Malachi 3:13-18

Imagine a sail ship whose crew slowly turns against its own captain, not because he failed them, but because they convinced each other he had. That’s what happened aboard the HMS Bounty in 1789. A handful of sailors, who resented their captain’s rigorous expectations and desired an easier life, began whispering half‑truths and exaggerations about Captain Bligh to one another. The more they repeated their stories, the more the crew believed them.

Before long, the captain’s real character didn’t matter because the talk among the crew had taken over. Their words became stronger than his authority, and in the end, they staged a mutiny. They pointed bayonets at Bligh in the middle of the night, forced him on deck, and ordered him and 18 loyal men aboard the ship’s launch Royal Museums Greenwich. Bligh and his men were then cast adrift in a small boat, navigating over 3,600 nautical miles to safety.

This is the sixth and final time in this book – which is a conversation between God and the people of Israel – that he has told the people they were violating their covenant with him. Like the other five times, they act surprised and ask God to prove what he is saying.

God hears when we speak negatively about him.

Here God makes a new claim to the people of Israel. “‘Your words have been harsh against me,’ says the Lord.” The words translated “harsh against me” can mean a variety of things like “speaking harshly or strongly against someone” or “overruling someone.”

This resembles what happened with the mutiny on the HMS Bounty. Sailors were not speaking harsh or strong words to their captain, they were speaking negative things about him and overruling him by what they said about him to each other.

The people responded to this claim by acting surprised. “How have we spoken against you?” With this response, they understood that God was implying they had said things which resembled some of their notorious, wicked enemies.

• The messengers of the Assyrian king Sennacherib “spoke … against the LORD God” and “wrote letters insulting the LORD, the God of Israel,” saying he was unable to protect Jerusalem (2 Chr 32:16-17).
• The Edomites “boasted against [God] and spoke against [him] without restraint” (Ezk 35:13). The prophet Hosea tells us what God said about them: “Woe to them, because they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, because they have rebelled against me! I long to redeem them but they speak lies against me” (Hos 7:13).
• After he saw the miracle of the fiery furnace, the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar sided with God and decreed that “the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble” (Dan 3:29).

So, the people wanted to know how it was that they had spoken against God like their notorious enemies had done. Had they misheard God? Surely, they were not like Nebuchadnezzar or the Edomites, but God answered their question clearly and quickly:

“You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God; what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked as mourners before the Lord of hosts?’ So now we call the proud blessed, for those who do wickedness are raised up; they even tempt God and go free.’” (Mal 3:14-15)

As you can see, their answer had two parts. The first part was what they were saying about God and the second was what they were saying about wicked people.

When we conclude it is unprofitable to serve him…

The first thing they were telling each other about God is this:

“It is useless to serve God; what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and that we have walked as mourners before the LORD of hosts?” (Mal 3:14)

Here they describe their relationship with God as one of service and conclude that serving God is useless and unprofitable. They had made some kind of attempts to do what the covenant called for them to do but did not receive the financial, material, temporal benefits they had hoped to receive in return.

They were handling their relationship with God in a pragmatic way as if it were a vending machine – “if we do this thing, we’ll get this other thing in return.” In politics, we call this “pay to play,” in business, “quid pro quo,” in marriage, “conditional love,” a “transactional relationship,” or “using someone.” In church, we call it a “consumer mindset.”

Now, apart from this being a self-centered, wrong view of our relationship with God, it also naturally and eventually brings us to a disenchanted, disillusioned view of God.

To be disenchanted or disillusioned means to feel that someone or something you once hoped in and trusted doesn’t meet your expectations. Disenchantment can arise because something truly fails you, or else because your expectations were wrong to begin with.
If you go to McDonalds expecting a 3-star Michelin experience, you’ll be disappointed, but it won’t be McD’s fault because that’s not the kind of restaurant advertise: you had the wrong expectations. But if you go to McD’s for an affordable, fast, and savory meal and you get a large bill, slow service, and dry, lukewarm food, you’ll also be disappointed and it will be McD’s fault since you expected them to be what they advertise.

When people are disenchanted or disillusioned with God, it is never because God has failed them but because they had the wrong expectations, as the people of Israel did. We form wrong expectations when we grade the value of serving God in measurable ways. These measurable ways include the following:

• Measuring Time: grading how soon favorable, positive things happen to us
• Measuring Wealth: grading how our net worth increases
• Measuring Success: grading how much our difficulties and suffering decrease and how much our accomplishments and recognition increase

To be clear, God does intend to bless his children in measurable, material ways. Sometimes, even often, today he does so in the present, in this life to some degree. Consider how Jesus himself said that God responds to his children who make generous financial and material investments into his kingdom:

Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you. (Lk 6:38)

Also consider the timeless promise God gives to people who honor their parents well:

“Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” (Eph 6:2-3)

If you give generously to God’s kingdom, he says he will bless you through the generosity of others. And if you honor your father and mother, he may bless you with a healthy and long life in this world. But sometimes God provides these blessings at a later time than we want him to or in another form than we assumed them to be, and he may even defer these blessings to eternity beyond the grave. Even so, God does what he says he will do.

God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? (Num 23:19)

One man who struggled with this challenge of looking and waiting for God’s blessing as he was faithfully serving God was the prophet, Isaiah. Notice how he wondered whether his service to God had been worthwhile, because people didn’t generally respond to his message and ministry in a positive, receptive way:

Then I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain; yet surely my just reward is with the Lord, and my work with my God.” (Isaiah 49:3)

But when he expressed his question to God, he quickly pivoted to a God-focused perspective. He chose to trust the outcome of his service for God to God. But that’s not how the people of Israel responded to a similar question. Instead, they turned their eyes away from God and concluded that a worldly life was better than a life of serving God.

When we conclude a worldly life is better …

The second thing they were telling each other about God is this:

“Now we call the proud blessed, for those who do wickedness are raised up; they even tempt God and go free.” (Mal 3:15)

Since they weren’t getting the benefits they wanted from God when they wanted them, they looked around and saw arrogant and evil people living godless, worldly lifestyles. These people actively, even intentionally, opposed God. But the irony was that they seemed to enjoy the blessings, stability, and freedom that the people of Israel wanted.

When they saw this paradox, an apparent contradiction, they reached what seemed to be a logical, rational conclusion. If people who serve God receive lower- or slower-than-expected material and tangible blessings, and if people who don’t serve God receive more immediate, measurable material blessings, then it made better sense not to serve God.

But this is like a teacher trying to prove that sugar makes students smarter. So, she gives a group of students a full-size candy bar before a test, and that group scores higher than another group gets no candy scores lower. It would be easy to say, “See, sugar helps students do better!” But that conclusion would be faulty, because there may be other reasons for the difference in student performance.

Perhaps the first group had more sleep, studied more carefully, or simply came to class better prepared. Without taking those things into account, the conclusion sounds logical, but it is reliable because it lacked proper controls. In the same way, the people of Israel looked at their lives and concluded that serving God seemed empty and unprofitable, while those who ignored God seemed to flourish. But they were judging too soon. They were not factoring in God’s patience and wisdom, the difference between temporary ease and true, eternal blessing, or the certainty that God will make all things right in the end.

Psalm 73:1-3 expresses a similar struggle, only in this case, the person struggling with this was self-aware and repented of his wrong perspective.

Truly God is good to Israel, to such as are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

Do you ever feel this way? That serving God is costly, inconvenient, and not worth your effort and time? Would you rather do things which have more immediate material and tangible returns?

God hears when we express our loyalty to him.

At this point in the conversation God was having with Israel, some of the people chose to let go of the popular talking points against God and band together over a shared faith and trust in God. These were genuine believers and followers of God who had been drawn in by the peer pressure prevailing talking points of their community and culture at that time. But because of their genuine faith, they corrected their course and rejected that thinking.

They “feared the Lord” (2x) and “thought much and highly of his name” (Mal 3:16). This means that they decided to dismiss the faulty conclusions of the majority, namely that it was more profitable and useful not to serve God than it was to serve him. They decided to broaden their perspective account for everything they knew about God.

To fear God means to take seriously everything you know about him and live in a way that respects and responds well to who he is, no matter what the immediate benefits may or may not be. In this case, as it usually does, it meant that the people chose to serve him no matter how low or slow their material, tangible, and temporal blessings seemed to be. We’re familiar with these two competing underlying motives, transactional or devotion.

In marriage, some are loving for comfort, security, or affection, but others are faithful because they’re devoted to their spouse. At work, some labor for pay, praise, or promotion, but others work with integrity because they believe in the mission of the company. In friendship, some stay close because the relationship is useful, but others do so because they truly care. In parent-child relationships, some children obey only for allowance or privileges, while others obey out of love and respect. And in church involvement, some participate for encouragement, help, or social benefits, while others do because they love God and want to worship him no matter what – they fear him.

When immediate benefits slow down or disappear, transactional motives are exposed, but devotion remains steady. And God responds to genuine devotion in a devoted way. He expresses this devotion in Malachi 3:16-18 in four ways.

He remembers those who serve him.

Malachi described how a “book of remembrance” was written before God (3:16). This book could be several things. Some people believe this refers to something called “the Book of Life” elsewhere in the Bible. Others believe it refers to a special book created by God for this specific moment and group of people. Still others believe it refers to a book that people – possibly Malachi himself – created at this moment to write down the names of the people who chose to follow God by faith even when material blessings were thin.

Esther 6 is a good example of this practice. There the Persian king, Ahasuerus, could not sleep, so he ordered the official records to be read to him and realized that a Jewish man named Mordecai had once exposed a plot against his life. That act of loyalty had been written down, preserved, and then brought back to the king’s attention at the right time so he could reward it properly. In this case, he honored and promoted Mordecai, executed Mordecai’s enemy, Haman, and protected Mordecai’s people Israel from destruction.

In the same way, Malachi uses the image of a “book of remembrance” to show that God does not overlook those who fear him. The thief on the cross used the same language, hen he asked Christ to “remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Lk 23:42).

God remembers both disloyalty and loyalty, selfish motives and devotion, and will respond to each in his time. Though immediate blessings may seem few, when the time is right, he will bless, exalt, and reward those who fear him.

He treasures those who serve him.

Not only does God remember those who serve him, but he treasures them. The phrase “make them my jewels” means something like “make them my special treasure” and refers to God choosing some people out of many into a special, unique place of recognition and relationship with him.

In Exo 19:5, at Mount Sinai, when God formed the Hebrew descendants of Abraham into the special nation of Israel, he used the same language to describe all the people of Israel from an ethnic, national standpoint.

If you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine.

Now here, about 1,000 years later, God uses the same language but narrows the scope from all who are born into Israel to all who serve him, fear him, and meditate on his name.

“Possession” is a technical expression of the people of YHWH as His treasure or property, one rightly His by virtue of redemption. (Eugene Merrill)

“Like a shepherd coming to claim his lost sheep and like a bridegroom coming for his bride, God will come to claim his people who are prepared to meet him.” (Taylor & Clendenen)

Think of the many stuffed animals scattered throughout your bedroom (when you were a kid). One or two are clearly your favorite – do you know its name? Anyone can tell which ones they are because they are the most worn. The fur is matted, a seam may be loose, an arm, eye, or leg may be missioned, and all because have been carried, hugged, played with, cried on, and slept with far more than the others. The wear does not make them less valuable to the child; it proves they are especially treasured.

Which is best, to receive treasure from God or be treasured by God? And if earthly, temporal blessings seem thin and if your life of following God seems hard now, which is better – an immediate outpouring of material blessings or hearing and knowing more deeply that God treasures you more than anything else in the world? The cure to disenchantment and disillusionment with God is not more immediate, material blessings from God but a deeper, more personal realization that God treasures you.

He spares those who serve him.

Not only does God remember and treasure those who serve him, but he spares them, too. And here, Malachi leans firmly into this promise to spare them. He does this by repeating the statement twice, one after the other. In the study of biblical Hebrew translation, we call this “telescoping” – it describes how a concept is introduced in one statement, then repeated and expanded from that point more emphatically in the next.

Here, God says he will “spare them” in the first statement, then he says he will “spare them” a second time in the next statement but describes it in an even more special way than the generic statement that came before. So, how does a father spare “his own son who serves him”? Douglas Stewart explains this very helpfully:

“The son who serves his father (or, more neutrally, the child who serves a parent) is twice beloved. He enjoys the love of the father automatically because he is his child, and beyond that he has pleased the father by faithful service. The father’s favor is both natural and earned, both instinctive and merited.”

This special promise explains how God would treat those people of Israel who served him in genuine faith and devotion, not merely for immediate, material blessings. When he finally judged the world in a full and decisive way, he would spare totally spare them from his wrath and judgment – not just a little, but completely.

The word “spare” itself means to show compassion or mercy and speaks of treating someone in a special way that they don’t deserve. And this can only refer to a person who accepts and understands that they are a sinner who deserves God’s judgment, not a good or neutral person who deserves God’s blessing.

And this is one of evidence or symptoms of a transactional relationship with God, one motivated primarily by potential blessings rather than by a deep respect for God himself. This evidence may be called “entitlement,” which is the mindset that God owes you blessing, comfort, and reward – that you inherently deserve these things.

But a heart of genuine faith and devotion to God is not marked by an entitled attitude. It is marked by a humble, repentant attitude that is deeply persuaded you do not deserve his blessing and are amazed that he would remember, treasure, and spare you at all.

He separates those who serve him.

Finally, God not only remembers, treasures, and spares those who are faithfully devoted to him, he separates them, too. Why is this important? To help us understand the purpose for this promise, we should pay attention to the word “again” (Mal 3:18). With this word in mind, we should compare the beginnings of God’s covenant with Israel at Sinai with the people of Israel 1,000 years later after they returned from captivity in Assyria and compare it to how planting a garden works.

When a person plants a garden, it’s easy to tell the difference between the garden and the rest of the countryside around it. This distinction becomes more difficult to see, though, after the onset of weeds. As weeds grow and spread and the garden becomes indistinguishable from the countryside, it becomes necessary to either weed the garden by separating and removing the weeds.

When God established his covenant with Israel at Sinai, it was easy to tell the difference between the people of Israel and the unbelieving people of the world. But as years wore on, the nation became increasingly populated by people who were following God for immediate, material, temporal benefits only. So, at the end of time, God will separate from those who genuinely believe on him from those who do not. Today, that may not immediately be clear, but it will be perfectly clear on that day.

Then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him. (Mal 3:18)

Jesus taught more about this future time of judgement and separation (Mt 13:41-43):

The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

At this time, the consequences of your motivations for following God will be more crucial than anything you can desire or value in this immediate, material, and temporal life. God will not separate people the way our present world does, by measurable, tangible factors: age group, stage of life, IQ, tax filing status, ethnicity, nationality, professional titles, credit score, gender, marital status, political party, social class, income bracket, and more.

Instead, he will separate and categorize us by one thing – whether or not be believed on Christ, feared God, and served him with genuine, devoted, loyal faith that endured, even in difficult times when material, temporal, immediate blessings were low and slow.

So, in Malachi 3:13-18, we see that the real crisis in Israel wasn’t their difficult, uncomfortable circumstances but their attitude towards God. They had allowed disappointment, delay, and comparison to change their theology. They spoke harshly about God, not with raised fists but with quiet, cynical conversations that spoke of him like we do when we leave 1- and 2-star reviews on Google or Yelp for a business or service-provider who provided unsatisfactory care.

God revealed their transactional motives and contrasted them with a smaller number among them who feared him, meditated his name, and served him even when blessings were low and slow. And God promised that he remembers, treasures, spares, and will one day separate those who truly belong to him. The question Malachi leaves ringing in our ears is not whether God is faithful, but whether we will trust God’s devotion when the immediate rewards are hard to see.

The call for us is clear: believe on Christ, fear God, and serve him with a loyal heart. Let his character and his Word, not your circumstances, shape your conclusions about God, about life, and about the people around you. Examine your motives honestly before him.

Are you following Christ because he is worthy, or because you hope he will make life easier for you today? Are you serving Him for who he is, or for what you hope he will give you? The God who remembers, treasures, spares, and separates his people is looking and listening for hearts that are wholly his, hearts that will follow Christ at any cost, even when blessings are delayed, disguised, or deferred to eternity.

Let us reject the consumer mindset that whispers, “What does it profit to follow Christ?” Today is a good day to realign your heart with the fear of the Lord and renew your loyalty to him, regardless of your circumstances.

A gardener once planted two trees side by side. One grew quickly into a tree that was tall, leafy, and impressive see. The other grew slowly into a tree that was small, sturdy, and unimpressive. Neighbors praised the fast-growing tree, but the gardener kept tending the slow one with careful love and a green thumb.

Years later, a violent storm swept through. The tall tree snapped in half, but the small tree stood firm because its roots had grown slow but deep. Though this surprised many, they didn’t realize that the fast-growing tree had a shallow root system and a fragile trunk.

In the same way, don’t be enamored by or feel entitled to the material blessings this temporal world can offer. Though God can and does bless his people in these ways today, we should be sure not to demand those things from him but rather devote ourselves to serving him because he is worthy. God is not impressed by the quick, comfortable, flashy lifestyles of material success. He treasures the quiet, steady devotion of those who fear him in any circumstance and serve him even when the winds of difficulty and trial blow.

May we at Brookdale be a group of committed believers who are like that tree, rooted, faithful, and standing firm in the end because we know that we don’t deserve God’s blessings and because we believe, fear, and serve him no matter what.

Discussion Questions

• Why do you think we discount the effect of negative speech, like the speech of the  HMS Bounty or the people of Israel?
• How do we operate on a “transactional” (quid quo pro/pay-to-play) basis in our ministry at church? In our prayer lives?
• What are some practical ways that we can maintain proper expectations of God’s blessings to those who serve him?
• What could be some positive aspects to material, tangible blessings being low and slow?
• How is an attitude of humility and repentance an antidote to entitlement?
• What do you desire most during times of disenchantment?
  • How can faith in the future separation of those who serve God from those who do not impact our desires during those times?

Malachi 3:7-12

The book of Malachi is written as a conversation between God and his people. This conversation is important because it happened after 2,000 years of God being faithful to his promise with Abraham and after 1,500 years of being faithful to Abraham’s descendants, rescuing them from slavery in Egypt, forming a permanent covenant with them, and giving them the land of Palestine as their own.

This whole, very long span of time, he had faithfully and loyally loved them – meeting their needs, correcting them when they went astray, and using every means possible to form a close and special relationship with them. Despite his abundant, enduring love for them, he initiated this conversation with them through the prophet Malachi to point out a series of clear ways they were either neglecting or rebelling against their covenant with God.

This conversation is disappointing because each time God points out an area of neglect or rebellion, the people respond with denial and surprise. “How could this be true? Surely, God is misunderstanding something or being hypersensitive.” The dialogue sounds like the script of a parent having a conversation with a child or teenager who isn’t listening well or like an interaction with a person who has fallen into a pattern of projection.

The next section of this conversation continues in this way. And it begins with a blunt, simple statement by God, followed quickly by a surprising observation – surprising to the people, at least.

First, God asks a blunt question: “Will a person rob God?” (3:8). Now, who would knowingly try to do such a thing? It’s an absurd situation, like trying to rob a police officer, cheat against a chess master, pick a fight with a professional wrestler, or injure your mom. To steal from God would make no sense because he knows and sees everything, loves the whole world, and will be the judge of every person.

But God follows with a massive claim: “Yet you have robbed me!” (3:8). He says in unmistakable, unmysterious terms that his own people had robbed him. Not foreigners, not enemies, but his own people. How shocking is that? Somehow, they had taken wrongly for themselves what belonged only, rightfully to him. They had stolen from God.

This claim seems to have surprised the people, because they immediately asked, “How have we robbed you?” (3:8). It seems they had become so desensitized, oblivious, and unaware of their own actions that they were robbing God without realizing it.

Was God accusing the people of kleptomania? Kleptomania is an impulsive behavior, repeatedly stealing items you don’t need due to a strong urge that feels irresistible. But this wasn’t the problem in view. They weren’t stealing from God by taking things away from him; they were stealing from him by withholding what was rightfully his.

A person audited by the government can understand this scenario. You receive a letter in the mail saying you may have wrongly reported or withheld taxes. Unless you have done this intentionally, you are surprised and want to know what you may have done wrong or how you have misunderstood the tax code. Tax rules can be quite complicated, right?

But God’s answer wasn’t hard to understand. He gave a clear and quick answer that didn’t require complicated explanations: “In tithes and offerings” (3:8). Okay, so there you have it. They were robbing God by withholding tithes and offerings they were supposed to be giving to him. So then, what are tithes and offerings? What was God referring to?

The word tithe appears 14 times in the Pentateuch: Genesis 1x (Gen 14:20), Leviticus 5x (Lev 27:30-32), Numbers 3x (Num 18:21, 24, 26), and Deuteronomy 5x (Dt 12:17; 14:23, 28; 26:12), 14x total in the covenant God made with Israel (13x in the rest of the OT).

The word offering appears 44 times in the Pentateuch: Exodus 17x, Leviticus 6x, Numbers 8x, and Deuteronomy 3x. (32x times in the rest of the OT).

When paired together, these words speak of contributions God asked his people to give, and they were to give them for sacred purposes, purposes which were an important part of his covenant with them, which required financial and material resources to do.

Think of it this way. When a man marries a wife, there are some basic financial and material expectations which are an important part of that relationship covenant. The husband now becomes responsible for giving a significant portion of his income to fund things which are important priorities to and for his wife. Not only do they share food, housing, and travel expenses, but he must also provide for her wardrobe, dietary and medical needs, sometimes her education, and also her hobbies and other interests.

If a husband views these marriage obligations as a negative, selfish expectation and refuses to contribute to those needs through his financial and material resources, he is neglectful and unfaithful to her, and he calls into question whether he is devoted, loving, and loyal to her as a husband. He is robbing her. That’s what Israel was doing to God.

So, what are tithes and offerings? Tithe means “tenth part” and refers to 10% of a person’s financial and material increase. Offering is a more general word for a range of things which people were to give to carry out and support God’s sacred purposes.

In OT times, people would give not only money but also other material resources: grain, oil, gold, fruit, jewelry, cloth, animals, silver, bronze, spices, and more. They used money as a form of exchange much less than we do today and did more bartering instead.

These resources were primarily used to support the worship of God in the Temple in three ways: providing supplies needed to conduct worship activities and events, providing resources needed to build or maintain the worship facilities, providing income and resources priests needed to survive and to provide for their families, both when they served as priests (from age 25) and when they retired (from age 50 onward).

These resources were also used to care for the needs of orphans, poor, and widows who had no family to care for them, and of foreign people who had turned to faith in God and lived in Israel but had no inherited land. These were all causes dear to God’s heart, and being in a close relationship with God meant caring for those things together with God and for God with the resources God gave them.

Altogether, the tithes and offerings God called for totaled about 23% of an average man’s annual income in Israel at that time. Knowing this total percentage helps God’s correction and instruction to Israel in Mal 3:10 make more sense:

“Bring all [emphasis added] the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house.”

This food God requested would be stored in warehouses built for this purpose, and the supplies stored in those warehouses would be distributed to provide for priests and their families, for ceremonies and festivals at the Temple, and for orphans, poor, and widows which needed care, as well as foreigners who lived among them without land.

So, to say “bring all the tithes” is a clue that people were not robbing God by giving no tithes and offerings at all (though this may have been true for some people), but by only bringing some tithes and offerings, not all of them. So, the sacred causes previously mentioned and important to God were being neglected, underfunded, and unfulfilled.

Now that we have gained a clear understanding of what God is saying here, let’s do two more things. First, let’s take a closer look not only at the meaning of what God says here, which we have already done, but the significance of it in a spiritual sense. Then, let’s ask how this message applies to us today, if at all – because, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not Jewish people living in Old Testament Israel and following the Mosaic Law.

Generosity towards God was a test of devotion.

When we talk about things like tithing and giving money to God, it’s easy to think legalistically. We naturally ask questions like, “What should I give,” “how much should I give,” and “how often should I give?”

For a variety of reasons, some more valid than others, we tend to have a negative, pessimistic, and reluctant attitude towards churches and pastors talking about money and tithing. While the reasons for this attitude are important to explore, we don’t have time to do that today. But I hope you can set such an attitude aside, if it even exists in your heart, to recognize two things.

First, God does talk about giving money and resources to support sacred causes which are important to him. Second, just because bad actors have abused this teaching for ungodly purposes is a poor reason to minimize, neglect, or reject this teaching from God. Should a husband refuse to marry a wife or else refuse to give generous support to his wife once married because bad wives exist and have abused this expectation? No.

So, here is the most important question of the day. Not, “what should I give,” “how much should I give,” and “how often should I give?” I’ll attempt to answer those questions briefly at the end of the sermon. But first, we must ask the deeper, motivating question: “Why should I give money and resources to God?”

It tested a person’s devotion to God.

As we’ve already learned, tithes and offerings were not rituals and rules assigned by God because he likes telling people what to do. They also were not God’s way of getting resources from people because he needed their help; God doesn’t need anyone’s help and has all the resources he needs at any time. So, if God doesn’t need his people to give him financial and material resources, why does he ask them to give them to him?

The answer is tied to the way God intended for these resources to be used – those sacred causes of worshiping him and caring for people who relied more directly on him for their livelihood. Though God could provide for these people however he wanted and without any help from people, he called people in a close, loving, covenant relationship with him to be part of this process to test their devotion to him and the things he cares about.

In other words, God wanted to give his people a clear, obvious way to show – beyond words alone – that they were devoted to him by investing in those things which he cared for deeply. Tithes and offerings were God’s way of involving his people in fulfilling his sacred purposes, and they were to do this with resources he gave them for this reason.

“Israel’s attitude toward and use of their possessions was one indication of the health of their relationship with God.” (J. H. Wright)

When they faithfully gave that 23% of their income to the purposes God outlined in his covenant with them, they showed evidence of belief and devotion to him. When they withheld all or some of those contributions, they showed a lack of devotion to God. As Jesus himself would clearly explain 400 years later to the Jewish people:

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Mt 6:21)

With this simple test, Christ shows us how to know what we really value in life. If you invest money and resources into your wife and your children, men, that means far more than saying, “I love you,” then turning around to invest large portions of your income into personal development and hobbies while neglecting or resenting any significant financial investments in your wife and children. In his excellent book, Money, Possessions, and Eternity, Randy Alcorn makes this excellent suggestion:

We should consider the converse of what Jesus said in Matthew 6:21: Where our treasure isn’t shows where our heart isn’t.

And that was the primary, underlying reason for tithes and offerings in God’s covenant with Israel. He didn’t ask for these things because he needed these things from them – after all, he was the one who gave them everything for them in the first place. He arranged things this way to give them a clear, obvious way to know and show that they loved him. But this arrangement also tested something else.

It tested God’s devotion to his people.

First, let’s ask, why would people not give tithes and offerings to God, amounting to 23% of their annual income? Reasons could be multiple, ranging from outright rebellion and refusal to ignorance or laziness, to simply being afraid they would not be able to take care of themselves, or at least to provide a lifestyle for themselves that they wanted to have.

Whatever the case, God gave them a challenge. “Try me now in this,” he said (Mal 3:10). The word try me (“test me”) can mean various things in Scripture. Sometimes, it means to challenge or dispute something, as how the first generation of Israel tested God in the wilderness by their repeated complaining and disobedience, testing the limits of God’s longsuffering, mercy, and patience.

Other times, it means to check, evaluate, or test the integrity or reliability of something. When I was in sixth grade, I made a toothpick bridge. Then I tested my bridge by hanging bricks on it in a bucket to see how much weight it could bear without breaking.

That’s what “try me” means here. God is telling his people that if they are withholding tithes and offerings because they feared they couldn’t afford to obey, then they should think differently. If there was something they couldn’t afford, it was withholding tithes not giving them. Their cautious, neglectful, or reticent approach was the reason for their financial and material difficulties, not a solution.

It is wrong to test God with complaining, rebellion, and unbelief, it is not wrong to test him with obedience, especially when he commands it.” (Taylor and Clendenen)

Withholding contributions from God actually put them in a less beneficial, less prosperous position. They were “under a curse” (3:9), something God had warned them about 1,500 years before in the covenant given through Moses (Dt 28:15-68), and which prophets had reminded them about many times since then. He refers to effects of this curse in 3:11 when he says their “fruit was being destroyed” and “vines were failing to produce fruit.”

In summary, he says, “I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes” (3:11), which means he would bring to an end whatever was destroying their crops and reducing their production. Devourer describes “something that eats” and is used in Scripture to describe fire when it devours cities (Hos 8:14), wild animals when they ate crops (Hos 2:12), and locusts, a flying insect which would devour entire fields at harvest.

Here, the devourer refers generally to all or anything which might cause the people’s income or production to decrease or be destroyed. God promised that if they would resume their devotion to him through tithes and offerings, he would reverse the curse and bless them greatly instead. He describes his desire to bless them this way:

“I will open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.” (3:10)

“Windows [floodgates] of heaven” occurs in Gen 7:11 and 8:2 to describe the source of torrential rains which flooded the entire earth at the time of Noah. But here, God uses this language to describe not floods of divine judgement but floods of divine blessing.

“There will not be room enough to receive it” should remind us of v.10, where God tells Israel to bring all their tithes into his storehouse at the Temple. In other words, if they would fill his warehouses with tithes and offerings to use for his sacred purposes, he would fill their own personal storage places (barns, stables, vats, warehouses, wells, etc.) so completely that they wouldn’t even have room to contain it all.

When (if) people showed their devotion to God by bringing all their tithes and offerings to him, he would bless and prosper them so abundantly that neighboring, surrounding nations and people in the world would be amazed and drawn to God by seeing the devotion and generosity of his people and the devotion and generosity of God.

“All nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,” says the LORD of hosts.

From this we see that God desires to bless his people not only for their own enjoyment and pleasure, though this is also true, but he desires to do this so that other people will see his glory and be drawn to faith in him.

Generosity towards God today is a test of devotion and delight.

With these things in mind, let’s now ask, “How do these things God said to Israel in the OT apply to us today?” Let me make a clear and simple observation. The NT gives no specific commands to tithe. The only times the NT speaks about tithing are when Jesus corrects the Pharisees for their wrong view of tithing or when the writer of Hebrews makes observations about tithing that happened in the OT.

But this doesn’t mean that we have no need to give financially and materially to support God’s sacred causes. Consider the following NT statements given to people in the church. These statements reveal some of God’s sacred causes today and they are very similar to the sacred causes of God in the OT.

Supporting Pastoral Leaders in the Church

Churches don’t have priests to serve them since all believers are priests today. But churches do have pastors and teachers to provide them with spiritual care and guidance.

The Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel. (1 Cor 9:14)

Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches. (Gal 6:6)

Supporting Other Faithful Members in the Church with Real Needs

Churches don’t have a large-scale obligation to care for the needs of underprivileged people in our community, as Israel did, because Israel was both a religious group as well as a government. Churches are not the government, so some of those needs are to be cared for by our government instead. Even so, the NT does call churches to care for genuine needs of members within the church who have no other source of support.

Widows and Orphans: Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble… (Jam 1:27)

Widows: Honor widows who are really widows. (1 Tim 5:3)

Other Churches in Need: Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. (Acts 11:29)

Other Churches in Need: It pleased those from Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor among the saints who are in Jerusalem. (Rom 15:25-27)

Supporting Other Faithful Ministers

Even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessities. (Phil 4:16)

Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers, who have borne witness of your love before the church. If you send them forward on their journey in a manner worthy of God, you will do well. (3 Jn 5-6)

And as we do life and ministry together as a church, there are necessary financial and resource demands that come with that – things like building maintenance, insurance, and other practical costs associated with the ministry and worship that we do together.

As followers of Christ and members of this church together, God calls us – among other things – to give financially and materially to support God’s sacred purposes in the church, which is his Bride. While we don’t have a command to “tithe” today, we do have clear guidance from God to churches in the NT to provide generous support to the church as a faithful, loving response to God’s grace – not out of duty but from devotion and delight.

Consider what the following NT Scriptures teach us about giving in the church today, taken from 2 Corinthians 8-9:

Moreover, brethren, we make known to you the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia: that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded in the riches of their liberality. For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. (2 Cor 8:1-4)

From this we see we should give (1) motivated by God’s grace, (2) even during difficult trials, (3) motivated by joy, (4) liberally (generously), (5) sacrificially, and (6) willingly.

As you abound in everything – in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all diligence, and in your love for us – see that you abound in this grace also. (2 Cor 8:7)

From this we see we should seek to be abundant, generous givers just as we should seek to be abundant and faithful in other acts of Christian faith, speech, learning, ministry, and love. We should not view these other means of Christian service and support for the church as alternatives to financial giving, nor should we view financial giving as an alternative to these other forms of service. But we should include generous, willing financial support for the church and its vital functions as an essential part of our church responsibilities portfolio, so to speak.

The rest of 2 Cor 8 provides more good teaching about being a generous giver to the church, then 2 Cor 9 gives some practical guidance for how to do this:

Prepare your generous gift beforehand, which you had previously promised, that it may be ready as a matter of generosity and not as a grudging obligation. (2 Cor 9:5)

Paul said something similar in 1 Cor 16:2, when he said:

On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come.

From this we see the wisdom of giving intentionally, regularly, and with planning, not just spontaneously “in the moment.” We also see more encouragement to give generously, not out of mere obligation or pressure. 2 Cor 9:6-7 continues emphasizing these themes:

He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.

Again, we see an increased emphasis on being generous, being purposeful, planned, and intentional, being willing not coerced, and being cheerful and glad to give, not reluctant to do so. And we see that when we give this way, God promises to bless us abundantly in return, however he desires to do so.

The administration of this service not only supplies the needs of the saints, but also is abounding through many thanksgivings to God, while, through the proof of this ministry, they glorify God for the obedience of your confession to the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal sharing with them and all men. (2 Cor 9:12-13)

Here, Paul emphasizes the importance of giving to meet the needs of fellow believers in the church – which includes both church leaders and other members and churches in financial need. Then he points out how generous giving in this way greatly increases praise to God and the beauty and power of the gospel. And all of this happens when people in the church are generous in their giving to the needs of the church.

You might say, “Well, this all sounds good, but I just can’t afford to give much at all.” Or you might say, I agree with all of this in theory, but I’m not genuinely happy about it, so I don’t want to give in an insincere way – therefore I don’t give much right now. If you feel this way, then you’re not alone. According to a recent survey by Vanco, a provider of church management and stewardship solutions:

• Just 27% of churchgoers give at least the traditional tithe of 10% of their income, and that figure has stayed fairly consistent in recent years.
• Roughly 70% of all Christian giving comes from the top 10 percent of Christian donors.

This last stat matches a common, recurring phenomenon in which a small percentage of people in a church provide the majority of financial contributions and support. But does it have to be that way, and more specifically, does it have to be that way at Brookdale?

Let me remind you what Christ himself taught us – and this is not just a requirement of the OT law, it is a universal principle we should wholeheartedly embrace.

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. (Mt 6:33)

Here, Christ teaches us to make the priorities of his kingdom our top priority. When we do, he promises to take care of all our earthly needs. Do you believe this and do you have intentional, regular habits of giving generously, joyfully, and willingly to support the sacred causes which are dear to God’s heart through the church? Jesus also said this:

“Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Lk 6:38)

And while we’re at it, you should know that he also said this – and Paul said this is something we would do well to remember:

Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” (Acts 20:35)

And according to Jesus, it is much better to give than receive. And this is so true in a church for sure. It is one thing to be blessed, encouraged, and served by a faithful church, but it is so much more special to give back to that church, to become a generous contributor, donor, and supporter, not just a receiver. And doing this shows not only devotion but delight in God’s sacred purposes.

At Brookdale, we call this our Mission Investment Plan (MIP), which is an annual financial guide the pastors and deacons prepare and the church approves. It maps out the cost of doing the things we need to do as a church to fulfill our sacred purposes. It also features three levels – an essentials level, a growth level, and an abundance level, which gives us additional opportunities to expand and increase our effectiveness if we devote ourselves and find delight in giving back to God in an especially generous and joyful way.

If you are a member or considering becoming a member of our church, I would encourage you to be familiar with our MIP and to ask yourself before God if this is a way that you could express your devotion and delight in God for his church through your financial support. Our deacons or pastors would be very happy to talk about this with you. We also have a deacons’ fund, which is a special way we have of caring for people in need, as Scripture calls us to do.

In closing, let me pass along some wise and motivating words by Randy Alcorn about a possible response I might have to a sermon like this:

“God says not to give if you can’t give cheerfully. I can’t give cheerfully so I don’t give!” God wants us to be cheerful, yes, but he also wants us to be obedient. The path to cheerfulness is not by abstaining from giving, but giving even when we don’t feel like it. If we’re not cheerful, the problem is our heart, and the solution is redirecting our heart, not withholding our giving. Our heart follows our treasures (Matthew 6:21). Put your treasures in God’s kingdom, and a cheerful heart will eventually follow. God also loves an obedient giver.”

In conclusion, while we don’t live under the OT law today, the NT clearly teaches many similar principles: God still calls his people to give generously, willingly, and joyfully to support the sacred causes that matter deeply to him through the church. And if God expected his people to contribute 23% of their annual income for his sacred purposes before Christ died on the cross, how much more should the grace of Christ given to us now move us to be generous financial supporters of his church today?

Though we have not taken time today to address all the reasons why people may feel pessimistic or reticent about giving money to the church today, I hope this simple and straightforward teaching from Scripture has persuaded you that this is a good and important, even exciting, thing to do. And if you have questions about anything in this message, please feel free to speak with a pastor or deacon to learn more. Is it possible that you are robbing God? If so, it doesn’t have to stay that way. You can be a generous, joyful giver to the sacred causes that God cares about deeply.

Discussion Questions

• What is an example of a big purchase (at the time) for which you saved up when you were younger? (Either as a child or even as an adult.)
• Since God does not need people’s money to fund his purposes in the world, why does he ask believers to give toward his cause?
• What does Jesus teach that we can discover from our financial investment habits in Matthew 6:21?
• Is God’s command to “try” him surprising to you? How can it be right to test God?
• In what ways does generous giving to God glorify him?
• Should we give when we do not feel cheerful about it? (2 Cor 9:7)

Malachi 2:17–3:6

A parent stands in the doorway of the family room. With dinner nearly ready and toys across the floor, they tell their child, calmly and clearly, “It’s time to pick up your toys.” The child barely looks up. “I’m still playing with them,” she says. The parent replies, “You’ve had hours to play and dinner is almost ready.” But the child replies, “You never let me finish anything.”

“That’s not true, I’ve let you finish many things, just look at all the pictures and building sets sitting on the table over there.” “You’re always telling me what to do.” “I’m your parent. Pick them up.” “But you never listen to me,” replies the child. And then the child looks straight at the parent and says, “Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

Conversations like this are hard to handle. How should we respond when the person we speak with shifts blame, ignores correction, and accuses you of the very ways in which they are wrong. That sort of interaction is expected from children and can happen from teenagers, too. But unfortunately, it often happens from adults, too. When adults interact this way with God, it is especially disappointing.

This is what Israel was doing to God in Malachi 2:17–3:6. In fact, it’s what they do through the entire book of Malachi. God gives them a correction or statement and they argue and ask questions right back, saying things which show they aren’t listening to what he says.

• He’s told them how deeply he loves them, but they questioned his love.
• He’s told them they are being disrespectful, but they insist they are being respectful.
• He’s told them they are being disloyal, but they insist they are being loyal.

Back and forth they go until next, they question whether God is just and faithful. Have you ever done this? Have you ever argued with God rather than take seriously what he says?

We weary God when we ask insincere questions about his justice. (2:17)

The people of Israel were accusing God of favoring evil people over them. They said, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them,” and asked, “Where is the God of justice?”

