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Tag: malachi

  • Ayin

    Ayin

    Psalm 119

    English Standard Version (ESV)  Another brief review:

    • Zayin: Remember your word to your servant
    • Heth: The Lord is my portion
    • Teth: You have dealt well with your servant
    • Yodh: Your hands have made and fashioned me
    • Kaph: My soul longs for your salvation
    • Lamedh: Forever, O Lord, your word
      is firmly fixed in the heavens.
    • Mem: Oh how I love your law!
    • Nun: Your word is a lamp to my feet
      and a light to my path.

    Continuing now from v.121

    Ayin

    121 I have done what is just and right;
    do not leave me to my oppressors.

    The KJV, once again is more to the point:  I have done judgment and justice:

    Is man supposed to judge?

    Yes. And we must judge rightly, as God judges, executing justice and showing mercy.

    Isaiah speaks of justice more than any Prophet. Hear what he says of the One to come:

    Isaiah 62:2 The nations shall see your righteousness,
    and all the kings your glory,
    and you shall be called by a new name
    that the mouth of the LORD will give.

    Here the Psalmist pledges loyalty to do good and asks God’s protection.

    122 Give your servant a pledge of good;
    let not the insolent oppress me.

    Malachi [4:1] says of these:

    “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

    123 My eyes long for your salvation
    and for the fulfillment of your righteous promise.
    124 Deal with your servant according to your steadfast love,
    and teach me your statutes.

    Again, the KJV states it a little differently.

    Deal with thy servant according unto thy mercy.

    Have you considered how God’s steadfast and unfailing love for us is so often demonstrated by His mercy? Should we not also have mercy on our fellow sinners?

    125 I am your servant; give me understanding,
    that I may know your testimonies!
    126 It is time for the Lord to act,
    for your law has been broken.

    These testimonies are the witness of God’s several written laws. It is a call to justice. The laws have been broken and the offense is against the righteous. What will the Lord God do?

    127 Therefore I love your commandments
    above gold, above fine gold.
    128 Therefore I consider all your precepts to be right;
    I hate every false way.

    I esteem the precepts of God. God’s laws are right, pleasing and agreeable; therefore I hate what is NOT right.

    Is it OK to hate? Yes. The Psalmist hates lies, deception, disappointment, falsehood, deceit, fraud, and anything wrong in the eyes of the Lord.

    Should we?

     

  • Why did God hate Esau?

    Why did God hate Esau?

    Genesis 25:30

    And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.

    Malachi 1

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    1 The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.

    The Lord’s Love for Israel

    2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord.

    But you say, “How have you loved us?” “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord.

    “Yet I have loved Jacob 3 but Esau I have hated.

    I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert.” 4 If Edom says, “We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of hosts says, “They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.’”

    5 Your own eyes shall see this, and you shall say, “Great is the Lord beyond the border of Israel!”

    Great is the Lord beyond all borders and barriers of time and circumstance.

    Oh how those faithful to the Lord God of Israel have been to speak of the glory of the Lord even beyond the border of Israel. Take Paul’s letter to the Romans, for example:

    God’s Sovereign Choice

    I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5 To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

    Why did God hate Esau? Esau rejected his blessing in favor of his desires of the flesh (a single meal). Later, Israel rejected God. Jacob denied Christ Jesus, the Messiah of Israel and Savior of the world.

    Is the Lord not a God of love? Has he not adopted even the descendants of the nations into the family of Christ Jesus? How could a God of love hate a man? Why?

    Do you also, in your own desires to feed your worldly flesh reject Christ Jesus your Savior?

    6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, 7 and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”

    8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring… 3 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

    14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

    16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.

     Are you a child of the flesh, like Esau? Or are you a child of the promise, adopted through Christ’s grace into the mercy, compassion and love of God our Heavenly Father?

    The world continues to hate Israel.  The world continues to reject God. The world hates Christians and the world still hates Jesus Christ.

