Good morning everyone. Just by way of introduction, the words that were read out for us this morning,
as you may have gathered, are hard words, but the gospel is good news. But in saying
that, if you would like, if you hear anything this morning that you would like to speak
more about, then please come and grab one of your elders being Eric, myself, Tom or
Tony. We would love to pray with you and speak to you about anything you might want to speak
about out of this passage. But before we look at God's word, would you please pray with
me this morning? Father God Almighty, we come to you humbly as your people in the Lord Jesus
Christ. And we ask this morning that by your Holy Spirit you would work in our midst, that
you would hold Christ high up among us and that you would lead all manner of people to
yourself. That we would glorify you this morning and leave this place refreshed in the gospel
for your honour, for your glory. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Growing up, the fridge at our place was a complete rust bucket. You see, Mum, she got
fed up one day with having a filthy fridge and so she took to it with a bottle of bleach.
It seemed fine at first, even like the problem of a dirty fridge had been solved, but over
time small sections of rust and erosion started to show up and it became apparent that that
which Mum thought was okay to do in the moment actually caused incredible erosion and corruption
on the family fridge, to the point that it got so bad it had to be thrown out.
Now I mention this because that's the picture that Malachi has been painting for us in this
prophecy to Israel. You might remember it, last week we looked at chapter 2 verses 1
through to 9 and we learnt that the Word of God had neither been faithfully preached by
the priests nor faithfully embraced by the people. And so as a consequence, their worship
had grown cold, it had grown corrupt. They were a nation that knew their status and history,
but had grown out of love with God, out of love with the one who had made covenant with
them, and they were making decisions in the moment that were to have disastrous consequences.
Sure they had the land, the temple, the priesthood, but as we'll see this morning the people's
decisions were starting to now show up, eroding and corrupting things, not just in church
life but in their personal relationships. And it was tearing at the very fabric of the
life of the community. In particular with the wonderful expression of covenant faithfulness
being marriage. And so instead of leaving his people in this state, instead of leaving
his people wondering what was going so wrong, our faithful and gracious and loving God,
he sent his prophet Malachi with these words. Hard words but true words nonetheless, so
that his people might stop making decisions in the moment which would result in a community
so corrupted and eroded that they would be good for nothing and like a rusty old fridge
have to be tossed out. And our prophet, he takes aim in two areas. In particular where
the people of God had defected from the plan of God for marriage. And we're going to see
in each case that Malachi deals with it in light of how we as the people of God ought
to relate to God within the bonds of the covenant of his love for us. Or to say that another
way, our prophet offers us gospel solutions for how the people of God are to view our
marriages. So if you have your Bibles with you this morning, please look with me at the
first half of verse 10. We read, don't we all have one father? Did not one God create
us? Now you'll notice that our prophet does something quite interesting here and that
he's holding up the status of God's children to them as the first thing that he has to
say on this incredibly important subject. But this shouldn't surprise us because this
is something that we've seen Malachi do before. I mean the whole book started by God reminding
his people that he loved them. We see that in verse 1 of chapter 1 and then in verse
6 of that same chapter that he's their father. And so in like manner Malachi again reminds
God's people of their status. They all have one father. He created them. What are we meant
to take by that? Well you might remember in the first chapter of this book, in the first
sermon of this series, we saw that God had told Israel that he had chosen them in Jacob
and that they were his special people. And the people knew this to be the case because
God, he'd made a covenant with them, a promise if you will, that he would have a nation and
that they would be his special people. And that was certainly something that God kept
to. I mean if you read through the Old Testament, no matter what Israel had done, God stayed
true to his promises that he had made with their fathers. Think about it. Despite Israel's
failings, God gave them the land that he had promised to them. He gave them a place to
worship and he even set aside a tribe of people who were to teach and lead them in the worship
of the true God. To put it plainly, God had created this nation. He was their father.
And that's what Malachi wants to remind them of here. And I think our prophet does this
because he wants to remind the people why God had done all of this. It was because they
were to reflect God's character in this world. They were to be a light on the hill that people
could look to. They were to be a people that could be looked to and seen what it was like
to be in relationship with the living God and with one another. That's what God does
with his people. He chooses them, he rescues them, he makes covenant with them and then
out of the glorious riches and grace bestowed on us, we reflect what God has done out into
this world. Brothers and sisters, the church under age, Israel was called to this very
thing. They were unique from all the people in the world. God's special and loved people
are people who were to display what it could look like to be loved and saved by grace through
faith. Now you'd expect awe and worship with that kind of grace. But Malachi yet again
challenges the people of God. We see it there in the back half of verse 10. Why do we profane
the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another? Now church, I want you to
notice the language there. The covenant that was given to their fathers, it's still very
much in play. Notice that. So that's the good news. But the bad news is that they were again
profaning what God had graciously given them. And the result was that the people weren't
reflecting oneness, just the opposite. They were being unfaithful to one another. But
how? How were they doing this? Well, Malachi goes into the details here with his first
charge. And it has to do with their marriages being unequally yoked. Look with me at verses
11 and 12. Malachi says, Judah has been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel
and in Jerusalem. Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves by marrying women
who worship a foreign God. As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the
Lord remove him from the tents of Jacob, even though he brings an offering to the Lord Almighty.
