Yesterday was our second week in our brief series, "A Look at Advent Through the Old Testament." We normally don't have Life Group the weekend of Christmas with Friends, but since Josh Denhart shared his Intentionally Parenting material with us the prior week, we decided to use yesterday as a make-up day of sorts.
The lesson was from Malachi 2:17-3:5 about "The Refining Love of God". We had some really good discussion, and I thought I'd share my teaching notes:
Icebreaker Question:
Think back to when you were a kid. What are some of the presents you most wanted to see under the tree, but didn't receive?
Background:
The first lesson in this series came from the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah prophesied that God would send His rebellious people into exile. The Babylonians indeed came and conquered Jerusalem, destroying the temple and killing or capturing most of the people of Judah. A few generations later, the people, as God promised, started going back home. And their first order of business was to rebuild the temple. After some opposition and stops & starts, they finally finished the second temple about 70 years after the fall of Jerusalem.
Now we come to Malachi's time. About another 70-80 years has passed since the temple was finished. But the optimism of the exiles has waned, worship of God has dwindled, with symptoms of sinful rebellion and flawed & inadequate sacrifices. God's people were once again becoming restless and bored. They didn't seek Him in worship, and - big shocker - they didn't find Him. They began to question things, and even question Him.
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?
“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. 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. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years
“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.
Teaching point 1: You are loved.
Teaching point 2: The love of God refines us.
Let's walk through this, and as we go, I hope you'll see the truth of these two points.
2:17 – The people have wearied the Lord by saying that “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord” and by asking “Where is the God of justice?”
Since the return from exile, the people have not experienced the prosperity they were expecting. Since the rebuilding of the temple, they have not experienced God's presence like they were expecting.
Q: Do you remember what preceded the temple?
When Moses was on Mount Sinai, he not only received the 10 Commandments and the Law, he received instructions to build the tabernacle. When the tabernacle was finished, we read this in Exodus 40:34-35:
“Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.”
Years later, after the kingdom was instituted in Israel, and after temple was built in Jerusalem, we read this in 1 Kings 8:10-11:
“And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.”
So you can understand if the people in Malachi's day expected a similar experience of the glory of the Lord upon rebuilding the temple. But it didn't happen. And in the years since, they have fallen back into the sinful patterns of their ancestors, assuming that God is absent. Hence the question, “Where is the God of justice?”
And now, God answers the people.
Q: Who do we see in Malachi 3:1? (hints: more than one actor, more than one messenger)
1. The LORD - “I” - the One who sends the messenger. - YAHWEH
2. The Lord's messenger – the one who will prepare the way for another.
1. Who is this messenger?
2. Here's a little Bible trivia: Who was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist? (2 Kings 1:8) - Elijah
3. Look @ 4:5 - “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.” - this messenger will be a prophet like Elijah
4. Matthew 17 – after the Transfiguration, Jesus tells Peter, James, & John that Elijah “has already come”
5. So who is the “Elijah” that has already come?
i. Mark 1:6 – clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist
ii. Matthew, Mark, & Luke, two quoting Jesus, refer to Malachi 3:1 as a prophecy of John the Baptist.
3. So who did this messenger, this prophet, John the Baptist, prepare the way for?
1. “The Lord whom you seek” = “the messenger of the covenant” = “me” in the first sentence
2. For Christ the Lord, for God Himself. He is coming as a person.
4. And where is this prepared way leading? To where is the Christ coming?
1. To the temple. The second temple which was built by the returning exiles.
2. Have any of you been to Jerusalem? Can you tell us about the temple – what it looks like, where it sits, how you felt when you stood in the very place that Christ stood & taught & healed people? Why not? The temple, the so-called second temple, was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. The Christ has already come to His temple, the very temple Malachi knew.
So the people have asked “Where is the God of justice?” And now they're told, just wait, He's coming.
Don't we ask this question today? We all want justice to be done, right? We don't want to see spouses cheat on each other, we don't want to see workers oppressed, we don't want to see widows & orphans with nobody to care for them. We don't want to see the guilty go free. We want to see justice done. But do we want justice for ourselves? Do we want God's justice for our sins? Of course not. In a certain sense, this is a case of “Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.”