It seems these were two popular sayings repeated by people in Israel at that time. With these comments, they accused God of failing to be who he claimed to be and expressed dissatisfaction with God and what he was doing in their lives. They had a pessimistic view of God’s character and promises and portrayed God as being inconsistent and negligent.

There’s an English idiom, “Not all it’s cracked up to be.” It’s based on an old use of the word “crack,” which meant to brag highly about something or talk something or someone up. The famous American pioneer, Davy Crocket, said this about Martin van Buren (a politician who became the 8th U.S. president), “He’s not all he’s cracked up to be.”

Doubters and skeptics through the ages have raised similar remarks about God, saying he’s not all Scripture claims him to be. But Malachi says comments like these “weary God.” To be weary means to be physically exhausted from strenuous labor or emotionally exhausted due to relentless frustration. Endless, unresolved arguments can do this.

Since God is all-powerful and infinite, we know he cannot be weary in a literal sense (Isa 40:28). In fact, he is the source of strength for people who are weary (Isa 43:29-31). So, when God says people weary him, he is saying that his patience is nearing an end. And what was bringing his patience to an end? The senseless claims and questions of Israel.

God didn’t view questions like theirs as expressions of natural curiosity, healthy relationship building, or searching for the truth. He viewed them as expressions of foolish, stubborn unbelief about things which are clearly, plainly obvious. This disproves a maxim promoted by scientist Carl Sagan and popularized by newspaper columnist, Abigail Van Buren, author of the Milwaukee newspaper column “Dear Abby.”

“There are naïve questions, tedious questions, ill-phrased questions, questions put after inadequate self-criticism. But every question is a cry to understand the world. There is no such thing as a dumb question.” (Carl Sagan)

“There is no such thing as a stupid question if it's sincere. Better to ask and risk appearing stupid than to continue on your ignorant way and make a stupid mistake.” (Dear Abby)

According to God, there *are* bad questions. Israel had numerous claims and statements by God from numerous prophets in Scripture, esp. the words of God’s covenant with Israel through Moses, plus countless impressive, undeniable examples of God’s faithfulness, justice, and loyalty shown to their forefathers and themselves in real-time. Their questions ignored these obvious evidences of God’s justice and loyalty.  

Bad questions to God are those which people ask about God which show they are ignoring the obvious answers he has already given. Bad questions are those which people ask when they already know the answer.

Sometimes people take something they’re experiencing or guilty of themselves and shift the blame or guilt onto someone else. A suspicious friend who has been talking behind your back accuses you of gossiping. A jealous coworker who feels threatened by your success at work accuses you of trying to show off. A detached church member tells people that their church is standoffish and judgmental.

These are examples of “projection,” which occurs if someone attributes their own attitudes, failures, motives, or sins to another person. This often happens unintentionally, without realizing it. And this is what Israel was doing to God in Malachi 2:17–3:6. They accused him of inconsistency and injustice, qualities which described themselves instead. They were the ones, not God, who were favoring evil people and behaving unjustly. They were the ones offering disrespectful sacrifices, divorcing their spouses for selfish reasons, marrying people who worshiped idols, and more. Douglas Stewart observes:

Sinners are invariably inconsistent. The thief is always outraged when someone steals from him. The liar is deeply offended when someone lies to her. The cheater deeply resents finding that she has been defrauded, and the murderer wants himself and his family to live in peace. The expectations of sinners are characteristically hypocritical.

The apostle Paul acknowledges this problem when he says:

You are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. (Rom 2:1)

Have you ever caught yourself doing the same thing, accusing other people or God himself of letting you down in a way that you yourself failed God or other people? Children do this naturally and it’s easy to spot when they do:

• A child fails his exam at school and blames his parents for the result. He claims that the chores and bedtimes they assigned prevented him from studying well. The reality, though, is that he used his free time to nap, read books, and play computer games.
• A child breaks something valuable and blames her parents for leaving it where she could reach it. She says the accident was really their fault, but the reality is that she had been told multiple times not to play carelessly in that area but ignored the warning.

When we do this as adults to God, we act like children and God is not impressed with our antics with this attitude. There is a key difference, though, between people criticizing God and children criticizing parents. At one point or another, children realize their parents, no matter how loving and wise they may be, are imperfect sinners, so there is always an angle or way to find a flaw or imperfection with them. But when we criticize God, we act worse than a child because there is no imperfection with him. There is nothing to criticize.

If anyone wants to be clever, they can accuse God of being unjust and negligent because he doesn’t judge evil immediately to the full degree. But even that is disingenuous and self-contradictory because if God did judge evil immediately to the full degree, no one would survive a day free from divine judgment. Be careful what you wish for.

Sure, God’s justice can be hard to see because he doesn’t judge evil immediately to the full degree. But he is just, nonetheless. As the German poet Friedrich von Logau said:

Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.

So, God responded to these sayings of Israel by announcing some of his plans. These plans would begin to occur about 400 years later. Patience would be required, and even then, once they began, they would require even more patience to happen completely.

He promised to send a messenger – John the Baptist. (3:1)

Sometimes a parent will respond to a child’s attempts at blame shifting and projection by taking some immediate action to prove their child wrong.

• “You never let me have any fun,” says the child. So, the parent cancels homework for the night to play games and watch a movie late into the night.
• “You don’t care about me because you make me eat stuff I don’t like,” says the child. So, the parent makes a separate meal for the child and increases their dessert.
• “You don’t love me,” says the child in a tantrum at the store. So, the parent buys them a candy bar or toy to prove they love them.

Kneejerk reactions like these comes from insecurity in the heart of a parent, but God has no insecurity and nothing to prove. He knows he is faithful and just and that these facts are blatantly obvious, no matter what we may say about him. So, to respond to the wearisome questions of the people of Israel, God stood firm and remained calm in his response to their childishness.

He didn’t stoop to their level with a quick, immediate response, doing something right to prove he is just and faithful. He gave them a big-picture, long-term response about what he had planned for the future, four hundred years later. This response showed he had a just and faithful plan but was working it out intentionally and would not be rushed.

• “You never let me have any fun,” says the child. So, the parent explains how if they do their homework, they will do better in school and be more likely to do get a good job in the future.
• “You don’t care about me because you make me eat stuff I don’t like,” says the child. So, the parent explains the complexity of building a meal schedule, how healthy food helps them grow strong and prevents disease in their future.
• “You don’t love me,” says the child in a tantrum at the store. So, the parent explains the difference between needs and wants, shows how much the family already spends on groceries, and reveals how much they need to save for their summer vacation.

God explained that his justice would involve sending a messenger. We could say “another” messenger, since Malachi was also a messenger of God, not only since he was an OT prophet but since that’s what his name means, literally. The word/name “Malachi” is the Hebrew word for “messenger.” By promising to send a messenger in the future, God was telling people to look for another messenger both after Malachi and like Malachi.

The OT speaks about this messenger three times, twice in Malachi and once in Isaiah:

Behold, I send My messenger, and he will prepare the way before Me. (Mal 3:1)

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. (Mal 4:5)

The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” (Isa 40:3)

Jesus quoted Mal 3:1 to explain that John the Baptist fulfilled this prophecy (Mt 11:10):

This is he of whom it is written: “Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way before You.”

Though John the Baptist would arrive four hundred years later to prepare people to receive and believe on Jesus Christ, this approach accomplished several things.

First, it proved that though God was not reactionary in his justice, doing something right away because people questioned him, he was faithful and just to his people. Rather than destroy or disown them for their insolence, he would remain faithful to his covenant with them for another four hundred years. Second, it proved the faithfulness of God because four hundred years, John the Baptist came just as Malachi had promised.

In the business world, there is a mantra, “make a plan, work the plan.” This motto separates dreamers from doers and recognizes that deliberate movement in a clear direction towards clear goals is far better and just than quick reactions and bursts of speed. More than anyone else, it describes the nature and behavior of our faithful God.

He doesn’t let our criticisms and questions force kneejerk reactions. He made a plan in eternity by his sovereignty, and he simply works out that plan one intentional, well-planned step at a time. And nothing you ever do or say will change what he is doing. Whether you agree or not, he knows he is faithful and just, and that’s all that matters.

He promised to send a refiner – Jesus Christ. (3:2-5)

After announcing that John the Baptist would come, God also announced another messenger who would come right after him. Notice this sudden change in the middle of 3:1 from speaking about the messenger, John the Baptist, to speaking about himself (“me”) and “the Lord.” This shift in the sentence mirrors the quick shift that would happen between the public ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus. Jesus would come onto the scene only a few months after John the Baptist began preparing people to hear him.

In 3:1, Malachi describes this third messenger as “the Messenger of the covenant” and calls him “the Lord.” What’s more, he claims that the Temple is “his” Temple, which can only be a reference to God himself, who would prove to be none other than Jesus Christ. To the Jews living in Jerusalem at that time, this referred to the newly rebuilt Temple that Ezra had recently help them build. The one to whom this Temple belonged would come!

Only months after the birth of John the Baptist, the parents of Jesus took him to the Jerusalem temple at eight days old (Lk 2:21-38), and he spent much time worshiping and teaching there during his ministry. And he was the one who cast out the people selling animals in the Temple for sacrifices, using worship of God as a money-making scheme.

This announcement of a coming messenger followed by the Messenger, God himself, was God’s answer to the crazy question of 2:17. Question: “Where is the God of justice?” Answer: he’s coming to the Temple soon (in 400 years). You will know it is him because another man like Malachi and Elijah will announce him several months in advance.

Moving on, Malachi described the behavior of this third Messenger, Jesus Christ, to be like a silver refiner or a laundry worker.

A silver refiner is someone whose work is to apply controlled, intense heat to raw silver so that every impurity rises to the surface and can be removed.

“A laundry worker’s task was to clean clothes by soaking them in water in which lye had been dissolved, then beating and scrubbing them, and finally rinsing them. This was a separation process as well—separating dirt from fabric. The dirt was taken away and the pure fabric remained, just as in refining the slag was taken away by the heat of the fire and the pure metal remained.” (Douglas Stuart)

From these illustrations, we see that God would eventually remove and cleanse out from Israel those who didn’t genuinely believe on him and from those who did. Because he is just something they questioned, he would not bless them indiscriminately.

He would purify the priests and spiritual leaders (“the sons of Levi”), for instance, separating those who were genuine believers from those who were not, to restore genuine worship and end the hypocritical worship they were engaging in.

But he would do this for all people, too, not just the priests. He would judge people who practice sorcery, commit adultery, do perjury, deprive workers of wages, oppress widows and orphans, and withhold justice from foreigners. What do these sins refer to?

• Sorcery: any kind of magic or supernatural behavior which sought information and power from the supernatural world apart from God himself.
• Adultery: immoral, sensual activity which violated the covenant of marriage.
• Perjury: lying under oath, which often included invoking God’s name and honor.
• Depriving wages: mistreating and taking advantage of people who rely on you for their needs only to benefit yourself.
• Oppressing widows and orphans: mistreating and taking advantage of people who have no one to care for them.
• Withholding justice from foreigners: mistreating and taking advantage of people who are at a disadvantage because they weren’t native to that area.

All these practices were clearly forbidden in God’s covenant with his people, given by Moses. They were a matter of loyalty and justice. When people do these things (and things like this), they show that they “do not fear God” (3:5), which means they do not take God seriously. They also show that they are genuinely concerned about justice. They may say they care about justice and may even accuse God of being unjust, but in reality, if they do these things, they are not genuinely concerned about justice at all.

God says that Jesus will be both the witness and judge. He “will come near for judgment” and “be a swift witness” (3:5). This resembles what John later presents as the Great White Throne judgment, that final judgment which will occur for all people (Rev 21:5-8):

He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new” … but the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

What we read in 3:2-5 refers to the full sweep of Christ’s coming into the world, from the time he came as an infant, teacher, and sacrifice 2,000 years ago to the time he will come as a judge in the future still to come. And though this would all begin to occur 400 years after Malachi spoke these words and though some of these things have yet to occur, one this is very clear – and this is what we must acknowledge.

We are the ones who change, not God. (3:6-7)

“I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. Yet from the days of your fathers you have gone away from My ordinances and have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of hosts. “But you said, ‘In what way shall we return?’”

If you’re tempted to agree that God isn’t “all he’s cracked up to be” in Scripture, then you’re tempted by a wrong idea. It is not God who says one thing but does another. That would be us. We, like the people of Israel, say good things but do bad things. While God’s justice may move slowly, it moves steadily and surely. While we are the ones who make U-turns and take wrong exits, God doesn’t change directions. God is just, we are not.

For more than 2,000 years, God had repeatedly proven himself just countless times. In the covenant he made with Israel at Mount Sinai, he featured a variety of commands and principles we expected his people to follow, both for how they worshiped him and how they treated others. In all these instructions, he insisted upon justice for all in every way.

Through all those years, he had been faithful – through all those years, he had been so, so good.  It was the people, not God, who had been unfaithful, unjust, and unloving, both to him and to one another. Therefore, it was them who needed to change, not God. And because God is faithful and just, he did two things.

First, he gave them the clear call and opportunity to repent and return to him. If they would acknowledge their sin and turn to God in faith, he would forgive their sin and bless them.
Second, he promised to give them a Savior, a “messenger of the covenant” who would make this forgiveness and salvation possible. In Lk 22:20, we see Jesus Christ speak as this “messenger of the covenant” four hundred years after Malachi wrote this message.

Likewise, He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.” (Lk 22:20)

As Malachi finishes God’s reply to Israel’s senseless question, “Where is the God of justice?” he makes something very clear. God is not absent, indifferent, or unfaithful. He had a plan to come to them in a new and special way, to show his justice and faithfulness to them in a way not seen before.

When Jesus, this “messenger of the covenant,” came, he didn’t merely argue with the religious leaders or call out the people’s sins – which he did. He came to do what God had promised all along, not only to cleanse and remove wicked people from among them, but also to cleanse and remove sin and injustice from the hearts of people who would repent and return to him.

Most importantly, he showed God’s justice and forgiveness at the cross, where he shed his own blood as the consequence and covering for our sin. The justice of God was not denied at the cross, it was displayed there.

That is why Luke 22:20 is such a fitting place for us to close today: “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.” The people in Malachi’s day questioned God’s justice and loyalty, but at the Lord’s Table we remember that God’s justice and mercy meet perfectly in Christ. Here is the covenant Messenger, not only announcing God’s justice, but fulfilling it with his own blood – showing us the injustice of our sin and dying for the guilty, so that we can return to God in full forgiveness and faith.

So, as we come to the Lord’s Supper today, let us come with any thoughts or accusations against God, but trusting him, not questioning his love, but remembering it, not excusing our sin, but confessing it. And let us eat this bread and drink this cup with hearts of humble gratitude, because the God whose justice we could never satisfy has satisfied it for us with his Son, the messenger of God’s covenant of faithfulness.

May we stop accusing God of things for which we ourselves are guilty because he himself died as though guilty for our sins so that we may, with complete justice, go free.

Malachi 2:10-16
In the 50s and 60s, my father bought packs of baseball cards at the general store. In those days, they came with a stick of gum inside. He would chew the gum, then put the baseball cards on his bicycle spokes to make his bike sound like it had a motor. Today, those baseball cards would be worth thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars if he had taken good care of them, but because he used them on his bicycle wheels instead, he “devalued” them. That’s what we are doing with marriage in America today.

In the 1950s, 20-22 was the median age for getting married. In 2025, the median age has risen by 10 years to 30-32. What’s more, statistics show that there are fewer marriages in the U.S. on a per-person average than at any previous point. Why might this be the case? While a variety of answers may be given as contributing causes, one answer must certainly be made clear: we disparage marriage. We treat it like something with low value.

According to a website called “WhattoGetMy.com,” there are five good reasons to marry:

• For relational reasons – to provide love that helps each other survive a difficult world.
• For financial reasons – to save money, especially by reducing taxes.
• For psychological reasons – to gain a sense of acceptance and confidence.
• For legal reasons – to provide better protection of property in case of a divorce.
• For professional reasons – married men earn more than single men.

The article goes on to point out that married people tend to experience better health, too.

But if these are the main reasons to marry, then marriage is no more important than going to Disneyland, taking on a hobby, investing in the stock market, or going on a diet. It’s good to do because it’s fun, beneficial, and improves your quality of life.

But marriage is far more important and valuable than this. It is a sacred, serious, special covenant before God. It is so special that more often than not you should want to do it, and it is so serious that you should do whatever you can to maintain that covenant for life, even at great personal cost.

In Malachi 2:10-16, God confronts and corrects a wrong view of marriage by his own people. He reminds them of two primary purposes for marriage, and between these two purposes he points out two ways they were violating these purposes. Let’s take a look.

For God’s people, marriage pictures God’s covenant with his people. (v. 10)

In 2:10, God asks three questions of his people. The first two questions reminded them about some important, obvious facts. The third question, then, draws attention to some wrong behavior which contradicted these facts. In other words, the first two questions point out what the people claimed to believe and know about God, then the third points out how their behavior contradicted the beliefs they claimed to hold.

This sequence is based on the premise that what you say you believe may not be what you actually believe. What you actually believe is revealed not by verbal statements but by the way you choose to live.

My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. (1 Jn 3:18)

Frank Harrison, the CEO of Coca-Cola seemed to understand this when he said, “The only words that matter are the ones backed by action.”

People contradict their stated beliefs with their actual behavior in all sorts of ways.

• We talk about good health but drink soda and eat junk food frequently.
• We say sleep matters but watch television shows late into the night.
• We claim to value friendship but do very little to make new friends.
• We tell others to save but don’t cut costs, track spending, or save money ourselves.

According to what God said through Malachi, a major way people contradict their stated beliefs by their actions is in marriage. They claim to believe in God but then contradict that belief by how they behave towards marriage. In fact, our behavior towards marriage should be motivated more than anything else by theology, our belief about God.

For instance, the people of Israel claimed to believe two things about God: that he was their divine, supernatural Father and that he had created them as a special nation (2:10).

On your first reading of this verse, you might think Malachi is referring to God as the Father and Creator of all people, which he is. But that universal truth is not what Malachi has in view. He is referring to God’s special relationship with the people whom he had entered a covenant thousands of years before. He became their Father when he made a promise to form a special nation from Abraham’s descendants, then rescued them from Egypt and created them into a special nation of his own at Mount Sinai through Moses.

The prophet Isaiah speaks about Israel as the special people of God in the same way:

Everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him. (Isa 43:7)

And it was because of this special relationship they had with God as their Father and Creator as a people that they were called to behave towards marriage in a serious way.

Today, we who follow Christ by faith are not the nation of Israel, we are also a special people created by God through faith in Christ. The NT makes this very clear.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Cor 5:17)

We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. (Eph. 2:10)

Since we are also a created by God to be his special people through Christ, we have clear expectations from him for our behavior towards marriage. Our behavior towards marriage is God’s special way of revealing his faithfulness and the truth of the gospel.

“Just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.” (Eph 5:24-25)

More than anything else, a Christian marriage is supposed to be a living illustration of the gospel, a visible picture of God’s relationship with his people today. And we should prepare for marriage, pursue marriage, enter marriage, and persevere in marriage with this primary motivation and purpose guiding our hearts.

In Malachi’s day, the problem was that God’s people were not treating marriage as a theological choice or as a covenant that revealed important things about their God. And though any marriage breakdowns are a sad situation for sure, breakdowns in the marriage of a person who claims to follow Christ is doubly heartbreaking because it expresses wrong messages about God and the gospel.

In 2:10-16, God uses some strong and tragic language to describe certain kinds of breakdowns in the marriages of his people. He says that we degrade, desecrate, and devalue (“profane”) the experience of marriage. He also describes these failures not as accidents or mistakes but to betrayal and treason (“treachery”). He uses “treachery” five times in seven verses and “profane” twice, which shows how strongly he feels about this.

To “profane” is to treat something valuable like trash, as when my father used valuable baseball cards as flaps on his bicycle wheels. Other examples of treating something in a profane way would be using an antique heirloom dining table as a workbench, wearing a suit or expensive dress on a camping trip, or hosting a paintball battle inside your house.

“Treason” (or “treachery”) is an even more tragic word. According to LegalClarity.com:

Treason is one of the most serious crimes under U.S. law, carrying severe legal consequences. Defined in 18 U.S.C. 2381, it applies to acts that betray the United States, such as waging war against the country or aiding its enemies.

When we fail to treat marriage with the devotion, honor, and respect that God asks of his special, created people, we don’t just “make a mistake” or “mess up” a little, we help the enemy spread a wrong view about God and we betray one another, too.

God also uses the language “committing an abomination” (v. 11) to describe certain failures in marriage. An “abomination” is a detestable, repulsive thing, which is heartbreaking not only because it is wrong but because marriage, of all things, is something God values in a special way. It is “the Lord’s holy thing which he loves” (2:11).

So, how did God’s people, Israel, devalue marriage? Malachi points out two ways.

We violate this picture if we knowingly marry an unbelieving spouse. (vv. 11-12)

Mal 2:11 says God’s people ruined God’s purpose for marriage by marrying people who worshipped other gods. He goes on to clarify that he is speaking of people who do this knowingly (“being awake and aware,” v. 12). This excludes people who marry someone who seems to follow Christ only to reveal sometime after marriage that they do not.

The problem here is not that the people of Israel were marrying people from other ethnic backgrounds and cultures. God is not opposed to such marriages. In fact, numerous such marriages occurred in Scripture with God’s blessing. The problem here is not differences of background or culture but differences of faith.

God describes how such people, after they married unbelieving spouses, would continue to go through the motions of worshiping God, coming to the Temple to offer prayers and sacrifices, acting as if everything were okay. “They bring an offering to the Lord of hosts” (v. 12) and they “cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying” (v. 13).

Since God had created them to be a special people who belonged to him and would reflect and reveal his goodness and nature to the world for their salvation and God’s glory, then they were only to marry people who shared their faith in God. (Notice that parents do have a degree of responsibility in who they will accept or allow their child to marry.)

“You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me, to serve other gods; so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly.” (Dt 7:3-4)

To marry a spouse who worshiped another god is, in God’s view, an act of treason – like partnering with the enemy of God. It turns people, including the spouse, away from God not towards him, which is the very opposite effect of what marriage is intended to do.

But God’s people were not only marrying people who did not believe in God, they were divorcing their spouses to do so.

We violate this picture if we abandon our spouse for selfish reasons. (vv. 13-15)

God brings attention to a second way his people violated the purpose of marriage. Not only were they marrying spouses who worshipped other gods, but some were divorcing their wives to marry unbelieving ones. Some, for instance, had married while young and captives in Persia. Now that they returned to Jerusalem, they met other women they liked better, so they divorced their former wives to marry unbelieving ones they liked more.

Here it is important to clarify something. Notice how I said, “if we abandon our spouse for selfish reasons.” I did not simply say, “if we divorce our spouse.” To be sure, every divorce is heartbreaking. Just ask anyone who has been wrongfully divorced or who has been abandoned, abused, or been the victim of adultery and filed for a divorce as a result. There is nothing easy about it. But not all divorces are equal. Some divorce is allowed by God, though heartbreaking for sure, as the offended party will always agree, while other divorces are forbidden by God. It is these second kinds of divorces – not all divorce – that God is confronting here in Malachi 2:10-16.

In God’s covenant with Israel, he gave an allowance for divorce (Dt 24:1). This provision permitted divorce for things ranging from immorality to serious nondisclosures. Such disclosures could include finding out after marriage that your spouse worshiped another god. Even the NT teaching of Christ and the apostle Paul permitted divorce for egregious violations of the marriage covenant. Such egregious violations include abandonment, abuse, and adultery (though even then, divorce should not be a hasty or quick option, and forgiveness and restoration should always be an option).

The problem here in Mal 2:15-16, though, is not that divorce had occurred but why occurred. People, esp. men, were divorcing their spouses for invalid, selfish reasons. This would be like our “no fault” divorces today in which we simply declare “incompatibility” and walk away.

Now, here’s where I need you to put on your “thinking caps.” Mal 2:16 is notably difficult to translate. Many translations translate it to say that “God hates divorce” (Mal 2:16). But there is another very possible way to translate this verse, one that connects the “he” back to the men who were divorcing their wives (2:15).

This translation would read something like this: “For the Lord God of Israel says that he [the treacherous husband] hates, divorces, then covers his garment with violence” (2:16).

If this is correct, then this statement explains what Mal 2:15 means to “deal treacherously” with your wife. It means to “hate, scorn, or decrease in status” your spouse in your mind and heart. If you let attitudes, feelings, and thoughts like this linger unresolved, then you will become more susceptible to actually acting on those thoughts and feelings and divorcing your spouse outright – not because he/she violated your marriage covenant in an egregious way but because you developed a bad attitude towards them and stopped cherishing and valuing them as you covenanted to do at your wedding.

So, God gives the following warning: “Therefore, take heed to your spirit” (2:16). This warning sounds strikingly similar to the same warning Peter gave to Christian husbands:

“Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them.” (Col 3:19)

So, God is speaking here about selfish, sinful divorce, the kind that abandons your spouse
for reasons of a personal and selfish nature. He is calling his people who marry to keep a devoted, loving attitude towards your spouse through all the challenges that come your way in all stages of married life.

If you think long enough, you can find all sorts of ways to qualify your spouse’s blind spots, flaws, and sins abuse and neglect. If you think hard enough, you can permit small offenses to grow into egregious offenses in your mind, especially if they happen repeatedly over time. Shallow, selfish reasons for divorce are many today:

• Loss of romantic excitement: “I’m not in love anymore.”
• Boredom
• Incompatibility: as a catch-all for ordinary differences and challenges
• Disappointment and unrealistic expectations
• Bitterness and resentment
• Financial frustration or difficulties
• Midlife crisis
• Conflict avoidance: choosing to escape over the hard work of relationship
• Family or social pressure: letting outside opinions govern marriage commitment
• Career or lifestyle priorities: viewing your spouse as an obstacle to personal plans

Then along comes another more attractive person or the possibility of independence, so you rationalize your bitterness and dissatisfaction and label it in a way that justifies a divorce, in your mind, and you find people – even people who call themselves marriage professionals, spiritual leaders, or friends – to affirm your desires. This is the sort of divorce that God calls an abomination, profane, and treason.

When God’s people abandon their marriages for reasons like this, they bring into question whether they believe in God at all. Because genuine faith in God understands that God is lovingly devoted to our salvation and should view marriage as a primary means of reflecting that belief in a real-life way. If you believe that God is committed to you in faithful covenant love, then why would you violate that picture by treating your marriage in a cheap and treasonous way and damage this picture of the gospel?

A key point I need to point out here is that Mal 2:12-13 ties back to the previous section (Mal 1:6–2:9). That section emphasizes the problem of God’s priests, the spiritual leaders of God’s people, accepting and affirming disobedient and hypocritical worship. In these verses, God repeats some of the same language to indicate that a key part of the problem here is not only that God’s people were marrying unbelieving spouses and divorcing their spouses to do so, but they were being accepted and affirmed by the priests in doing so.

I point this out to say that today, pastors must take this warning to heart and every follower of Christ in the church must expect them to do so. It is not a pastor’s obligation to accept and affirm, or to perform the wedding of a church member of their child simply because they claim to love their fiancé. As much as a pastor may want to be nice and supportive, hoping for the best, it is a pastoral duty to teach God’s people to choose spouses well.

A Christian pastor (Doug Wilson) offers this clear, simple biblical advice for who to marry:

• a Christian

Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? (2 Cor 6:14)

To this I would add one that is biblically, properly baptized (Mt 28:19). If a person has not obeyed Christ by declaring their faith openly through baptism, then what guarantee do you have of their covenant faithfulness not only to you but to Christ if they have not followed his first command?

• a Christian who would not be disobeying God by marrying you

Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery. (Lk 16:18)

In other words, a person who is not entering into marriage with you while leaving a past history of unresolved sinful choices towards others.

• a Christian of sterling character

Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. (Prov 31:30)

• a Christian whose personality gels well with yours

Can two walk together, unless they are agreed? (Amos 3:3)

• a Christian whom you find romantically attractive (Prov 5:19)

As a loving deer and a graceful doe, let her breasts satisfy you at all times; and always be enraptured with her love.

If we would follow this basic advice in choosing a spouse, we would do well. Unfortunately, many professing believers let circumstances and feelings guide their choice of a spouse rather than being led by clear, biblical wisdom. So, as a pastor, I urge those who are unmarried today to only covenant in marriage with such a person.

Finally, we must look at one more primary purpose and reason for marriage. Not only does the marriage of a believer reflect God’s covenant with his people, but …

God’s people must build loyal marriages to produce godly children. (v.15-16)

Did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. (Mal 2:15)

Here God gives a second primary reason for marriage, and this should be a primary reason for why any follower of Christ should prepare for marriage, pursue marriage, enter marriage, and persevere in marriage – to produce godly offspring.

Commentators Richard Taylor and Ray Clendenen make an insightful observation:

"Too often do contemporary married couples think of children as an option; they regard their own personal happiness or fulfillment as the primary goal in marriage. This was never to be the case according to the biblical revelation. The first divine command given to the first human couple was to “be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28)."

This is why followers of Christ must marry followers of Christ – so that they can give birth to more people who they can teach and train to follow Christ. And it is why married believers must be faithful to their spouse – so that their children can see a close-up, living picture of how God is faithful to his people.

This past week, my wife and I and our three oldest children were watching an episode of a BBC police mystery series set in Great Britain post-WWII. Though it was a fascinating episode in other respects, it featured a clear and obvious message distinct to that episode. That message was this – that it was old-fashioned and wrong for people to expect women to marry, give birth, and raise children. While this is a nice thing to do for those who want to, it should not be expected as the norm.

But here’s the problem – the Bible, from beginning to end – does expect this to be the norm. The Bible expects men and women to work together to produce and raise children who will follow God by faith. From Moses in Genesis 1 (“be fruitful and multiply”) to Paul in Titus 2:4, which says:

[Older women should] admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed. (Tit 2:4-5)

… Scripture is very clear. Though women can certainly work hard and earn an income, this should never be done at the expense of their primary duty, which is caring for the home and caring for the children born into her family.

Let’s make an honest observation here. Today, it’s difficult for believers to accept this instruction wholeheartedly without feeling a little bit embarrassed or culturally out-of-touch. But that’s even more reason to be discerning when choosing your spouse. If it’s hard to find a Christian spouse who believes this way, it will be even more difficult to expect an unbelieving spouse to think this way because the spirit of our age outside of Christ represents the total opposite of this perspective.

And in connection with this, how can you expect to raise not only children but godly children if you marry a spouse who is not serious about obeying Christ’s commands? If you are serious about having and raising godly children, why would you consider marrying anyone who is not serious about that very same thing and showing it by taking Christ’s commands seriously for themselves already, before marriage?

Now, before we close, we need to make one more observation, or rather application. What about those of us who aren’t yet married, or those who are married but can’t give birth to children for various reasons ordained by God, or those who have a limited number of children, or those who can no longer have children and are well past those years? Perhaps there are other exceptions, too. If we say that a primary reason for marriage is producing godly children, then doesn’t that exclude everyone else who can’t have children? To this I will offer the following outstanding observation, also from Taylor and Clendenen:

" Although couples can no longer be assured of bearing children (as the theme of barrenness in Genesis makes clear), they are still to “seek” them [children] and can reproduce themselves in other ways if necessary, through adoption and/or spiritual discipleship." (Taylor and Clendenen)

If you marry or are married and are able to have children, you should definitely do you part to give God that opportunity to produce children according to his ordinary, God-designed ways. But if in doing this, you find that you are unable to have children, while you can continue to pray for and pursue this, you should prayerfully explore other ways which are also ordained by God. Adoption is one such avenue and discipleship is another. In fact, discipleship is a way of multiplying godly offspring for Christ that should always be a priority for any believer, married or unmarried.

But those who are married are specially equipped to disciple other people to follow Christ. If you are not raising children and you are also not involved with discipling other people to follow Christ, then you are likely falling short of God’s intended purpose in marriage. Consider the shining example of the married couple, Aquila and Priscilla, for instance.

[Apollos] began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. (Acts 18:26)

Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their own necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Likewise greet the church that is in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who is the firstfruits of Achaia to Christ. (Rom 16:3-5)

Here was a married couple who have no children named in Scripture yet devoted themselves to discipling other people to follow Christ. It is for this reason that you should prepare for marriage, pursue marriage, enter marriage, and persevere in marriage – that you would be able to produce a godly offspring, whether through childbearing, adoption, or discipleship. And discipleship is for everyone, especially those who are married.

As we close, I want to acknowledge that people hearing a message like this come  from varied backgrounds. Some of you may look back on choices you have made about marriage with deep regret. You may see clearly now that you sinned, that you were sinned against, or that your story includes choices you cannot undo. But hear this clearly: there is grace for you in Christ today. There is forgiveness for every sin at the cross.

If you believe on Christ, you belong to Christ, and you do not have to live imprisoned by shame or defined forever by your worst decisions. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1:9). So come honestly to him, confess your failure, receive his mercy, and walk forward in the cleansing and restoring grace that only Christ can give. Whatever your marriage situation is today, there is grace for you to put to practice God’s purposes for marriage – which are picturing his covenant with his people and producing godly children.

Today, we are reminded by Malachi 2 that marriage is not a cheap, shallow experience merely for personal enjoyment but a sacred covenant most of all meant to display God’s faithful love and to help produce godly offspring. For that reason, we must not profane marriage by treating it lightly, and we must not deal treacherously with one another through unfaithfulness, selfishness, or disobedience to God’s design for marriage.

Whether you are preparing for marriage, seeking marriage, entering into marriage, or persevering in marriage, the call is the same: take heed to your spirit, honor God’s covenant purposes for marriage, and let your life say what your lips profess, that the Lord is faithful, holy, and worthy of wholehearted obedience. You reveal your actual beliefs about God by how you behave towards marriage.

Introduction
Why get married?

The United States has a marriage crisis. I think most of us have a sense that something is wrong when it comes to marriage. Let alone the record high divorce rates, people are not getting married.
This crisis of marriage is one of the most telling symptoms of our societal problems, and it causes a crisis of family.

1949: Highest marriage rate at 78.8%
2022: Lowest marriage rate at 46.8%

And on top of that people are taking longer and longer to get married: In 2024, the average age for a first marriage was 30.2 years for men and 28.6 for women. The youngest median ages of marriage were in 1956, when it was 22.5 for men and 20.1 for women.

Why this sharp decline? Don’t we have the most progressive view of marriage we’ve ever had as culture? Don’t we have the most freedom to marry whoever we want? I believe the reason we despise marriage is because we do not understand its goodness. God is the one who gave us marriage, and so his teachings about it are what defines it.

For the past 75 years, we have witnessed the emptiness of a perspective that can only explain marriage from nature. If our society is made up of matter and social constructs, then this is what we get. However, we know that marriage is good, not because it’s conducive to human evolution, but because God says it is. So, we must recognize that God deserves our attention because:

God blesses man through marriage.
I have good news for every man in here: Based on what we understand of human genetics, Adam as the first man and our first ancestor, was the ideal human being physically. He had the most pure genes (not talking about Levi’s) of any man ever. And even Adam spent some time with unwanted singleness.

Seriously though, God wants to teach us about marriage by showing us Adam’s life before marriage. He says that it is was not good. Good is one of those words that has a really broad range of meanings. When God says that it is not "good," he is talking about good in the same sense as when we say, "It is good to see you." This is right. This what we need. This is beneficial to us.

The reason it is important we understand how and why marriage is good is because understanding this helps us understand its purpose.

How was marriage better for Adam? Was it because it made him happy? Was it because it made him complete? Was it because he became emotionally or sexually fulfilled? If you had to answer why it wasn’t good for Adam to be alone, what would you say? Here is the Bible's answer in context: I will make him a helper fit for him.

He needs someone that helps him. Not to be the best version of himself. Not to fulfill his dreams or accomplish everything he wants to. To do what God told him to do. To bring God’s order to the whole world by tending the garden and filling the earth with their descendants.

So what would make your marriage, hypothetical or not, a good marriage? If it helps you to be the person God has created and saved you to be and to do the things he has created and saved you to do. This is what we mean when we say, marriage is a blessing. It is good to help us be who God made us to be and to do what God made us to do. Because marriage is a blessing, we should act accordingly:

Anyone who desires the blessing of marriage should pursue it.
Now, notice that this point could apply to anyone who wants this kind of marriage that God has given us regardless of whether they are married right now or not.

To my friends who are married and love their spouses, but do not have a happy marriage in the way they want right now: Because Jesus died on the cross and rose again, even though you may not deserve it, God can help you have a good marriage. One that brings glory to him in personal christlikness, serving God together, and a godly marital relationship.

To my single friends who may want to be married: God has given us longings for marital intimacy. These are good things. For right now, God has given you a special burden. Do not give up. Thrive in the place in which God has placed you. Don’t waste singleness. When we understand why and how marriage is good, there is no shame in desiring a good marriage.

I want to present two points of application from this conclusion we have made. First, to married people:

• Husbands are to be the head of their home. Men are to lead the household but their leadership is to be one of responsibility. They are also commanded to love their wives and be understanding toward them.
• Wives are to submit to their husbands and love their families by taking a special nurturing role in the home.

These kinds of biblical principles are not popular, but that’s not because they’re weird. If the Bible is true, feminism and passive husbands are weird. Disordered and dysfunctional homes are weird. These things are true, good, and beautiful because God made marriage and he made the world.

Romans 12:1–2 tells us: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."

A blessed marriage is not (normally) a white-knuckled, grit your teeth and bare it, kind of enterprise. God gave us deep longings for marriage so that when those desires are fulfilled according to his design, it is all the sweeter.

Now to my friends who are single but want to be married. We live in such a strange and anxious time. I think, in part, we are anxious about marriage because we make too much and too little of it at the same time:

• Too much because we make it ultimate, rather than God being ultimate.
• Too little because we make it about us, and therefore, small in scale, purpose, and significance.

But, friends, if getting married is not just a matter of getting what we want, but of fulfilling God’s design and callings, then marriage is worth pursuing. Prioritize biblical signs of Christian maturity:

• Look for someone who is committed to their church and in ministry.
• Men, find someone who can help with the callings God has given you.
• Ladies, look for a man who is intentionally pursuing godly endeavors which you could support.
• Find someone you enjoy being with and are attracted to, but work through expectations corrupted by the world.

To conclude, I want to look at one more passage to understand the nature of marriage: Ephesians 5:31–32 says, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

Marriage becomes glorious as we follow God’s Pattern.
The goodness of marriage, as we follow God’s design, points us to the goodness of the union of Christ and the church. Your marriage can be glorious because the husband can be the loving, sacrificial head of the wife like Jesus is for the church. Marriage is not just an earthly, human relationship.

Today is Mother’s Day. Why are homes so dysfunctional? Why are divorce rates through the roof? Why does it seem as though our society is so chaotic? Because people do not understand the goodness of marriage only makes sense as a good gift from a good God.

Conclusion
Loren Krytzer was a former carpenter and struggling amputee. When his grandmother passed, his siblings took most of her possessions but they left behind an old Navajo blanket. One day, Loren saw that a Navajo blanket was sold for $500k on an auction while watching TV. He wondered if he could get some money for his.

After being turned down by multiple dealers, he talked to an auction appraiser who told him he would get $200k. As word spread, the starting price at auction was $150k. It was topped by a $500k bid, then $1 million, and ended at $1.5 million. Loren’s life was changed forever because he finally understood the true value of something.

May we value God’s glory infinitely more than a blanket and live as though marriage is truly good.