Okay, so the first charge that's brought against God's people here is that the covenant was
being profaned and people were being unfaithful to one another because the place of worship,
the sanctuary or the temple was being desecrated because the men had been marrying women who
were unbelievers and worshipers of foreign gods. Why is that such an issue? Let me explain.
You see, marriage was given to all humanity as a common grace. We see the first marriage
between a man and a woman in the Garden of Eden between our first parents, Adam and Eve.
And later the apostle Paul will say that marriage, it's a mystery in that it's a living picture
of what God has with his people. What Christ has with the church, we see that in Ephesians
5. And I want to bring your attention to a wonderful picture of this truth that we see
in the Bible. And we see it in the story of the Exodus. You see that whole event is like
a knight in shining armour rescuing his bride from a treacherous villain who was keeping
his love captive. And that's after rescuing them, she could come freely to Yahweh at Sinai
so that he could make a covenant with her and they could exchange vows. It's a beautiful
picture of God bringing his bride to himself. Now we notice in that exchange of vows, in
that covenant that people were forbidden to marry those who weren't loyal to the God of
Israel. We see that in Deuteronomy 7. Because remember it, out of all the people of the
world, God chose Israel. They were a people set apart and they were to maintain and reflect
covenantal faithfulness with God and each other in which they promised to live to a
particular pattern of the law. And so the warning was that if they were to mix that
up and marry outside the covenant community and worship and practice that of the pagan
nations, it would dilute what God had given to his people. So already we see that what
God's people do in our personal lives and what we do with our time and with our efforts
and even with who we marry, it's important both for the health of the community and our
witness to this world. Personal obedience, it does matter. So God warns his people, you're
not to marry people of pagan nations because they will bring in their false idol worship
and you'll be carried astray and worse. That practice in the home, it will end up in the
community, even in the place of worship. And that erosion and corruption will have devastating
consequences. We actually have a real historical example of this. You might remember it. You
see, God chose and loved a king called Solomon and Solomon started his royal duties very
much in love and obedience to God. But if you know the story, Solomon over time started
to ignore God in his personal life and choices. And he just, he didn't marry just a couple
of wives. You might know he married many wives, many wives who didn't abandon ungodly practices
or worship of false idols like we saw with Ruth or Rahab, which as you might recall,
didn't just lead Solomon astray, but the whole nation that he was leading. It ended up being
split and torn apart. Well, this issue seems to have been repeating itself in the context
in which we find ourselves this morning in the ministry Malachi was doing. In fact, Ezra
and Nehemiah, who provide much of the backdrop for much of Malachi's ministry, both addressed
this vital problem that was happening in their day and age. Not with a single king, mind
you, not with a group of farmers or something like that, no, the problem of disregarding
God's law in his design for marriage had found its way all the way to the spiritual leadership
of Israel, to the Levites and to the priests. In other words, it was a huge problem that
infected the whole nation from the leaders all the way to the common man. Had they learnt
nothing from Solomon? Had they not seen where it all leads? Believers who weren't on a guard
in this area, it has consequences. But let's think about this through what Malachi is saying
to these people. He applies the gospel to this situation. We actually see it there in
verse 10. We, like Israel, have been adopted by grace into fellowship with God. He has
established his covenant with us by the blood of the perfect covenant keeper, Jesus Christ.
And we are united to him by faith, meaning we as the people of God, we have one father
and in Christ we are his people. And so the word of God, like it did with Israel, calls
us to live out the reality that God has given to us in Jesus. But with that said, I just
want to say a couple of things by way of application for us on this side of the cross. First, because
of the work of Jesus Christ, the division of Jew and Gentile has been torn down. Paul
says it clearly in Colossians 3.11, in this new life, it doesn't matter if you're Jew
or Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised. Christ is all that matters. He is the one
who lives in us all. Christian, this means that because of the work of Jesus, the perfect
covenant keeper on behalf of his people, we don't have to first become a Jew before we
can marry that special someone. No, we're free to marry one another from anywhere in
the world. We're free to do that. However, second, though we're free to marry from anywhere,
we must marry those in the Lord. Paul made this plain when speaking to the church in
Corinth in which he commands in the sixth chapter of his second letter that believers
aren't to be united or uses this word yoked with unbelievers because we are now the temple
of the living God. And we might see that there is incredible practical wisdom in this. I
don't know if you've ever gone to a silent disco, but it's an absolute chaotic scene.