3:2 - “Who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?”
We're told several places throughout the Bible that God is a consuming fire. Here in Malachi, He is described as a refiner's fire.
Q: What's the difference between a refiner's fire and an incinerator's fire?
None of us could survive God's consuming fire. And none of us could stand in His presence without His purifying fire.
How can we experience God's fire as refining and not consuming? One thing it cannot be – the answer cannot be “get rid of your own sin.” For then you would need no refining. Refining is for sinners – refining burns up your sin! So if that's not the answer, what is? How indeed can we experience God's fire as refining and not consuming?
In verse 5, it says that God is coming in judgment, and sums up the list of sinners by saying they “do not fear me.” This takes us back to a repeated theme in our study of Ecclesiastes – to fear the Lord. It takes us back throughout the Old Testament. This idea of "the fear of the Lord" can be a confusing idea – does this mean we should be afraid of God, or that we should respect & revere Him? Or both?
One place that captures this is Exodus 20. God has appeared on Mt. Sinai, descending on it in fire, enveloping it in smoke, causing the mountain to tremble. God speaks to His people the 10 Commandments, and the people are understandably frightened. They tell Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” (Exodus 20:19)
And Moses responds, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” (Exodus 20:20) Did you hear that? “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” Don't fear God, but fear God. Clarifying, isn't it?
Here are some words of explanation and illustration from John Piper (from this sermon):
O how we need to meditate on such perplexing texts. "Do not fear. You are being tested." You pass the test only if you don't fear. Yet God desires that the fear of him be always before your eyes. You pass the test by fearing the Lord. The text provides the distinctions necessary to make sense out of this. The fear that Moses was telling them to get rid of was the fear of coming close to God and hearing his voice. The fear that Moses wanted them to keep before their eyes was that God is fearfully powerful and opposed to sin. The fear of kindling God's powerful wrath against sin ought not to drive us away from God but to God for mercy.
[My wife] Noël and the boys and I went out to [our friends] Dick and Irene Tiegen's place last week. They have a big dog as tall as [our son] Benjamin which greeted us with barks and growls from where he was chained. But after we were there and in the house with the dog, he was friendly. Then we went outside again and Irene gave the warning: Don't run from him. But as [our son] Karsten was heading out to the car, the dog came trotting up behind, and instead of slowing down and petting the dog, Karsten started to run, and immediately the dog barked and growled. What a lesson in the fear of God. Irene was Moses and she says to us Israelites, the Piper family, "Do not fear to draw near, but keep the fear of the dog (the fear of the Lord) before your eyes, lest you try to run away (lest you start to fall into sin)." God is a joy to be near and a terror to those who flee. The comparison breaks down, however: Irene put the dog in the basement, but nobody puts God in the basement.
If you are running from God because you are afraid of him, then you are not yet as afraid as you ought to be. In fact, your very flight is a mockery of God, presuming to think that you could outrun this German shepherd. If you really fear him and love your own life, stop running, turn around, and hug his neck for dear life, and he will lick your face. The fear of the Lord is fear of fleeing out of his fellowship into the way of sin. Therefore the fear of the Lord is full of peace and security and hope. It keeps us near to the merciful heart of God, our fortress, our refuge, our sanctuary, our shield, our sun. Isaiah 8:13 says, "The Lord of Hosts, ... let him be your fear, and let him be your dread, and he will become a sanctuary." A proper fear of the Lord keeps us under the shadow of his wings where we need not be afraid.
Praise God that He sent us a Refiner the first Christmas. Praise God that He is our sanctuary, that while He comes to save us in our sin, He doesn't leave us in our sin. I pray that you would embrace God as a Refiner, and trust that the suffering and trials we face are ultimately for our good, as God is chipping away at our sin as He conforms us to the image of Christ. And I pray that we would come to rejoice and seek for Christ's glory to be revealed in us (1 Peter 4:12-19).
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