Discussion Questions

• The sermon ended with the story of a man who had no idea his old Navajo blanket was worth $1.5 million. What is something in your own life—whether it was an old object, a piece of advice, or a relationship—that you completely underestimated the value of at first?
• What are the alternative perspectives on the goodness of marriage of the world and the flesh?
  • How could these be so deceptive for you?
• God gave Adam a "helper" not so Adam could fulfill his personal dreams, but so they could do what God called them to do. Describe the kind of person who works toward a marriage focused on God’s callings.
  • What choices does this person make to cultivate this personal priority?
• How do we make “too much” of marriage? How about “too little” of it?
  • What is the answer to both extremes?
• What are some practical steps we can take to gain confidence that biblical teachings on marriage roles are not weird but normal?

Malachi 1:6 – 2:9

Have you ever been guilt of an awkward moment when you did or said something either by habit or with good intentions only to find out it was embarrassing, hurtful, or worse? In a multicultural situation, this is especially easy to do.

• In the Middle East and parts of Asia, it is disrespectful and insulting to show the bottom of your shoe in a social setting.
• In China, Philippines, and parts of India, it is disappointing to eat all your food because it signals to your host that you’re still hungry.
• In Latin America, it can be disrespectful and forward to show up early or on time.
• In parts of Asia, looking at an older person in the eyes can be viewed as disrespectful.

Most of these examples, if not all, are generally harmless and not inherently wrong, only disrespectful because people view them that way. But sometimes our disrespect, whether ignorant or intentional, has serious consequences – for ourselves and for others:

• When we behave or speak disrespectfully towards authority figures (bosses, coaches, pastors, teachers, political leaders, and law enforcement officers) in public ways, we undermine God-ordained social order, damage trust in God-given care providers, and encourage chaotic or unsafe environments.
• When we dishonor and disrespect parents or older family members through harsh words, dismissive attitudes, and neglect, we cause long-term relational wounds, make existing wounds worse, break family bonds and connections, and undermine the most basic, foundational building block of a happy, healthy, and strong society.
• When we speak disrespectfully to a spouse, in tone, sarcasm, belittling, or mean words, we erode trust, increase resentment, and damage the happiness, safety, and satisfaction of that most sacred and special relationship – and we help turn the tide of public opinion against marriage rather than promoting it to them.

The principle of respect – especially for parents, government officials, and church leaders – is a crucial part of relationships and society in God’s plan. When we fail to give proper respect in these ways and to insist on and teach such respect to others, we do something far more damaging than hurt someone’s feelings. We undermine the very fabric of society and do serious damage to the most fundamental aspects and qualities of life.

This reminds us that disrespect is never a small thing. And if ordinary human relationships and societies suffer when we fail to show proper honor to other people, how much more serious is it when we disrespect the God himself who made us. That is what we discover when we read Malachi 1:6–2:9.

Last week we learned from Mal 1:1-5 that God had loved his people with a faithful, devoted, love that spanned many centuries, a love they still questioned because they had lost sight of the big picture. When we forget God’s faithful love for us, we begin to treat him lightly and take him for granted. And that is exactly why Malachi had to confront Israel with the need to give God the respect he deserves. So, he confronts them with this truth, that God deserves maximum respect.

God deserves maximum respect.

In God’s first statement to Israel as they settled back into their Promised Land after Persian captivity, he stated his undying, forever faithful love to them, and they had the audacity to ask, “How have you loved us?”

Next, he brings an actual confrontation by making an obvious observation about standard cultural, relationship expectations, one family-oriented and one socially oriented. Children should honor their parents and employees should honor their employers.

The word honor means respond to something in a way that corresponds to its heaviness or weight. We all do this when we’re driving on the highway:

• A twig or plastic bag blows across the road; we drive straight through with no thought.
• A squirrel darts out and we instinctively tap the brakes or twitch the wheel.
• A shredded tire in the lane prompts us to slow down a bit and steer slightly around it.
• A police car in the median ahead causes us to change lanes deliberately with a signal.
• A full-length tractor-trailer rig barreling toward us in the wrong lane forces us to swerve dramatically if necessary, doing whatever it takes to avoid being hit.

We see how the weight of an oncoming object determines our response or the degree of respect we give to that object in our driving choices. In life, we respond with greater respect to those people who carry “the most weight” in a relational and social aspect.

When we choose to treat our parents, pastors, and employers more like a twig or plastic bag on the highway and less like a police car or a semitruck, we experience painful results as people, families, and society at large. Even more, when we fail to give proper respect to the infinitely greater weight and glory of God himself, we place ourselves in sad place.

Why should we give maximum respect to God? Mal 1:6, 11, 14 give us multiple reasons:

• He is not just a father, he is the Father. The Father of fathers. The maker of fathers. The Father, Creator, Provider, Protector, and Savior for all people.
• He is also our Master. As the Maker of all things, all things are accountable, answer to, and are judged by him.
• He is the “Lord of Hosts.” He is the captain and commander of uncountable angelic, heavenly armies and is the One to whom all human armies must ultimately answer.
• He is not just a king or the King, but a “great” King. This portrays God as the most impressive, majestic, powerful, wealthy king that exists – the King over all kings, the King to whom all kings and rulers and all nations and people must answer. He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

Knowing who God should cause us to give him the maximum respect in our lives. We should not respect God because he is somehow egotistical or narcissistic but because he actually is God and inherently deserves our respect. To not respect God in a maximum way is to show that we do not understand how life works at all.

When we see who God is – the great Father, Master, Lord of hosts, and King – it is clear he deserves the highest honor we can give. But in Malachi’s day, Israel’s problem wasn’t only that they failed to respect God in the attitude of their hear, they also failed to respect him in their actions and attitudes of worship. Their hearts were casual, their offerings were careless, and their devotion was half‑hearted towards God. So, after confronting their lack of respect, God explains how that disrespect showed itself in their worship.

He calls people to show respect through devoted worship.

When God raised the problem of the people’s disrespect towards him, they were confused (or at least claimed to be) as to how they were disrespecting God. After all, they were offering sacrifices, doing all the things they were supposed to do at the newly built Temple.
Just as they asked, “How have you loved us?” they now asked, “How have we disrespected your name?” God gave an answer to this defensive, deflecting question.

First, God pointed out how they were offering low-quality, low-cost, low-value sacrifices at the Temple when they came to confess their sins and worship him. They were offering blind, crippled, and diseased animals, not the best of the flock and herd as he deserved. Before you allow yourself to wonder whether God is being choosy, demanding, or picky here, ask how you or anyone else would feel if the same thing happened to you/them?

• Give someone who needs a refrigerator a broken one you were about to throw away.
• Bring a half‑eaten, week-old birthday cake to your friend’s 50th birthday party.
• Hand your boss a thank-you note written on an oil-stained piece of cardboard you pulled from the garbage can.
• Give your spouse a wilted flower or used socks found in the gas station parking lot.
• Or, as God himself suggested – try dropping off some diseased cows and goats at your local mayor or town councilman’s office and see what kind of response you get.

If you do any of these things, is the person on the receiving end being choosy, demanding, or picky to question your sincerity? Hardly. By doing these things, you are not only showing a serious misunderstanding about the basic realities of life, but you are also doing something which – if it continues to be habit for you – will cause great heartache and sorrow because of your inability to build meaningful relationships with anyone. In fact, it would be disrespectful and unloving if a friend failed to point this out to you.

If this would be disrespectful to earthly people, then it is certainly disrespectful to God. But isn’t God different and more forgiving and tolerant than everyone else? Shouldn’t he, of all beings, be willing to accept low-quality offerings? The answer is ‘no,’ because to accept such offerings would mean to permit people to have a low view of him, and when people have a low view of God, they will misunderstand everything else in the world.

People further disrespected God not only by offering poor quality sacrifices but by doing so with a miserable attitude. When they came to the Temple with their low-quality offerings, they didn’t feel or say, “I’m so glad to be here,” they were saying, “Oh, what a weariness!” (“what a hardship,” “what a difficulty,” “I’m too tired for this,” etc.) (1:13).  

From what Malachi says, it sounds like the priests had the same attitude as the people. God even says they snorted about it. I wonder what that sounded like. Maybe like kids or teens … or adults … who don’t want to do their house chores?

In summary, God made it very clear their worship was unacceptable to him. He didn’t get any enjoyment or pleasure from their offerings and activities at the Temple and wished that anyone would have the decency or integrity of character to simply close the doors to the Temple and put up a “Closed” sign, “no sacrifices accepted.”

“Who is there even among you who would shut the doors, so that you would not kindle fire on My altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you,” says the Lord of hosts, “Nor will I accept an offering from your hands. (1:10)

But this desire went unfulfilled. The people just kept coming back to the Temple with their pathetic offerings and miserable attitudes, and the priests kept letting them do it. They thought they could just pray to God, and he would accept it anyway – surely God would be nice and say okay (1:9), but nothing was further from the truth.

In this passage, God points out a major problem with this unserious worship by his people. Not only was this disrespectful to God, but it encouraged a bad, poor attitude and view of God by the people of the world around them.

When people saw that the people God loved, his special people, the people who were supposed to be following him were treating him so poorly, in action and attitude, they would themselves develop a low view of him. This was horrible because they themselves needed to be drawn to this God, not pushed away from him.

Imagine a town whose volunteer fire department has protected the community for years. But the firefighters themselves grow careless. They show up late, complain about every call, neglect maintenance on their equipment, and treat their mission like a tiresome burden, complaining that they never get paid and the sacrifice isn’t worth it.

Before long, the community notices. Trust in the fire department fades, financial support dries up, and people stop believing the department can help them. The very people meant to uphold something vital end up teaching everyone else not to take it seriously. As a result, the fire department is no longer able to recruit new volunteers, and the community no longer gets the help they need in emergencies.

That’s exactly what was happening in Israel. The people’s cheap and convenient offerings and miserable attitudes didn’t just dishonor God, they taught everyone watching to have a low view of him, too. And if the people were guilty of this, the priests were even more responsible. They were the ones appointed to uphold God’s honor, teach his truth, and model reverence before the nation. Instead, their failure only deepened the people’s disrespect of God. Malachi turns next to confront the priests themselves, showing that God calls his leaders to show respect through faithful, serious, wholehearted teaching.

He calls priests to show respect through faithful teaching.

After this warning, God gave more specific attention to the priests themselves. As leaders in Temple worship, they were the ones responsible for officiating ceremonies and sacrifices and for teaching the people God’s expectations, nature, and ways. They should have corrected the cheap offerings and confronted the bad attitudes of God’s people long before they developed into habits and standard practices. They should have taught the people clearly how to worship God well long before Malachi brought this message.

In the opening verses, God corrects them for refusing to “give glory to his name” (2:2). By this, he means to insist that people worship God well rather than continually affirm and tolerate their poor-quality offerings and miserable attitudes. They permitted the people to treat God in an unserious way even though he is the most serious and weighty being by every measure to an infinite degree.

Sometimes we see this same problem in families today. When parents become permissive, never correcting harmful attitudes, never addressing disrespect, never insisting on what is right, then their children develop a low view of the very values their parents claim to uphold. And the whole family feels the consequences.

In Malachi’s day, the priests were doing the same thing on a far more serious level. Instead of correcting the people’s careless worship, they permitted it. Instead of teaching the weight of God’s name, they affirmed attitudes that treated him lightly. Their permissiveness didn’t just harm the people, it dishonored God.

The reason they were permissive wasn’t necessarily that they feared the people but that they did not “take to heart” who God was and what he had commanded them to do (2:2).

The word “heart” (lēb / lēbāb) denotes in Hebrew what may be called the command center of a person’s life, where knowledge is collected and considered and where decisions and plans are made that determine the direction of one’s life. (Richard A. Taylor & E. Ray Clendenen)

This means these priests hadn’t taken seriously who God was and what he had commanded them to do. The weight of God’s greatness and the seriousness of his commands hadn’t come to bear on their hearts and minds. Think of it this way. When a lightweight object, like a feather, falls on wet concrete, it makes no serious marks on the clay. But when a heavy object, like a anvil, falls on not just wet but hardened concrete, it makes a mark. That weight can be felt as a result of a sudden drop and collision or it can also be felt as the result of a slow, steady push, like from a hydraulic press, for instance.

Whatever the case, for the priests to do their job of teaching the people the weight of God’s glory, they needed to let the weight of his glory, greatness of his nature, and significance of his commands first make a deep impression and mark on their own hearts so that they would be able to impress upon the hearts of the people the weight of God’s glory through their teaching and service.

That’s the point God is making here. The priests themselves had not taken God’s nature, his glory, and his commands to heart. They didn’t take God seriously and their lack of depth and serious awareness of God and the importance of his commands was enabling everyone else to take a low view of God.

To help the priests understand how horrible their low view of God and his commands happened to be, God gave them a gross illustration.

Behold, I will rebuke your descendants and spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your solemn feasts; and one will take you away with it. (2:3)

This is a disgusting illustration, to say the least, but it’s far more meaningful and significant than you might suppose. This is not merely an example of God speaking in a crude way to express the strength of his feelings. It actually turns a key step in the process of offering sacrifices at the Temple into a vivid illustration in a clever, impactful way.

When people offered animal sacrifices at the Temple, priests did several things to prepare the sacrifice just as a butcher, cook, or farmer prepares an animal for eating or sale. They had to drain the blood, clean the animal, and separate various cuts or parts of the carcass. They also had to remove any waste which was still inside the animal. If they removed any waste, they were required to take that waste to a remote place outside the city because it was viewed as not only useless but contaminating and harmful.

With this surprising illustration, God is saying that it would be helpful and instructive to smear the waste that the priests removed from the sacrificial animals on their own faces so that they would also have to be removed to a remote place outside the city because their permissive priestly service and unserious teaching of God’s Word was not just weak and subpar, it was – like animal waste – contaminating and harmful. If they did this, then the next generation of priests would be warned to do better.

God also points back to the first priest in their priestly line, Aaron. Even though he had failed God at times, his overall attitude towards God was one of devotion and respect. He feared God (emphasized twice) and showed reverence to him (2:4-6). He also meditated seriously on God’s truth, refused to speak unjustly, maintained a peaceful and clear (plain, equitable) relationship with God, and taught many other people to turn away from sinful choices. By devoting himself to these things, he had let the weight of God’s glory make a deep and indelible mark on his own heart so that he was then capable of teaching others to show the maximum respect to God that he deserved.

This is the job of every priest – to represent God by reflecting deeply on God’s Word and then teaching others about him and his ways. But when priests have not taken God’s Word to heart, they cause people to have a low view of God and turn people away from him by the things that they say.

When you listen to anyone teach God’s truth or claim to have a lesson, message, or sermon from God, ask whether that person has a deep awe and reverence for God. And ask whether that person lives in a way that shows respect for God and his commands. Then ask whether that person’s teaching is deeply filled and formed by the clear substance and teaching of God’s Word. If these things are not the case, if God is not weighty to the teacher, then you will not be taught to respect God well.

The sobering part of Malachi’s message is that the priests had failed in their crucial role of honoring his name, teaching his truth, and helping people see the weight of God’s glory so that they would also show proper respect to God. And when we hear this, our minds naturally jump to pastors and Sunday services, right? We connect OT priests to NT pastors and apply these warnings to them. And we connect OT sacrifices and ceremonies to Sunday AM worship services and apply these warnings to them.

While that connection isn’t wrong, it’s only a small part of the picture, because in the NT, God makes a key change. The priesthood is no longer a small group of religious leaders who officiate ceremonies in the church (as Roman Catholicism still implies). Everyone who follows Christ is now a priest before God, and every part of our lives, not just what happens in a church building on Sunday morning, becomes an act of sacrificial worship.

So, before we think only about ancient priests or modern pastors, we need to see how this calling rests on all of us today – this calling to give maximum respect to God through devoted service and faithful teaching.

Today every follower of Christ is a priest who must continually bring honor to God.

In the NT, God makes it unmistakably clear that the priesthood is no longer limited to a small group of religious leaders. While it is true that pastors have an important role to play in providing leadership, guidance, and teaching to churches, through Christ, every believer has been brought into a new priesthood.

Peter tells us we are a “holy priesthood” and a “royal priesthood” (1 Pet 2:5, 9), called to offer spiritual sacrifices and to proclaim the excellencies of the God who saved us. John also tells us that Christ has made us “priests to our God” (Rev 5:9-10), and those who belong to him will serve him as priests forever (Rev 20:6).

This means the calling Malachi placed on the priests of his day now rests on all who follow Christ. We are the ones who bear God’s name in the world. And we are the ones responsible to honor him in the way we live, speak, worship, and serve. We are the ones who bear a significant responsibility if we do not do our part to help the people around us learn to respect God well. We are the ones who help others see the weight of his glory.

Because we are priests, something else has become a new reality. This reality is both exciting and sobering. It is this – that all of life becomes an offering to God, not just whatever we do in church on Sunday morning. This means that whatever showing respect to God at church means for us today applies equally so in every other activity and moment of our day-to-day life. How does that make you feel? Sober or excited?

Paul urges us to present our bodies to God as a “living sacrifice” continually (Rom 12:1), meaning every action, choice, conversation, and relationship is part of our worship. We should treat our Sunday morning behavior no differently than our behavior any other time.

Paul also teaches that our financial and material generosity is a sacrifice (Phil 4:18). And when we use our resources to support the work of the church and its leaders, we are showing God the respect he deserves and teaching others the weight of his glory.

Paul also teaches that our ministry to unbelievers is a priestly offering (Rom 15:16). Even our willingness to pour out our lives in a sacrificial, wholehearted way for the good of others is described as a sacrificial drink offering (Phil 2:17; 2 Tim 4:6).

The writer of Hebrews teaches that our praise is a sacrifice, so we should be in the regular habit of saying and singing praises to God (Heb 13:15), both at church and otherwise. He goes on to teach that our service to others is a sacrifice, too (Heb 13:16).

In other words, God is not looking merely at pastors and at what we do in a church building on Sunday morning. He is looking at the whole pattern of the lives of all his followers, our attitudes, words, relationships, work, homes, and habits. He is calling us to always honor him in all of these things in our lives. As priests of God today, we carry the weight of his name wherever we go, and we are called to offer him the very best of our lives in grateful, devoted worship. But if we have not let the weight of his glory make a deep and lasting impression on our hearts, we will fall short of this incredible calling.

Since all of us who follow Christ are called to be priests of God who are devoted to his service and committed to faithful teaching, then here are some examples for how we should live as priests in our daily lives before God and people.

As a church member in a worship service

• Arrive early enough to settle your heart, pray briefly, greet someone warmly, and be ready to sing and listen with focus, instead of rushing in late and distracted.
• Listen and follow along with sincerity and attention to the words of everything that happens, even if you don’t feel like it, because your attitude teaches others how respond respectfully to God.

As a church member in other ways

• Become a member and involve yourself faithfully in ministry opportunities in every stage of your life, then follow through even when it’s not easy or convenient.
• Serve with a joyful attitude and speak well of your church and its people when talking with coworkers or neighbors, refusing to grumble or complain in ways that lower their view of God’s work – even though we certainly have our flaws.
• Make it a top priority to participate teaching and learning opportunities with your church so that you can grow in learning the full weight of God’s glory and can also disciple others, which is a primary responsibility of any priest of God.

As a spouse (husband or wife)

• Choose kind words and tone in moments of irritation, honoring God by refusing to be sarcastic, unresponsive, dismissive, or raising your voice.
• Serve your spouse in regular, specific, thoughtful ways without announcing it or resenting it, and even if it seems inconvenient, costly, or unfair.

As a parent

• Correct disrespect clearly and calmly, teaching your children that honoring authority, incl. imperfect parents, matters since God is weighty and deserves maximum respect.
• Read Scripture or pray with your children regularly, even briefly, showing them that God is not an afterthought in your home.
• Make church gatherings, events, and ministry a top priority in your home at the expense of other things and do so joyfully, even when inconvenient or uncomfortable.

As a child

• Respond to your parents’ instructions with “Yes sir/ma’am, I’ll do it” instead of sighing, rolling your eyes, or delaying, honoring God by taking them very seriously. Do things they desire without being asked, even going above and beyond their expectations.
• Show gratitude in specific ways (a note, a hug, a verbal thank‑you) for meals, rides, or help, reflecting a heart that respects God’s command and takes nothing for granted.

As an employee

• Do your work with excellence, turning in assignments on time and with care, not doing the bare minimum or cutting corners when no one is watching.
• Stay in your lane and do not attempt to assert yourself in ways that are above or outside of your role, showing respect to those who have that greater responsibility.
• Refuse workplace gossip or complaining, choosing instead to speak with integrity and gratitude, which teaches others the weight of God’s name.

As a student

• Complete homework with diligence, even if you don’t think your teacher will check it closely, because your schoolwork is an offering to God.
• Show respect to teachers by listening without interrupting and following instructions promptly, demonstrating that you take God’s authority seriously.

As a neighbor

• Do small acts of kindness like mowing their lawn, bringing a meal during illness, shoveling their sidewalk, and so on. View all these things as sacrifices to God and do them with a joyful attitude.
• Maintain a consistent, godly testimony by avoiding loud and dramatic conflicts, keeping your property tidy, and speaking kindly of one neighbor to another, so your neighborhood sees the weight of God’s glory through your life.

As we prepare to go into our week with God, the call before us is both simple and searching … God deserves our maximum respect, and as his priests, we carry his name wherever we go. May the weight of his glory rest deeply on our hearts so that our worship is sincere, our service is joyful, and our lives teach others to honor him. May we offer him not the leftovers of our time or energy, but the best of all we have and all we can do. And may our homes, our work, our church, and our daily relationships become places where the greatness of God is seen, felt, and experienced – because we know that he loves us.

Discussion Questions

• Have you ever unintentionally disrespected someone? Is it reasonable to hold someone accountable for disrespecting you if they did not intend to do so?
• What are some areas in which we can show proper respect to authorities and institutions given to us by God? These would be arenas of life in which God has placed us.
  • What are some practical ways in which we can participate in cultural change in these areas?
  • What kind of difference might we make?
• What are some ways in which we offer substandard worship to God?
• What would it mean for you to be a faithful priest, showing honor to God?

Malachi 1:1-5
In the fascinating story called Animal Farm, George Orwell tells how Farmer Jones was run off from his farm, leaving the animals in charge. Before long, the pigs took charge. Though Farmer Jones had been a careless, neglectful farmer, the pigs were even worse.

In a way, this story resembles what we see in the Book of Malachi. This book shows us how the people of Israel place themselves in judgment over God. Rather than let God be their judge, they tried to correct and question him. They were like pigs running a farm and revealed some serious misunderstandings and blind spots in their perspective.

The structure of this book is easy to see. It gives a series of six statements by God about Israel’s spiritual condition. But each time, the people reply with a “gotcha” question. They think they are “speaking truth to power,” telling God what’s what and demanding that he explain himself and answer to them for what he has said or done. Consider how this kind of reverse judgment occurs in our lives today with other people:

• Parent: “Your attitude has been disrespectful lately.” Teen: “How am I being disrespectful? You’re overreacting. You just don’t get how stressful my life is right now.”
• Teacher: “You’re not giving enough attention to your schoolwork.” Student: “Your assignments aren’t interesting to me or relevant to my life. Your teaching is boring.”
• Spouse: “You’re too busy and don’t give enough attention to our relationship.” Other spouse: “I’m the one doing what we need most, and your expectations are too high.”
• Doctor: “Your habits are hurting your health.” Patient: “My grandfather ate this way and lived to 90. Doctors always change their minds and only care about money.”

These examples show how people deflect difficult statements by throwing the fault or problem back on the other person. But when God is giving the correction, judgment, or perspective, we should never question him this way. He is our creator and has no faults.

Indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” (Rom 9:20)

So, in the book of Malachi, the people of Israel treat God this way – they respond to his correction by trying to deflect their blame and guilt back on him with defensive questions.
They do this six times and Malachi records each instance for us and also records God’s response to each of their questions.

With this basic overview in mind, we should also know why God was correcting them and why they responded in a defensive and deflective way. To piece these reasons together, let’s review some things we have learned from our Forever Faithful preaching series

• Exodus tells about how God made a covenant of faithful love to Israel in abt. 1446 BC.
• Deuteronomy tells how God repeated this covenant, in abt. 1406 BC, to a second generation of Israelites because the first generation, their parents, had quickly slipped into unbelief, disobedience, and rebellion to God. They had questioned God and his ways in the wilderness even though he had rescued them from slavery in Egypt and they had seen him part the Red Sea and swallow up Pharaoh’s armies.
• Hosea was written abt. 650 years later (approx. 750 BC), when God warned the northern ten tribes of Israel that they would be defeated and taken into captivity by Assyria because they had been persistently disloyal to him.
• Habakkuk was written approx. 600 BC (abt. 50 yrs. later), when God warned the southern two tribes of Israel – including Jerusalem – that they would be defeated and taken into captivity by Babylon because they had been persistently disloyal to him.
• Now, Malachi. Malachi is the final prophetic book in the Old Testament (OT), written abt. 175 years (approx. 425 BC) later. This book speaks to the surprising (or not so surprising) spiritual condition of Israel after they had returned to their land from Persia.

During the 175 years that passed between Habakkuk and Malachi, some major things occurred. Israel had been defeated and taken captive to Assyria and Babylon. A third empire, the Persians, overtook these empires, and the Israelites endured 70 years of captivity. Then some had been allowed to return to their homeland, to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, to resume worship of God there, and to rebuild the city walls. They were establishing themselves once again as a nation with a capital city.

Despite being restored to their land, the Israelites were still quite weak as a nation, and they were not especially productive or wealthy. In addition to this, though they had resumed worship at the new Temple in Jerusalem, they were merely “going through the motions” in a basic, formal way, but not seriously or sincerely from the heart.

In short, though God had rescued and restored them from captivity in Persia and been faithful in his covenant of love to them for more than 1,000 years, they were acting the same way as their first generation of ancestors coming out of Egypt had acted. They were ungrateful, unsatisfied, and unbelieving towards God.

By their six surprising, defensive questions to God, the Israelites revealed an underlying heart problem. So, for today and six more Sundays, we’ll ask the question, “How’s your heart?” as we look at the six ways the Israelites questioned God to see if we have some of the same wrong attitudes and perspectives towards God, even as we remind ourselves that he is faithful to his people forever.

God begins this book with: “The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi” (1:1). The word “burden” means something like “oracle” or “pronouncement” and speaks of a special divine message given directly from God. In this case, it was a message given directly from Yahweh – the one, true God – spoken through a man named Malachi.

God expresses his love for Israel.

Remarkably, God doesn’t open this message with a threat, list of demands, reminder of Israel’s failures, or even accusation or charge against Israel. He opens with a simple, heartfelt affirmation of love for them. Abt. 1,000 years prior, God said to the second generation of Israel that he chose to love them, which is why he rescued them from Egypt:

because the Lord loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. (Dt 7:8)

Abt. 800 years later, before they were captured by Babylon, God said this to his people through the prophet Jeremiah:

Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, with lovingkindness I have drawn you. Again, I will build you, and you shall be rebuilt … (Jer 31:3-4)

Now here, another 200 years later, marking a timespan of 1,000 years, God says once again, very clearly, that he loves Israel in a special and devoted way. In Mal 1:2, he opens this letter by saying: “‘I have loved you,’ says the Lord.”

Imagine these words coming from the lips of a father or mother to their child at their child’s graduation, “I have loved you.” Or from the lips of a 90-yr. man to his wife or a 90-yr. woman to her husband on their 70th wedding anniversary, “I have loved you.” How would you expect the graduating child or lifetime spouse to reply?

Perhaps the graduate would say something like, “Thank you. I know you have loved me, and I love you, too.” Perhaps the lifelong spouse would say something like, “Thank you for loving me all these years. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Heartwarming stuff.

But how would you feel if the immediate response from the graduate or lifelong spouse was, “How exactly have you loved me?” All at once, all the care, devotion, patience, and sacrifice of years would be swept aside as if for nothing. A parenting journey and a lifetime of marital love thrown away with the swipe of a sentence.

Yet that is exactly how Israel replied to God when he said, “I have loved you.” After 1,000 years of faithful love from God and after being restored to their land from captivity in Persia, they answer, “In what way have You loved us?” (1:2). How horrible is that?

Israel questions God’s love for them.

This response is shocking, to say the least. For a thousand years, God had proven his love to Israel time and time again at great cost and pain. He rescued them from slavery in Egypt and provided for them in the wilderness.

Even when they rebelled, God remained faithful, giving them His law, guiding them through leaders and prophets, and kings, establishing them as a nation in the Promised Land, and repeatedly forgiving their sins against him. Through centuries of wandering, idolatry, exile, and return, God kept pursuing them with mercy and love, sending prophets to call them back and promising to restore them. He even promised to renew their heart and give them a Savior and King to rule them in goodness and justice forever.

After 1,000 years of being forever faithful to his people, even though they had been repeatedly unfaithful to him, he restates his love for them, and they brush it aside by questioning the legitimacy of his love. Yikes.

Do you ever question God’s love? Rather than sing, “All my life you have been faithful,
all my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the goodness of God,” do you sing, “All my life you have been distant, all my life you have been hard to find. With every breath that I am able, I will sing of the harshness of God?”

For Israel, though they had been rescued from captivity in Babylon, returned to their land, rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, and resumed a form of worship in a new Temple, they were dissatisfied because they were not as large, powerful, or wealthy as they once had been. They wanted more than God had given them in a material sense.

We do this when we set our own self-focused expectations for God and he seems to come short of them. We do this when we equate perfect health, financial success, stress-free relationships, and a problem-free life because we claim to follow Christ. When we set these wrong expectations on God, we easily question God’s love when these things don’t happen. We ask, “Why don’t you love me God?” even when the evidence of his love is obvious and all around us.

If you were God, how would you respond to this question? Would you tell them you’d had enough and were going to move on? Would you call out their incredible blindness and ignorance? Would you simply refuse to answer?

While God could have done any of these things, he graciously chose to answer their question in a surprising way.

God validates his love for Israel.

God didn’t remind them about rescuing them from slavery, giving them a covenant at Mount Sinai, giving them food and water in the wilderness, giving them military victories and lands, houses, and farms in the Promised Land, giving them a dynasty with King David, or returning them to the land and allowing them to rebuild the walls and Temple.

God answered by reminding them about something he had done for them 400-500 years before he rescued them from slavery in Egypt. Rather than go back 1,000 years, he went back 1,500 years, 400-500 years before Moses led them out of Egypt to when he called Abraham out of a foreign land and promised to bless and love his descendants forever.

“Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” says the Lord. “Yet Jacob I have loved; but Esau have I hated.” (1:2)

Abraham had a son named Isaac, who had two sons named Esau and Isaac. These brothers were twins, but Esau was born first and Jacob second. This birth order meant Esau would carry on the family line and be primary recipient of his father’s blessing and inheritance for generations to come. But God passed over Esau and chose Jacob instead to be the family line through which his promise of faithful covenant love would continue.

The language God uses here is shocking to us. To love one person sounds okay enough, but to hate the other person sounds exaggerated and unnecessarily harsh and mean. But we need to understand that the language of “love and hate” was used in ancient Hebrew culture to speak less about feelings towards a person and more about the treatment and status that you chose to give a person held in your life. Though feelings would often be involved, they were not the focus of these concepts.

We make choices like this all the time today:

• On a less serious level, we do this when we choose one internet provider for our home and not another or eat at one restaurant after church and not the others.
• On a moderately serious level, we do this when we choose one university for our education but not the others or when we vote for one political party and not the other.
• On a more serious level, we do this when we choose one job over others, buy one home not another, or choose to marry one spouse and reject all the other possibilities.
• On the most serious level, we do this when we choose one faith over another.

That’s what God was referred to when he said, “I loved Jacob instead of Esau.” This is a strong point because it was not the expected choice. The normal choice would’ve been to choose Esau, since Esau was the firstborn son. But the fact that God broke social norms and chose Jacob instead showed a serious and intentional choice. God broke cultural, relational, and social norms to choose Jacob nearly 1,500 years before.

But God strengthened his point even more by explaining not only how he chose Jacob over Esau against all expected norms, but how he treated Esau in the years that followed. He didn’t just casually ignore or politely turn down Esau, or as we might say today, he didn’t just “ghost” Esau when he chose Jacob. He actually took deliberate action to obstruct and oppose Esau and his descendants for years to come.

…and laid waste his mountains and his heritage for the jackals of the wilderness. (1:3)

To understand what this means from the standpoint of history, let me give you a brief overview of what happened to Esau and his descendants through the 1,500 years of time from the time of Esau to the time of Malachi.

The descendants of Esau formed the nation of Edom. These people settled and formed a powerful, influential kingdom in the rugged desert region called Seir south of the Dead Sea. This kingdom included fortified cities such as Bozrah, Teman, and Petra.

Edom was known for its heavily fortified cities, often carved into high, elevated stone cliffs, making themselves easy to defend and hard to attack. They also controlled a main segment of the King’s Highway, a major artery on the trade routes of that day, giving them the ability to supervise and tax commodities traveling through their area.

Gen 36 tells us that Edom had established a formal monarchy of ruling kings long before Israel had kings, perhaps as far back as the Exodus. And Num 20 tells us that when Moses and the Israelites were traveling from Mount Sinai to the Promised Land, the people of Edom refused to let them use the King’s Highway to get there. Instead of fighting with their historical cousins, though, Moses chose to take the long way around, instead.

Throughout OT history, Edom repeatedly acted with hostility toward Jacob’s descendants. They fought against Israel once they also had kings and were a persistent source of irritation and trouble on Israel’s southern border. A key turning point came when Babylon attacked Israel in 586 BC. When this happened, Edom not only celebrated Jerusalem’s fall but helped the Babylonians by blocking Israelites who tried to escape. As a result, prophets like Obadiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel prophesied directly that Edom would soon be destroyed.

After Babylon invaded Israel, Edom itself suffered devastating losses. Babylonian armies decimated Edomite cities. And since they were now in a weak position, unable to defend themselves, nearby tribes of people called the Nabateans invaded the cities of Edom and forced them to move westward out of their land farther into the harsh Negev desert.

By the time of Malachi and this message (1:2-5), Edom had lost its homeland entirely and existed only as a small, displaced group of people known as Idumea. Meanwhile, Judah had returned from Babylon, had rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple, while Edom lay in ruins with no realistic future.

So, can you see God’s point? 1,500 years ago, God had chosen Jacob over Esau, even though that was not the normal thing to do. And for 1,500 years, he had remained faithful and committed to that choice. While Israel had been completely defeated and taken captive into a foreign land, he had returned them to their land and enabled them to rebuild and restore their nation. Meanwhile, Edom had also been destroyed but was unable to rebuild their kingdom as Israel had done.

But there’s more, as Mal 1:4-5 tells us. God not only chose Jacob over Esau, and God not only restored Israel (Jacob’s descendants) to their kingdom and land but did not restore Edom (Esau’s descendants), he also guaranteed that Israel would have a permanent, unending kingdom and presence in the world, while Edom would not.

Even though Edom has said, “We have been impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places,” thus says the LORD of hosts: “They may build, but I will throw down; they shall be called the Territory of Wickedness, and the people against whom the LORD will have indignation forever. Your eyes shall see, and you shall say, ‘The LORD is magnified beyond the border of Israel.’”

Here God spoke to Edom’s hopes and plans during the time of Malachi to rebuild and restore themselves to prominence. God assured Israel this would never succeed. History shows us that all of Edom’s attempts to rebuild were continually thwarted, exactly as Malachi 1:4-5 predicts.

During the Persian and early Greek periods (from the time of Malachi until the time of Christ, a period of about 400 years), Idumea remained a small but distinct region south of Judea. Over time, the boundary between Judeans and Idumeans became blurry. 200 years before Christ, a Jewish leader named John Hyrcanus conquered Idumea and forced the Idumeans to practice Judaism, which essentially absorbed the descendants of Esau into Israel. This made the distinction between Jews and Edomites very unclear.

Then, during the final 100 years before Christ, the Roman empire chose a man named Herod to govern the area of Israel on behalf of Caesar, which meant that descendants of Esau and Edom were now effectively ruling the Jewish people, an ironic twist which placed Esau in a dominant place over Jacob.

Herod and his relatives – all called Herod, who governed Israel from the time of Christ through the time of Paul, were incredibly corrupt and wicked men. It was Herods who ordered the death of Jewish boys at the time of Christ’s birth, who presided over Christ’s crucifixion, who ordered the death of Christ’s brother James, and who nearly executed the Apostle Paul.

This last gasp of prominence for Esau and Edom would be short-lived, though, for after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, Idumea disappeared from history as a distinct people group. Their assimilation into the Jewish population and the devastation of the region under Rome ended their separate existence and identity forever, fulfilling what God said about their future in Mal 1:4-5 – “They may build, but I will throw down.”

So, when God said, “I have loved you,” and Israel asked, “How have you loved us?”, God answered by reminding them he had chosen them long ago over another more rightful branch of the family tree and that he had remained devoted to that choice by preserving and restoring Israel as kingdom and people group while reducing and removing Esau’s descendants and nation, Edom, from existence as an ethnic group of nation.

The point here is the only reason Israel existed in the first place is that God had chosen them (for no apparent reason) and had faithfully preserved them and restored them, even though they had treated him horribly for 1,500 years. What an answer. It reveals how oblivious Israel was to the big picture of the reason for their existence. Instead of feeling like God owed them something more, they should have been blown away that they even existed at all. The only reason they existed was because God loved them.

In the New Testament (NT), Paul points to this place when he speaks to Christians today:

• He points out that God chose Jacob over Esau before the boys were born and before they could do anything good or bad (Rom 9:11).
• Then he quotes Mal 1:2, “Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated” (Rom 9:13).
• Then he quotes what God said to Israel at Mount Sinai, when he made his covenant with them in the first place, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion” (Rom 9:9; cf. Exo 33:19).
• Then he concludes, “Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills…” (Rom 9:18).

From this we see that we should view our salvation and relationship with Christ in the same way the people of Israel were to view their relationship with God as a nation. When they faced difficult things in life, when they experienced suffering, when their experiences did not rise to the level of their expectations in an experiential, material, physical, and tangible, they should not question whether God loves them or not.

Instead, we should step back and see the big picture. We should remind ourselves who we are. We are people – like Jacob – who would not normally be preferred, who did nothing to earn God’s favor, and who did not deserve anything from God. We should remind ourselves that God owes us nothing, but for reasons known only to him and based only in mercy, grace, and love, he has chosen me to be his child.

When we are tempted to complain about our situation in life and like the Israelites, to question whether or not God loves us, we need to remember that if we are followers of Jesus Christ, we have been chosen by God as his children. We do not deserve to be his children, we have not earned his salvation, and he owes nothing to us. Just the fact that I am his child, forgiven from sin, and forever secure in my relationship with him – no matter what I may experience in this life, I know I am loved, and I should never question that.

Just as Israel, at the time of Malachi, could look back 1,500 years to see God’s love for them in his choice of Jacob over Esau, how much more can we look back 2,000 years from now to see God’s love displayed at the cross. For us, God points to the greatest act and evidence of divine love – the death of his Son lifted up on cross, suffering the full judgment for our sin and restoring us to God.

If Israel should not have asked, “How have you loved us?”, then how can we ask this same question when we stand before the cross of Calvary?

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (Jn 3:16)

God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8)

The cross is God’s final, unchanging, undeniable answer to the question of his love.

And this is why we come to the Lord’s Table multiple times as a church throughout the year. Here, by the bread and juice, we remember the love that chose us, redeemed us, and keeps us close to God. We remember that Christ’s body was given for us and his blood was poured out for us. We remember that the covenant love God declared to Israel, the love they doubted, is the same covenant love that God proved and sealed for us through the death of His Son.

As we eat and drink, we are not merely remembering a doctrine or a historical event we are strengthening with our hearts the assurance that the God who loved Jacob, the God who restored Israel, and the God who gave his Son is the God who loves us still.

“I have loved you,” says God to us. “How have you loved us?” we say back to him. “By sending my Son to die for your sins on the cross,” he answers back for eternity.

