Remember, brethren, Malachi is the book of the Bible that contains the admonition, “I change not!” (Malachi 3:6). He warns, “I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the nations” (Malachi 1:14). What folly to trifle with this King, who has a spirit army one soldier of which annihilated 185,000 Assyrian warriors! (See 2 Kings 19:35). But the believer might retort, Christians are immune from God’s wrath and punishment. Such believers conveniently ignore the Bible’s account of how God struck dead two Christians who were merely posturing before God’s church. They were seeking self-exaltation. They envied the praise and good name of Barnabas. Their egos got involved and their service to God became absolutely worthless. When a believer resorts to lies and deception Satan is filling his, or her, heart. Like Ananias and Sapphira, some are laying only a part of their lives at Jesus’ feet. (See Acts 4:33-37 with Acts 5:1-11).
Through the pen of Malachi, God asks the question, “If you offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto your governor. Will he be pleased with you, or accept your person? says the Lord of hosts.” (Malachi 1:8). God says, “I gave you my best and I expect your best in return. Do not bring to me half-hearted, inferior service or obedience and expect from me my best.”
“You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, ‘Wherein have we wearied him?’ When you say ‘every one that does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them,’ or, ‘Where is the God of judgment?'” (Malachi 2:17).
Brethren, the God of judgment is alive and well. “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” (Hebrews 2:3). The answer is we cannot. “For the time is come that, judgment must begin at the house of God, and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” (I Peter 4:17). God sees our sin as clearly and as surely as He saw the sins of Ananias and Sapphira. “But if you be without chastisement (when you sin), whereof ALL (God’s children) are partakers, then are you bastards (false converts), and not sons” (Hebrews 12:8).
“Examine yourselves whether you be in the faith. Prove your own selves. Know you not your own selves how that Jesus Christ is IN you except you be reprobates…And this also we wish, even your perfection…Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect.” (2 Corinthians 13:5, 9 and 11).
Christ’s Faithful Servant (Galatians 1:10-12),
Donald Wiley