Malachi 2
English Standard Version (ESV)
2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart…
10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
Have you ever said to God: Where is Your justice?
Do you think that the Lord does not see the injustice done to you or the sin committed by you?
Why does the Lord not answer our prayers? (Surely God knows all truth.) Is God not going to seek justice for me?
Indeed God will judge. It is not a court (when books are opened) where you would dare to plead even your own case, let alone come to God as the plaintive about others.
In fact, God in several passages of scripture, pleads His own case to us; indeed, as warning against the same injustices we have committed against Him and against others. This is God’s plea through the Prophet Malachi. Hear the proceedings of our case:
The charges are serious. The consequences are eternal. The call for repentance is immediate.
13 And this 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.
14 But you say, “Why does he not?”
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.
15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union?
And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring.
So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.16 “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.
So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
The Messenger of the Lord
17 You have wearied the Lord with your words.
But you say, “How have we wearied him?”
By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”
And we ask for God to come and bring justice?
What were we thinking, without first bowing down to the will of Christ Jesus, our Redeemer by His Cross and our Judge Advocate?
Read Malachi 3 for further conviction, if need be.
Malachi 3:2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
NOT me; not without Christ Jesus as my Lord.
To be continued…