In 1987, country music singer Randy Travis released a number one hit single called “Forever and Ever, Amen.” It speaks about a young man telling his future bride that he will love her devotedly for a lifetime. And while it’s a song of love between a young man and his bride-to-be, it was originally inspired by the love of a young boy for his mother.  Don Schlitz, one of the men who helped write the lyrics to this song, came up with the title after hearing his young son say his nightly prayers. After his son said his nightly prayers, he would often turn to his mother before going to sleep and say, “Mommy, I love you forever and ever, amen.” Listen with me now to the closing lyrics to this song:

If you wonder how long I'll be faithful
Well, just listen to how this song ends
I'm gonna love you forever and ever
Forever and ever, amen
I'm gonna love you forever and ever
Forever and ever, forever and ever
Forever and ever, amen

Friends, in case you’re wondering, this is how God loves you. Like God chose Israel to be his special people, even though they didn’t deserve his love and did many things over many years to turn him away, he refused to let them go and restored them time and time again. And because God sent his Son to die on the cross for our sins, we know that he will love those who trust in him forever, and ever, amen.

As we conclude this rich prophetic book, we are going to witness another significant step as the prophet continues to move from fear to faith. In chapter 3 we find Habakkuk’s response rise in a zenith of praise to God and find faith now more firmly imprinted on the humbled and strengthened heart of this man.

What prompts the response we will find in chap 3? Let’s make a brief review. The first two chapters are difficult. Habakkuk is struggling as he looks outward, seeing an overwhelming flood of wickedness and injustice while wondering where God is and why he seems inactive. God responds with grace, even to the point of revealing some details of his plan for the future. Although perplexing, Habakkuk begins to bend his emotions and will to God’s sovereign power and plan. This culminates with a call in 2:20 (READ). The audience is called to consider the immensity of God in his holy temple and what that awesome thought evokes…. Silence. The prophets Zephaniah (1:7) and Zechariah (2:13) issued the same call…. Look! See who and where God is and be hushed before YHWH!

Can we identify with this call? There are certainly experiences in life to which we can relate that invoke a similar response; standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon or other lofty height at sunset where vastness and beauty make speech feel small, or the climatic, final note of an incredible, orchestral performance that leaves the audience in silenced awe. Can you think of the last time when thoughts of God in his holy temple reduced you to silence? Should that be a frequent occurrence in the life of a believer? As a result, what should my response be?  

We are going to observe Habakkuk’s response today. It is instructive as a personal testimony of what God did in his heart and a wise pattern for us to follow in our lives. Sometimes we may wonder or even be skeptical of the value in the writings of these OT prophets. After all, we are in the church age. The church isn’t Israel or vice versa. Weren’t all of these writings for different people and time?  The answer is no. “All Scripture is…profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in righteousness.” Do we really believe that? The apostle Paul did and reminded the believers in Rome of the value which God places on the message of the prophets (Rom 15:4) – “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience/endurance and the comfort/encouragement of the Scriptures might have hope.”

So, for our endurance and encouragement this morning, we are going to examine this valuable text by contemplating ways in which the faith of the righteous grows out of silence and contemplation of God.

Faith responds in worship of God. (Hab 3:1-2)

Objectifying, personifying “faith”.

We could ground this response back in 2:4 (“The righteous shall live by faith”) by saying it this way, the righteous person’s faith grows through trials as his focus on God results in awe and submissive worship.

Habakkuk’s approach to God in chapter 3 sounds different than his questioning of God in Chs. 1-2. Although not identified as such, could we consider those earlier exchanges with God as prayer? Certainly. We are not prohibited from asking questions as we pray. In fact, one of the amazing, and encouraging things about reading the OT (Moses, the prophets, Psalms) is that we mere humans are encouraged to approach God openly when life is difficult or even when we wonder if things are being managed well. And God, in his grace, always listens and sometimes responds. But here is the key. Rather than letting his doubts and fears drive a wedge between him and God, Habakkuk submits them to God in worship through prayer. As Chapter 3 opens, it simply says, “A prayer of Habakkuk…” In this simple phrase we witness a change in tone and focus. Habakkuk seems to shift away from looking out and around at the world and people toward an upward focus on God, who he is, what he has done and what he will do. This pattern is not unfamiliar in Scripture. David routinely goes through this recital in the Psalms; a look outward with all its perplexing and frightening aspects then grounded by a look upward to focus on and remember the God to whom he belongs. These patterns are not accidental. God has graciously given them to us for our “endurance and encouragement” and we would be wise to follow the same pattern.

v. 2 – Habakkuk is overwhelmed in awe when he considers the scope of what God has revealed to him and the reality that it is imminent. We remember these themes from the first two chapters as: “Lord, how long?" "Lord, why them?" and "Woe to the Proud!” Even as God’s answers to his questions were perplexing, he bows to and accepts the awesome and eternal nature of God’s perfect holiness, righteousness and justice. Also mindful of God’s faithfulness, he remembers and pleads for God’s unfailing mercy in the midst of coming judgement.

“Prayer is an integral part of worship in Scripture. In the OT the petitions and supplications of God’s people are based upon his character and divine covenants. The honor of God’s name and steadfastness of his word are a frequent appeal.” (Scofield)

Before examining the main body of this prayer, there are some aspects of it that are worth noting:

• v. 1 Shigionoth – not clear but could be that of expressing an emotional response. What has been conveyed by God leading up to this could certainly evoke emotion. Perhaps this is tied to…
• v. 19 This prayer/poem/song is intended to be accompanied by stringed instrument and used in temple worship. The possessive phrase “my stringed instrument” may indicate that Habakkuk was personally trained in the use of such and personally involved in temple liturgy. This is the only OT writing besides the Psalms to contain musical notations.
• The literary style is that of the ancient epic. Epic literature features aspects such as grand subject matter, wide historical range, an heroic protagonist, elevated style and supernatural elements, all of which may be found here.

So, once again faith responds in worship of God.

Faith rehearses what God has done. (Hab 3:3-15)

We just talked about the features of epic literature. One of the tendencies in reading such is that we are drawn to the heights of elevated style and speech. It can almost seem like we are soaring over the text at 30,000 feet. It could be likened to the IMAX theater experience and the thrilling, adrenaline rush as you are taken over the precipice and the whole world drops away under you. There is nothing wrong with this, and it certainly would have its place in the temple as God’s people worshiped. However, as we take the time today to text, there is great value in pausing to consider the imagery of some detail in the text. This is important to our understanding and embracing of God’s specific actions in time and space. So, we will try and focus on a few of them.

vv. 3-4 – “God came from…” Habakkuk’s mind is drawn back to a specific time in which God came and was present with his people. This is known in Scripture as a theophany.  This theophany recounts the events of exodus from Egypt and journey through the Sinai wilderness. Here, God’s very presence was with his people (we are familiar with the visuals of this story; pillar of fire, cloud, descending on Mt Sinai, etc.). Habakkuk recounts the visual impact of God’s presence; Glory, splendor, praise, brightness, radiance, flashing rays, all of which incredibly reveal, yet shroud God’s omnipotence. (v. 4 – “There his power was hidden”)

v. 5 – As God’s presence and power went forth, awesome events occurred. Pestilence was visited on Egypt in the climactic death of the firstborn. Plague (fever) came upon Israel on multiple occasions in the wilderness. Why? They repeatedly lifted themselves up in pride and complained against the leaders God had given over them.

vv. 6-7 – The phrase “startled the nations” alludes to the scattering like chaff which fell upon the nations of Canaan and surrounding peoples who opposed and obstructed God as he fulfilled the covenant with his people.

v. 8-11 – Here is recounted God’s judgement as it is seen and experienced throughout the natural world. With respect to water, he recalls events like the rivers and streams of Egypt turned to blood, the parting of the Red Sea, the parting of the Jordan river, the moving waters and vast oceans responding to God’s Word. The personification of natural elements and physical creation are an important feature of this epic. The same is often found in Psalms, sea roaring, rivers clapping their hands, hills being joyful before the Lord. Further in this text, the sun and moon stand still as God did for Joshua before the Amorites. All these rehearsed events are overarched by the visual image of YHWH riding as a conquering warrior with incredible power over the entire earth and its nations.

v. 12-15 – Here begins a shift from looking back to now anticipating what God will do. The Bible is the grand epic of God’s redemption of all creation. The rehearsal of God’s past acts of power are always rooted in future purpose, that of the redemption and salvation of his people, echoing back to the promise in the garden (Gen 3:15), “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” We see the same alluded to in v. 13 - “You struck the head from the house of the wicked”. There is hope for the future as the promise of complete victory over the seed of the serpent is again remembered.

This wonderful song of hope in salvation is heard throughout Scripture.

• Moses sang of this in Exodus 15 – “The Lord is my strength and song, and he has become my salvation…”
• David’s song of deliverance in II Samuel 22 – “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; The God of my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation,…”
• David again sings in Psalm 68 ‘ “The God of our salvation! Our God is the God of salvation…”
• Mary sang of this in Luke 1 – “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God, my Savior…”

In epic and musical form, Habakkuk offers a prayer rejoicing in hope; past, present and future, even amid personal, national and worldly turmoil.

Let’s stop here for a moment… Should we, as believers today, recall and rehearse the things that God did in Israel’s history and claim that hope for our own? Or was that just for them? Should we recall and rehearse that which is recorded in the NT as God showed his faithfulness to the first century church? Outside of Scripture, should we read and recount God’s deliverance of his followers down through the next 19 centuries? Should I recall the faithfulness of God demonstrated in the recent, brief history of my life and church? Should I consider Revelation, looking eagerly ahead to God’s faithfulness until the end of time and the ushering in of eternity future? YES, YES, YES, YES AND YES! The hall of faith in Hebrews 11 is followed by the challenge to believers to consider and remember that we are surrounded by that “great cloud of witnesses”.

So, to again tie back to 2:4 - The righteous person’s faith grows through trials as he remembers/rehearses ALL that God has done, both in his life and others.

Faith rejoices in God, my Savior. (Hab 3:16-19)

v. 16-17 It is interesting to contemplate these three sentences. Habakkuk has laid a solid theological foundation of who God is and what He has done. He will end by rejoicing and resting in what God will do. This is right and proper. Bookended within this triumphant hope is the rollercoaster of reality in which he finds himself as a natural man living in a fallen world. I think this is a place to which we can relate.

v. 16 - He admits to the reality of what he will likely witness and experience during the Babylonian siege. It frankly reduces him to a physical wreck, chattering teeth, knocking knees, incontinence. Uncontrollable physical response to terror.

Then, an interesting observation:

The phrase: NKJV “That I might rest in the day of trouble..” may also be translated as: “Yet I quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.” (ESV)

He must endure this terror quietly as he waits for God to bring subsequent judgement upon the oppressor.

v. 17 - Then, he continues this reality check by making detailed inventory of what they will lack. The result? Severe starvation. Elsewhere in the prophets, the sobering realities of starvation during a siege a shockingly detailed.

However, he uses a key word in this which changes everything, “though”. “Though the fig tree should not blossom, though the labor of the olive may fail, though the flock may be cut off…” although we will face starvation….

v. 18 - “YET I will rejoice in YHWH, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” This exultation is a declaration that Habakkuk’s love for God is not based on what he expects God to give him in this life. Though he will endure suffering, deprivation and loss, he will rejoice in the God of his salvation. Here is one of the strongest manifestations of faith, rooted back to God’s words in 2:4 – which may be translated, perhaps more fully to: The righteous shall live by his faithfulness. This could be expanded to what is at the end of our notes…..

A person with true faith in God endures hardship in the present with true joy because he rests in God’s character and promises, even if the immediate circumstances of life seem to contradict.

v. 19 – Is there anything more to say? Yes, and it is not insignificant. “God, my strength…” Here, and elsewhere in Scripture this phrase expresses furthest, deepest statement of rest in the assurance and unshaking security of the man who trusts God by faith.

Many of the Psalms and other prophets contain strong and encouraging reminders of these precious truths, God my salvation and God my strength. Listed in the notes are several upon which you may wish to meditate further.

>>> Psalm 18:2,46, 25:5, 62:1, 73:26, 88:1, Isaiah 12:2, 61:10, Micah 7:7 <<<

We have considered personal application at several points along the way. We know that the precious Words of God found here in this seemingly inconspicuous writing of an otherwise unknown man is not isolated. The call to a life of growing faithfulness is repeated throughout the Bible. So, we’ll conclude with the call of James 1:2-4:

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience/steadfastness. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

Discussion
Life101

• Can you remember experiencing something that left you with a sense of awe?
  • What could we change about our habits to feel this way about God regularly?
• What does Habakkuk’s progression from praying about the people and injustice around him to focusing on God in worship reveal about him?
• How might this explain his ability to submit his doubts and fears to God in a righteous way?
  • What are some habits we can build to be like Habakkuk in this way?
• The sermon tells us that the righteous person’s faith grows through trials as he remembers/rehearses ALL that God has done What are some examples things which God has done in the physical world that we can “rehearse” to worship Him?
  • What about some spiritual things that God has done?

Digging Deeper

• Multiple references to the first promise of the Gospel in Gen. 3:15 are made in Hab. 3:12-13. How can the future hope of the Gospel enhance worship through rehearsal of God’s acts?

Habakkuk 2:5-20

Nimrod, Jezebel, Nebuchadnezzar, and Herod. Genghis Khan, Cleopatra, Louis XIV, and Nero. Adolf Hitler, Bernie Madoff, Harvey Weinstein, and Ghislaine Maxwell. What do all these people have in common? Some of them were government leaders while others were not, but they all exhibited a flagrant, obvious arrogance seen by how they abused and took advantage of other people for selfish reasons.

While we don’t normally encounter or live directly under the power of well-known public villains like these, you’ve probably had experiences with similar people in a more personal, less public way. The school bully, abusive spouse, manipulative relative, controlling boss or supervisor, sarcastic, name-calling coworker, intimidating landlord or businessperson, unjust judge, and so on.

Like Habakkuk, we easily wonder how God can permit self-centered people like this to enter our lives and prosper in the world. In Hab 1:1–2:4, we learn that God’s plan is bigger and better than we can comprehend. So, rather than try to figure out what God is doing and why he is doing it that way, we should live by faith. Since he is eternal, faithful, all-powerful, holy, and unchangeable, we should wait patiently for him, trusting completely in him from beginning to end, no matter what arrogant, ungodly people may do in our lives.

But even when are trusting fulling in our faithful God, it helps to know what God thinks about arrogant people. In 2:5-20, he gives us his divine perspective on arrogant, ungodly people. He warns them of serious judgment and destruction, describing five behavioral traits and patterns of these kinds of people. Then he calls all people, whether abusers or abused, oppressors or oppressed, to turn from their idols to him in reverent worship.

Knowing what God thinks about arrogant people and will do to arrogant people is helpful for us in two ways. This knowledge helps us deepen our trust in him when arrogant people are causing us difficulty and pain. But it also helps us identify any arrogance in our own hearts so we can turn from it to trust in God with greater honesty and humility.

In summary, from this part of Habakkuk’s message, we see that proud people think too highly of themselves and too little of others. They reveal their arrogance by treating other people poorly in order to benefit themselves. And they do this because they do not trust in God. From this we see that arrogance grows where trust in God is missing, and it always shows in how we treat other people. Pride mistreats others because it refuses to trust God. When we stop trusting God, we start using people.

God warns of judgment for arrogant people.

At this point in the book, Habakkuk has asked God two questions. First, why did it seem God was overlooking the corruption and injustice of his neighbors and fellow citizens in Judah. Second, why would he use an arguably more wicked nation like Babylon to judge Judah for their sins?

But now Habakkuk is done asking questions and makes a confident, dogmatic statement, instead – that God will judge every arrogant person severely. By severely, I don’t mean God will punish them in an excessively harsh, rash, and reactive way but that he will judge them in a decisive and just way that matches the severity of their sin. Pride will not go unpunished, even if it seems to roam free without consequence now today.

In Hab 2:5-20, a key word appears 5 times, the word “woe.” This word appears 53 times in the OT. Seventy-seven percent (more than three quarters) of the time it means a “cry of doom” (Kenneth Barker) and announces deeply frightening, horrifying circumstances that will happen due to a person’s persistent, unrepentant sin.

These painful consequences are normally announced in a graphic, intense, and public way. This is intentional to encourage stubborn, unpersuadable people to repent, letting them know in clear terms that if they refuse to repent, their only possible and certain future is death, judgment, and destruction. These “woes” do not describe a mere wish for proud people to be punished but rather a statement of certain judgment that will definitely occur.

Habakkuk introduces here a series of not just one or two woes but five. And he previews what he is about to say in a brief phrase in 2:4, then a long verse in 2:5. In this preview, we see that God is calling out the sin of arrogance and pride. He describes it as a restless, greedy desire that cannot be satisfied; it abuses and exploits all kinds of people for selfish reasons. He compares the appetite of pride to death and the grave, which continues to seize more people every day yet is never filled.

When pride is a dominant desire in a person’s heart, they behave like a drunken person – inconsiderate of others and overconfident in themselves. Such people are difficult and frightening people to be around today because their behavior is so harmful to others. But in the end, the very people whom they bullied will be witnesses against them at the future judgment of God. They will then be able to taunt the arrogant people who tortured them.

The five woes of Habakkuk against proud people are offered this way – as mocking taunts, songs which essentially make fun of the bullies. In the traditional folk tale, The Three Little Pigs, as animated by Disney, the pigs mock the big bad wolf with a song: “Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf, the big bad wolf? Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? Tra-la-la-la-lah-la-la-lah?” They do this as he hunts them, blows their houses down, to terrorize and eat them.

Here in Habakkuk 2:5-20, God gives this kind of song with five verses. While it’s primarily directed not at the big bad wolf, but at the Babylonian kings and armies which would soon invade and terrorize Judah, it’s vague enough that it could also be sung about any arrogant people today or in history. In summary, though, Hab 2 teaches us those who trust in God will live, but those who are proud and refuse to trust in him will be destroyed.

Let’s look at the five verses of this mocking song against arrogant people and see five ways a proud and arrogant heart reveals itself through a person’s behavior. From these five behaviors, we see that proud people think too highly of themselves and too little of others. They reveal their arrogance by treating other people poorly to benefit themselves. And they do this because they don’t trust in God. Arrogance grows where trust in God is missing. Pride mistreats others because it refuses to trust God.

Woe to anyone who takes advantage of other people.

2:6-8 says arrogance and pride often reveals itself through the kind of behavior that takes advantage of other people. We call this exploiting, extorting, manipulating, or victimizing. God mentions a specific way of doing this here that involved increasing personal resources and wealth through a practice called “taking pledges,” or as Habakkuk says, “loading up many pledges.”

In the ancient world, “taking pledges” referred to seizing collateral from a person who owed a debt. In the case of the Babylonians (or any other arrogant people who take advantage of others), this often involved taking basic items which are essential to life, like clothing, food, house, or livestock. These pledges were supposed to function as temporary guarantee, not a permanent confiscation, and God’s law placed strict limits on how and when pledges could be taken.

The problem in this case was that the Babylonians would use debt as a weapon. They stripped already vulnerable, weakened people of what little they had left, forcing them into ongoing debt and keeping what was necessary for daily survival and dignity as mandatory collateral. This wasn’t a neutral business practice; it was predatory exploitation designed to keep people beholden or dependent on them. It revealed an arrogant heart that treated human beings like milk cows, squeezing all the milk they could from them with no regard for their personal dignity, health, or survival or the survival of their young calves.

In this verse, we see that Babylon would set off a domino train of events which would not end until they had at last been taken advantage of by others, just as they were taking advantage of other nations and people. As Paul says in Gal 6:7, “You reap what you sow.”

The emphasis here on “suddenly” reflects the poetic justice in God’s justice and plans. Babylon would rise to power quickly and but they would fall from power quickly, too. Babylon was the world superpower from approx. 612 BC to 538 BC, so only abt. 75 years, or one person’s lifetime. Compared to Assyria before them (abt. 300 yrs., or 4 lifetimes) and Persia after them (abt. 200 yrs., or 2.5 lifetimes), they would be a short-lived empire. (The United States is currently at somewhere between Assyria and Persia in age, btw.)

Anyway, this is what arrogant people do. They see people not as neighbors to love and serve but as assets to be used and abused. They use whatever advantage, position, or power they have to enrich themselves by draining others, showing little concern for the dignity, wellbeing, or survival of the people that they hurt.

Woe to anyone who indulges himself at others’ expense.

2:9-11 expands on the first verse of this taunting song by calling out how arrogant people not only take advantage of other people as a matter of business, but they do it to enrich and indulge themselves. They take the material gains they accumulate by extortion to make their own lives bigger and better than before.

The phrase “covets evil gain” here is interesting. In Hebrew, it is “cuts off an evil cut.” It describes how a tailor may cut some fabric for a customer but cuts it shorter than requested while charging a higher price so he could cheat the customer and end up with more money and more fabric for himself.

This phrase is used broadly to describe raising your profit margin and inventory by cheating and swindling people. Here it refers to how Babylon – esp. it’s rulers and leaders – would embellish and enlarge not only their empire and kingdom but also their individual, private houses and dwellings to be more impressive and safe for themselves.

They would be like a bald eagle building its nest far above other birds by stealing twigs and sticks from the nests of those birds less powerful than themselves. This taunt speaks of giving “shameful counsel to their house,” “cutting off many peoples,” and “sinning against your own soul.” While the Babylonians (or arrogant people) thought they were building strong, fortified houses and buildings by cutting up lumber and stones they had claimed from the people they conquered and their tortured labors, it was actually their own homes and families’ futures which were being cut off.

The taunt claims that even the stone and wood they used to build their houses would cry out as witnesses against them. In other words, even if they destroyed every single enemy, their own grand houses and buildings would be permanent witnesses and reminders of the people they abused and took advantage of to build them.

So, arrogant people take advantage of other people and indulge themselves at others’ expense. They also …

Woe to anyone who advances himself through violence and crime.

2:12-14 speaks of building towns and cities through violence (“bloodshed”) and crime (“iniquity”). “Through violence” refers to cities built through the efforts and labors of people who are poorly treated and die to achieve the goal. The word “iniquity” (“crime”) refers to social, property, and commercial sins – seizing private property, shaming people unjustly, using underhanded business policies and financial practices to get what they want, even threatening people through mafia-style tactics. They built their towns and cities on the blood, sweat, and tears of bullied and enslaved people.

Those who build houses and projects on the backs of bloodshed and through crime and violence only labor in the end, only do so as an elaborate preparation for the massive bonfire of God’s judgment. What seems to be an impressive building project and scheme is nothing more, in God’s eternal sight, as a simply gathering kindling wood for the fires of divine destruction. All the grandiose building projects of the world which occur through unjust, violent, and corrupt means – whether large-scale government building projects or else the building projects of wealthy and corrupt financiers – are ultimately “in vain” (or useless and wasted).

“The Lord of Hosts” emphasizes God as the supreme commander of all forces in existence, seen and unseen. “Hosts” refers not only to earthly armies but to the vast angelic forces and even the stars themselves, all of which serve at God’s command.

A clear and dramatic illustration of this appears in 2 Kings 6, when Elisha’s servant feared the large enemy army surrounding them, and God opened his eyes to see the hills filled with horses and chariots of fire, with the countless unseen angelic armies of the Lord standing ready to act on behalf of his people.

Throughout the OT, this title reminds God’s people that no empire, nation, or ruler acts outside of God’s authority. When Habakkuk speaks of the Lord of Hosts, he is declaring that the God who sees arrogant oppression also commands unlimited power to judge it decisively. The bullies, enemies, and oppressive people which seem overwhelming to us are surrounded by forces far greater than any human power on our behalf.

Here, Habakkuk points out that the purpose of God’s judgment and punishment would be not only to punish arrogant people but to ensure that the whole world would know the Lord in a real, personal, unmistakable way, either as Savior or Judge.

The entire story of the Exodus, for instance, centered on the fact that Pharaoh did not know God (Exod 5:2), but God wanted to introduce himself to Israel (Exod 6:6) and to Pharaoh and the Egyptians (Exod 7:5) (Kenneth Barker).

A clear knowledge of the greatness and justice of God will be so universal it will be as common and obvious as the lakes, rivers, seas, and oceans that cover the world. The arrogance of corrupt and unjust people, along with all their grand but unjust accomplishments and projects, will be burned and washed away and will be nothing more than a means for all people to be introduced to the power and judgment of God.

Proud people take advantage of other people, they do so to indulge themselves, and they do so through violence and crime. But there is a fourth way that arrogance reveals itself.

Woe to anyone who abuses and shames other people for pleasure.

The fourth verse of this taunt song, 2:15-17, emphasizes drunkenness and abuse as behaviors of arrogant people. This is especially appropriate because the OT shows that Babylon was a nation known for its wild drinking parties (Dan 5). Somehow or another, they also forced the people they conquered to join them in drunkenness. When they were drunk, they mocked and abused them in shameful ways as they did the sort of things that drunk people do (see v. 15).

Ironically, God announced that they would have the same thing happen to them in the end. Since they had intoxicated others and shamed them, then would be intoxicated and shamed themselves in the end.

In Scripture, a cup of wine, held out and poured out by a king, represented judgment, and the right hand represented power. 2:16 says this would happen to Babylon and arrogant people like them.

Babylon had destroyed the forests of Lebanon and deprived animals in those dense, lush woodlands of their natural habitat. What had once been a lush forest of majestic cedars and thriving wildlife had been exploited and mismanaged to build corrupt opulent building projects. Worse yet, they had done the same thing to the cities and people in them, too – not just the forests and the animals. So, here we see that arrogant people not only abuse other people, but they abuse and mismanage God’s creation – both plant and animal life – for their own selfish purposes, too. God judges this behavior, too.

For this reason, God said they would be drunk and exposed to the world. And this is exactly what happened. At the end of their brief, 75-year existence as an empire, the Syria army sprung a surprise attack on their capital city. Ironically, they attacked and overthrew the city while King Belshazzar and all his government officials were participating in a drunken party. That night, the Syrian empire killed him and brought the Babylonian empire to a sudden end.

So, proud people take advantage of other people, they do so to indulge themselves, they abuse and shame other people for their pleasure, and they do so through violence and crime. But there is a fifth and final way that arrogance reveals itself – they trust in idols.

Woe to anyone who trusts in idols.

In this fifth and final woe, God places the ‘woe’ in the middle of the taunt rather than the beginning. Doing this “jumps right into” the topic and shows a special sense of urgency and seriousness about this particular sin. He has already introduced this problem earlier, too, in Hab 1:11, when God pointed out how the Babylonians would worship their nets for the fish that they caught and the people they conquered.

But here, God points out the emptiness, futility, and uselessness of trusting in idols – or manmade things. If a human being makes something, they are automatically superior to that thing, whether an idol or anything else (like a fishing net, etc.). So, to worship an idol or manmade thing is ridiculous. It is no more than a block of wood overlayed with a mineral like gold or silver. It cannot talk, it cannot breath – it has no life or existence at all. So, the woe here – the doom and destruction to speak of – is in the idol itself. It is nothing, does nothing, and will be good for nothing in the end when God’s judgment comes.

As human beings, we are trusting beings. We are created by God to trust in him. But we choose, for sinful reasons, to trust in all sorts of other wrong things. We trust in riches (Job 31:24; Prov 11:28), important people (Ps 146:3; cf. Jer 17:5-8), military fortifications (Dt 28:52; Jer 5:17), beauty (Ezk 16:15), and personal abilities (Prov 3:5; 28:26). We even trust in evil (Isa 30:12).

But as Paul says in Rom 1:25, when we trust in created things rather than the God who created everything, we trade the truth for a lie.

Who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.

And it is for this reason, that arrogant people who refuse to turn to and trust in God must resort to all the abusive, dishonest, and even violent means God mentions here in Hab 2:5-20, because people who trust in idols get no help, from the idols or from God.

So, we see that proud people think too highly of themselves and too little of others. They reveal their arrogance by treating other people poorly in order to benefit themselves. And they do this because they do not trust in God. From this we see that arrogance grows where trust in God is missing, and it always shows in how we treat other people. Pride mistreats others because it refuses to trust God. When we stop trusting God, we start using people.

God calls for reverent worship from all people.

Habakkuk closes this five-part series of warnings of coming doom and destruction on arrogant people with a surprising shift in tone and focus. After exposing the arrogance, cruelty, and idolatry of proud people, God gives a universal command not only to Babylon, but also to Judah and to all people everywhere to respond to God with reverent worship.

When he says, “keep silence,” he is calling not only for verbal quietness but for an inner heart attitude of humble submission before God. After all the loud and grandiose activity and bluster of arrogant people, God now calls every voice to fall silent in his presence.

The Hebrew word hasah translated “be silent,” literally means to “hush.” It is the same word used in other serious calls to show reverent respect before God (Zeph 1:7; Zech 2:13). It describes proper response of finite, sinful beings like us before the infinite, holy creator God. It should be an awe-filled stillness.

Ironically, in the previous verses, idols themselves are silent, not because of reverence, but because they are lifeless. They cannot speak, act, rescue, or save. In Hab 2:19, idol worshippers cry out to blocks of wood and stone, commanding them to wake up and do things, but nothing happens.

Here in v.20, the contrast is obvious. God calls arrogant, proud people to be silent, not because he is powerless, but because he is fully alive and reigning. We are to become silent like idols, not because God is mute, but because we no longer need to speak, shout, scheme, or manipulate when we have God. We can quietly trust him instead of engage in clamorous, loud, raucous chanting, yelling, and so on as when worshiping idols.

The reason all the earth must fall silent is that “the LORD is in his holy temple.” This does not only refer to the Temple building in Jerusalem, but to God’s heavenly throne room, of which the earthly temple was only a small copy. As Psa 11:4 declares, “The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD’s throne is in heaven.”

Habakkuk draws our attention away from dumb, man-made idols to the self-existent, eternal, holy, sovereign God who rules the universe. This God was eternal before creation (1:12), remains unchanging through history (3:6), and is altogether holy in his character and actions (1:12; 3:3). From this heavenly temple, he reigns over every nation, empire, and person.

Because the Lord alone is living, eternal, and sovereign, the appropriate response is universal and unavoidable: “let all the earth keep silence before him.”

No nation is exempt. No person can tell him what to do or manipulate him. He is sovereign over all things, and no idol can rival him. God will be exalted among the nations and in all the earth—just as Psalm 46:10 proclaims:

Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!

So, we see that proud people think too highly of themselves and too little of others. They reveal their arrogance by treating other people poorly in order to benefit themselves. And they do this because they do not trust in God. From this we see that arrogance grows where trust in God is missing, and it always shows in how we treat other people. Pride mistreats others because it refuses to trust God. When we stop trusting God, we start using people.

As we close, this passage can turn the spotlight onto our own hearts. The five woes are not just a description of “other people out there.” They are a mirror that can reveal subtle (or not so subtle) forms of arrogance that can creep into our own behavior each day.

When someone engages in pornography, they are participating in the abuse of people made in God’s image. When we make cutting, sarcastic remarks, especially under the guise of humor, we publicly shame others to feel superior. When we exaggerate numbers, hide mistakes, or cut corners at work, we cheat people for personal gain. When we mistreat employees, customers, classmates, or family members, we are exploiting people rather than loving them.

Arrogance and pride doesn’t only reveal itself in the lives of the famous, powerful, and rich. It often appears in our own personal lives. Habakkuk calls us to ask hard questions: Where am I using people instead of trusting God? Where am I protecting myself, advancing myself, or indulging myself at someone else’s expense?

At the same time, this message comforts those who are suffering under people who live this way. Some of us are affected daily by manipulative coworkers, domineering supervisors, abusive spouses, dishonest business partners, or cruel family members.

Habakkuk reminds us that God sees every act of exploitation and abuse, every shaming word, every ounce of violence and injustice, and none of it escapes his judgment. He says “woe” to these people in no uncertain terms. He is not like a useless idol which is no help at all. He is the creator God who will act with the full powers of his divine nature.

The proud may flourish for a time, but they do not escape accountability. God’s justice is not rushed, but it is sure. That frees us from the exhausting and destructive burden of revenge, fear, or despair. We can remain silent, not because injustice doesn’t matter, but because God reigns. We can entrust our pain, our defense, and our future to him, confident that the Judge of all the earth will do right (Gen 18:25). Woe to the proud but comfort and salvation to his people who trust in him.

Today, we began by naming some notorious figures in history who are known for their arrogance and pride. But Habakkuk has shown us that the danger of pride is not only out there in world governments or public villains, but in any heart that trusts in idols, refuses to trust in God, and who then abuses and uses people for selfish advantage and gain.

The same pride that fueled Jezebel or Babylon, Cleopatra or Bernie Madoff can appear in our own lives, workplaces, homes, and churches whenever we exalt ourselves at the expense of others. When we do this, we reveal that we are worshiping idols of our own making rather than God.

That’s why God’s final word to Habakkuk is not merely “woe” but an invitation to repent and to worship: “The LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him” (Hab 2:20). The answer to pride is not louder arguments, tighter control, or greater self‑justification, but humble, quiet, obedient, and reverent trust in the living God. When we acknowledge his sovereignty, rest in his justice, and trust in his grace, we are freed from arrogance and fear. Woe to the proud, but comfort, safety, and hope to all who bow in humble worship before the Lord.

1 Corinthians 15:1-11, 56-58

We live in a world where the only thing that seems certain anymore is uncertainty itself. People make promises then break them. Doctors offer wildly different diagnoses for your health condition. News outlets report the same events with opposing details. Weather forecasts change by the hour. Financial markets swing unpredictably between boom and bust. Politicians revise policies frequently. Even our technology goes from cutting-edge to outdated in only months or even weeks.

In a recent journal article published by Frontiers in Psychology, the authors point out that uncertainty is a neglected field of study, especially with regard to research on how uncertainty affects human behavior. It observes, “Uncertainty has important psychological effects…but more often uncertainty has negative or potentially maladaptive [mental], emotional, and behavioral effects.”

A more recent article published by Science Direct concludes “uncertainty is a permanent condition in human lives, a fundamental experiential realm of human existence.” This article observed what seemed to be strong links between uncertainty and: anger, anxiety, depression, fear, frustration, hopelessness, sadness, stress and distress, and worry.

In other words, uncertainties are a regular feature of our human experience, and this has a significant, wide-ranging effect on our personal well-being, including not only our physical health but every other aspect of our existence. Think about it. How much of your own anxiety, fear, and other negative feelings, thoughts, and conditions may be traced back to your response to some kind of uncertainty as root cause? The timing and means of our death, for instance, and what will happen afterwards is by itself an uncertainty which affects us in more ways than we may easily realize.

In this letter called 1 Corinthians, Paul addresses some significant causes of uncertainty in the church at Corinth. This uncertainty in the church was rooted a cluster practical, moral, and relational problems in that church as well as a series of challenging theological questions the church was asking.

The real-life problems they were facing included interpersonal divisions, lawsuits between members, sexual immorality within the church, and even a case of incest (1 Cor 1:10-6:20). The theological questions they were asking included (1 Cor 7:1-14:40):

• How to view marriage (7:1-24)
• How to view singleness (whether virgin and widow) (7:25-40)
• How to handle doubtful things (8:1-11:1)
• How to view the role of women in church worship (11:2-16)
• How to view and practice the Lord’s Supper (11:17-34)
• How to view spiritual gifts (12:1-14:40)

Needless to say, these problems and questions caused a lot of uncertainty for the members of this church. At one point, Paul even said, “For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep [ahem, are dying]” (1 Cor 11:30).

It’s easy for a church to be distracted by problems and questions and to lose focus due to uncertainty. So, after addressing these problems and answering these questions, Paul closes this letter by bringing into focus something which gives certainty in the face of uncertainty, courage in the face of fear, and hope in the face of hopelessness. This is the gospel, the good news of death, burial, and resurrection of Christ – with a special focus and emphasis on the resurrection.

In a world marked by uncertainty, we can find great certainty, confidence, and hope in the resurrection of Christ. As Paul makes clear, this good news about Christ’s resurrection is not only a certainty on which we can begin a life of faith, forgiveness, and salvation, it is also a certainty that makes possible a life of continual, persevering faithfulness in our daily mindset, routines, and service for Christ.

Because the resurrection is both a historical and timeless certainty, it not only deserves our faith for salvation, but it also strengthens our faithfulness for life and service – no matter how many problems we experience in our lives or questions we ask in our hearts.

The resurrection is a historical certainty that deserves our faith.

As Paul brings his letter to the church at Corinth to a close, he does what he did for them the first time he met them – he preaches to them the gospel (15:1, 3). And what is the gospel? This word means “good news” and it describes the kind of good news a war-weary, out-of-breath foot soldier brings as he runs on adrenaline to announce to the women and children back at camp that their husbands and sons have won the long, bloody battle in the valley below.

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!” (Isa 52:7)

Only, instead of describing the play-by-play tactics of a victorious battle plan which secured the victory, or the heroic moves of the soldiers who did the fighting, Paul describes the death and resurrection of one man who won the greatest victory for all of us – that Jesus died on the cross and rose again.

But for the resurrection to be good news that brings certainty, confidence, and hope to our lives, we must first know that he died. For a resurrection without a death is no resurrection at all.

Jesus definitely died – his burial proves it. (15:3-4)

Four books in the NT (the four gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) each give details about the death and burial of Jesus. These four men wrote these books independently of one another, yet their conclusions are the same – that Jesus died. We know this for many documented reasons.

The procedures for Roman executions made survival impossible. They scourged and whipped Jesus severely, then they crucified him, then they pierced through his chest with a spear to verify that he was dead. Multiple independent witnesses verified his death, including Roman soldiers, a Roman centurion, multiple faithful women at the cross, a man named Joseph of Arimathea, and another man named Nicodemus. These two men in particular handled his body and confirmed he was dead, and Pilate even required an official, certified confirmation before releasing the corpse to them. In the ancient world, only dead people were buried, and the Gospel writers emphasize the physicality of the burial. Burial itself functioned as the public certification of death.

Furthermore, the burial details themselves make any survival scenario impossible.

“Then they took the body of Jesus, and bound it in strips of linen with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury.” (Jn 19:40).

Here is how the burial process worked. While they didn’t embalm him, bleed him, or remove internal organs as the Egyptians and other cultures did, they slathered his body with an excessive amount of aromatic ointments and spices, far more than normal (Jn 19:39). The gospel of John indicates about 66 lbs., so can you imagine a 50-gal. bucket of exotic, aromatic cream being slathered onto your body, with 3 more gallons for good measure?

This mixture created a thick, glue‑like resin that hardened around the body. The smell alone would have overwhelmed any living person, not to mention that amount of weight covering his body making it impossible to breath well. But more importantly, the wrappings would have completely immobilized him, too. No one in a state of extreme trauma – much less unconscious, comatose, or barely alive – could breathe under those layers, let alone unwrap himself from the inside. You can’t even unwrap yourself if someone wraps plastic saran wrap around your bed on April Fool’s day, even if you’re the stronger, healthiest person in town – what’s more a comatose person with the severe physical damage and wounds that Christ had suffered that day.

So, even if Christ had somehow fainted, swooned, and then came back to consciousness, he could not have freed himself, then rolled away a massive stone, and then slipped past or wrestled triumphantly with armed Roman guards. Every physical detail of the burial proves with certainty that he certainly died.

Taken together, the historical, medical, and procedural facts lead to one unavoidable conclusion, that Jesus truly and completely died. Christ’s suffering and physical condition ensured it, witnesses confirmed it, burial practices sealed it, and physical realities of the tomb made any alternative impossible. The early church therefore proclaimed not a metaphorical or spiritual death, nor a near‑death, but a real, bodily death. That’s what makes Christ’s resurrection so incredible. Because he actually died, then he actually resurrected from the dead – which is astounding.