Let me describe it for you. Each individual, they get a set of headphones and they can
choose whatever DJ they want to listen to and then go onto the dance floor and then
dance to. So you can imagine the scene with everyone doing this right. There's all these
people on the dance floor grooving away to the music going on in their heads. And to
them, to what they're listening to, they're completely in sync with what they're hearing.
But this is the thing, because everybody has different things going on. No one, but no
one is in step with one another. And very much in the same way, God's children by the
work of God's grace in our hearts and in our minds, we've been switched on to a different
frequency. We see the world a different way. We're dancing to a different tune to the world,
you might say. And so to marry someone who's dancing to another rhythm, well, it's like
two dancers not being able to keep in step with one another. And the result won't be
a beautiful harmonious dance for the world to see, but a mishmash of different steps
back and forth. Point being the people of God, we must be wise when approaching marriage,
when entering into a covenant with someone, because marriage isn't just a feel good romantic
promise. It's a lifelong commitment, a covenant that reflects what Christ has with the church.
So God's calling his people not to be unequally yoked, not because he wants to ruin our lives,
but because he wants to spare us from the devastating effects that it will have in our
lives, both personally and with those around us. Many in Israel, as we've seen this morning,
had abandoned this. They disregarded the gracious law that God had given them and they didn't
care about the ramifications. That's why there is such a severe warning on their own lives here.
And so that's first Malachi, he applies the gospel to the problem of believers marrying
unbelievers. Second, he takes up the question of professing believers, divorcing their spouses
unlawfully in order to marry these other women. Look with me at verse 13. We read,
another thing you do, you flood the Lord's altar with tears, you weep and wail because he no longer
looks with favour on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. Let's think
about this again. There was a pandemic in Israel. People were divorcing their believing spouses
and taking ungodly ones. But then as we see here, they were continuing in the course of their lives
like nothing was the matter. And it seemed as they approached the temple, as they went to church,
they somehow realised that there was a great chasm that was starting to form between them and God
and it grieved them. So much so that they asked why? Why is this happening? Malachi replies,
it's because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You've been unfaithful
to her, though she's your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant. Verse 14. To put it plainly,
there's obvious sin among the people, obvious sin in that they had abandoned their wives for these
other women. And God was putting his finger on it and the people were feeling alienated.
And dare I say, can't that be the case with us some of the time? I mean, because of Jesus,
we know that we can go to God about every and everything, every and anything. But like we see
here this morning, perhaps you've wept and prayed and come to church and you still feel that sense
of alienation because of obvious sin that's sitting right there in your life. Something that
every time you go to pray, you know, sits right there in the front of your mind and you don't
want to take it to your heavenly father. Well, in this context, this was happening. The people had
committed blatant sin and though they were coming and acting like all was okay, going through the
motions, going through church life, God, he sees through it. And so again, he addresses his people
about the sin that was hindering them from experiencing his presence. And it had to do
with the men's unlawful divorce. You see church, Israel had developed a shallow view of marriage,
in which they saw it as something that they could lightly end with no thought of what God had designed
and given it for. We heard it earlier, marriage was meant to be, is meant to be an expression
of what God has with his people. That's made clear. But it's also equally as clear. And the
Bible clarifies what we might call legitimate divorce. Back in Deuteronomy 24, Moses said that
divorce could happen when there was indecency in marriage, which Jesus, he picks up in Matthew 5,
clarifying that divorce was permissible, not commanded, but permissible when adultery had
been committed. In like manner, the apostle Paul clarified that if one person was abandoned by
another, then they were free to remarry. Though in saying that in 1st Corinthians 7,
Paul insists if a fellow believer has a wife who's not a believer and she's willing to continue living
with him, he mustn't leave her. Here Paul's talking about when two people are unbelievers,
and then one of them after they've been married, one becomes a Christian. The question is what
happens then? Paul says don't divorce. But as we know, that's not the situation that Malachi was
addressing here. No, just the opposite. The men of the covenant were abandoning their believing wives
so as to marry those who hadn't embraced the God of Israel. God saw it and called it for what it was.
It was unlawful divorce and this adultery was spreading among his people and corruption and
erosion was the result. No, says Malachi, God wants his people to stick to it. It might seem
hard at times, impossible even. Thus again, Malachi applies the sweet balm of the gospel
to his people. He takes us back to understanding and reminding us who we are and what we are
in light of the gospel. Notice it in verse 15. Has not one God made you? You belong to him in
body and spirit. What does he seek? Godly offspring. Brothers and sisters, our marriage can be hard.
