with the people’s lack of devotion to Him, and He invites them to return to Him. He invites us to do the same with our worship, which goes beyond the temple of Malachi’s day and the church of our day. Worship is the honor and reverence we show to God every minute of every day. Worship is pouring out our best moments to glorify God because we share in His hopeful promise
“My name will be great among the nations, from where the sun rises to where it sets. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to me, because my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty. – Malachi 1:11 (NIV)
Minutes of work and moments of worship matter to our God!
Marriage: Covenant Betrayed
In Malachi, God reminds His people of the “marriage” covenant he has made with them, which provides covering like an umbrella for protection and provision for the benefit of God’s people. Keeping this spiritually binding, relational agreement brings the blessings of life and peace (Malachi 2:5). Faithfulness to this sacred relationship, which is very much like a marriage between God and His people, brings peace and integrity and turning many people from iniquity to repentance (Micah 2:6).
However, the priests and the people turned from God’s way and violated the covenant of Levi (Malachi 2:8). The Jewish men were marrying non-Jewish women who worshiped pagan deities and brought their foreign gods into the Lord’s sanctuary. Because they disregarded the marriage covenant, God wasn’t answering their prayers (Malachi 2:13). God’s grievance with His people for profaning the covenant brings the consequences that enemy nations despised and humiliated them (Malachi 2:9).
Though the Levitical priests failed, our Great High Priest, Jesus, has mediated perfectly for us.
In His perfection, Jesus became the source of eternal salvation for all who believe in Him (Hebrews 4:14-5:10). Jesus shows His Father the honor and fear He deserves, which is what the priests who came before Jesus could never perfectly display. He will eliminate the sacrificial system because He is the perfect sacrifice, the perfect Passover Lamb. The temple is no longer necessary because His life, death and resurrection allow people to have relationship with God. God now dwells in believers through the Holy Spirit. We have become His temple, and He invites us to wholehearted devotion to Him.
Mindset: Remember and Return
Malachi warns against wasting our minutes and acting treacherously against our marriage relationships, and he invites the listeners to his message to change our mindset.
The day of the Lord is coming! This is the day when Jesus Christ will bring history to a climax. On that day the wicked are brought down and the righteous are lifted up by God’s sovereign judgment. Though the wicked, who have rebelled against God, will experience eternal judgment, forever separation from the goodness and grace of God, for those who fear God, there will be healing and freedom and pure joy through Christ who has set us free (Malachi 4:2).
How does a person go from being wicked, despised and humiliated, to being fortunate, delightful and righteous in God’s eyes?
According to the final message of Malachi, it takes a shift in the mindset. He tells us to remember. Remember the Torah, God’s Word. Remember what the prophets have said and the instruction of Moses. Remember the statutes and ordinances from the holy scriptures. Remember and put our minds on the promised Savior, Jesus Christ. Before 400 years of silence and waiting for the Messiah to be born, Malachi ends his prophesy with this message from God:
“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents…” – Malachi 4:5-6 (NIV)
The final messenger is Jesus, God in flesh. He is the last and greatest of all of God’s priests. He is the greater Levi and the greater Elijah.
The book of Malachi ends by telling us what the messenger, Jesus, will do. He will turn the hearts of parents back to their children, and He will turn the hearts of children back to their parents. He brings reconciliation between our Heavenly Father, God, and us. He also brings reconciliation within the family of God to redeem our minutes, marriages and mindsets.