Jesus definitely resurrected – his appearances confirm it. (15:4-8)

Just as the four NT gospels give many proofs for the real death of Jesus, so they also give many proofs for the real resurrection of Jesus three days later.

All four accounts – again, written independently – agree that Jesus’ followers visited his tomb early on the first day of the week, that they verified his body was gone, and that he appeared physically, repeatedly, and unmistakably to many of his followers. The empty tomb itself is powerful evidence: the large, heavy, and sealed stone was found rolled away and the graveclothes were left behind in an orderly, undisturbed state.

John highlights that the linen wrappings were still lying there, and the face cloth was folded separately (Jn 20:6-7), a detail which makes grave robbery an impossible explanation for what happened and signals an intentional, calm departure by Christ.

The women who were the first witnesses in all four Gospels experienced both confusion and an angelic proclamation: “He is not here, for He has risen, as He said” (Mt 28:6). Their testimony is especially significant because women were not considered legally reliable witnesses in the ancient world, yet the Gospels boldly put them forward as key witnesses, showing that this was a real resurrection because they were unconcerned about relying on women as their first witnesses.

The resurrection appearances confirm a real, physical resurrection, not some kind of spiritual-only alternative, like the appearance of Jesus as a ghost, spirit, or something unphysical. After his resurrection, Jesus spoke, walked, taught, ate, and invited physical contact and touch, first from his disciples who knew his well (Lk 24:39-43), and also by the one who had been absent at first, Thomas (Jn 20:27).

He appeared to other individuals, like Mary Magdalene, small groups like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and large gatherings, like the eleven, and later more than 500 at once, as Paul records. In fact, it is upon these many witnesses of the resurrected Christ that Paul leans most heavily to show the certainty of the resurrection (15:4-8).

Perhaps you or someone you know might argue, “Well, with that many people claiming to have seen the resurrected Christ, were there also people who dispute those claims. Are there any historical records which indicate that these people may have been wrong?

The answer to this question is ‘no.’ There are no ancient historical records that counter, dispute, or refute these claims of witnesses. No Jewish or Roman sources ever produced a body, denied the empty tomb, or refuted the resurrection appearances in any way. The only historic attempt to explain away the resurrection of Christ is the “stolen body” lie recorded in Mt 28:11-15. Ironically, this attempt actually admits the tomb was empty and that eyewitnesses existed immediately. Early opponents never argued that “no one saw Jesus” or that “he was still buried.” Instead, they tried to explain away the facts they could not deny. What’s more, no ancient critic, whether Jewish, Roman, or otherwise, ever challenged Paul’s claim that more than five hundred people saw the risen Christ, many of whom were still alive and available for questioning at that time.

In other words, the historical record contains no denial of the witnesses, no alternative account of the body, and no document claiming Jesus remained dead. The earliest critics conceded the evidence and only attempted to come up with alternative explanations, hoping people would think that though it looked like Jesus has risen from the dead, he actually didn’t.

About these witnesses, we should note that when people encountered the resurrected Christ, they did not go away unaffected or unchanged. If they were fearful and hiding, they turned into bold, unafraid proclaimers of the resurrection, instead. If they were tired, sad witnesses, they changed into people who ran quickly to go tell others what they had seen. Seeing the resurrected Christ changed people.

Most importantly, we must not only accept the historical factuality of Christ’s resurrection.

We must believe this message to be saved.

When Paul reminds the members of the church at Corinth of the resurrection of Christ, he does not only speak about the historical certainty of the resurrection, he speaks about the way both he and they responded to it personally. He said they “received it” (15:1), he “received it” (15:3), and they “believed” (15:11).

In Paul’s case, he had been a very religious person, following all of the laws and rituals of Jewish orthodoxy to a tee. And as you know, Jewish orthodoxy denies the resurrection of Jesus, and they deny that Jesus is the Messiah, King, and Savior. As you know, it as the Jewish religious leaders (like Paul) who spread the “stolen body” theory. And they even, as Paul did, punished by beatings, imprisonment, and even execution anyone who publicly promoted the idea that Jesus had risen from the dead. To this day, orthodox Jews claim that biblical and historical records of the resurrection of Christ are either mistaken, misunderstood, or intentionally embellished by his followers.

But when Christ himself appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, he knew that he had risen from the dead. At that moment, he turned from his sin and unbelief to believe on Jesus Christ as his God and Savior – even though this put his own life in danger at the hands of his own Jewish colleagues and friends.

As result of his life-changing belief in the resurrection of Christ, Paul devoted his life to spreading this message to others. On a journey to Greece, he did this very thing in the city of Corinth, where he met and spoke about Jesus to people for the length of one and a half years (1 Cor 18:1-11). As a result of his time there, many of them had also come to believe on Christ for salvation after hearing about the death and resurrection of Christ.

Why is it important to believe that Christ died and rose again? In part, so that we will receive forgiveness of sins from God. As Paul says clearly, with emphasis, Christ didn’t just die, he died “for our sins” (1 Cor 15:3).

This means that Christ, who himself never sinned, voluntarily accepted the role of taking full punishment and judgment for your sins and mine upon himself. In this way, he essentially “swapped places” with us so that the punishment of God’s wrath we deserve for our sins fell on him (who was innocent) instead of on us (who are guilty).

You see, if Jesus did not die for our sins, then his death is nothing more than a horrible tragedy at worst or else an example of extreme love at best, but one which we can never live up to. But Scripture teaches that our sin brings about real guilt, real separation, and real judgment, and only a real substitute can remove these things. When we confess that Christ died for our sins, we are embracing the heart of the gospel: that Jesus willingly took our place, bore our guilt, satisfied God’s justice, and opened the way for real forgiveness, peace, and new life through his real death.

Notice how Paul said Christ did this “according to the Scripture.” This reminds us of what the prophet Isaiah, hundreds of years before, said Jesus would do for us when he died:

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isa 53:4-6)

Since Christ not only really died “for our sins” but he also really resurrected, then we know that his death “really worked” and was “really victorious” not only over the cause of our failure and guilt – which is sin, but also over the consequence of our sin – which is death.

When this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Cor 15:54-57)

So, to experience the certainty of forgiveness from sin and salvation in Christ, you must believe in the good news of salvation – that Jesus died for your sins and that he rose again. These things are not a myth or wishful thinking. They were promised by God and they actually occurred in history. The certainty of the resurrection deserves our faith.

But the resurrection of Christ not only a historical certainty that deserves our faith, it is also a timeless certainty that strengthens our faithfulness.

The resurrection is a timeless certainty that strengthens our faithfulness.

As we noted at the start of this message, we live in a world where the only thing that seems certain anymore is uncertainty itself. And we live in a world where uncertainty affects our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual condition. But thankfully, the resurrection of Christ gives us certainty and hope not only for a moment when we believe on Christ for forgiveness of sins and salvation, but to keep on believing on Christ through the difficulties of this life to the end.

We must continue to believe this message to be saved.

Notice what Paul says in 1 Cor 15:2, “By which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.” With this statement, Paul places a kind of condition on believing the gospel. This is a condition which – if met – will render a person’s faith for salvation null and void and, in fact, literally “meaningless.”

This condition he frames as a contrasts between “holding fast” and “believing in vain.” If a person “holds fast” then they will be saved, but if they “believe in vain” then they will not be saved. What does this mean? It means that a person who believes in Christ for salvation must believe genuinely. The alternative to genuine belief, though, is “vain” belief, which is “empty of meaning” and “of no real purpose.”

How can a person know whether they have genuine or vain faith? By whether or not they “hold fast” to the word of the gospel they believed in the beginning. In other words, we test the genuineness of our faith in Christ not by analyzing in a retrospective way our psychological state at the moment we believed the gospel initially, but by holding firmly and tightly to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for salvation on a daily basis.

A person who believes to the end of their life is saved, but a person whose faith is empty does not. This does not mean that a person who believes on Christ can be saved for a while then abandon or withdraw from their faith and salvation. Instead, it means that a person who abandons or withdraws from their faith and salvation never believed on Christ in a genuine way at all – their initial faith, then, was empty and meaningless, not real.

As Bible commentator David Prior helpfully explains: “We constantly need to reiterate the heart of the gospel, and that involves taking a firm grip on the historical facts.”

So, here Paul makes clear that saving faith is not momentary or superficial. It does not come and go. Like the death and resurrection of Christ itself, it is does not come and go – it is certain. If it is genuine, it will be enduring. True belief receives the gospel and then holds fast to it, while a faith that proves empty eventually lets go – because it was never genuine in the first place. Real saving faith in Christ believes the gospel and then clings daily to the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ for the rest of your days.

Finally, this daily firm grip of faith on the gospel does not remain passive or private. The same resurrection that secures our salvation and gives us confidence of salvation throughout our lives also motivates us to go forward in faithful, steadfast service for Christ.

We must continually labor so that others will believe this message.

In Paul’s conclusion to this section of his letter about the certainty of the resurrection of Christ, he says these encouraging, inspiring words:

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Cor 15:58)

What does this mean? While it is true that this means in a general sense that because Christ rose from the dead, we should be able to persevere through life with a calm, clear confidence, peace, and purpose, no matter what hard trials come our way. Yes, this is true. But Paul has an even more specific purpose in mind, though.

To close, let us zoom in on a word in this verse – the word “labor.” This word speaks of difficult, hard work. It speaks of the kind of work we might call toil, the kind which makes us feel tired, weak, and weary. Earlier in this letter, Paul uses this word to describe how he worked hard at cutting, tanning, and stitching animal hides to make tents to earn income to support himself when needed (1 Cor 4:12). This was difficult, hard work.

But Paul uses this word labor four other times in this letter. And in these majority of times, he uses the word to describe not manual, physical labor but rather gospel ministry efforts, instead (1 Cor 3:8; 15:10, 58; 16:16). From what Paul says about these gospel ministry efforts, we see that God expects us not only to believe the gospel for salvation and forgiveness of sins but also to work hard so that others will believe this message also.

And this makes sense, right? If Christ really died for our sins and really resurrected from the dead to bring salvation, then not only should this energize us to persevere in telling others this amazing good news, but it should compel us to do so. If we do not actively work hard at getting this message to others and persuading them to believe it, too, then how well do we comprehend or understand the significance of the gospel?

According to Paul, doing what we can so for others to believe the gospel should not be viewed as a casual side quest, an occasional half-hearted attempt, or a special calling and task for special, gifted people. No, it is the duty and should also be the delight of a person who has not only depended on Christ for salvation but devoted themselves to helping others do the same.

When a man goes to work to provide for his family, or a woman roles up her sleeves day-in-and-day-out to care for the home God has given her, they need a deep, relentless motivation that pushes them through the difficult moments, the endless days, the long hours, and the sleepless nights. People do not work just for work’s sake.

The same is even more true with the gospel. If we are going to labor and work hard as individuals and together as a church to bring others to believe in the death for their salvation, then we must be motivated by the certainty of the resurrection. Those first disciples were so transformed that they moved from depression and sadness to confidence and courage, bringing other people to faith in Christ, as well. Does this describe the life you live today? Have you been that kind of transformed by the certainty of the resurrection?

On this Resurrection Sunday, we celebrate not only a feeling, tradition, or inspiring story, but a certainty that changes everything. Jesus really died, he was truly buried, and he definitely rose again. Let that sink in. And because he lives, we can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because he lives, our faith is not in vain.

If you have never believed on Christ for salvation, today he calls you from the other side of the grave to turn from your sin and trust in him alone for forgiveness, salvation, and new life.

And for those who believe, the resurrection urges us to keep on believing, since this is what genuine faith does. And it sends us into our lives with courage, steadiness, and purpose, knowing that nothing done for Christ, to bring others into this faith, is wasted or forgotten, no matter how difficult and wearisome that labor may seem to be.

In a world filled with uncertainty, the risen Christ gives us certainty for today, confidence for tomorrow, and hope beyond the grave. This is the good news our anxious, fearful, sad, and stressed-out world needs. The resurrection of Christ is God’s answer to uncertainty. There is nothing more certain than the resurrection of Christ.

“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor 15:58).

Discussion Questions

Life 101

• Which evidence or proof for the real death and real resurrection of Christ do you find most fascinating, and why?
• How does the resurrection help us to have confidence rather than being distracted or disheartened by uncertainty?
  • What kinds of things would this certainty give us boldness to do?
• If Christ had merely died for our sins, but not risen again, what difference would it make?
• In what ways is telling people about Jesus like “hard labor?” (see 1 Cor 4:12; then 3:8; 15:10, 58; 16:16)

Digging Deeper

• The sermon notes that the grave clothes were left orderly and the face cloth was folded (John 20:6-7). How does this specific detail destroy the theory that Jesus' body was stolen?
• How does Paul say we can tell the difference between genuine and vain faith? How is this different from how many Christians often test the genuineness of their faith?

We’re aware of the “no kings” rallies that pop up from time to time. Through these events, people claim to renounce the idea of absolute rule, insisting that no single person should hold unchecked power. But is this a good idea? Is it always undesirable and wrong for a single person to hold unchecked power?

If so, then we should remove the Gospel of Matthew from the Bible, cease observing Good Friday and Easter, and stop following Jesus altogether. You see, the Gospel of Matthew is written for the very purpose of presenting Jesus as the King we all need. Yes, that’s right, we need a King, and his name is Jesus. That’s what Matthew tells us.

Jesus is the king.

The Old Testament (OT) ends sadly with the royal line of Judah’s kings coming to an end as they are carried away into captivity in Babylon. But four hundred years and fourteen generations later, we read about child who was born into that same royal line of kings through his mother, named Mary (Mt 1:1-17).

Then in Mt 2:2, some wise, influential men from a foreign land arrive in Jerusalem and ask King Herod: “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”

Fast forward to Mt 21:5 and Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem at Passover time. This is when he instructs his disciples to fetch a donkey for him to ride into the city. And as Matthew retells this moment, he also tells us that this event occurred to fulfill what the OT prophet Zechariah foretold and prophesied (Zech 9:9): “Tell the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”

After he arrived in the city, he taught people various things, including some important things about the future, upcoming judgment of people at the end of this age as God builds his eternal kingdom. Referring to himself in this case, he says, “When the Son of Man … the King will say to those on His right hand, Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mt 25:31).

Later on, during Christ’s final suffering and trials leading up to his crucifixion, Pilate asked him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” (Mt 27:11). To this Jesus replied, “It is as you say” (Mt 27:11). As a result of this claim, the Romans placed a sign above his cross which stated the reason for his crucifixion. The sign said, “This is Jesus the King of the Jews” (Mt 27:27). The Roman soldiers also mocked him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” (Mt 27:29), and the Jewish religious leaders did the same, mocking him with, “If He is king of Israel …” (Mt 27:42).

So, we see clearly from Matthew’s Gospel that the OT points to Jesus as King, the opening genealogy presents Jesus as King, foreign dignitaries recognized Jesus as King, and Jesus himself portrayed himself as King. But what kind of King was He?

Jesus is the king who confronted our sin.

We see this behavior clearly throughout Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus was not an impotent, weak king. He is not a king who accepted bribes, believed flattery, and played hypocritical political games. He is a fair, just, and courageous king who boldly confronted our sin.

He confronted the sin of people in general.

He called people to repent – to turn from their sinful lifestyles. “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 4:17).

He pronounced “woe” on them (which is essentially a curse of divine judgment) because they would not repent of their sins and believe on him (Mt 11:21). He even said that they were worse than Sodom and Gomorrah.

He called people “an evil and adulterous generation” because they were more interested in seeing him perform miracles than they were in listening to and submitting to his teaching (Mt 12:39).

He called them a “faithless and perverse generation” because of their refusal to believe on him (Mt 17:17).

But Jesus didn’t only call out the sins of people in general, he directly and specifically confronted the sin religious leaders.

He confronted the religious leaders.

He said to them, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” (Mt 9:4) over their anger at him for healing a man and forgiving his sins.

He accused them of “transgressing the commandment of God” because they created technical loopholes in their benevolent giving laws which enabled them to withhold money from their parents in need while keeping it for themselves for selfish uses (Mt 15:3). He called them “hypocrites!” for the same reason (Mt 15:7).

After his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, he called them ‘hypocrites’ again because of their not-so-clever questions designed to trap him and twist his words so they could discredit him (Mt 22:18).

He waxed eloquent and pronounced a series of seven severe woes on them in Matthew 23, accusing them of being not only hypocrites but also blind guides, stupid fools, poisonous snakes, and a den of vipers.

But Jesus didn’t only call out the sins of people in general and the sins of religious leaders.
He confronted his own family.

We don’t have as many records of him doing this, but we do have one instance. In Matthew 12:48, he said, “Who is My mother and who are My brothers?” By this, he indirectly corrected his family for distracting him from the work he had been called to do by God the Father.

And finally, we see that besides people in general, the religious leaders, and his family, Jesus also confronted his disciples.

He confronted his closest followers.

In Mt 8:26, he said, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” He said this in response to their frantic, panicked reaction to the stormy water while they were on a boat with him in the Sea of Galilee at nighttime.

In Mt 15:16, he said, “Are you also still without understanding?” He said this to correct their wrong ideas about the sinfulness of the human heart.

In Mt 16:23, he said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” He said this to correct Peter for trying to persuade Jesus against dying on the cross.

And in Mt 26:40, he said to his disciples, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?” He said because they had fallen asleep when they were supposed to be staying awake to guard him while he prayed in the hours just before his trial and crucifixion.

Put yourself on the other side of these comments by Jesus – as people in the crowd, as a religious leader, as a close family member, or as a close follower of Jesus. How do these bold, direct statements of confrontation make you feel? And how do they make you feel about Jesus? Would you feel that he was being mean or courageous? Was he being rude or was he being a good leader?

We appreciate leaders – even kings – who speak the truth and call out injustice. But that changes if they are speaking about or calling out injustice of our own. But a good king, the kind we all need, calls out our sins whether we want him to or not.

As William Wilberforce once said, “You may choose to look the other way, but you can never again say you did not know.” He said this as both a British politician and government official and also an serious-minded Christian who led the way in confronting and abolishing the transatlantic slave trade.

Like Wilberforce and so much more, Jesus is a king who reveals the truth about people to people that people would much rather avoid. Such bold confrontation is an act of both courage and love.

This is the very kind of love that God calls Christian husbands to have towards their wives when he says that husbands should have a “cleansing and sanctifying” effect for their wives as Christ does for the church, and how? Through “the washing of water by the word” (Eph 5:15).

And this is true for any leaders who will be like Christ. They must be willing to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15). The truth is not a matter of democracy. It is a matter of fact and of truth, whether it is convenient and wanted or not. In fact, speaking the truth may even cause a person to view you as an enemy – but this fact should not prevent you from speaking that truth anyway.

Thankfully, Jesus is this kind of King, unafraid to speak the truth to people in love, even when that truth is uncomfortable and hard to receive. But there is more. Jesus is not only the King who confronts our sin.

Jesus is the king who carried our sin.

Just as Jesus calls husbands to “cleanse and sanctify their wives by the washing of water by the word,” so he also calls husbands to “give themselves” for their wives as Christ “gave himself for the church” (Eph 5:25). And how did he give himself for us? Through his trials, sufferings, and death on the cross. That’s how.

You see, in Matthew’s Gospel, he not only reveals Christ as the King we all need and as the King who confronts our sin, he also reveals him to be the King who carries for us the sin that he confronts in us.

He gave his life for a ransom of many.

In Mt 20:25-28, Jesus taught his followers the right kind of leadership – the way a good king
is supposed to lead.

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant. And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”

As we acknowledged previously, a husband must be willing to lead his wife with courage, saying what needs to be said for her cleansing and sanctification. And though he must never do less than that, he must also do more than that and speak those words from a life that is also giving himself for her as Christ did for us in his trials, suffering, and death.

You see, Christ did not abandon the priority of a good King to speak the truth clearly and with courage, but in doing so, he did not speak arrogantly or boastfully (though speaking the truth was wrongly considered as such by the people he confronted). Instead, having confronted the people about their sin, he then devoted himself to suffer for their sin, as the second, necessary means to their salvation. He confidently, courageously, and compassionately “gave His life a ransom for many.”

Notice the completeness of this giving of himself. He didn’t give part of his life or some of his life. He gave all of himself so that as many as would turn from their sin to believe on him would be able to do so. And by giving his life, he devoted his daily agenda, effort, and life’s work to free us from the very sins which he confronted in us.

This is what a good husband must do. He must speak the truth and lead in the truth, but then he must set himself to give of himself for the truth – sacrificing his body, life, and reputation for the good of his wife so that she might be able to better receive and respond to the word that he gives her. And in doing this, he has the King we all need as his support, his example, and his King to which he must himself submit.

He shed his blood for remission of sins.

Then as Christ observed the last Passover with his disciples in the Upper Room, in the hours leading up to his betrayal and arrest in Gethsemane, he told them that the juice of the Passover meal and now the juice of Communion represents in vivid ways his blood which would be shed on the cross as he died for our sins. “This is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Mt 26:28).

You see, Christ did not just tell us what was wrong. Though he certainly did this, he did not only do this. He also did something about what was wrong. He did something about the sin he confronted. He gave himself to resolve our sin even though we were at first in a resistant, unrepentant state. Just as a husband should devote himself to loving and serving and giving himself at any cost to his wife even when she is not responding in kind, even more so to an infinite degree did Christ give his life for us – even to the bloody, violent, painful, torturous death of the cross. It is because he died in this way for us, for our sin which he boldly confronted, are we able to be saved from our sin.

He shed his blood so that God would be able to punish him instead of us, so that God would be able to rightly and fully forgive our sins.

Consider how Isaiah the OT prophet movingly portrayed and prophesied Christ’s death for our sins.

“I gave My back to those who struck Me, and My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.” (Isa 50:6)

He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isa 53:3-6)

Today, we live in a challenging moment of time. Our society as a whole relishes the idea of “speaking truth to power,” as it were. We announce “no kings,” and we resent anyone who speaks the truth about our sin. But it is not until we accept the truth about our sin – as Jesus himself calls it out – that we can rightly understand what he was doing on that dark Good Friday night. He was carrying on himself the very sin in us which he first so boldly and courageously confronted.

The One who said, “Woe to you,” also said, “My blood is poured out for you.”

So tonight, on this Good Friday, we look back on the death of a King, not the king the world is accustomed to, the King we truly need. He is the King who did not deny our guilt, excuse our rebellion, or soften the truth about our sin. He confronted it plainly, courageously, and lovingly. And then, amazingly, he lifted that very sin onto his own shoulders and carried it to his death.

Good Friday forces a personal question on each of us: What will we do with this King? We cannot applaud him from a distance and remain unchanged. We cannot admire the cross while refusing to repent of the sin that put him there. The King who spoke “Woe to you” is the same King who now says, “My blood is poured out for you.” To reject him is to remain under our sin. To receive him and believe him is to be freed out from under our sin forever because the punishment for our sin fell on him instead.

And husbands – men – let me encourage you to give yourselves to your wives in this same way.

This is the King we need.

Habakkuk 1:12-2:4

When it seems that God is silent and unresponsive to our prayers when conditions around us spiral downwards, God seems uncaring and unjust. How can a holy, loving God permit such immoral and unjust behavior to occur with seemingly no consequence?

But there is a second way that God seems unjust to us – when he does respond to our prayers and intervene in the unjust behavior around us, but his intervention seems either more confusing, difficult, or unjust than his silence.

There are times when a child becomes seriously ill, even though they may not feel terribly bad at first. When their treatment begins, their life changes quickly. Doctor visits increase, they go through uncomfortable procedures, and they have to take medicine that causes nausea, weakness, or other unpleasant side-effects.

To a young child, all these things feel incredibly unfair. The child didn’t cause the illness, and they don’t understand what the doctors are doing. They may wonder why their parents, who say they love them, are allowing these scary, painful, and uncomfortable things to happen to them.

As difficult as these experiences are to the child, parents know that without this treatment plan, the child’s illness will grow worse. They know allowing these uncomfortable and painful things now will save the child in the long run, while giving in to their cries instead will lead to devastating consequences later. So out of love, a parent permits what is necessary, even when it causes their child temporary confusion and hardship.

The key to these situations is for a child to trust completely in the character and words of his parents, even when their painful, confusing experiences seem to contradict their parents’ expressions of love and promises of better health and recovery.

The same is true for God’s people, and that is what Habakkuk begins to learn in our passage today. A person with truth faith in God endures hardship in the present because he rests in God’s character and promises, even if the immediate circumstances of his life seem to contradict God’s character and promises at the moment.

Sometimes God’s plans seem unfair.

For Habakkuk, God’s solution to the rampant, prevailing injustice of people in Judah seemed worse than his silence and apparent lack of intervention. As impressive as the Babylonian armies would be in many respects, they were also – by many observable measures – even more unjust and wicked than the people of Judah. While it was true that Habakkuk was bemoaning the rampant injustice and lawless behavior of his own people, seemingly without any consequence, discipline, or punishment from God, God’s solution of judging his people with an invasion of armies from Babylon seemed even worse. To Habakkuk, the problem seemed worse than the solution because the Babylonians seemed worse than the people of Judah.

Evidently, Habakkuk was already aware of the Babylonians. Somehow, he had kept up on news headlines from afar, possibly by interacting with traders and travelers coming to and from Jerusalem to faraway places. What he already knew about the up-and-coming Babylonians made him wonder greatly how God could use them to accomplish anything good at all. Here is how described them (1:13-17):

• They “deal treacherously.” This means that they deliberately break or betray trust, use behave in deceptive ways and are disloyal partners in any agreement.
• They “devour.” This means that they behave in an “all or nothing” way, unwilling to make deals and unwilling to negotiate.
• They are “less righteous” than the people of Judah. This refers to the fact that they worshiped pagan gods and had no allegiance to God’s moral expectations.
• They conquer other people easily as though they were helpless fish. It was like being a school of fish in a lagoon in which marauding fishermen all throw their fishing lines, personal nets, and dragnets in all at once, taking up all the fish with no contest.
• They gloat in their easy victories. This resembles what it’s like for a burly teen bully bragging to his friends about beating up a toddler on the playground. There’s no honor in that at all.
• They worship their nets for their victories, which is a way of saying that they gave zero credit to God for their military victories.
• They have no compassion, which means they were ruthless and showed no mercy.

Both according to the Bible and also external historical records and archeological findings, the Chaldeans (Babylonians) were known for being deliberately and excessive cruel to people they conquered. Their campaigns went far beyond military defeat and were designed to terrorize and humiliate the people they captured.

Scripture says when Babylon captured Jerusalem, they slaughtered leaders, executed King Zedekiah’s sons before his eyes, then blinded him and carried him into exile (2 Kgs 25:6-7). They burned the temple, dismantled the city, and forcibly deported men, women, and children, marching them by foot for hundreds of miles away (2 Kgs 25:8-12).

Historical records match what the Bible tells us:

“Monuments from Mesopotamia document the custom of literally driving a hook through the lower lip of captives. Long lines of captives with hooks through their lips are depicted being hauled off to Babylon. In a second figure of Chaldean brutality, Habakkuk pictures the Chaldeans dragged along in a “net.” The figure is apropos. In one relief from this period the major Babylonian deities are depicted dragging a net in which their captives squirm.” (James Smith)

From these historical records, we see that the fishing illustrations that Habakkuk uses were not only for illustration purposes but reflected things which the Babylonians actually did. This kind of ruthless, unrestrained violence and inhumane treatment of people, marked by arrogance and lack of compassion, that made the Chaldeans extra famous for their cruelty, and this explains Habakkuk’s confusion at God’s decision to use them as his instrument of judgment for his own people in Judah.

How would you respond to this plan if you had been Habakkuk? Though Habakkuk expressed serious questions to God about this confusing and surprising plan which seemed entirely unfair, he first grounded his questions in what he already knew to be true about God’s character, promises, and ways.

Faith focuses first on correct theology.

If you noticed, our first point in the sermon today skipped v. 12 to look at vv. 13-17, instead. I did this to point out the reason for Habakkuk’s concern and confusion. But before he expressed any of those things to God, he first focused his heart and mind on what he knew to be true about God’s character, promises, and ways.

This is what I mean by “theology.” I am referring how anyone with genuine faith in God must develop a deep, familiar, and thorough knowledge of God by studying and meditating intentionally on what the Bible says about God. Last year, our church went through a preaching series called “Incomparable,” in which we focused closely on various attributes and qualities of God.

We can study many things in this world, and we can focus our hearts, minds, and energy on many things in life, but more than anything other thing, we must first and foremost be a student of God. More than anything else, we should dig deeply and drink regularly from the Word of God to inform our minds and strengthen our hearts with the truth about God. This appears to be true for Habakkuk. So, when he was faced with a confusing and frightening situation, before expressing his concerns and questions, he rooted his thinking and perspective in what he knew to be true about God.

From Habakkuk 1:12, we see that Habakkuk believed the following things about God:

• He believed in the eternality of God. (everlasting)
• He believed in God as the faithful and loyal to his covenant with his people. (Lord/Yahweh)
• He believed in God as the all-powerful deity. (God/elohim)
• He believed in the absolute holiness of God. (my Holy One)
• He believed in God the supreme judge of mankind. (appointed them for judgment)
• He believed in the consistent, unchangeability of God. (Rock)

From this we see that Habakkuk did not ask questions from a place of unbelief. He did not ask questions as though he didn’t believe in God. He asked his questions and expressed his confusion from a place of deep conviction and faith in God. He didn’t question God. He questioned, instead, how what he knew and believed about God coincided with what he knew of God’s plans and works. He didn’t doubt the justice of God. He wondered how the justice of God could be paired with God’s plan of raising up the cruel and ungodly Babylonian’s as his means for judging his people.

Is this how you respond to the confusing situations and difficult circumstances of life? Do you look at everything through a clear and consistent lens of serious, sound theology? How do you develop and strengthen your theology? How do you expand and improve your knowledge of God and his ways? Do you have a habit of reading and studying God’s Word and good theology books to do this? Do you have anyone in your life with whom you talk regularly about God and his ways? Are you involved in a group within your church that engages in discussions like these on a regular basis?

So, before Habakkuk expresses his confusion to God, we see that he grounded his questions in a strong personal theology. But we also see that he follows his questions to God not by abandoning or walking away from God, but by waiting for him, instead.

Faith waits patiently for God.

After asking God to help him make sense of this plan to send the ungodly nation of Babylon to judge the people of Judah for their seemingly lesser sins, Habakkuk behaves in a way that shows his faith is strong – confused but strong (2:1-3).

• He stands firm and resolutely.
• He watches attentively like a guard or sentry who scans the horizon.
• He looks forward eagerly to God’s response.
• He expects God to correct him somehow (not the other way around).

It’s fascinating to see here that Habakkuk does not attempt or expect to correct or criticize God with his questions. Instead, he seeks to clear up his own personal confusion. He assumes that God is right and he is wrong, not the other way around. And he fully expects that after asking his questions, God would actually correct and reprove him.

“Habakkuk expects that the message will bring correction and proper orientation to his anxieties. He is not so much challenging God with a complaint as he is desiring to have his perplexities alleviated and his viewpoint corrected.” (Richard Patterson)

In response to Habakkuk’s question, God answers him again – sort of. In his answer, he gives him no new information, though, but doubles down on what he has already said.

• He tells him to write down the prophecy of Babylon as a permanent record.
• He wants it to be written in a plain, easy-to-see, easy-to-understand way.
• He wanted it to be spread broadly to the public at large. In other words, God wanted Habakkuk to make this message easy to read and easy to carry from village to village and city to city, so that as many people in Judah as possible could hear it.
• He also wants Habakkuk and anyone else who hears the message to wait – though Babylon would not march into Judah that same day or the next, they would come marching over the horizon soon enough.

And this is a major feature of genuine faith in God. Genuine faith in God grounds its questions, confusion, and anxiety in a firm, deep, thorough theology and then waits patiently for God to work out his plan over time. Genuine faith does not run away but rather runs to bring others to the truth with them, no matter how long they must wait for God’s promise of justice to occur. They do not abandon or disobey God because they hurt, because they are confused, or because it takes too long.

From beginning to end, faith relies completely on God.

In addition to God’s preview about a soon, devastating invasion by Babylon, God also gives Habakkuk a central, core, guiding principle of life. Rather than explain his methods and reasons for using a “more wicked” Babylon to punish a “less wicked” Judah, God instead gave Habakkuk a big-picture, overarching truth about life.

“Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith.” (Hab 2:4)

There’s something important to observe about this truth: it always applies to all people everywhere, not just to people in Judah or Babylon. At the end of the day, and more specifically at the end of time as we know it, God is far less interested in comparing groups of people against each other, such as announcing who is more wicked than the other.

Isn’t Judah better than Babylon? This question was at the heart of Habakkuk’s question to God. Though he knew Judah was sinful, he believed Babylon was even more sinful.

Questions like these bother us today, as well. Is North Dakota better than Minnesota? Israel better than Iran, Ukraine better than Russia, and the United States better than any other nation in the world?

In God’s answer to Habakkuk’s question, he does not engage in that sort of conversation and comparison. After all, groups of people don’t stand before the judgment seat of God at the end of time, do they? God judges and God saves individuals, and so he does whatever he does in the world in such a way that individual people will believe on him.

In the next section of this prophecy, through the end of Chapter 2, God gives a strong message of warning to people who are arrogant, proud, and not right before him. This message applies equally to arrogant, self-righteous people in Judah as well as Babylon, and it always applies to all people everywhere, no matter what cultural, ethnic, national, or geopolitical group they may or may not be a part of.

But today, we must focus on the other side of this truth. On one hand, God judges every person who is arrogant and proud, but he preserves and saves everyone who lives by faith. And what does it mean to live by faith?

To live by faith is an underlying mindset. It describes the heart and perspective of a person who trusts in God rather than themselves. It means to trust in God alone for salvation of every kind.

• It describes a person who trusts in God for salvation from injustice around them – as Habakkuk trusted in God despite the widespread sin around him in Judah.
• It describes a person who trust in God for salvation from other larger evil powers and injustice in the world – such as trusting God with the coming invasion by Babylon.
• And most importantly, it describes a person who relies upon God for ultimate salvation in the end.

The point here is that no matter what confusing or difficult questions a person may have about God or his ways, and no matter what difficulties or injustices – real or imagined – they may be observing in the world or experiencing painfully for themselves, they can know they are in a right standing before God if – and only if – they rely completely upon God him.

To rely completely upon God consists of two key elements: (1) a strong inner, personal reliance upon what God has revealed about his nature and promises and (2) a daily, intentional perseverance in living according to what God has revealed in his Word.

To Habakkuk, God’s “the just shall live by his faith.” This means that a person who is in right standing before God is one who will live and not be destroyed by God for his sins. As Habakkuk clearly stated, despite a coming invasion and destruction of Judah by Babylon, “We shall not die” (Hab 3:12). But here, it is as though God is saying, I cannot make this promise to every inhabitant of Judah; I can only guarantee to preserve and save – on an individual, case-by-case basis – anyone who has faith in me.

This stands in contrast to the self-righteous people of Judah – Habakkuk’s own family, friends, and fellow countrymen – who believed they were okay with God only because they were a nation to whom God had promised special blessings, who practiced the sign of circumcision, and who possessed and followed the Law of Moses (though only in loose and minimal way).

This also stands in contrast to the ungodly people of Babylon who worshiped their fishing nets (1:15) and gave credit to their false, imaginary gods for their growing control and power (1:11). Neither the people of Judah nor the people of Babylon were trusting in God.

To more fully understand what “the just shall live by his faith” means, we should also hear how the NT uses this general principle and truth in its teaching to us.

I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.” (Rom 1:16-17)

In this first occurrence of a quotation of this principle in the NT, Paul closely echoes what Habakkuk emphasized – that a person’s right standing before God is due to his faith in God. In this way, he refers to the beginning of a person’s life of faith before God, when he trusts completely in the gospel of Christ for salvation from sins and for a right standing before God at the future judgment.

We can only receive God’s salvation by faith, and this is true for every person. There is no “different way of salvation,” or “different way to God,” etc. relative to your cultural, ethnic, or national identity. Just as God told Habakkuk people of Judah needed faith in God for salvation just as much as people from Babylon did, so Paul says here that people of the Greek empire needed faith in the gospel of Christ just as much as people from Israel did. There is no difference – the only way to have a right standing before God is to believe on the gospel of Jesus. Have you believed completely in the gospel of Christ for salvation from sin and for a right standing before God at the future judgment?

But the life of faith is more than entering into a right standing with God or being in a right standing with God at the final, future judgment. As important as these guarantees of salvation may be, the life of faith is far more than a beginning and end, for in many ways, the greatest challenge (or rather challenges) to our faith is everything in between.

Paul touches on this reality by quoting “the just shall live by his faith” a second time.

That no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.” (Gal 3:11)

Here Paul speaks not only of beginning or entering into a right standing with God by faith but by living in a perpetual state of right standing before God, as well. Here, Paul points out that it is wrong to think we gain a right standing before God by obeying the Mosaic Law or – worse yet – by obeying all sorts of additional laws and rules which we may create as additional safeguards to our relationship with God.

The law says, “Do these things every day and God will accept you,” but faith says, “Believe every day that Christ did all these things every day and God will accept you.” Just as we must reject self-righteousness and reliance on the Law for salvation from God, so we must continually reject self-righteousness and reliance on the Law for daily acceptance and closeness with God.

But there is a third way which God calls us to “live by faith” today, as well.

You have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: “For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul. (Heb 10:38)

Here, the writer of Hebrews quotes from Hab 2 to look forward not to the coming invasion of Babylon (which had already happened centuries before), but to look forward to the second coming of Christ to judge the wicked and establish his kingdom of righteousness in this world forever, once and for all. And because Christ is coming again to make all wrongs right forever, we must live by faith in God’s promises in this way – we must confidently, faithfully, and joyfully persevere through the confusing questions, difficult dilemmas, painful experiences, and widespread injustices and wickedness of our day.

In summary, then, the NT quotes Hab 2:4 to teach us that:

• We are made righteous by faith. (Rom 1:17)
• We live daily by faith rather than self-reliance and self-righteousness. (Gal 3:11)
• And we endure to the end by faith. (Heb 10:38)

As we step back and take in all that God has shown us through Habakkuk, we are reminded of this unshakable truth: a person with true faith in God endures hardship in the present because he rests in God’s character and promises, even when the immediate circumstances of life seem to contradict God’s character and promises at the moment.

God did not give Habakkuk a full explanation for his confusing seemingly unjust plan. Instead, he called Habakkuk to keep on trusting in him as the God who is everlasting, holy, faithful, and unchanging.

That same call comes to us today. If you have never trusted in the gospel of Christ for salvation, this is where a life of faith begins, not with understanding everything about God and his ways, but with believing that Christ has taken your judgment, suffered your punishment, forgiven your sin, and secured your future and salvation.

And if you have already trusted in Christ as your God and Savior, then this passage calls you, like Habakkuk, to persevere: to wait, trust, and hold fast to God’s promises even when his ways feel difficult or unfair.

In just a moment, we will observe the Lord’s Supper together, and there is no clearer reminder of this truth. At the cross, God’s plan looked more unjust and confusing than anything else, yet it was there that God was accomplishing our salvation. The bread and the cup remind us that when God’s purposes seem hardest to understand, his love has never let us down. As we come to the table, let us examine our hearts, renew our trust, and rest in Christ in a stronger, greater way. Whether you desire to begin the life of faith today or are persevering through hardship, questions, and injustice, may this special, sacred act and moment of remembrance reinforce our confidence that God is faithful, and that the just shall live by faith.