Our marriages can be very hard, very difficult and things can get trying.
But we have to remember that we're not working out our marriages all on our lonesome.
That's what Malachi reminds us of here. We must remember the one who made us, who saved us,
that we belong to him in all that we are and do. Malachi is again reminding us that God is not
aloof or indifferent in regards to our lives, but personally and passionately involved.
He made us and we belong to him and so we mustn't ever think that he leaves us without assistance,
without help as we struggle through the challenges that every single marriage will encounter.
We must take heart. The God who made us, the God who desires our marriages to reflect what God,
Christ has with his church, is passionately involved in our union. As we increase our
passionately involved in our union, as we increasingly seek to mirror the picture that
he has with us so that our marriages might reflect the unbreakable bond of his redemptive covenant
that he has made with his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he does all of this so that all who
see our marriages, including our children, if he so wishes to give them to us, might glorify God,
glorify him for the wonder of his grace in the way that two very different, two very sinful people
might live and love and serve one another, even in their differences.
So as we come to this, to the end of this very sobering part of Scripture,
I just want to point out to you Malachi's last few words there that we find in verses 15 and 16.
He warns in light of all that God is and all what we are in Christ, what we are in Christ,
be on guard. Don't be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. The man who hates and divorces his wife,
says the Lord, the God of Israel, does violence to the one he should protect.
Be on guard. Don't be unfaithful.
Dear church, like Malachi's original audience, we mustn't abandon but fight for our marriages.
But as we've been reminded of here, we must fight for them in the confidence that God
has put you and your significant other together and he has made you one and he cares for you
and will strengthen you even in the most hardest and difficult challenges.
We must all, all of us be reminded of the gospel in our marriages and remember the promises that
are held out to us in the Lord Jesus Christ because we won't get this right much of the time.
We will make mistakes in our marriages. We won't do perfect things but you know what?
Jesus is faithful. He is faithful when we're not. He protects his bride and he never abandons her.
We often are guilty of breaking the covenant with him time and time and time again but he remains
faithful to us. Never breaking covenant with us in his great love because we belong to him.
We are one with him. So I just want to point out two things as we end.
First, if you're looking to get married, marry in the Lord and we're to be faithful to our spouses
and fight for our marriages. Let us cling to the perfect covenant keeper. Let us by his most
holy spirit be strengthened and humble as we seek to serve our spouse in the most hardest
of seasons. Second, I want to address people who may have made the mistakes that Malachi
is trying to protect us from. Perhaps you have married an unbeliever and now you live in the
painful reality and that you find it hard to share the most glorious deepest parts of yourself with
the person who's most dearest to you in this world. Perhaps you're here and you would say that you
have gone through an unlawful divorce and entered into a new marriage and now live in the complicated
messy fallout of those decisions. Well I want to let you know this morning that the gospel applies
to your situation as well. There is good news in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you confess your sin and
seek the mercy of Christ, there's no sin, no act of faithfulness so as to render God's abundant
mercy and forgiveness and grace in Jesus' mute. You might still need to live in the same situation
as you did in the past, but you must not need to live in the guilt of past sin. There is always
a way back into fellowship with God by repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. On the one
hand, don't make the mistake like Malachi's audience here of the gospel, that you have to
live in the same situation as you did in the past. The cross invites any and everyone to come
in humility. It invites you to come with a broken and contrite heart and receive forgiveness that
our God offers us. It invites you to come with a broken and contrite heart and receive forgiveness
that our God offers by grace in our Lord Jesus Christ. So that dear one, you might live with
the experience of Christ's covenant faithfulness that he has achieved on behalf of his people,
even in the midst of our most complex situations.
So church, let us all look to our perfect covenant keeper and let us be obedient in our
relationships. Let's fight for our marriages. Let's have mercy on each other when we make
mistakes, not if, but when we make mistakes, so that our Lord might build us into a firm
fellowship of people whose home life and marriages display the awesome and wonderful grace that we
have all received, so that a watching world at a time when marriages and families are under attack
might see the grace on God's people, all for his glory.
Let's pray. Father God, we are so thankful for the gospel. We are so thankful that we can look to the
Lord Jesus Christ and know and seek and know that we are saved. We ask, Father, that we look to the
Lord Jesus Christ and know and seek and know that we are saved. We ask, Father God, that in the light
and the glory of the gospel that we might work out not just our marriages, but all our relationships,
knowing that you are seeking to save the lost, knowing that you are seeking to bring people to
yourself in the gospel. We ask, as it's been prayed for this morning already, that you would use us
for your glory, that you would use us for your kingdom, and that we would be a people that would
walk in obedience in all areas of our lives. And we ask for this in the name of Jesus. Amen.