    God IS love. God rejects those who will not bow down to Christ Jesus. He IS and was and will return!

    Jesus encouraged us with the knowledge that those who oppose Christians oppose God:

    Matthew 10:22 and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

    Endure to the end, beloved of God, for the sake of Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior.

    Why did God hate Esau?

    Esau rejected God’s blessing. Do you?

     

  • Emmanuel

    Emmanuel

    YOU need to stop thinking of Jesus as if He were historical, like a dinosaur or a Caesar.  Jesus IS.

    Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. – Matthew 1:23 KJV
    Let us turn back a page to a time of anticipation of the Messiah, prior to a time of the silence of God. The last book of the Old Testament – a Prophet looking forward: Malachi.
    Please expand your imagination just a bit to think of us as contemporaries of the Prophet, expecting the Messiah; yet now we know that Jesus was, and IS, and will be: God with us.
    Suppose that I would admonish us, as did the Prophets: what might the Lord have to say to us?
    Why do YOU want to think gently of Jesus as a baby in a manger? Why do YOU want to think briefly of Jesus as YOUR Savior on the Cross? Why do YOU not see the resurrection beyond the manger?

    The church once worshiped the bones of the Apostles as relics of history, but YOU will not find Jesus’ bones in a grave. The bones of the Apostles will dance alongside ours before Ezekiel and the Prophets at the Day of Christ’s coming again!

    In the year of our Lord 2013 we would do well to remember the birth of Christ Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem of Judea with sight of His Name Emmanuel – God with us. Jesus IS. Jesus IS God with us now; yet in these last days we would do well to look for our Redeemer to call us unto Him in the place where He IS.

    In the days before John the Baptizer called for the world to prepare the way of the LORD, God’s manifest silence was evident – no Prophet had spoken for centuries. Recalling the close of the Old Testament let us now look to the Book of Malachi, remembering that the Risen Christ Jesus IS and is to come again: God with us.

    Malachi 1

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    1 The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi.

    2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?”

    Does Christ our Savior and God our Father not love us? Is the Lord not with us, as He was promised and did promise, and does promise by His Word?

    6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name.

    And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? [KJV]

    … O pastors and ministers and reverends and priests who despise and neglect the Name of Christ Jesus: God with us! O you who broadcast YOUR world, recommend YOUR book and ask for the offering that is the Lord’s!

    10 Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand.

    Christ IS with us. Surly He looks upon us with great displeasure. He IS King of kings and Lord of lords!

    14b For I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.

     

    Malachi 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.

     

    7 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. 8 But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts, 9 and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction.”

    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? 

    Is the church which bears His Name true witness of His love poured out for us on the Cross? Why do you call yourself ‘christian’ and not love one another as Christ Jesus, who IS God with us?

    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.”

    And dear liberated wife of this 21st century, is the Lord God with us? Is He not witness between you and the husband of your covenant of marriage?

    Are your Godly offspring to be found in the house of the Lord?

    Are you not only one in spirit the husband of your vows, but by your vows also one in spirit with Christ Jesus (whom you claim as your lord)?

    The man or woman who claims Christ and divorces is witness against your covenant with the Lord. You profane the Name of Christ (now calling yourself a single one). I AM Emmanuel: God with you!

    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?”

    (Now we come to the more familiar reference to John the Baptizer; yet remember Emmanuel and His coming on the clouds.)

    Malachi 3

    English Standard Version (ESV)

     “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.

     Yes, the Lord IS come. He will return suddenly and seal His new covenant.

    But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

     

    5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.

    6 “For I the Lord do not change…

    7b Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.

    The Book of Remembrance

    16 Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. 17 “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. 18 Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

    Malachi 4

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    The Great Day of the Lord

    “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings…

    5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

    Thus ends the Old Testament and the books of the Prophets.

    Christ incarnate was born in a manger.

    Christ died. Christ IS risen. Christ will come again.

    Christ Jesus, Emmanuel: God with us.

    Even so, come Lord Jesus.

    Amen.

    EMMANUEL