Discussion Questions

• Sometimes, our suffering is like the suffering a confused, sick child endures from the side effects of treatment. How would a belief that God is like a loving parent of such a child affect the way we handle suffering?
• What does Habakkuk confess in Habakkuk 1:12?
  • What purpose does this confession serve?
  • Hint: This is the beginning of his second “complaint.” Look at the context of the following verses.
• What kind of attitude does Habakkuk’s commitment in Habakkuk 2:1 tell us he has?
  • In what actual ways can we demonstrate this same attitude?
• The people of Judah self-righteously depended upon their ethnicity, religious observance, and Israelite status in contrast with the just who live by faith. Upon things do we personally rely rather than God?
• Habakkuk did not understand how God could use a nation he viewed as more wicked than Judah to judge them. What are the problems with comparing our sins to those of others?
  • How do we engage in this comparison?

Habakkuk 1:1-11; 2:4
From Exodus and Deuteronomy, we learned have that God rescued and entered a permanent covenant and commitment with his people. Then, from Hosea, we have learned that God loves his people relentlessly. Even when we turn or wander away from him, he pursues after us with never-ending faithfulness, mercy, and love to restore our relationship with him.

But now we will turn our attention to Habakkuk, another small Old Testament book, to explore a difficult challenge God’s people often face. This challenge is answering the question of how a holy and loving God can permit sin and injustice to keep on happening in the world. Has anyone ever asked you a version of this question? Or have you ever asked this question yourself?

William Tyndale gave the English-speaking world its first English translation of the Bible. He was a faithful follower of Christ who experienced many injustices: forced into exile for translating Scripture into English; hunted across Europe as a criminal; betrayed by a supposed friend; imprisoned for over a year; strangled and burned as a heretic.

Adoniram Judson was the first American and first Baptist missionary to a foreign nation. Though he served Christ faithfully and sacrificially for the duration of his life, he suffered what seemed to be many injustices: lost two wives and multiple children; imprisoned brutally in Burma for nearly two years; subjected to starvation, chains, and illness; labored for seven years before a single convert.

Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch Christian who sheltered Jews during the Holocaust. Despite her courageous faith, she suffered many injustices: betrayed by an informant; arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo; father died shortly after arrest; sister Betsie died in a concentration camp; Corrie herself endured forced labor, starvation, sickness, and cruelty.

Elisabeth Elliot (who died only 9 years ago) was a faithful Christian missionary, author, and women’s teacher. Though she served Christ faithfully, she experienced many things which seemed unfair and unjust: married missionary Jim Elliot only 10 months before he was murdered by the Huaorani people of Ecuador; widowed at age 29, with a young child; later buried a second husband after he endured years of illness; lived decades under the shadow of many unanswered questions “why?”

Perhaps you know someone like this – a person who has faithfully followed Christ but has suffered many difficult experiences which seem unfair and unjust. Or perhaps that person is you? If God is faithful, loving, and devoted to his people, then why does he let injustice occur? Why does he let injustice happen so widely and so long?

The book of Habakkuk is a short book with a short message, only three chapters long. The man who wrote this book is named Habakkuk. But other than that, we know little about him other than that he was called “Habakkuk the prophet” (Hab 1:1; 3:1). To call himself “the prophet” may mean he had been formally trained in a school for prophets, something which did exist in Israel during the time of David and Saul and also the time of Elijah and Elisha (1 Sam 19:20; 2 Kgs 4:38).

The apocryphal book, Bel and the Dragon, (which is not biblical) claims that Habakkuk was the “son of Jesus of the tribe of Levi,” which would mean he had been born into a priestly family. This book tells the tale of an angel carrying Habakkuk by the hair from Judah to Babylon to drop food for Daniel into the lion’s den. Such claims and stories about Habakkuk are fascinating but of little to no historical, factual value.

While we don’t know much about the man who wrote this message, we do know something about the background of this message. Habakkuk wrote this message during a time of widespread injustice among his people. From the details of this book, it seems that Habakkuk wrote during the reign of the third-to-last king of Judah – Jehoiakim.

If you recall from previous sermons, Hosea had spoken to the people of Israel. These were the ten tribes of Israel who had settled to the north and who had abandoned worshiping God to worship Baal and to pursue an immoral, wicked lifestyle. As consequence for their sin, God had sent the Assyrian Empire from the northeast to conquer them and take them as captives away to Assyria. This had happened approx. 700 years after God had rescued his people from Egypt and made a permanent covenant with them in love.

Despite the northern kingdom’s rebellion against God, the southern kingdom – called Judah – consisted of the two other tribes of Israel, Judah and Benjamin. They had proven to be more faithful to God, so God had given them a longer period of protection. Even so, they also descended into a widespread ungodly lifestyle, who would also be conquered and invaded by a foreign empire approx. 120 years later (more on this later).

So, here we are to start this book. A man named Habakkuk and who is also a prophet is living in the southern kingdom of Judah nearly 100 years after the northern ten tribes had been taken away to Assyria for their idolatry and immorality. But now God’s people living in the southern two tribes had also become increasingly ungodly. It was this rising and continuing injustice that Habakkuk saw among his own people in Judah that caused him to question God in prayer.

God’s silence sometimes seems unjust to us.

In Hab 1:1, we read an announcement of Habakkuk’s prophecy. What’s interesting about this prophecy, though, is that unlike other OT prophecies, this one is not specifically directed to a group of people. Nowhere here in the introduction or elsewhere in the rest of the book does Habakkuk say God was giving him this message for a particular group of people. Instead, the entire book simply reads as a record of Habakkuk’s own personal interactions with God. And these personal interactions with God begin with two difficult but serious questions that Habakkuk asked God in prayer. We’ll look at the first one here and the second one next week.

God does not always respond immediately to our prayers.

In this first question, Habakkuk asks “how long” he must pray to receive an answer from God. He explains to God in v.2 that no matter how long and how frequently he prays, God doesn’t seem to answer.

O Lord, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear?

And he also explains in v.2 that no matter how intensely he prays and how serious his prayers seem to be, God still doesn’t seem to answer.

Even cry out to You, “Violence!” and You will not save.

This word ‘violence’ is translated from the Hebrew word hamas, which does certainly have modern-day parallels, for sure – so you can get a feel for what Habakkuk was describing. Only here, he wasn’t describing to violent activities of foreign, Muslim terrorists, he was describing the commonplace activities of God’s own people in Judah. Violence had become commonplace and nothing was being done about it. As we read in v.4:

The law is powerless, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous; therefore, perverse judgment proceeds.

Habakkuk’s point here is that violence was not being restrained or punished because the judges, priests, kings, and any other enforcers of the Mosaic law were themselves behaving in ungodly and unjust ways. From the words he uses in v.3, we see that theft and abuse, lawsuits and arguments were common and increasing. Sounds a lot like America and our world today, does it not?

God does not resolve every injustice immediately.

The problem for Habakkuk, though, was not necessarily that injustice was occurring, but that his prayers to God weren’t causing any change or bringing about any divine intervention. If he prayed long enough and hard enough, wouldn’t God do something about this widespread problem? So, for the Hosea, the question was not necessarily about why people were being unjust and abusive, the question was whether or not God was himself being unjust by doing nothing about injustice.

From this opening question and prayer, though, we are forced to acknowledge that God does not answer our prayers for justice immediately, the first time we pray them. Nor does he resolve every injustice immediately. Like a good fisherman, he knows how to “let the line go out” before he yanks the hook.

In many types of fishing, especially with live bait or certain species, the fisherman doesn’t set the hook immediately. Instead, he allows the fish to fully take the bait, commit to the line, and move away before he applies resistance. If he pulls too soon, the fish may spit out the bait, or the hook won’t set completely. A good fisherman knows that good timing is often better than sheer force. He also knows that it is sometimes necessary to let the line out to redirect the fish he wants to catch from rocks, weeds, logs, and other snags. Rather than overpowering the fish, he allows it to have some controlled freedom, waits for it to get into the best position, then yanks the hook and pulls the line at full strength at just the right moment. It’s often true that you won’t get the fish by dominating it immediately but by wearing it down over time.

God is this way and more in matters of justice. From our way of thinking and on our limited vantage point and way of viewing time, it may seem that he is slow and unresponsive to correct and judge injustice. But he often “lets the line go out” and “gives a long leash.” He does this for many reasons which only he alone can fully comprehend. But one such reason is that he is longsuffering, desiring for as many people to be saved as possible.

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Pet 3:9)

Think about it this way, where would you be today if God had yanked the hook on you as soon and swiftly as possible? Aren’t you glad he was long-suffering and patient with you? Maybe he is still being so towards you today. If so, let me encourage you to repent from your sins and turn to Christ for salvation and restoration today. You don’t know how much longer he will suffer your sinful and unjust behavior.

God does not guarantee to shield his people from injustice.

Another feature of Habakkuk’s question and prayer to God here is this – that he wonders why and how long God will allow him to experience injustice personally. It’s one thing for us to read national and international headlines and see frequent, growing headlines about all kinds of injustice that’s going on. We can and should rightly be bothered and concerned by that. But the problem becomes far more difficult when injustice affects us in a local, personal, and direct way. Notice Habakkuk’s emphasis on this aspect of injustice:

Why do you show me iniquity, and cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before me …” (3:3)

When injustice affects you personally – or someone else who is close to you – then this question hits especially hard. Why does God seem silent? Why does God let injustice continue to occur, seemingly without consequence, while his own people who trust in him have to live with it, see it, and experience it daily?

Well, from Habakkuk’s opening question and prayer to God, we see that God does not guarantee to shield his own people from injustice. Not even his own Son, Jesus Christ, was shielded from injustice, so why should we be any different?

God’s silence doesn’t mean he has no plan.

As we consider the question of how God’s silence can seem unjust, enabling injustice to increasingly occur, what follows next in Habakkuk’s conversation with God shows us that God’s silence doesn’t mean he has no plan.

God is not challenged or upset by our questions.

First, though, we need to know that God is not challenged or upset by our questions. To be sure, not all questions to God are of equal value. Some questions are cynical and sarcastic, not looking for a genuine answer. Some questions are rooted in hard-hearted unbelief and rebellion. But some questions are the result of our simple, childlike inability to understand God’s ways and a sincere desire to figure things out and make sense of a difficult, seemingly contradictory situation.

Throughout Scripture, people of genuine faith asked God similar questions:

• Abraham asked God, “How can I know?” to better understand God’s promise of giving him a son in old age. (Gen 15:8)
• Moses asked God, “Why have you brought this trouble on me?” after he obeyed God, spoke to Pharaoh, and things went from bad to worse. (Exo 5:22)
• David and other Psalm writers asked, “How long, O Lord?” in the face of difficult, painful trials that didn’t seem to go away. (Psa 13:1)
• Job asked God, “Why have you made me your target?” as he experienced a series of heart-wrenching trials for no apparent reason. (Job 7:20)
• Jeremiah asked, “Why does the way of the wicked prosper, and why are they happy?” (Jer 12:1)
• And Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ, asked, “How will this happen?” when told that she would give birth as a virgin to our Savior. (Lk 1:34)

While God has zero obligation to answer our questions or to tell us what he is going to do about the injustices we experience, we can also know that he is a big God who is more than able to take our questions. Whether our questions are good ones or not, and whether he can answer them or not, we can always take our confusion and frustration to him in prayer and know that he is just – even in his answer or choice not to answer.

For God, our questions are no problem at all, and for us, our questions are often not a detriment to our faith but a pathway to deeper, stronger faith. Because the more we ask genuine questions of God, the more we will learn about him and learn to trust him. Do you have any questions that you need to ask God today, even if he doesn’t answer?

When we ask questions of God today, we should not look for some verbal or visual answers, such as a personal revelation of prophecy or a dream of vision of some kind. Instead, we should look to God’s Word to see what it says about our question, and we should do such study of God’s Word in a careful, prayerful way.

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Psa 119:105)

We should not simply “open the Bible and point to a verse on whatever page it falls to,” but we should do a diligent search to study what the Bible actually says about whatever the topic or nature of our question might be.

[The Bereans] … received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. (Acts 17:11)

We should be like the Christians in Berea and be people who not only pray to God about our questions but who also carefully study God’s Word to discover whatever answers we can find.
God’s plans are more impressive than we comprehend.

For Habakkuk, since he was a OT prophet, God gave him a more specific answer to his prayer, and we find this answer in 1:5-11. Before giving his answer, he prepares Habakkuk for what he is about to hear (1:5):

Look among the nations and watch—be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days Which you would not believe, though it were told you.

With these words, it is as though God is saying, “Brace yourself, Habakkuk, because what I am about to tell you is going to absolutely blow you away.” The words ‘utterly astounded’ means something like being “frozen stiff with amazement” or “absolutely astonished and amazed.”

God also tells Habakkuk that the plan he is about to reveal will be hard to believe and that it will come to pass within Habakkuk’s lifetime, so he would actually get to experience it. This sounds like good news! Then God goes on to explain his amazing plan.

• He would choose another rising world empire, this time from East, called the Chaldeans. (Scripture and history also knows them as the Babylonians.)
• They would be an aggressive nation who take over other lands and nations and would be frightening and terrible to anyone who resisted them.
• They would possess elite armies of cavalry with horses superior to other nations’ horses in every way – faster than leopards, fiercer than wolves, and with the focus of an eagle.
• They would come from the East and be like a powerful east wind that gathers prisoners of war like an east wind blows grains of sand.
• They would easily take down every king and emperor who tried to resist them and would destroy every form of defense which tried to prevent them.

Wow, what an amazing plan. So, as you can see, just because God had been silent in answering Habakkuk’s frequent and urgent questions about rising injustice among his people, he was not oblivious to the problem, and he was not without a plan. His plan was absolutely incredible. He was building a brand new army of elite fighting forces who would take down not only other ungodly, unjust nations of the world – including Assyria, the nation who had taken the Northern Kingdom away as prisoners of war – but he would also use this new empire and fighting force to judge Judah, as well.

This solution that God was preparing as a consequence for all the injustice Habakkuk was seeing and experiencing in Judah was far more impressive than he had ever imagined. On one hand, it seemed that God was unconcerned and silent in the face of injustice, but in reality, he was preparing a solution which was far more impressive that we could comprehend.

Have you ever expected one thing, only to receive or experience something far more impressive instead? Maybe you went to a restaurant to celebrate your birthday quietly with a relative only to find out that the entire restaurant had been rented out for a large surprise party with all of your family and friends. Or perhaps a friend gave you a small envelope which you thought had a note inside, only to find out it held a check for $10,000.

This is how it is with God. We ask him our questions and wonder why he doesn’t intervene to resolve the injustices that we see in the world and experience for ourselves. And we envision or perhaps even suggest certain solutions to “help him out.” But if we really understood not only why he was waiting but what he eventually, actually planned to do, we would be completely amazed. While it may seem that God is not doing anything, he is actually planning something that is far more impressive than you could ever comprehend. Can you trust him?

Faith trusts God when injustice seems to prevail.

While we will have more to say in upcoming sermons about how God responds to our questions and to the problem of evil and injustice in the world and in our lives, now is a good time to “peek ahead” at the central verse and truth of this book from Habakkuk.

The just shall live by his faith. (Hab 2:4)

This is the central verse and truth of this entire message from Habakkuk. And though the Bible never mentions or names Habakkuk anywhere else outside of this book, it does quote this statement three times in the NT.

Paul quotes Habakkuk in Galatians 3:11 and also in Romans 1:17, which shows this was a major part of his theology and how he lived out his faith before God. The writer of Hebrews also quotes this verse in Heb 10:39 to encourage God’s people who follow Christ to persevere in their faith no matter what the difficulties are that they may face.

For a person to live by faith in Christ does not mean they cannot or will not pray to God about
the difficult questions they have about life, but it does mean that they will ask their difficult questions and then continue to believe God, both that he has the right to remain silent, and that his plans – whether we know what they are or not – will turn out to be far more impressive than we could ever comprehend.

There is a stage in every child’s early development when curiosity seems endless and “why?” becomes not only their favorite question but their apparent response to almost everything. Why can’t I touch that? Why do I have to go to bed now? Why can’t we do it this way? Why? Why? Why?

A loving parent often tries to answer this question, to explain the reason or the why that they are seeking, but any experienced parent knows that this rarely satisfies the child’s curiosity. Instead, it only causes them to think for a moment about their parent’s explanation only to say again, “But why?”

So, eventually a parent realizes they need to learn when to say, “I can’t explain all of that to you right now, you have to trust me.” This answer doesn’t mean the parent doesn’t care, even though the child may interpret their response that way for the moment. But the child lacks experience, maturity, and vocabulary needed to understand the answers. Children face similar questions and struggle with unsatisfied curiosity in their teenage years, too, only on a higher, more complex level.

The parent sees consequences the child cannot see, dangers the child does not recognize, and outcomes the child cannot imagine. And often, years later, that same child looks back and realizes their parents understood far more than they, as a toddler, could grasp at the time, that what felt like unnecessary restriction or silence was actually wisdom, protection, and love.

As we conclude, Habakkuk reminds us that it is not sinful to ask God hard questions. When injustice seems to increase and God seems silent, Scripture does not tell us to suppress our confusion or pretend everything is okay. Instead, God invites us to bring our struggle, our frustration, and even our fear directly to him in prayer.

“How long?” is not necessarily the language of unbelief. It can often be the words of an honest, sincere, but confused cry of faith that seeks understanding from God. God is not threatened by our questions, and he is not offended when we speak candidly with him about what we see and what we experience in this broken world, whether abroad in world and national headlines or nearby in our local communities, or even within our own church, family, and personal life.

Habakkuk also teaches us that lasting peace, though, does not come primarily from getting answers from God, but from trusting in God because we know that he has the answers. Whether he chooses to explain himself to us or else to remain silent, he is never absent, never indifferent, and never out of control. His timetable extends far beyond our impatience, and his perspective rises far above our limited view.

What feels to us like a delay or forever is often divine patience and purposeful restraint. What appears to be disorder is, in reality, being governed and guided by a sovereign God whose plans are already unfolding according to perfect wisdom. This fact includes not only the injustice that Habakkuk was watching unfold in Judah but the injustice we see all around us today, far away and nearby. What seems to be chaos is actually a world progressing according to God’s sovereign plan. And “will not the Judge of all the Earth do right” (Gen 18:25)? He is and he will.

So, when injustice disturbs your heart and your anxiety grows in the shadow of God’s silence, this is when and where God calls us to move from fear to faith. Not because our questions have all been answered, but because our confidence is anchored in who God is relentless in love and faithful to his people. He sees the full picture, he works on a longer timeline, and his plans to judge injustice and establish righteousness are far more impressive than we could ever imagine. Until that day comes, the just – those who believe and follow Christ – should live by faith, asking honest questions without demanding answers, trusting completely in God’s character, and resting in the certainty that he will make all things right in his perfect time. This is what we do when God seems silent.

Hosea 14:1-9

In the classic American tale, written by Mark Twain, “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” there was a point where young Tom felt so deeply wronged and discouraged that he decided to run away from home. The reasons he felt this way were due to two confusing and frustrating circumstances. He had been punished for something he didn’t do, making him feel misunderstood and unloved. On top of that, Becky Thatcher – a new girl in town who he very much wanted to befriend – had rejected him after a quarrel. Overwhelmed by these hard circumstances, Tom convinced himself that life would be better away from home, so he hatched a plan to run away and become a pirate. This way he could live free from rules, heartbreak, and the feelings of being misunderstood.

At first, the pirate life was thrilling, with everything he wanted as a boy: adventure without accountability, freedom without responsibility. But as the excitement faded, something else began to stir in his heart. He began to think about home again: familiar faces, warm meals, and the people who cared for him even when he didn’t deserve it.

As he thought about these things, one night he snuck back into town to see how people were reacting to his absence. He snuck into the home of his Aunt Polly and overheard her talking to someone else about him. She was heartbroken, devastated, and grieving deeply because she thought that he was dead. She also talked about how much she loved him and how she would give anything to have him back again.

Hearing his aunt cry over his absence affected Tom’s heart in a way nothing else had ever done. Until then, he had thought he was unloved, treated unfairly, and better off far away. But in that surprising, quiet moment, he realized just how deeply he mattered to his Aunt Polly. As a result, he began to experience a deep desire to go back home and end the adventure of being a wandering pirate.

In many ways, Israel’s real story in Hosea is like the fictional story of Tom Sawyer running away from home. God’s people had also run away from him in their hearts and behavior, not because God had failed them, but because they had given way to their own selfish disappointments and sinful desires. They had convinced themselves that manmade idols and other gods could treat them better than the God who rescued and loved them. They chased after idols and foreign alliances, believing those paths would bring freedom, fulfillment, and excitement. But like Tom’s dream of being a pirate, the alternatives proved to be empty, destructive, and dissatisfying in the end. What they were really longing for was something only God could give.

Hosea 14 gives us a heartfelt appeal and conclusion from God to his people to return back to him from the idols, sins, and unreliable partners they had ran away to pursue. And he wanted them to return not just physically but more importantly spiritually, relationally, and from their heart. In this appeal, he assures them that if they return to him, then they will finally experience the blessing, happiness, and satisfaction their hearts desired.

Like Tom Sawyer returning from his pirate adventure, we – like Israel – must realize we can only experience the blessing, happiness, and satisfaction our hearts desire when we turn away from our idols and sins to follow Christ with all our heart. Since God pursues us with relentless love, we should turn to him with complete devotion.
So, how do we return to God – or turn to him in the first place?

Turning to God requires a genuine change of heart. (vv. 1-3)

Hosea uses the word shuv (turn, return, repent) appears in various forms 25 times in 11 of 14 chapters. It appears the most times (5x) here in Hosea 14.

• Israel, return the Lord your God. (14:1)
• Take words with you and return to the Lord. (14:2)
• I will heal their backsliding. (14:4)
• My anger has turned away from him. (14:4)
• Those who dwell under his shadow shall return. (14:7)

The concentrated, repeated use of this word in this chapter resembles how a good fireworks show ends with a dramatic burst of rapid fireworks, like all the fireworks that came before but more concentrated and all at once. This is why God called Hosea to marry Gomer and why he had called Hosea to give this message to Israel. He wanted them to repent, to turn back to him.

These first three verses emphasize not only what God desired – for Israel turn back to him – but how he wanted them to do that. He was not interested merely in them returning to him with costly, physical sacrifices to show allegiance and worship – he was far more interested in them returning to him with a genuine change of heart.

• Take with you words … (14:2)
• Offer the sacrifice of our lips … (14:2)

And since we speak from our hearts, he told them what a repentant heart would say. You’ve heard it said, “Actions speak louder than words,” but here God indicates, “Words speak louder than actions.” God wanted them to say what they were thinking and not just “go through the motions.”

What did God want them to say – to show that they truly believed and desired?

• To acknowledge and ask forgiveness of their sins.
• To request an enthusiastic reception.
• To reject their reliance on foreign governments and false gods.
• To accept God as their father.

The point of Hosea’s prayer is that the people of Israel have become orphans. When the nation, along with its shrines, priests, kings, and military forces, is destroyed, then the general populace will be left as orphans. They will be Lo-Ammi, not my people. Their adulterous mother, the institutions of Israel, will be dead; their father, Baal, will have given them no help. But this fatherless people will turn back to their one true father, the refuge of orphans, and find shelter in him. The dispirited Diaspora of Israel must accept its position of orphan and return to Yahweh in that role and not come back as the people who proudly wear the title of the “elect of God.” When that happens, Not-my-people will become the sons and daughters of the living God. (Duane Garrett)

Turning to God brings a genuine change in quality life. (vv. 4-7)

After describing the kinds of words that God wanted to hear from the hearts of his people, he then described what he would do in response to their repentance. He would heal (or repair/rebuild) their rebellious ways and love them without reservation. And just as he urged them to turn away from their sinful ways and false gods, so he would turn away his anger from them.

For God to express his anger towards them for their sin consisted of some concrete, tangible outcomes – not merely an abstract, emotional display. God expressed his anger towards Israel by withholding precipitation from their naturally arid land, causing widespread death to its foliage and plant life of all kinds.

Unlike Egypt, which benefited from the Nile River and its fertile delta, and Assyria, which benefited from the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the land of Israel required airborne precipitation to thrive. For this reason, people who lived there relied on their false gods and idols to provide precipitation for them. So, when God’s people turned to other gods, he would withhold this precipitation from them as a consequence.

Here God promised to restore vibrant vegetation to Israel when they returned to him. To describe what this would be like, he begins with dew and ends with wine. The dew would provide the water necessary for plant life to grow, and the wine would represent the culmination of that growth.

In between the promise of dew and wine, God describes the lush, verdant growth of wildflowers (lilies) and trees (both wild and cultivated), grains of the field and fruits of the vine. He describes the length of their branches, the depth of their roots, the abundance of their fruit, and the smell of their flowers and produce.

These descriptions serve two purposes. First, they describe the actual physical conditions of the land which God’s people would enjoy when they returned to him. Second, they describe a new personal and spiritual quality of life they would enjoy as they trusted in him to care for them.

• Dew represents God’s gentle care of his people and contrast with other ways of getting precipitation, such as downpours of rain, which can cause damage and erosion.
• Lilies and wildflowers represent beauty, as in the romantically themed Old Testament book, Song of Solomon – which uses lilies this way eight times.
• Deep roots represent endurance, strength, and fruitfulness like the way Psalm 1 describes a godly man who walks in the counsel of God’s Word (Ps 1:3).
• New growth represents renewed physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health for God’s people.
• Olive trees represent wealth and well-being.
• Fragrant smells represent sensory pleasures, in contrast to the sensuality which God’s people had sinfully pursued and participated in.
• Shade represents not only how God would cover and protect them from the heat and pressures of life, but how his people would provide the same effect for anyone else in the world who would come turn to trust in their God.

Psalm 121:5-6 describes God as a place of shade and shelter for his people:

The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

Ezekiel 17:23 describes God’s people as a place of shade and shelter for people of the world:

On the mountain height of Israel I will plant it; and it will bring forth boughs, and bear fruit, and be a majestic cedar. Under it will dwell birds of every sort; in the shadow of its branches they will dwell.

So, from these verses, God describes the kind of abundant blessing, provision, and shelter he would provide to his people when they returned to him.  Hebrew Old Testament scholar, Duane Garrett says:

The text has exploited the flora of Israel to the maximum possible extent to convey a message of bounty and salvation.

This blessing would most definitely be material and physical, but this material and physical blessing would serve as a real-life, tangible representation of something far more special – the kind of spiritual blessing and satisfaction they would enjoy in their relationship with him.

Now, before we move on to the final words of this chapter and of the entire, I want to draw our attention to one more interesting detail in this passage – an unusual repetition and focus on a place called Lebanon. Until here, Hosea doesn’t mention Lebanon a single time, but here he mentions is not just once but three times in rapid succession.

Hosea says that Israel would grow deep roots like Lebanon (v. 5), would have a fragrant smell like Lebanon (v. 6), and the memory of Israel would be like the wine of Lebanon (v. 7). So, why does he have a sudden burst of interest in Lebanon here?

In the Bible, Lebanon refers to a double range of mountains that begins in Northern Galilee and runs along the Mediterranean coast. The two Lebanon ranges are parallel to one another and the name Lebanon means “white,” which may be due to either the white limestone of the mountains or the snow that lay on them six months a year.

This region to the far north of the Promised Land was well-known for its rich, dense forests of fir and cedar trees, as well as olive and fruit trees and vineyards. It was from here that God’s people had imported their wood and purple dye for God’s Temple in Jerusalem.

But this region was well-known (though sadly so) for another significant import – the wicked queen Jezebel and the false and immoral worship of Baal. Baal was regarded as the god of the northern mountains and as the supernatural, divine provider of fertility, fruitfulness, and abundance. So, when God’s people had turned to blending in Baal worship to their worship of God and then worshiping Baal outright, they had done so in the hopes of receiving all of these natural blessings and resources from him, not to mention the sensual, immoral pleasures he also promised.

But it was this idol worship and its many associated sinful practices which had been the cause for Israel’s spiritual adultery – the adultery from God which Hosea’s marriage to Gomer was supposed to portray. So here, God is telling his people that if they would return to him, they would receive in a wholesome and far more satisfying way all that they had hoped to receive from Baal and more.

All the good things that Israel thought to get from Baal will finally come from Yahweh. He will turn their land into a fragrant paradise. (Duane Garrett).

So, what should a person conclude and what should a person do who hears the message of Hosea – God’s message to his people?

A wise person will turn to God from idols. (vv. 8-9)

The ESV translates 14:8 well when it says:

O Ephraim, what have I to do with idols? It is I who answer and look after you. I am like an evergreen cypress; from me comes your fruit.

In other words, God is saying, “Why in the world would you want to worship idols anymore? I am the one, not them, who takes care of you. And when we consider the larger message and backstory of this book of Hosea, this is God’s way of saying to his people, “Why would you want to continue to chase after other lovers when I am the one who loves you, is completely devoted to you, and who alone provides everything that you need. As Gomer’s adulterous, promiscuous life had proved, only Hosea – her husband – cared for her, provided for her, and devotedly loved her. All her other flings did not, but rather used, abused, and wasted her. And that’s what idols do – they promise satisfaction, life, and freedom but leave you used, abused, disenchanted, wasted, and unloved.

And so, the conclusion of this book should be for anyone, why would I want to continue to chase after idols?

Who is wise? Let him understand these things. Who is prudent? Let him know them. For the ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but transgressors stumble in them. (Hos 14:9)

The word wise means skillful and describes someone who makes choices which apply true and accurate knowledge in an effective and productive way. The word prudent means who looks carefully at something and pays attention to things – they are observant about what they see and hear and then make responsible, sensible choices based upon and in response to what they see and hear.

So, God is saying that if you will pay attention to the marriage, divorce, and restoration of Hosea and Gomer and if you will pay attention to everything else that God has to say about his love for his people in spite of their rebellion against him, then you will be a wise and understanding person.

You will see that it is the right thing to do to follow God and commit your ways to him. It is the right thing to trust completely in him, to turn from idols and other loves, and to do whatever he says and desires.

But for many people, this will not be the case. They will simply go forward in their pursuit of chasing after idols, looking for satisfaction, meaning, and purpose in choices and pursuits which are contrary to God’s ways and which deny that he is good and right.

The ways of God are free of obstacles for the righteous. The upright realize the benefits of God’s laws and proscriptions, and they know that his ways are wise. What God has instituted is for our good. We find satisfaction and nobility in a life that is lived humbly before God. Those who rebel against God’s yoke will stumble over his commands; they will find his [ways] too hard to bear. (Thomas McComiskey)

This is not only an Old Testament perspective for the people of Israel but is also a principle of life for all God’s people today who follow Christ by faith. The Apostle John says:

Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 Jn 5:21)

Tom Sawyer discovered he was better loved and better off back home, and so did another character in the world of literature.

Near the end of his life, Ernest Hemingway told a brief and moving story about a Spanish father and his teenage son. Their relationship had become deeply strained, filled with hurt, rebellion, and distance, until one day the son ran away from home. The young man’s name was Paco, which was a very common name in Spain.

The father searched for his son over many months, traveling from village to village, asking questions, hoping for news, but hearing nothing. Tired, discouraged, and nearly out of hope, the father eventually tried one last thing. He placed an advertisement in a major newspaper in Madrid, the capital city of Spain. The message was short and simple. It read:

Dear Paco,
Please meet me in front of the newspaper office at noon. All is forgiven.
All is forgiven.
Love, Father

The next day at noon, the father went to the newspaper office. And as the story goes, standing there waiting for him were 800 young men named Paco, all hoping for forgiveness, all hoping that the message was meant for them.

This story captures something Hosea has been telling us all along. Underneath our idolatry, immorality, and wandering hearts, what we really need is forgiveness, restoration, and father who will forgive and receive us home.

This is exactly what God told Hosea to do in Hosea 3:

Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the Lord for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.” So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. And I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man—so, too, will I be toward you.” For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.

And this is exactly what God is offering to do in Hosea 14. After chapters of exposing Israel’s spiritual adultery, God does not end with rejection but with an invitation: “Return to the LORD your God,” he says, “and I will heal their backsliding; I will love them freely.”
Most importantly, God did not simply place an announcement in a newspaper, or even just give us this story and message through Hosea. He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sins. Jesus said, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself” (Jn 12:32). The cross stands as God’s public declaration to all our wandering, idol-worshiping, wayward hearts. “Come home to the Father through Jesus, all is forgiven.”

So, the question Hosea leaves us with is this is this: will you keep chasing idols that cannot heal, satisfy, or save, or will you turn to the Father? For the restless, the guilty, the weary, and the prodigal, the invitation still stands. Come. Return. And rest in the God who loves you freely.

Discussion Questions

• Hosea 14:2 emphasizes verbalizing our repentance by mentioning “words” and “the sacrifice of our lips.” Why is it so important for us to translate our repentant heart into words?
  • What are the ways we can do this?
• Is there a connection between our repentance and our willingness to readily forgive those who ask for our forgiveness? Can our lack of forgiveness of others affect our willingness to repent?
• How would you describe God’s disposition toward his people and their welfare based on Hosea and other Scripture?
  • How should this impact our repentance?
• What did the Israelites hope to get by worshipping the idols of Lebanon?
  • The Israelites participated in the sinful worship practices of the pagan worshippers of the Baal gods of Lebanon, like sexual immorality and child sacrifice. How is our idolatrous worship similar in our culture?
  • What is it that we hope to get by worshipping our idols in these ways?

Hosea 11:1-11

There are moments, even stages, in life when our emotions don’t sit quietly. They twist, turn, and churn inside us and pull in different directions at the same time. We say things like “I’m all over the place,” or “my heart is tied in knots.” And we say these things because we’re trying to put words to that deep, inner activity that comes when love meets pain, when compassion meets disappointment, or when devotion and loyalty meet repeated rejection.

It’s encouraging to hear that Scripture tells us God – in his own divine way – feels this way, too. In Hosea 11, God opens a window into his own heart to reveal not a distant, detached deity, but a caring and committed Father whose emotions are deeply stirred by the people he loves so dearly.

As we enter Hosea 11:1-11, we find God looking back over centuries of caring for his people – 700 years to be exact. And this glimpse into his heart reveals just how deeply committed and devotedly loving he is to his people, even when we – like the nation of Israel to whom Hosea spoke – are unfaithful and unloving to him. Let’s take a peek behind the curtain at how God feels for his people – and if you have believed on Christ, how he feels about you, even when you are not loving him well in return.

God cared for his people in a deeply affectionate way …

We see this in 11:1-4, where God compares his relationship to his people in a deeply affectionate way. He does this by using two analogies – the way a loving parent treats his young child and the way a pet owner treats her pet.

In 11:1, he describes the beginning of this special relationship between him and his people, when he rescued and removed them from slavery in Egypt, as being not only a young child, but his own child – his own dear son.

This language of “calling his son” out of Egypt is especially meaningful when we connect it to how Egypt (the Pharaoh) attempted to kill all the newborn sons at the time when Moses was born (Exo 1:8-22). Egypt tried to kill them, but God called them out.

Then, in 11:3, he portrays the early years of their relationship through an experience which all parents understand – teaching their toddler to walk. He leans into this analogy by describing how a parent holds their wobbly toddler by the arms, and then also how a parent bandages up their toddler’s bumps and scrapes after they fall.

In 11:4, he switches analogies to how a person treats a well-loved pet or a farmer cares for a well-loved animal. Such a person does not jerk their pet’s leash or pull them harshly with ropes. The description of “gentle” ropes here may refer to choosing comfortable leashes and ropes rather than cheap, rough, and scratchy ones. Instead, they pull and nudge them gently and lovingly. Such a person, if a farmer, also places and removes a yoke on the animal – if it is a work animal – gently and lovingly, not forcibly and roughly.

11:4 also describes God as stopping down to feed his animals from his hand, rather than some other impersonal, industrial method. This reveals his deep affection for his people.

But they failed to acknowledge or return his care –

These opening four verses reveal not only how deeply God cared for his people, but how his people responded to his affectionate care. We would expect that they responded with gratitude and affection, but they did not – that’s what so surprising here. The more God called them, cared for them, and loved them, the more they went further away from him. Commentator Thomas McComiskey says it this way:

Yahweh beckoned to Israel, but Israel was an uncaring son who ran insolently from him.

Rather than sacrifice to the God who loved them, they sacrificed to false Baal gods. Rather than burn incense to the God who cared for them, they burnt incense to carved statues, instead. They also refused to acknowledge that it was God who healed them and helped them through their early struggles in the wilderness and Promised Land.

What a sad response. It reminds me of what Paul said about the people in the church at Corinth in 2 Cor 12:15:

I will very gladly spend and be spent for your souls; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am loved.

Have you ever experienced this for yourself? Loving and caring for someone else, only to find that the more you showed love to them, the more difficult they behave in return? This is especially hard when the person you love is a spouse or a child, as the message of Hosea makes clear. God wants us to know that when his people do not respond well to his love and care, this is how he feels. Let that sink in. Is it possible that you are responding poorly to his love?

So, their chosen caretakers would treat them cruelly.

Remember, those early stages of relationship between God and Israel had occurred 700 years earlier. God had been very patient and longsuffering with them for sure. But in 11:5-7, he says that his people would not return to Egypt. Why would he say this? Because they were like an adopted child who preferred returning to a previous abusive caregiver over remaining in the home of their new and loving adoptive family, or like a spouse who wanted to go back into a prior abusive relationship rather than remain in relationship with a new and loving spouse.

But God said though they wanted to go back to Egypt – the very place which had enslaved them and treated them so cruelly – they would not be able to do so. Instead, they would go into captivity to the Assyrian empire, instead. Why? Because they refused to repent or turn from their sinful and rebellious ways and because they insisted on backsliding.

As a result, they would suffer horrible things, including violent deaths throughout their communities. As God explains, they would at times give lip service to God and call him “the Most High,” but they didn’t exalt him in any meaningful way that showed they meant what they said or took him seriously. They were like the kid who sobs and cries for his parents to bail him out from jail but then turns around after they are released from prison to do even more of the same things that got them into prison the first time.
In the end, God would never give up on his people …

After hearing about Israel’s stunning refusal to acknowledge, appreciate, or respond in any favorable, loving, serious way to God’s deeply affectionate care and faithfulness to them, and then about the severe consequences he has said would come their way as a result, you would think the next thing God might say would be something about giving up, moving on, and letting go. But that is not the case.

In 11:8-9, we read the very opposite of letting go. We read a four-part, repeated question that shows intense emotion and commitment from God:

How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim?

In this question, Ephraim and Israel are names for the northern 10 tribes of Israel who worshipped golden cow statues, worshipped many other idols and false gods, committed child sacrifice, and promiscuous, immoral behavior as a lifestyle. Despite all their rebellious, sinful choices and rejection of his love for them, and despite the horrible consequences they would receive, he was unable to give them up because of his love and loyal commitment to them.

Admah and Zeboiim here were two cities who were affiliated with and located near Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen 14:2). We know what happened to them, right? Because of their immoral activity, homosexual activity, and rampant abuse, God destroyed them entirely by scorching their land with fire. He even refers to this as a ready, visible, long-lasting example in Deuteronomy to warn his people against doing the same things (Dt 29:23):

The whole land is brimstone, salt, and burning; it is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow there, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the LORD overthrew in His anger and His wrath.

So, God warned his people that they could experience something similar if they persisted in disobedience and disloyalty to him. Yet, now that they were on the brink of actually deserving and getting this consequence, God exclaims, “I just can’t do that to you because I love you too much!”

He describes his feelings as a heart “churning” or “turning over” and his sympathy as being “stirred.” This portrays God as having very active, moving feelings for his people which prevented him from destroying them entirely. We might say today, “I’m all over the place,” or “My emotions are running high,” or “I’m torn up inside,” or “I’m pulled in every direction,” or “my heart is tied in knows right now.” This is God’s way of helping us understand that though he was sending them into captivity in Assyria, he loved them so deeply that he could not let them go completely.

Instead, he would let them go long enough and far enough to learn their lesson and experience enough pain and difficulty that they would come to their senses and return to him in faith and devotion. He assured them that despite the awful things they would experience from the Assyrians, he would not permit them to be destroyed.

And they would return home with a change of heart.

In the final two verses, 11:10-11, God announces a future time after Israel had suffered and learned hard lessons in Assyria that they would return to the land God had given them and – most importantly – would return to following him by faith.

By describing them as birds and doves, he portrays them as a kind of silly bird not a majestic kind. Not the kind that soars majestically and powerfully through the air but the kind that flits around, back and forth, in an unimpressive way. In Israel’s case, they were like birds flitting and flirting around with false gods, all sorts of sins, and looking to other nations for their provision and protection.

But here, God says that there would come a day when he will roar like a lion and call them home. This analogy is fascinating because in 5:14, he said that he would be like a lion attacking and tearing them like prey:

I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear them and go away; I will take them away, and no one shall rescue.

But here, he says that he would be like a lion who roars and calls his lion cubs back home from their playful adventures. He would roar and they would come back home to him.

A key detail here, though, is the repetition of the word “trembling.” God’s people would not return to him not with a cocky, self-confident attitude but rather with a reverent and sober attitude instead – like a man graduating from military boot camp not the cocky, overconfident kid going into bootcamp. In many ways, this entire chapter resembles the feelings and thoughts of a loving parent who sends their child to a difficult correctional home due to persistent disobedience and bad behavior. Such a parent feels sad that this needs to be done but looks forward to their child returning home with a change of heart.

What should we take away from this message to God’s people? We should understand that though we are more sinful and rebellious than we can ever understand, God loves his people for deeply and devotedly than we will every comprehend. In this message, we see the heart of God who made a commitment to love his people and who patiently endured their unfaithfulness to him for 700 years. Only then did he follow through on the consequence he had warned them against in the original covenant – Exodus and Deuteronomy. And even then, he loved them and was devoted so faithfully to them that he would eventually rescue them from these consequences and restore them back into a close, faith-filled relationship with him.

This story reminds me of a man I knew as a teenager living in Indiana. A man named Joe who attended the church I was a part of, where my father was a pastor, had a brother, named Danny. Both he and his brother had grown up in Roman Catholicism but never professed personal faith in Jesus Christ. Later in life, they believed on Christ and left the Roman Catholic church. One of these brothers lived in Indianapolis. He was a successful man by many standards. Very nice and a pharmacist who owned his own pharmacy.

He was also married faithfully to his wife for many decades. But during this marriage, he had believed on Christ, having married his wife as a Roman Catholic. Now that he was a believer in Christ and had left the Catholic church, his wife treated him very poorly to express her displeasure with his newfound faith in following Christ the Bible way. She treated Danny poorly – was very demanding and controlling. Some even argued – including his brother Joe – that Danny had biblical grounds for divorce on the basis of abandonment and abuse.

But Danny loved his wife and refused to let her go. He remained faithful, loyal, and devoted to her for decades. Though he continued to participate in a Bible-teaching, gospel-believing church, which she strongly opposed and resisted, he endured her rejection and loved her faithfully, anyway. In the end, I am happy to report that in her final days of life, as her health weakened and she was about to die, she called him to her bedside and he was able to graciously explain to her the gospel and witness the moment when she, too, personally chose to believe on Christ and follow God the Bible way like her husband.

As we look back at Hosea 11 today, we should feel the impact of God’s heart for his people, a heart that has been rejected, ignored, taken for granted, and yet refuses to let his people go. Israel had wandered, resisted, lived sinful, immoral lives, and chased after abusive “caretakers” over the God who had loved them from the beginning.

Still, God’s heart was stirred with compassion and his love remained steadfast even in the face of their rebellion. He finally disciplined them as he had warned 700 years before, but not to destroy them. He let them taste the painful consequences of their sin long enough to awaken them, not abandon them. His love went with them into their exile and would one day call them home again in trembling and humble faith.

This is the hope held out to every believer today – and for anyone who has yet and is considering placing their faith in Christ. Though we are far more sinful and wayward than we recognize, God’s love for his people is far deeper and more devoted than we will ever fully grasp. He is the Father who teaches us to walk, who heals our wounds, who calls after us when we wander, and who refuses to give us up even when we resist his love.

His heart is stirred with compassion, commitment, and covenant love for you. This does not mean he will not discipline you or allow you to taste the bitter, painful consequences of your sin. And if he does, he does this so that you will return humbly and devotedly to him. So, wherever you find yourself today, whether wandering, weary, stubborn, wounded, or considering returning home once again, hear that majestic roar of the Lion calling his children back. That roar is the voice, not of an enemy but of a loving and committed God. With you respond with trembling, humble faith and return, and rest, in the God who loves you too deeply to let you go? Stop being a silly bird and return to him.

Discussion Questions

• What difference does it make if God is or is not deeply affectionate toward his people?
• What does Israel’s failure to return God’s loving care tell us about their hearts?
  • What are some steps we can take to develop our hearts so that we respond rightly to God?
• How do you think God expects the knowledge of how God feels about our ungratefulness and insolence?
• How should the knowledge of God’s feelings about our spurning his affections from Hosea impact us?
• “Trembling” is presented as positive in the concluding verses of Hosea 11. Why is it a good thing for God’s children to be trembling?
  • What would a similar attitude look like in our lives?

Introduction
What is word has the most synonyms in the English language? Have you taken the time to go through the whole thesaurus to find the answer?

Well, I didn’t. I was curious though so naturally, I asked AI. The answer might surprise you. In fact, it’s a word associated with a lot of shame. The word is “drunk,” as in, intoxicated. It actually makes sense that a shameful word would have so many synonyms or euphemisms. Paul Dickson found over 2900 different synonyms for the word “drunk.” That supposedly is the record.

Now, we might not be quite as creative as Paul Dickson, but we do quite well to find synonyms for another phrase.

The phrase: “I’m sorry.”

We come up with all these creative ways to make ourselves and those whom we have wronged feel better. Yet, we tiptoe all around coming out and admitting, “I was wrong.”
What are some ways? “I’m sorry if you…” or “I’m sorry that you…” “Just forget about it.” “Leave it in the past.” “Are we good?” “Can we just move on?”

Why is it that we struggle so much to say, “I was wrong. Please forgive me?”
In this passage, we find a similar inability to rightly admit fault and restore relationship. The nation of Israel has violated the covenant God has made with them. God is using His prophet Hosea to symbolize the reality of Israel’s unfaithfulness to him, and also God’s loving commitment to his people.

Chapter 6 is the first glimmer of hope for resolution for Israel. The only way forward is to completely and actually repent. No counterfeit apologies. No vague resolutions.
In God’s call to Israel for repentance, I pray we can also learn how to truly repent.
As we have journeyed through the book, Hosea has now become very clear about how exactly it is that God’s people have been unfaithful to Yaweh. Their idolatry is akin to adultery, and he has made no bones about that. God justly speaks this way about our sin. There is no problem with that. Yet, we must understand the purpose behind these kinds of indictments.
Even more so, in chapter 5, God warns of the consequences of Israel’s idolatry.

In verse 10:
“The princes of Judah are like those who remove a landmark; I will pour out my wrath on them like water. Ephraim is oppressed and broken in judgment, Because he willingly walked by human precept. Therefore I will be to Ephraim like a moth, And to the house of Judah like rottenness. “When Ephraim saw his sickness, And Judah saw his wound, Then Ephraim went to Assyria And sent to King Jareb; Yet he cannot cure you, Nor heal you of your wound. For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, And like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear them and go away; I will take them away, and no one shall rescue. I will return again to My place Till they acknowledge their offense. Then they will seek My face; In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.” Hosea 5:10–15

All of the accusations, all of the warnings, even when they are harsh, they are always for a purpose.

God corrects his people to bring them back to himself.
It is a tough thing to identify with a God who would do such things to those whom he loves. To us, loving isn’t hurting someone. How can we hurt someone that we care about? Causing someone pain is the opposite of loving them!

These are the parts of Scripture that we might get a little uncomfortable to talk about. But this is who God is. And its important to understand this is who he always is, and always will be.
Read Deuteronomy 4 sometime. God predicts and promises exactly what is unfolding in this book if the Israelites were to do exactly what they have done. He even foreshadows the legal proceeding motif by calling heaven and earth to witness against the Idolatry of his people.
We might assume that God is like us, reacting to the situations around us and doing our best to only escalate when necessary, making judgement calls about how harsh to be. There is no reactionary nature with God. He is not just doing his best to roll with the punches. Long, long ago in eternity past, God settled exactly what needed to be done to bring His people Israel back to himself when they strayed.

And he is the same for his people today.

For whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.” Hebrews 12:6

We need to properly understand God’s ultimate punishment for sin and his loving discipline to teach his children. His purpose in his correction is not ultimately to make us feel shameful or guilty. His ultimate goal is restoration and joy.

Friend, is God in some way teaching you that you might repent so that you can experience His joy? My prayer is that this message makes clear to you what the Bible says about what it means to truly repent. You’re only one step of full repentance away from the joy of communion with God.

When we begin to trust that God’s correction is to bring His people back to himself, we begin to gain confidence God’s nature.

Repentance believes that God is faithful to his covenant.
If God is truly set out to bring me back to Him, then there can be no true hurt in repentance. There is nothing but goodness and blessing in repentance. (Now, I did not say there is no pain or that it is easy. The pain does not truly hurt. It only truly heals.)

God tells us his goal in his severity with Israel: that they would seek him at the end of chapter 5, and chapter 6 begins with 3 verses that poetically describe true repentance.

For a moment, I would like us all to become theologians. That doesn’t mean we all need to read thousands of pages and use flowery language. All that means is this: I want us all to look at these verses, think about what we read, and ask: “What can I learn about God from them?”
The hypothetical Israelites here know that the God who has torn and stricken them is ready to heal. Why? Because he said he would be. Just as he promised that he would deal harshly with Israel for their idolatry and disloyalty, he promised that would be ready to heal. Ready to restore. Ready to bring those same traitors and adulterers right back into the blessing of the covenant.

But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the Lord your God and obey His voice (for the Lord your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them. Deuteronomy 4:29–31

It is  for the exact same reason that we should fear God’s complete justice that we can rest in his mercy. He is faithful to all of his promises. He is always the same.

To turn back to God is to believe that God is gracious and merciful as he says he is. Do you see how he has promises to revive you and is ready to do so? They say, “After two or three days.” This means soon or quickly. He’s not going to make you wait so you know the seriousness of what you have done. The moment you turn back, he’s ready for things to be as he should be.

I can’t help but think of the story of the prodigal son. The father let’s his son experience the full consequences of his sin. He does shield him from that. But the moment he sees the son taking the steps to return. The moment! He RUNS. There is no delay. God has all the time in the world! He has infinite time. There is no rush or hurry for God to do anything! Yet, he wastes no time restoring those who turn from their sin.

In the most wonderful mystery, what the father wants is for us “live in his sight.” (vs. 2) You know what that makes me think of? A father and mother sitting, watching their kids play, enjoying presents on Christmas, playing in the yard, or growing up, getting a job or getting married.

This desire for God to be with us and to know them then is reciprocated in their desire to know him.

Repentance determines to know God.
Not only is God ready to receive those who turn to him, his going for and his coming are like the morning and the rain.

What is one thing which we all know about the morning? It’s happening. In our human experience, there is nothing more sure than the morning. What do they say? Death and taxes. Well, we can add, the morning.

And especially for an agrarian society, what always happens in spring? The rains come. Just as the joy of morning and the relief of rains always come, our God will meet with those who seek him.

I love those who love me, And those who seek me diligently will find me. Proverbs 8:17

There is a theme when we find language like this. Solomon says “diligently.” Hosea describes  a kind of pursuit. Those who pursue God in a heart of repentance do not do so halfheartedly. It’s full gallop. It’s no holds barred. It’s pedal to the medal.

Now, my goal is not to make us introspective this morning. We do not need to be looking inward and become obsessive about how genuine our desire for God is. Our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked. You’re going to have feelings of hypocrisy at times. The point of the passage and what we must grasp is: God is so ready to fully receive and bless us with all the blessings of walking with him and knowing him. He’s so ready to watch us enjoy the glory of his presence and goodness. Do not hold anything back from him. He will not hold any good thing back from those who love him. Do not get in your own head about this. Put your eyes on him and seek him diligently.

In our text this morning, we have come to  a point where a harsh reality kind of smacks us in the face. It’s the same kind of feeling when you read the syllabi for your classes or your sitting there after all the snow has melted looking at a field that needs a lot of work to be ready for planting.

We have risen to the peak of wondering at God’s faithful mercy and grace, and come crashing down to the reality of who Israel is because of the choices they make.

“O Ephraim, what shall I do to you? O Judah, what shall I do to you? For your faithfulness is like a morning cloud, And like the early dew it goes away. Hosea 6:4

We come face to face with Israel’s failure in stark contrast to the repentance God desires. There is some debate over whether verses 1-3 represent a false attempt at repentance or God’s example of true repentance which Israel cannot attain to.

Over the rest of the chapter, God reveals the true nature of Israel and how unrepentant they are.  We see some obstacles to repentance for Israel. As we look at the reasons why Israel is like the fog in the morning, we can understand what it takes to overcome our own spiritual fickleness.

We can take verse 6 as a summary for Israel’s problem because here we find what really matters to God. These words may be very familiar for you:

For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6

This is what God truly desires from Israel: mercy and knowledge of God. God doesn’t want the offerings and the sacrifices. He wants the heart under and behind them.

And by the way, mercy is the same as “chesed,” for those who remember Pastor Thomas’ message on God’s covenant faithfulness or “chesed. In verse 7, God clarifies his concern. Like man, which is the same word for Adam, they transgress the covenant. God’s relationship to Israel is defined always by his covenant with them. He corrects and blesses because he does what he said he would in the covenant. And he expects us to do the same. Be faithful to the covenant.

So the Israelites failed to keep the covenant by not seeking him, and desiring to know God and his ways. In verse 8, Hosea describes another way they have transgressed their covenant with God.

Gilead is a city of evildoers And defiled with blood. As bands of robbers lie in wait for a man, So the company of priests murder on the way to Shechem; Surely they commit lewdness. Hosea 6:8–9

True faithfulness involves both heart and hands.
God calls out two specific instances of breaking the covenant by hurting other people. In either case, we cannot be sure exactly what historical event is being referred to or if history records them at all.

What we do know is that the people of Israel knew. And the people knew these were egregious crimes against other people. An entire city becoming associated with bloodthirst, and the priests becoming murderous. Lewdness is the wickedness which springs from heinous desires and thoughts. They have become corrupt inside and so they do evil on the outside.

As Pastor Thomas has pointed out from the book of Hosea, God’s covenant does not just include what happened in the temple or just on the sabbath. The covenant was about all of life, especially how you treat other people.

Israel did not get to offer sacrifices on Saturday and then take advantage of people on Monday. God required that they honored him by honoring his image in other people. To hurt other people was to violate the covenant with Yaweh. There is no compartmentalizing with God Either you keep the covenant in all of life, with all of your being, or you don’t.

In verses 8-9, God gets very specific about the wickedness he saw. And we should remember that indeed, nothing escapes God’s sight. His eyes see everything, the evil and the good. But now, his view becomes broader, to the whole nation. These acts of deplorable violence are not just isolated events. They are related to the whole nation’s unfaithfulness and defilement.
One of the primary lessons of the the whole book of Hosea is this: sin is like cheating on your spouse, over and over again. Shamelessly. What God is trying to get through to Israel is the depth of their betrayal because that is what we all need to understand in order to repent.

A repentant heart sorrows over the betrayal of sin.
If Israel continued to justify and rationalize their sin, they could not repent. God sees the horribleness of sin, but Israel is blind to it.

Because God is gracious, he tells them about how bad their sin is. He does it over and over in Hosea, because as he says, he hews them down by their prophets and and slays them with his words. Even more in his mercy, he allows them to experience the consequences of their actions. In Hosea 7:2, their own deeds surround Israel. And for many of us, God may use circumstances in our lives to correct us, to show us how wicked our sin really is.

But for all of us, there is one place we can go to see how sin is like vile prostitution and how dirty that makes us: the cross.

God is so ready to forgive us that the Father sent God the Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the incalculable debt of our appalling harlotry. And he rose again three days later. If we will turn from our sin, and seek the one true God to worship him, then He will totally forgive us.
In Jesus’ death we find God’s hatred for sin, but also his desire for his people. In the cross we find the rightful consequences of idolatry and God’s readiness to forgive.

And so, my friend, if you do not know Jesus, repent of your idolatry. Embrace what it means to walk in covenant with God.

For those who follow Christ, the cross reminds us of the the God who calls us to repentance.

• Remember that God is faithful and merciful to forgive.
• Determine to know God.
• Be faithful to love God both in heart and hands.

Discussion Questions

• What is repentance?
• Why might we feel uncomfortable with repentance?
• How do the pain and wounds from sin help us to repent? (e.g. the prodigal son, Luke 15:11-32)
• What are some ways in which you can be like Israel as "morning cloud" or "early dew" in your relationship to God?
• How can you “diligently” pursue knowledge of God this week?
• If true repentance involves both heart and hands, what is one specific way you should treat others this week?
• Is it a good thing or bad thing to feel guilty or shameful about one’s own sin? Why?

Hosea 4:1-19

It’s an ordinary day. You come home from work, park your car in the driveway, then collect the mail from your mailbox. As you walk to the house and sort through the mail, you notice an official looking envelope that says, “official business,” and has a court as the return address. Your heart skips a beat as you wonder what this mail could be.

Once inside, you sit down in your chair to open the envelope. You pull out some official looking papers called a “Summons and Complaint.” They explain (a) that you are being sued, (b) why you are being sued, (c) what court is handling the case, and (d) your deadline to respond to the summons. Mail like this will definitely get your attention, right?

This is what happened as Hosea wrote Chapter 4 of his Old Testament (OT) prophecy. A difference with this lawsuit from a lawsuit today, though, is that notices of a lawsuit today often come through the mail or perhaps through a sheriff or delivery person to your home. But in the OT, God summonsed his people through the prophets. Another difference is that a summons today normally comes as a private, written document to your home, while a summons from God in the OT normally came as a public, verbal announcement, only to be written down later.

God brought a covenant lawsuit against his people.

As we have already seen, the first three chapters of this book explain to us how God called Hosea into a difficult marriage. He was to marry a woman who would eventually abandon him to live a promiscuous life. Then, after some years of this heartbreaking separation, he was to pursue and restore his marriage to her. God intended for this difficult assignment to illustrate both how his own people had abandoned him and how he had and would remain faithful and loyal to them.

At about 1446 BC, God had made a permanent covenant with his people – the nation of Israel – at Mount Sinai after he had rescued them from slavery in Egypt. At about 700 years later, God gave the message of Hosea to the northern ten tribes of Israel at about 750 BC. During those seven centuries (which is about 1/3 the length of our own United States history), much had occurred. Israel had wandered in the wilderness, settled into their Promised Land, established a royal dynasty, divided into two separate kingdoms (northern 10 tribes called Israel and southern 2 tribes called Judah).

For these 700 hundred years, God had been faithful and loyal to his people. But during this same stretch of time, his people had been increasingly and repeatedly unfaithful to him. This was especially true of the northern ten tribes, called Israel. So, after 700 years of faithful loyalty and patience from God, he finally – at long last – announced an official complaint against them, showing that they had been unfaithful to their covenant with him.

Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel, for the Lord brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land: “There is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land." (Hos 4:1)

First, he announces this complaint. He urges the people to listen carefully to what he is about to say. He tells them clearly that he is lodging a formal complaint or charge against them. This is equivalent to a lawsuit or “pressing charges” today. God not only tells them about their sin, but he also prepares them to receive the consequences for their actions.

The official charge against them is that “there is no truth, mercy, or knowledge of God in the land.” As his own special people, they supposed to be a source of truth, mercy, and knowledge of God to the world. But after 700 years of experiencing God’s truth and mercy, they themselves lacked any evidence of God’s goodness among them. They were not reflecting or revealing those qualities to the world around them.

Faithfulness here refers to common honesty or reliability. Though God had proven to be honest and reliable to them, they had failed to appreciate, internalize, and pass along those qualities to others. They themselves were dishonest and unreliable, instead.

Mercy here refers to expressions of kindness and love. Though God had proven to be kind and loving to them, they had failed to appreciate, internalize, and pass along those qualities to others. They themselves were unkind and unloving, instead.

Knowledge of God here refers to a close and growing relationship with God. Though God had cultivated and pursued a close relationship with them over many centuries, they had failed to receive and pass along such a relationship with him to others. They themselves had neglected and rejected building a close relationship with him.

By swearing and lying, killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break all restraint, with bloodshed upon bloodshed. (Hos 4:2)

This list that follows moves beyond the general, opening charge to document the kinds of behavior which prove that the opening charge is correct. How do we know that there was no faithfulness, kindness, or close relationship with God among God’s people? By this list of documented behaviors which follows.

This list highlights five clear violations of the Ten Commandments, which were clearly forbidden and warned against in both Exodus (Exo 20) and Deuteronomy (Dt 5). Then it explains the extent, magnitude, and scope of these violations, too. The five violations are:

• Swearing is invoking and relying on the authority and power of false gods.
• Lying is changing and withholding the truth to deceive or take advantage of someone.
• Killing is taking another person’s life due to carelessness or for selfish reasons.
• Stealing is taking another person’s money or property for selfish reasons.
• Adultery is abusing or using someone sexually in violation of the marriage covenant.

These behaviors show that a person or society is not in a faithful, close relationship with God. But the prophet says more – he gives the scope of these behaviors among God’s people. He says that these acts do not occur in rare, isolated instances but rather they on a rampant, widespread scale. These behaviors had become the norm not the exception. As a result, violence and death multiplied unchecked.

To view this charge in a modern-day way, we can see how a culture of death is rising. Evidence of this trend includes widespread abortion, increasing euthanasia, growing revenge killings, mass shootings, and terrorism, widespread use of lethal drugs, increasing suicide rates, and a growing fascination with violence in our entertainment. Such a rise in violence and death was a key reason for the worldwide flood of Noah’s day and was evidence that God’s people deserved his judgment for their severe unfaithfulness to him.

Therefore the land will mourn; and everyone who dwells there will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea will be taken away. (Hos 4:3)

In the final statement of God’s charge, he expands the scope of his people’s unfaithfulness and sin even further to the ecology of the natural world. Their careless, selfish, violent behavior was even the cause of animals on land, air, and sea dying and growing scarce or extinct. When people live selfish, sinful lives, it’s not just other people and God himself who suffer, but the natural world they live in suffers also. The world which God has given us to care for in his place is destroyed by us, instead.

He calls out priests for delinquent, disgraceful behavior.

After announcing God’s opening charge against Israel, Hosea then narrows the focus of his message from all the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel to a special class of people among them – the priests and the prophets (Hos 4:4-10). The heart of this specific accusation is found in Hosea 4:6, which says:

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

Here God accuses the spiritual leaders of God’s people of egregious malpractice. These men were supposed to teach and remind God’s people of his covenant and truth, but they failed to keep this knowledge before them. Rather than teach God’s law to God’s people they forgot God’s law and therefore failed to teach it to God’s people.

• 4:5 tells us that rather than lead and teach God’s people with clear mind and speech, they stumbled like drunken people, instead. Though this is probably figurative language to portray the priests and prophets as bumbling, uneducated teachers and spiritual guides, it probably also describes their real behavior. Rather than being sober, clear-minded teachers, they were often probably drunk and inebriated, as well.
• 4:7 tells us that the more priests and teachers there were, the more people sinned – which was the opposite effect from what should have occurred. That’s like saying the more doctors a hospital employs, the more widespread disease and sickness became; or like saying the more law enforcement officers we put onto the streets, the more widespread crime becomes. The more priests and prophets there were in Northern Israel, the more God’s people sinned – how ironic is that?
• 4:8 say the priests and prophets somehow fed from the sins of God’s people. We’re not entirely sure what this means, but there are at least two very strong possibilities. On one hand, it may mean that the more God’s people sinned, the more offerings and sacrifices they would have offered. If this is the right interpretation, then it means that the more people sinned, the more food and material/financial donations were received by the priests, so that they grew rich and wealthy due to increased sin. On the other hand, it may mean that people were engaged in increasingly immoral worship practices. Like the pagans around them, they may have been committing fornication, adultery, and child sacrifice (and more) in the name of worship, thereby feeding the sinful appetites and desires of the priests at their places of so-called worship.
• 4:10 seems to indicate that the most likely answer to the question of what it means for the priests and prophets to “feed from” the sins of God’s people is some combination of both options. It says that they “ate but did not have enough,” indicating that they were eating sacrifices from the people in a gluttonous way. It also says that they “committed harlotry but did not increase,” indicating that they were also practicing religious prostitution paired with abortion and child sacrifice, because their immoral activity was not producing children or a growing population.

In summary, 4:9 says “like people, like priest,” meaning there was no difference between the flagrant, sinful lifestyle of God’s people and their spiritual leaders. All were living in a selfish, sinful way and had no love or respect for the God who had been loyal, loving, and merciful to them for 700 years.

He traces the regression of idolatry and sexual sin.

How had this tragic, unrestrained sinful lifestyle become the norm for so long? Hosea traces this sad regression in the next four verses. He summarizes the problem in 4:11, then traces it out as a progression in 4:12-14.

To understand how this happened, we must first understand the cultural and historical background of these people. Israel had installed their first king, King Saul, at about 1050 BC – 400 years before Hosea announced God’s lawsuit against his people. The famous King David reigned next, beginning at about 1000 BC, followed by his son, King Solomon, who reigned from about 960-920 BC.

After Solomon, his son – Rehoboam – made some foolish choices which caused the nation of Israel to split in two. Think of it like the Civil War, only instead of the nation unifying afterwards, they split into two countries, the North and the South. In this case, the North was called Israel, and the South was called Judah.

In the North, God’s people decided that instead of traveling down to Jerusalem for worship at the Temple, they would set up alternative worship sites in their own northern regions. Though they claimed to be worshiping the true God, they did so in their own convenient way, which included – similar to their first generation in the wilderness – the use of golden calves. Over time, this alternative worship system gradually regressed.

What began as an alternative, more convenient format of worshiping God by erecting bull idols deteriorated into unrestrained sexual immorality and drunkenness in the name of worship.

• 4:12 explains how in worshiping God by means of wooden, golden cow statues, they eventually moved into full-on idolatry, worshiping idols rather than God himself. God calls this spiritual adultery and prostitution.
• 4:13 explains how they transitioned from worshiping God at two select alternative sites to worshiping God wherever it was most convenient for them – wherever was closest, wherever it was most shaded and comfortable.
• 4:13 also explains how the people raised daughters who participated in sexual immorality and prostitution – probably first in religious ceremonies, then eventually in life at large. But this behavior soon progressed from unmarried, young girls behaving this way to married adult women behaving this way even after they were married.
• 4:14 explains that God did not view the women alone as the guilty parties, though. Why? Because the men themselves were also worshiping idols and participating in sexual sins in the name of worship. So, from God’s vantage point, all were guilty – men and women, young and old alike.

What had begun as a matter of convenience had regressed into idol worship and rampant sexual sin. Said more simply, when we tolerate idolatry in our lives, we should not be surprised when sexual sin gains a foothold afterwards. Idolatry opens the door to sexual sin. When we replace God and look to anything other than him for our satisfaction and salvation, then sexual sin will eventually follow.

This past week, former Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska gave an interview in which he discussed his recent Stage 4 cancer diagnosis, recognizing that he has a very high likelihood of dying in the near future and expressing a clear belief in Jesus Christ as his Savior. In this interview, he explained how his illness has caused him to reevaluate his priorities, describing many former concerns and priorities as "pointless" and recognizing his need to “shatter the of idols in his life.” On this point, it was fascinating to note how he made the connection between idolatry and Sunday worship with his church on the Lord’s Day. He expressed regret about not taking the Lord’s Day more seriously, viewing this as an antidote to idolatry.

I believe the senator is correct. There’s something about a weekly choice to gather, serve, and worship God with his people. This weekly reset of sorts and requires us to say ‘no’ to so many other American idols, even those which seem to be good. Is it possible that the things which keep you away from Lord’s Day worship are your idols?

On a related note, let me also say that if you find yourself affected by, addicted to, or involved in sexual sin, let me kindly and strongly encourage you to seek help. Speak with your parents – children, speak with a pastor – men, or speak with a respected lady in the church – women. Seek help, accountability, and friendship escape that downward spiral and to renew or receive God’s truth, kindness, and a close relationship with him.

Sexual sin is not only a sin against people, esp. your future or present spouse, but more importantly, it is a sin against God and his covenant with his people. And let us thank God that he is able and ready to rescue and restore those who are ensnared.

He warns against associating with idolatrous, immoral people.

Finally, in verses 15-19, Hosea gives a strong warning to the Southern Kingdom, the remaining two tribes down in Judah where proper Temple worship of God still occurred in Jerusalem. Hosea, warns his people in the Southern Kingdom to steer clear and stay away from their biological, ethnic brothers and sisters up north, lest their idolatrous, immoral ways infect them, as well.

They had become like what they worshiped. They had worshiped lifeless cow idols, now they behaved like those very animals themselves. Chapter 5 continues this charge and gives more of God’s feelings and thoughts about the actual and spiritual adultery of his people against him. The late OT scholar and commentator, Derek Kidner, says this:

If we want a modern equivalent, it could well be the religious pluralism expressed in the studied neutrality of certain courses on world religions, or of any multi-faith service. ‘Come to St. X’s and blaspheme’, a modern Amos might say. And a modern Hosea, ‘Don’t darken its doors! You must choose between that and God.’

Today, we must reject the invitation of interfaith associations and partnerships to serve and worship God with them. If they do not teach the gospel clearly, if they do not teach and practice a biblical, godly morality and sexuality, if they embrace or incorporate the beliefs and practices of false gods and idols, and if they replace the cost of following Christ with self-accommodation and convenience, then we should not associate or participate with them – but should, rather, seek to win them for Christ.

Next Sunday, Pastor Will will speak about God’s call of his people to repentance. As Hosea 6:1 urges us:

Come, and let us return to the Lord; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up.

As we participate in the Lord’s Supper today, let us also consider how we approach not the worship of God at the Temple but the worship of Christ in this new and special way.  As Paul warned the members of the church at Corinth (1 Cor 11:27-28):

Whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

The church he was writing had known problems. They were filing lawsuits against each other,
behaving arrogantly in worship services, and – like the people of Northern Israel in Hosea’s day – they were getting drunk in their worship gatherings, participating in idol worship at local temples, and tolerating immoral behavior among themselves.

As followers of Christ, we must recognize that we – like the people of Israel – are to be priests for God, representing him in this sinful world and helping guide people into a close relationship with him. But if we ourselves are worshiping idols and tolerating sexual immorality in our lives, we are proving to be unfaithful and unmerciful people without a close knowledge of and relationship with God. If that is the case, then how can we lead people to Christ? We are people whom other people should stay away from, instead.

So, what do we do with a chapter like Hosea 4? God’s words here are not light, nor are they meant to be. A summons is supposed to get our attention. A charge from the Judge of all people should make us sit up straight, quiet our hearts, and listen.

This summons is a message of mercy, because with this message, God exposes our sin not to crush us but to call us back to him. He reveals our unfaithfulness so he can restore us to faithfulness. He reveals our insincere worship so that we can return to true worship of him. He points out our idolatry so he can become our salvation and satisfaction.

The God who brings the charge of Hosea 4 is also the God who stands ready to invite us home with open arms. And so today, as we come to the Lord’s Table, we do not come casually. We come thoughtfully, honestly, and humbly. We examine ourselves prayerfully:

• Am I tolerating idols in my life? Things or people that have taken God’s place?
• Am I permitting immoral or sexual sins? Sins which are common place and excused today but which violate my future or present marriage covenant and, most importantly, my covenant with God as his child and priest?
• Do I choose convenience over sacrifice, comfort over cost in my worship of God and my walk and service with Christ?

The Lord’s Supper is not a ritual for perfect people but a reminder for repentant people. It brings us face to face with the cost of our redemption and the faithfulness of our Savior. It calls us to turn from sins that turn our love for God into spiritual adultery and replace our loyalty to God with idolatry. It calls us to examine ourselves, not keep us away from the Table but to draw us to it in a more reverential, respectful, and meaningful way.

Let us hear God’s charge for his people today, not with shame but with gratitude. Let us remember that our idolatries and immoralities, whatever they may be, have been died for, defeated, and forgiven through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Let us come to his Table with hearts ready and eager to receive his mercy, reflect on his truth, and come into a closer, more knowledgeable relationship with him.

May God help us to be a people who do not repeat the sins of Israel, but who learn from them, who cling to Christ, who walk in His ways, and who shine as priests in this sinful, disloyal, unfaithful world until he returns. Let us pray.

Hosea 1-3

The normal, usual way for God to speak his message to people is through the communication of other men. At key times in history, he has given direct messages through men called prophets. But most of the time, he communicates by means of pastors and teachers who read, explain, and announce what the prophets have already said.

For prophets, the normal, usual way to give God’s message was to simply speak or write down what God wanted them to say. On special occasions, though, God would call them to provide some sort of visual message, a visible illustration of the message he wanted people to understand. Sometimes these visual messages were unusual for the purpose of getting people to pay attention and ask questions, so they would be impacted in a way that words alone could not do. Examples of these dramatic visual messages include:

• Isaiah wore nothing but his undergarments for three years – to illustrate the humiliation that Egypt would one day experience due to God’s judgment. (Isa 20:1-4)
• Ezekiel lay on his side for 390 days, then 40 more days on the other side – to illustrate the 430 yrs. of sin against God by his people. (Ezk 4:4-8)
• He also cooked low-quality food over human waste – to illustrate their coming defilement in foreign exile due to their sin against God. (Ezk 4:12-15)
• Jeremiah wore a ruined cloth belt – to illustrate the corruption of God’s people (Jer 13:1-11), remained unmarried – to illustrate the coming devastation of his people (16:1-4), wore a yoke for oxen on his neck – to illustrate their upcoming bondage to Babylon (Jer 27:2-11), and bought land in a war zone – to illustrate hope for future restoration (Jer 32:6-15).

One of the most difficult living illustrations that God called for his prophets to do, though, was done by the prophet Hosea. God called Hosea to marry Gomer, a wife who would go on to be unfaithful to him – to illustrate Israel’s unfaithfulness to God and God’s faithful love to his people. This experience would require Hosea to endure deep emotional and relational pain so that Israel could see how deeply God loved his people, despite their unfaithful behavior towards him.

God called Hosea to a difficult, unusual marriage.

God gave the message of this book through a prophet named Hosea. He was the son of a man named Beeri, of whom we know nothing else. The name Hosea means “salvation.” He, like Jonah, was a prophet primarily to and from the Northern Kingdom, unlike most other OT prophets, who primarily served the Southern Kingdom.

Hosea served while Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah were kings in the Southern Kingdom and while Jereboam II was king in the Northern Kingdom (Hos 1:1). This means that the prophets Isaiah and Micah would have been serving in the Southern Kingdom during the same timespan

The main thing we know about Hosea is his family situation, for this is what God uses to illustration the message of the book. God gave Hosea specific instructions: “Go take yourself a wife of harlotry” (Hos 1:2).

We are not entirely sure what this instruction means. But we can reduce the options to two possibilities. God told Hosea to marry a wife who was either (a) already living an immoral lifestyle or (b) begin an immoral lifestyle sometime after they married. Whichever was true, would you have obeyed God if you were Hosea – knowingly marry someone who you knew would be unfaithful to you?

Some of you know firsthand the deep pain that unfaithfulness in marriage can cause, because you have experienced this firsthand. My heart goes out to you if this is so, and even more so does God’s.

That’s exactly what God did when he made a covenant with his people at Mount Sinai, pledging to be faithful, loving, and loyal to them forever. As God, he knows all things. Yet he still created mankind, knowing we would rebel against him. Yet he still committed himself to loving his people, knowing they would be unfaithful to him.

From Hosea’s marriage to Gomer, Hosea would become a father to three children: a son named Jezreel (Hos 1:3), a daughter named Lo-Ruhamah (Hos 1:6), and another son named “Lo-Ammi” (Hos 1:8). God told Hosea to give his children these names because they each would represent an important message God wanted his people to hear.

Jezreel, Hosea’s first son, was the name of a town and surrounding valley between Galilee and Samaria, the site of much bloody, violent activity, including abortions, betrayals, and battles. But God called out a specific incident that happened there as the reason for this name:

Call his name Jezreel, for in a little while I will avenge the bloodshed of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and bring an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. (1:3)

Here he referred to how Jehu had entirely destroyed the descendants and dynasty of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, leaders who had led God’s people into all sorts of ungodly activity, including Baal worship. The irony of this, though, was that once Jehu had become king in their place, he led God’s people into the same ungodly ways. For this reason, God wanted Hosea’s first son to be a visual reminder to his people in the Northern Kingdom that he would punish them severely for their repeated idolatry and immorality

Next, Lo-Ruhamah, Hosea’s daughter and second-born, was to be given a name which meant “no mercy” (1:6). This name highlighted the distant, estranged relationship which had developed between God and his people. Every time they saw her or would hear or speak her name, they would be reminded of their estranged relationship with God.

Lastly, Gomer gave birth to Hosea’s second son, Lo-Ammi, his third child. This boy’s name meant “not my people” (1:9). The reason for this was, as God said, “Then God said: “For you are not My people, and I will not be your God.” What sad words. This does not mean that God would abandon his people or refuse to be faithful and loyal to them. But it means that at that time, in that moment, they no longer behaved as his people, so he could not treat them that way.

In the very next verses (1:10-11), God promised a better, brighter future for his people:

Yet the number of the children of Israel shall be as the sand of the sea, which cannot be measured or numbered. And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them, “You are not My people,” there it shall be said to them, “You are sons of the living God.” Then the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall be gathered together, and appoint for themselves one head; and they shall come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel!

Here he promised a better, brighter future, a relationship with his people which would be everything good which he had promised them in the beginning. But for the time being, in that past moment, the relationship was strained so greatly that they could not be called his people.

Now, after these children were born, Gomer entered into (or else returned) to an immoral, unfaithful lifestyle. Some Bible teachers even suggest that she did this before the third child was born. If this were true, then that would give more significance to the name “not my people,” as Hosea may have been unsure as to whether that child were actually his.

Truly, God called Hosea to a difficult task – to live out a marriage to an unfaithful wife in the presence of God’s people. By doing this, Hosea would not only speak against the unfaithfulness of God’s people towards him but he would experience the heartbreak of God for himself and would be able to speak about their sin not merely as knowledge but with firsthand experience of his own, giving strength, clarity, and feeling to his message.

So, through this difficult marriage, God deepens our knowledge of him. The second chapter of this book (Hos 2:1-23) gives a similar message to Hos 1, only it does so as an emotional poem in which the first half describes how God’s people had abandoned him and the second half describes how God had pursued after them in mercy to make them his people again.

God called Hosea to restore his broken marriage.

Finally, in Chapter 3 (Hos 3:1-5), God gives Hosea his next instructions. Just as he had told Hosea to marry a wife who would be unfaithful to him, not he told Hosea to go and bring her back to his home to love her as his wife again, even though she had abandoned him and been left broken by her sin.

Then the LORD said to me, “Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover and is committing adultery, just like the love of the LORD for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans.” So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. And I said to her, “You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man—so, too, will I be toward you.” For the children of Israel shall abide many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred pillar, without ephod or teraphim. Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the LORD their God and David their king. They shall fear the LORD and His goodness in the latter days.

Here we see that Gomer had wandered so far from her marriage that she was living away from her home and was entirely engaged in an immoral lifestyle. But this life had left her broken, hurting, and lonely. So, Hosea searched for her, found her, and paid the necessary price to bring her back into his home.

Why did he need to pay for her? Probably because she had either become somebody’s personal slave or else had become a temple prostitute for a false god or idol. Whatever the case, that Hosea had to use barley grain to complete the transaction indicates that he probably had trouble coming up with the money to do this.

Various estimates suggest that 15 shekels of silver equaled about years’ worth of wages. But to complete the transaction, not even this was enough. So, Hosea had to add to the transaction “about a homer and a lethek of barley,” which is likely equivalent to a large bathtub full or else a large outdoor trash bin. The language of “buying” here also indicates that Hosea probably did some bargaining and haggling to make the transaction possible, showing intent on his part and a willingness to overcome a difficult situation.

After this happened, Hosea re-established his marriage relationship with Gomer. This time, she no longer behaved unfaithfully towards him, and he did everything that a faithful, loving husband would do to have a close, lasting relationship with her. What a horrible, heartbreaking story, but what a wonderful, heartwarming ending.

Hosea’s marriage shows how deeply and faithfully God loves his people.

The purpose for this book is clear – to show the kind of love that God had towards Israel. His love for his people is relentless.

Hosea’s love for his wife represented the kind of love that God had towards Israel. He had initiated the relationship, had been a good partner who was loyal to their marriage covenant, and who also desired and pursued restoration.

Hosea’s wife, Gomer, represented the kind of behavior that God’s people displayed towards him. Israel, like Gomer, had responded to her husband’s love and devotion by pursuing other loves instead.

Those people who had once been planted, then and uprooted by God would once again be planted, loved, and drawn back close by God again. God vividly portrays this plan to redeem Israel as illustrated through Hosea’s marriage in Hos 3:1-5. This is a book that describes through a vivid, painful, real-life illustration God’s loving loyalty to his disloyal people.

This book also serves an emotional, personal purpose as well, as it helps us feel the depth and reality of Yahweh’s experience and love towards his people. By framing his relationship to his people into a real-life marriage, the reader is able to more directly connect with what God feels towards his people when they are disloyal to him. This book moves the idea of God’s love from our heads to our hearts and helps us appreciate his love for his people more deeply.

God views our disloyalty as adultery yet loves us still.

There is nothing so painful as the betrayal of a spouse in marriage. Such betrayal violates the most sacred covenant and the most personal, intimate relationship known to mankind.

That God compares his relationship to his people to a marriage doesn’t mean that it is a marriage, as we know it, but that marriage as we know it is the closest, most accurate way to portray his relationship with us. To God, our relationship with him is far more deep and significant and meaningful than that of a neighbor, sibling, parent, or friend. While those relationships also help us understand our relationship to God, they do not capture the heart
and essence of our relationship to him as deeply as does marriage.

Hear how God views our lack of loyalty to him according to the NT book of James:

Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. (Jam 4:4)

Throughout Scripture, God describe the disobedience and disloyalty of his people as “spiritual adultery.” And this description holds true whenever we love or prioritize anything or anyone else over God. John also spoke of this tendency in our hearts:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. (1 Jn 2:15-16)

When we devote ourselves to gratifying bodily, physical desires, acquiring and experiencing things in this material world, and achieving recognition and success in the pursuits of life – when in doing these things we set God to the side, disobey clear instructions from God, and put Christ in a place of secondary importance, God calls this loving other things more than him. He calls this spiritual adultery. This is more than just a theological term – it’s a spiritual, relationship reality. God feels just as deeply about those things as a spouse would feel if they found that their spouse was cheating on them. Let that reality sink in. The life and message of Hosea helps us to do that.

There is an exclusivity that is special to marriage – a oneness that must not be violated. Marriage calls us to say “no” to all other possible spouses and “yes” to one. It calls us to devote ourselves completely to the care, respect, and pleasure of the other person. It calls us to develop a close, committed devotion to the other person that competes with no one else.

The amazing reality is this – that God loves and devotes himself completely to his people in this way. Imagine that – the God of the universe completely devoted to your love and care. But do we respond in the same way? Do we give him the same loyal devotion that he deserves, not only because he is God, but because he loves us this way?

Despite the tendency in our hearts to wander from God and to flirt with the world, a tendency we often act out in the daily choices of our lives, we know God is relentlessly loyal to his people, even when it is painful and costly. As Jer 31:3 says so beautifully:

Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.

We will explore God’s love and our tendency towards spiritual adultery more deeply in upcoming sermons as we look more closely at the rest of Hosea’s message. But today, as we step back from Hosea’s painful yet hope‑filled marriage experience, we should examine our own hearts before the Lord. Hosea’s marriage was more than an ancient tragedy: it was a mirror held up to God’s people, revealing how easily our hearts drift and how deeply our God loves.

Like Israel, we often wander, chasing lesser loves and giving our affection to things that cannot satisfy. Though this hurts the heart of God deeply, like a spouse who has been betrayed by an adulterous partner, God responds not with abandonment but with relentless, faithful love. He comes after us, pays the price to restore us, and invites us back into renewed closeness and relationship with him.

Today, let Hosea’s testimony press into your heart: Where are you looking for fulfillment apart from God? What rivals are competing for your loyalty and love? And will you return to the God who has never stopped pursuing after you? His love is steadfast, his mercy is unfailing, and his desire is to draw you back to himself. May Hosea’s story move us not only to conviction but also to grateful worship and devoted love, as we rest in the faithful love of the God who restores our wandering, wayward hearts.

Let me close this message with a story that beautifully portrays the message of Hosea’s marriage for us today.

The pastor of a small town walked through his town on a foggy afternoon, right past the window of a little pawn shop. As he glanced inside, a worn, scratched acoustic guitar caught his eye. As he looked closer, his heart sank. It was the guitar of a man from his church. It was a distinct guitar with a unique color and pattern. The man had grown up in the church and had played his guitar for worship services throughout high school, but when he graduated, he fell into the wrong crowd and into the clutches of addiction. Along the way, he had apparently pawned for money the guitar he once used to worship God.

The pastor stepped inside and asked the shop owner for its price. The cost was far more than it was worth, but he paid it anyway. Then he took it to a music store in a nearby city to be cleaned, polished, repaired, and carefully tuned, paying the price for that, as well.

At last, he drove the guitar to the young man’s home. When the door opened, the young man stared in disbelief. His old guitar was being held out for him to take back again, from someone who still loved him, despite his

The pastor placed the guitar into his hands and quietly said, “This is your guitar and it still belongs to you – and you still belong to God. He loves you with an everlasting love, will you return to him?”

Friends, that is the message of Hosea. That is the heart of the God who pursues us relentlessly. Even when we wander or sell ourselves cheaply to things and people who don’t love us as God does, even when we think we’re too broken to be worth the price, God comes after us anyway.

Christ died on the cross to pay the ultimate price to restore, reclaim, and remake you. He pays what we cannot pay, he restores what we have ruined, and he brings us home again.

As you go home today, remember this: no matter how far you have drifted, the God of Hosea is still pursuing you. His love is relentless, his mercy is real, and he desires to be closer to you than a husband can ever be.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Sometimes we believe it’s a predictable pattern that generations gradually decline, that the next generation will automatically be less spiritual or godly than the last, but Deuteronomy gives us reason to believe otherwise. It shows us that anyone in any generation can devote themselves to following God, even if their earthly father(s) in a previous generation have not followed God well. This message gives us hope.

Deuteronomy tells us what Moses said to the second generation of Israelites after their parents died in the wilderness. The first generation had failed to enter the promised land because they had continually complained, criticized, and disobeyed God. Though he had devoted himself faithfully to them, they had not devoted themselves faithfully to him (with the exceptions two men, Caleb and Joshua.)

Moses spoke these words to a new generation at the east side of the Jordan River, across from Jericho, around 1406 BC (Dt 1:6), then he wrote down these words afterward, just before he died, so God’s people would never forget them (Dt 31:24). Since God would be faithful to his people in every generation, they would need to have evidence of his covenant with them and theirs with him in every generation.

As this new generation prepared to enter the land, Moses called them to break away from their parents’ failures and idolatry and to respond to God’s faithful love and care by loving him with all their heart and serving him faithfully in return (Dt 10:12; 11:2, 13).

The message of this book is simple: God’s people should respond to his love and faithfulness with wholehearted devotion (Dt 6:4-5). This truth applies not only to that second generation of Israel but the generations that would come after them (Dt 29:29).

God’s faithfulness continues from one generation to another.

This was God’s original intent and purpose in making covenant with his people. He did not view his commitment to them as experimental or temporary. He viewed it as a timeless, unending commitment of total devotion to them.

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Dt 29:29)

From this we see that God intended for his covenant with his people to continue from one generation to another. This is how deeply and permanently he committed himself to them.

He repeated his covenant to the second generation of Israel.

The name Deuteronomy means “second law” or “second giving of the law.” It describes how the book repeats many of the laws given to the first generation in Exodus at Sinai.

Most notably, Moses repeated the 10 Commandments (Dt 5, cf. Exo 20. He emphasized that God did not give the covenant only to their fathers; he gave them to the children, too.

The Lord did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive. (Dt 5:3)

Even so, this book was not just a copy of previous laws. It adapted earlier laws to their new situation as residents of the land, who were no longer wandering in the wilderness.

For instance, they would now be permitted to kill and eat meat in their towns, not just at the tabernacle (Dt 12:15). They would also be allowed to store their tithes in their hometowns every third year to provide for local Levites and people in need rather than bring their tithes to Jerusalem if they lived elsewhere. This was a change from their orders in the wilderness, which required that all tithes be brought to the tabernacle (Dt 14:28-29; 26:12; cf. Num 18:21-28).

As you read this book, you sense a strong, heartfelt tone. That’s because Moses did more than recite previous laws. He spoke with increased urgency and used lots of repetition. Why do you think this was the case? Perhaps because he was about to die and had seen firsthand how the former generation had failed miserably. He did not want this second generation to do the same.

This time, he focused less on explaining how to understand the laws and more on persuading people to actually obey them. He did not want the next generation of Israelites to fail as their parents had done, though he knew that they would have similar tendencies.

He did this through a series of three heartfelt sermons.

Deuteronomy completes the 5-vol. set called “the Pentateuch,” written by Moses (Dt 18:15-22). It also sets up the messages of future Old Testament (OT) prophets, who would go on to remind people in future generations about what God had said in this book, reminding them of his forever faithfulness to them and calling them to faithfulness to him.

Deuteronomy resembles the impassioned style of later prophets. It also resembles later prophets by focusing on the implications of Israel’s obedience/disobedience to God and by previewing things in Israel’s future, such as their future king (17:14-20), their settlement in the land (33:6-29), their removal from and return to the land (28:64-68; 30:1-3).

Altogether, this book is a collection of three sermons given, giving us a basic outline.

Sermon 1: He reflects on their experiences in the wilderness. (1:1-4:43)

The first sermon urged people to look back at what God had done for them in the past.

He introduces the sermon (1:1-5), recalls their journey from Horeb to Moab, (1:6-3:29), and urges them to obey God. (4:1-43).

Sermon 2: He emphasizes crucial themes and principles from the law. (4:44-28:69)

The second sermon encouraged the people to look up to God as their motivation to obey the laws he had given them.

He introduces the sermon (4:44-49) and repeats the Ten Commandments, (5:1-33).  Then he pleads for them to show total devotion to God (6:1-11:32) and explains important details of the law (12:1-26:19).

Sermon 3: He prepares the people to enter the land. (27:1-30:20)

The third sermon stirred them to look forward to entering the land and living for God. In it, he gives instructions for entering the land (27:1-10), gives a series of potential blessings and curses (27:11-28:68), then urges their wholehearted commitment to the covenant (29:1-30:20).

The book (and the entire Pentateuch) ends with final words by and about Moses as he said goodbye to Israel, handed over his role to Joshua, finished his ministry, and died (31:1-34:12). In these final moments, he offered a song of praise to God (32:1-43), gave his final instructions to Israel (32:44-47), and died on Mount Nebo (32:48-52).

God calls for total devotion from his people in every generation.

Archeologists have unearthed covenant records which date back to the time of Moses and Deuteronomy. These records show that kings formed similar covenants with the people they governed.

One key difference, though, between these other ancient covenants and the covenant God made with Israel is the witnesses that God chose to remind his people of the covenant and to hold them accountable to it. Ancient covenants typically called upon the names of false gods to be witnesses, but God chose the following witnesses, instead:

• the song of Moses (31:19)

Write down this song for yourselves, and teach it to the children of Israel; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for Me against the children of Israel.

• the “book of the law” (a written copy of Deuteronomy which was to be read publicly every seven years at the Feast of Booths, 31:26, cf. 31:10-11)

Take this Book of the Law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there as a witness against you.

• and “heaven and earth” (30:19; 31:28; 32:1)

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.

In every generation that followed, God wanted his people to sing the song of Moses, reread this book, and observing the glory of God in creation as he provided for them faithfully, they would forever remember his faithfulness to them.

Deuteronomy gives timeless truth for our lives today.

Though written to the second generation of the nation of Israel more than 3,000 years ago, this book remains very relevant for believers today.

The New Testament (NT) quotes from this book about 80 times, more than any OT book besides Isaiah and Psalms. References appear in 21 of 27 NT books (77%) and are mentioned by every NT writer except Peter.

The NT quotes Deuteronomy directly with timeless principles for application today, such as, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay” as a principle for relationships (Rom 12:19; Heb 10:30, cf. Dt 32:35) , and, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain” as a principle for churches to follow when paying their pastors (1 Cor 9:9; 1 Tim 5:18, cf. Dt 25:4) – though I’m not sure how I feel about being compared to an ox on the farm, lol.

Deuteronomy looks forward to the coming of Christ.

Deuteronomy presents Moses as the greatest, most exemplary OT prophet (34:10-12). More importantly, however, it foretells of another prophet who would come from the nation of Israel in the future.

The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear. (Dt 18:15-19)

This unnamed prophet would be similar and superior to Moses (Heb 3:1-6):

That He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said to the fathers, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.” (Acts 3:20-23)

This prophet is Jesus, and to this prophet – who unlike Moses is God himself – and it is to him that we owe our total devotion.

Deuteronomy affirms the supremacy of God.

The key passage of Deuteronomy is found in 6:4, which Jews and Christians call the shema, the Hebrew word for “hear!” It undergirds the basic tenets of orthodox theology and faith – that the LORD is the one, supreme God (John 17:3; Eph 4:6; 1 Cor 8:4, 6).

From this we know there is no other god. We also know that this God is not also the god of Islam or any other false religion which claims to worship God. There is only one God and he is the God of the Bible who must be worshiped and followed as the Bible tells us.

Moses’ appeal for wholehearted devotion to God and repudiation of all other idols, gods, and rivals appears throughout the NT (cf. Rom 12:1-2; Jam 1:27; 1 John 2:15-17, et al.). This makes sense because if there is only one God and he is wholly devoted to your salvation and care, then you should be wholly devoted to him in return.

Deuteronomy gives us the greatest command.

When the religious leaders and teachers of the OT law asked Jesus, “What is the most important command in the law, he quoted from Dt 6:5.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

This command encapsulates the essence of not only the Mosaic law but the whole teaching ministry of Jesus (Mt 22:37; Mk 12:29-30; Lk 10:27). From this we see that God does not only save his people so that they may be rescued from death and hell (which he does), but he saves his people so that they will love him and others in return.

We are all loving something or someone supremely. There is no one who does not love something or someone supremely and devote themselves wholeheartedly to that person or thing. That person or thing might be yourself, a false god or religion, some other person, or some experience, thing, or goal which this temporal, material world offers.

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. (Mt 6:24)

According to Jesus, you either serve and worship him with total devotion, or you serve and worship something else that way, instead. But you cannot have it both ways. The first generation of Israel had an opportunity to respond to God with total devotion, but they hardened their hearts towards God instead. The NT warns us against the same problem:

Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end (Heb 3:12-14)

There are those who begin to follow Christ and who claim to believe in God as the Bible reveals him, but over the course of time they depart from God and are tempted by sin to love and pursue other things. Only those who both begin to follow Christ and then persevere faithfully to the end will be saved. To be clear, it is not perseverance that saves us. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. But those who truly believe do and will persevere. This is a mark of genuine faith and love as opposed to counterfeit, ingenuine faith and love.

The NT goes on to say:

Since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: “So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest,’ ” although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. (Heb 4:1-3)

From this we see that though the first generation of Israelites as a whole failed believe God genuinely, God continues to offer his salvation and faithfulness to later generations of people. He did so to the second generation of Israelites and he does so for us today. Will you experience the rest that God gives to his people because you believe and obey what his Word says by faith? Do you respond with total love and devotion to God?

As Jesus clearly taught: ““If you love Me, keep My commandments” (Jn 14:15). This begins with baptism for everyone who believes on him, then it continues with learning to obey everything else he commands, no matter how inconvenient it may be (Matt 28:19).

Deuteronomy tells us how to pass faith on to the next generation.

Finally, the shema also has implications for Christian discipleship at home, teaching us how to pass faith on to the next generation (Eph 6:4; 2 Tim 3:15) and beyond (Matt 28:20; 2 Tim 2:2). This approach is relevant for us today.

How do we pass faith along to the next generation? It is not through infant baptism (something which appears or is taught nowhere in Scripture). Baptism – properly understood – is the first step of devotion we take towards God once we have believed on Christ. The way we pass faith along to the next generation is to do what Dt 6:6-9 tells us.

In our personal lives and families, we should make love for God and devotion to him our topmost priority. When we do this, three things occur:

We put his words into our hearts. (6:6)

To do this means we read his Word, study his Word, reflect and meditate on his Word, and apply his Word to the choices and situations of our daily lives. If this sounds like an academic assignment to you, then you should re-think what love and total devotion means. If you love someone, you will think very much about the things they say – a lot. You will do this because you love them not because you have to – and this is true whether you feel like it or not, because love is a greater motivation than feelings.

We talk about his words a lot. (6:7)

What you think about reveals what you love. And this is also revealed by what you talk about. Have you ever asked someone for their opinion on a subject, only to get, “I don’t know,” for an answer? But if you ask them for their opinion on another subject and they answer w/ a burst of energetic thoughts, then you know you’ve discovered something that they not only think about but love.

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

As spouses, friends, parents, and children, we should be heard talking about what God says frequently throughout our daily routines. After all, we talk about we think about and we think about what we love. The sources of news and information are revealed by what we talk more frequently and enthusiastically about. And those people who are around us hear those things regularly. Deuteronomy 6:7 says we should talk about God’s words:

• “When you sit in your house” (time of rest and recreation)
• “When you walk by the way” (times of work, travel, and busyness)
• “When you lie down” (during your evening hours and routine)
• “When you rise up” (during your morning hours and routine)

For parents, it is important to take your kids to church and involve them in Christian activities. But these things are no substitute for having parents who simply love God so much and are so devoted to him that they talk about him and his words a lot in a way that spills over and shows its what they care about and think about. This, more than anything else, is the key to passing on faith to the next generation. If your children or your spouse were to list out the top five things you talk about every day, would God’s Word and ways be at the top?

We surround ourselves with his words. (6:8-9)

For the Israelites, this means to strap God’s Word to a bracelet around their wrist or a headband on their head; it meant to paint them onto their doorposts or engrave them onto their gates. By doing these things, they would have external, visual verbal reminders of God’s Words in all of their daily activities.

Find ways to decorate your home with Scripture either as wall art, Bibles sitting around your home, etc. Regular reminders of God’s Word in the places where you’re at each day. Put Scripture on your desk at work, in your kitchen or bathroom at home, or on your computer or phone screens. The more the merrier. Surround yourself with God’s Word.

By thinking about, talking about, and surrounding ourselves with God’s words at home and throughout our daily lives, we do what we can to pass along faith in a forever faithful God to our children and the people around us who we want to influence for Christ.

As we close, we must acknowledge that many of us come from broken homes, painful histories, or families that did not love or follow God well. We also live in a generation that, by and large, is not seeking after him.

But Deuteronomy reminds us that we are not trapped by our past or condemned to repeat the failures of our parents or the generation before us. Like the second generation of Israel standing on the edge of the Promised Land, we are called to respond to God’s faithfulness with fresh, wholehearted devotion.

By believing that the Lord alone is God, believing on Christ as God and Savior, we become his people. Then by loving him with all that we are and by putting his words into our hearts, talking about them daily, and surrounding our lives with them (Dt 6:4-9), we can become a new generation, one that loves God more deeply than the last and who intentionally passes that faith on to the next generation. God is forever faithful from generation to generation, and by his grace, we can be a generation that responds to him with total devotion.

Exodus 32-34

David and Marissa spent years planning the house they would build together someday. They made sketches and Pinterest boards, had late‑night conversations about the number of bathrooms, where the windows would face, and how big the kitchen island would be. When they finally had enough money to begin, their dream was coming true.

They met with the architect, walked the land, and prayed over the foundation together. Everything was moving forward until the moment that nearly ended their dream.

While Marissa was out of town visiting her parents, David made a choice he thought was harmless: he hired a contractor friend, someone Marissa didn’t trust, to “speed things up.” He signed papers, approved changes, and even rearranged part of the design. “In the end,” he reasoned, “Marissa would accept the changes and see that he knew better.”

That didn’t’ happen. When she returned and saw what he’d done, she felt betrayed, cut out of the very project that was supposed to represent their close relationship and future together. For the first time, she said the words neither of them expected: “Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

The house wasn’t the problem. The blueprints weren’t the problem. The relationship was the problem. Unless that was repaired, the new house would be over before it began.
Everything stopped. No more meetings. No more decisions. No more action on the build site. But after days of honest conversations, apologies, and a renewed commitment to build together, the house plan moved forward once again to completion.

As with David and Marissa, the people of the newly formed nation of Israel had a building project underway. It was the tabernacle, the place where God would dwell with them. But before a single board could be raised for God’s house, something happened that threatened to derail the project.

The people turned away from God. (32:1-6)

Placed in the middle of this book is a shocking, surprising scene. After God had spoken the ten words (or ten commandments) to Israel from Sinai with a thunderous voice, as the mountain was engulfed in flames and smoke and shaking with violent tremors, the people requested that God would speak only to Moses instead. So, Moses went to the top of the mountain to receive the rest of the covenant from God for Israel. Exo 24:18 says he was there for forty days and Exo 32:1 tells us it felt like an extremely long time for the people.

It had only been a matter of weeks to a few months since God had rescued them from slavery in Egypt. Until that time, Moses had been with them every day, but now he was gone, and the people had no idea when he would return – if ever.

Rather than wait patiently for Moses to return, the people grew restless and uneasy. In Egypt, they had been surrounded by images, monuments, paintings, and statues of Egypt’s many gods. Of the many gods worshiped by that culture, bulls were:

revered for their strength, fertility, and divine connection, bulls were central figures in religious ceremonies, agricultural rituals, and royal symbolism. Representations of these sacred animals appeared in sculptures, reliefs, paintings, and amulets, reflecting their profound significance in Egyptian theology. (www.historyandmyths.com)

So now, in the absence of a human leader and of any tangible, visible image of God himself, the people felt insecure and uncomfortable. During this time, they were receiving a regular source of water and a daily supply of manna from God. But they were also parked indefinitely. After an initial burst of excitement, travel, and progress, they had now paused at the base of Mount Sinai with no leader, no direction, and nothing visible to follow. So, they pressured Moses’ brother, Aaron, to make an idol for them.

To make this idol, they donated some of their own gold jewelry, which Aaron would melt down and pour into a mold. This would not have to be a large idol and could have been made within a day or two. During this time, Aaron also made an altar, which he placed between the people and the bull idol.

Once this altar and idol were in place, the people gathered for a day-long worship celebration. They offered the same kind of sacrifices which they would eventually offer to God in the tabernacle and they celebrated by eating, drinking, and dancing.

Scripture gives no indication that they did immoral or sensual things – only energetic and festive. Also, Scripture gives no indication that the people were worshiping another god. They called this idol “the god that brought us out of the land of Egypt” (32:4) and Aaron called their celebration “a festival to the Lord” (32:5). The problem was not in exchanging God for a false god. It was worshiping God in an inaccurate way which wrongly portrayed and misrepresented God.

The second word or command God had very recently given to Moses spoke clearly:

You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. (Exo 20:4-5)

This was a separate and distinct command from the first, which forbade them from worshiping another god. This second command forbade them from worshiping God by using idols to portray or represent him. As Douglas Stewart explains:

Building an altar in front of a god/idol conformed to the expected positioning of sacrifices in idolatry; it guaranteed that the god would see the offerings made to him and accept them. By contrast the orthodox biblical positioning of the altar in the courtyard of the tabernacle, and later temple, so that there was no direct line of sight from the ark in the holy of holies to the altar because of the curtain/veil hiding the ark was actually a positioning that required Israelites to have the faith to understand that the one true God actually saw what they did for him without having his idol right behind and facing the altar on which they did it.

As Jesus himself would one day say:

God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. (Jn 4:24)

By worshiping God in an idolatrous way, the people were not only disobeying God’s second command given to them only days before (20:4-5), they were violating an agreement they had solemnly agreed to keep (24:3, 7):

All the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words which the Lord has said we will do.”

He took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient.”

From this episode, we see two important personal, spiritual lessons for ourselves today:

• First, we should resist any tendency to worship God as an idol. This is why we do not place a crucifix at the front of our auditorium or face a crucifix when we pray at home. Even though we might believe that we are worshiping God by doing these things, we are misrepresenting God and portraying him to ourselves in an inaccurate way.
• Second, and more importantly, we must recognize that as frail, weak human beings, we are so easily drawn away to idolatry, not only from forces and influences outside us, but especially from within our own hearts.

An early church leader, called Ephrem of Syria, wisely observed that Moses’s absence gave the Israelites an opportunity to “worship openly what they had been worshiping in their hearts. No one was tempting them with an idol – they simply desired and produced one from their own hearts. The people had a strong desire to return to a materialistic version of God – something concrete, manmade, tangible, and visible.

We do the same today. We have a hard time loving and serving an invisible God, so we gravitate towards more material, tangible, and visible things. But whenever we turn to other things to meet our needs, satisfy our desires, and guide our lives – even if we believe these things themselves to be good – then we have made and worship an idol.

That’s why the Apostle John told believers, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 Jn 5:21). And theologian A.W. Pink said this:

Man must have an object, and when he turns from the true God, he at once craves a false one.

An idol doesn’t have to be a statue. It can be anything through which he hope to experience or receive those things which only God can provide, including ultimate and complete satisfaction. When we look to our jobs, hobbies, careers, politics and politicians, money, education, homes, relatives, children, and spouses to provide what only God alone can provide and to be what only God can be, then we do what the Israelites did.

So by placing an idol between them and God, even in their attempt at worshiping God, the people did not worship God at all but turned away from him.

Moses interceded to God for the people. (32:7-35)

This moment would not be forgotten, because it became part of Israel’s permanent soundtrack for worshiping God, recorded as music in Psa 106:19-23:

They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped the molded image. Thus they changed their glory into the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the land of Ham, awesome things by the Red Sea. Therefore, He said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen one stood before Him in the breach, to turn away His wrath, lest He destroy them.

This psalm emphasizes what the rest of Exo 32 explains. God was deeply displeased with his people for turning away from him by making an idol and attempting to worship him through that idol, but he forgave them because Moses interceded for them in prayer.

As the people participated in their idol worship activities, God informed Moses of their behavior. Both God and Moses were rightfully angry at this turn of events, especially in light of all that God had done for them in the weeks and months before and since he had just recently established his solemn covenant of commitment to them, in which they solemnly agreed to love and follow him.

But in these tense moments in which Moses felt the righteous turmoil in his soul, God revealed to Moses that Israel’s disobedience and disloyalty was so egregious that they deserved to be abandoned and destroyed. With this sobering realization, Moses (it says) “pleaded with the Lord his God” (32:11) to remain patient with his people and forgive their sins. Then again, after Moses had returned to the people, assessed the situation, and assigned proper consequences, he again prayed to the Lord to “forgive their sin” (32:32).

What was the result of Moses seeking God’s forgiveness for the people?

God renewed his covenant with them. (33:1–34:28)

The next two chapters (Exo 33-34) explain how Moses explained to the people God’s heartbroken response to their failure. God was saddened and indeed, very angry. Unlike our anger as sinful people. When God is angry, he has every right to be angry and his anger is right. And when God is angry, it shows us what really matters, what is really important, and the way things really are. We might view what the Israelites did with that idol as somewhat harmless and easy to forgive. But from God’s perspective, it was egregious and horribly wrong. Do we view our own idolatry that way?

What is remarkable here, though, is that despite his just anger against his people, God responded to Moses’ prayer by forgiving the people and renewing his covenant with them. To do this, God instructed Moses to return to the top of the mountain to receive the words of the covenant a second time, including the Ten Commandments. While this was going on at the top of the mountain, God made his presence very real to Moses and said:

The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation. (Exo 34:6-7)

Here God affirmed to Moses that though he was angry towards the people for their egregious sin, he was also – at the same time – merciful, gracious, longsuffering, good, true, and forgiving. At the same time, also, he does not overlook sin. So, by “visiting the iniquity of the fathers…to the third and fourth generation,” God meant that he does not overlook sin. If one person or one family or one generation of his people turn away from him, they would experience the consequences of doing so, but God would also continue to be faithful to his people, refusing to abandon them in the big picture over centuries of time, even if one person, one family, or one generation turned away.

And this will be a real emphasis for us as we go through this “Forever Faithful” preaching series in the next few months. As we look through the prophetic books of Hosea, Habakkuk, and Malachi, we will see how often and how badly God’s people turn away from him over centuries of time. But we will also see how faithful, loving, merciful, and loyal God is to them, generation after generation.

Relationship with God requires mediation.

A key takeaway for us today, though, is this – that relationship with God requires mediation. As we noted earlier, our hearts are so quick to make idols. John Calvin once famously said:

Man’s nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols. Man’s mind, full as it is of pride and boldness, dares to imagine a god according to its own capacity; as it sluggishly plods, indeed is overwhelmed with the crassest ignorance, it conceives an unreality and an empty appearance as God.

We can look down on and see the problem with Israel making and worshiping a golden calf, but can we look down and see the problem with the idols that we are making today? Because our hearts are so strongly drawn to make idols and to view God in a more finite, limited, and inaccurate way – as something far less great, far less holy, far less infinite than he really is – then we need mediation

We need mediation in two ways. First, we need other people to intervene for us, to point out when and where we have erected idols in our hearts, where we have turned away from God. This is a hard thing to do, because idols are very personal things – often as personal as spouse, children, and family themselves. Our career, our money, our wrong religious ideas, our cultural taboos – all of these things are very personal when held, so for anyone to intervene and say, “that’s an idol,” is very hard to receive.

For this reason, we should thank God for anyone – any pastor or friend – who is willing to be like Moses and call out the idolatry in our lives. We should also be willing to be such a friend, and when we do make a sincere attempt, may we do so with the selfless, serious prayer that Moses himself modeled for us. He did not just march up to the people and call out their sin, he did so only after he had first spoke to God from his heart and saturated his heart and mind with the promises and aspirations of God’s Word.

Second, are most importantly, we all need a mediator not only like Moses but better than Moses – far better. That person is Jesus Christ. Listen to what Hebrews says about this:

Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus, who was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was faithful in all His house. For this One has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as He who built the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, but Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end. (Heb 3:3-6)

Here we see that Jesus Christ, not Moses, is the mediator we all need. He not only revealed God to us and prayed for us (as Moses also did), but he lived, died, and rose again in our place. He not only revealed to us where we have turned away from God and broken God’s covenant, but he fulfilled our obligations to God for us and makes us completely acceptable and pleasing to God in spite of our many failures. What an amazing mediator he is, there is no one like him.

Have you turned to Christ to receive God’s full forgiveness from sin? And if so, have you fully embraced and accepted what it means to be completely accepted and loved by God in spite of your many failures and continual tendency, still, to worship idols?

Imagine a farmer who paid top price at the county fair for a beautiful thoroughbred cow. He was convinced she would be the answer to all his needs. He expected her not only to give him milk, but to provide his meals, grow his wealth, and somehow bring him personal happiness, too. Day after day he waited for his cow to do what no cow could ever do—and day after day he grew more frustrated and disappointed.

It’s a silly picture, of course; no reasonable person would expect a farm animal to be the source of all good things to a person in life. Yet this is exactly what we do when we place our money, hobbies, careers, children, or even our spouse in the place that only God can fill. When we expect other things – including good things like our spouse, children, and more – to be what only God can be, we set ourselves up for the same disappointment, and we place those things between our hearts and the God who alone can sustain, satisfy, and renew us.

What’s more, we break the very heart of God, the God who alone rescues his people, made a covenant with his people, and lives within his people. But thank God, because of Jesus Christ our mediator, he is the God who renews his covenant, restores his people, and forgives our sins if we will trust in him alone. If we return to him, we will see that he is “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth” (34:6-7).

Exodus 25-40

There are acquaintances and friends, but there are friends you will invite into your home. Nothing says, “I want to be your friend,” “I want to get to know you,” or “our relationship is going to the next level,” like inviting someone into your home, and this is certainly true when you’re married, when you actually agree to share a home for the rest of your life.

Genesis 18 describes a moment when God visited Abraham, and Abraham invited him into his tent for a conversation and meal. Centuries later, millions of people descended from Abraham were traveling back to that same area to live permanently, as God had promised to Abraham. This time, they would do so with a covenant relationship with God. As proof that God would be faithful to them forever, he chose to invite them into his home.

God chose to live with his people.

By doing this, he did more than visit his people, as he visited Abraham centuries before. He built his own tent in the middle of their encampment so they would be able to come and visit him easily and often. Building this tent would require involvement from his people. The way he built this house is fascinating because he didn’t just build it by himself.

He called for an offering from them. (25:1-7; 35:4-9, 20-29; 36:6-7)

Another way of looking at this is to view it as a house-warming party or a divine, new home gift registry.

The offering called for people to donate all sorts of construction materials, including some expensive, valuable items: metals like gold, silver, and bronze; blue, purple, and red fabric of different kinds; animal furs; wood; oil and spices; and valuable gemstones. These would’ve been costly gifts, not ones they were easily able to afford – esp. since they had no significant way of generating income in the wilderness and were somewhat uncertain about the economic conditions in the land to which they were traveling.

Most importantly, God insisted the only donations he wanted were those given from a willing heart. “From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shalt take my offering” (25:2). This was so important to him that he repeated these instructions later: “Take from among you an offering to the Lord. Whoever is of a willing heart…” (35:5).

Moses later records that “the children of Israel brought a freewill offering to the Lord, all the men and women whose hearts were willing to bring material for all kinds of work…” (35:29). Do you think this emphasis on willingness resulted in a small or large offering? Moses answers this question in Exo 36:6:

Moses gave a commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, “Let neither man nor woman do any more work for the offering of the sanctuary.” And the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient for all the work to be done—indeed too much.

As followers of Christ, we can learn much from this example. When we give our time, talents, and resources to the work of the Lord, we should do so willingly – but doing so should result in generous not minimal giving.

He gave them a blueprint. (Exo 25:9)

Not only did God involve his people in the building of his house by inviting them to contribute materials, he involved his people by giving them his blueprints and design. In fact, the vast majority of Exo 25-40 consists of detailed building instructions from God. These instructions gave detailed architecture and engineering guidance describing everything from measurements and dimensions to furniture and décor.

According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furnishings, just so you shall make it. (25:9)

We see that God had very specific preferences for his home. But these preferences were not only for personal gratification and comfort but were intended for personal expression.

As a teen decorates his or her bedroom to express his or her interests and style, and as a wife decorates her home to express her tastes, so God decorated and furnished his home for a purpose. Every detail, design, and piece of furniture served to teach something special and important about God so that the more a person visited and spent time there, the more they would learn about God.

He assigned special tasks to them. (Exo 35:30 – 36:1)

Not only did God involve his people in the building of his house by inviting them to contribute materials and giving them a specific blueprint, but he also involved them by inviting them to participate in the actual construction of his house. He involved a wide range of people with a diverse range of abilities and skills.

This community-involved home-building approach resembles the Amish tradition of barn-raising, in which dozens of families gather from the community to build an entire barn together in a single day, each person contributing according to their skills and strength. Though the work is physically demanding, it is marked by cooperation, shared meals, and a joyful sense of purpose and participation. This tradition highlights the Amish belief that community support is essential; each family gives generously, confident that others will do the same for them when their time of need comes.

How special it is that God didn’t just build his own house by himself, something he was certainly capable of doing. But he chose to involve many of his own people, instead. The God who created the universe by himself involved his people to build his house.

He lived with them continually. (Exo 40:34-38)

Once the tabernacle was built, God moved into his house, then the Book of Leviticus describes how fellowship meals, gatherings, and celebrations would go when his people would worship him there.

Before the Book of Leviticus begins, Moses described how “the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (40:35). He goes on to describe how God revealed his presence as a cloud resting above the tent and how his presence (appearing as a cloud) would come and go with them wherever they went. That’s why so many parts of this tent were designed with loops to run poles through, so that his people could disassemble, carry, and reassemble the tabernacle wherever they went.

From this we see God did not intend this to be a temporary residency or a brief camping trip. He intended it to be a long-lasting, permanent relationship in which he lived with his people continually. This conveys the sort of intentionality, commitment, and permanence that home ownership conveys when compared to renting. If a neighbor moves in next door, but they are renting, that doesn’t give you as much confidence to build a relationship or friendship with them as if they were buying the home, instead.

By moving in to live with his people, God was showing his ongoing commitment to them, not just a temporary test of the relationship to see how things would go. But this approach to continues into our lives today as followers of Christ.

Today he lives in his people. (Jn 14:17)

How does this special situation in distant history affect our lives today? After all, we’re not the nation of Israel and we’re not wandering around the Middle East wilderness living in tents. Jesus himself made a very important observation about the presence of God with his people in the days before his crucifixion.

The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. (Jn 14:17)

Here Jesus teaches that up until the time of Christ’s earthly ministry, God had lived and dwelled “with” his people. But after Christ’s death and resurrection, this would change, for then God would dwell not just with his people but in them. He would no longer be a close neighbor nearby but a resident within.

By saying this, Christ was telling us ahead of time that after his resurrection, all who believe on him for salvation would receive not only forgiveness from sin and a close relationship with God (results of the “new covenant” or “New Testament”), but the permanent indwelling of God. In other words, God would no longer place his permanent presence in a building, like the tabernacle or Temple, but he would place his permanent presence and “live” literally WITHIN his people. Isn’t this amazing?

Since this is the case, the NT teaches at least four important ways God’s presence and dwelling WITHIN his people should affect the way we live and view our lives.

We must offer our bodies to him. (Rom 12:1)

Just as God invited his people to give of their resources to build his house, so he invites his people to offer their bodies willingly to him:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. (Rom 12:1)

This means we should think twice about the popular mantra “my body my choice.” We should offer our bodies to God rather than do with it whatever we want. Though we should certainly give generously and willingly to God from our time, talent, and resources, we should first – and most importantly – give our own selves, our own bodies to God. I should do with my body, dress my body, and care for my body in a way that first and foremost asks, “What does the Bible say about my body and the things that I do with it?”

This should always be my highest priority in decisions which affect my body and what I do with it. After all, the homeowner and primary resident – not the renter – should have the topmost priority in making decisions about a house, right?

We must glorify him with our bodies. (1 Cor 6:19-20)

Just as God gave his people a specific blueprint for the décor and design of his house which his people were to follow carefully, so he gives followers of Christ today a call to reflect his goodness and design through the way we care for and use our bodies.

Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. (1 Cor 6:19-20)

From this we see that we should not do things to or with our bodies which God himself would not desire, and we should do with our bodies only those things which God intends for us to be and designed us to do.

In particular, this statement applies most directly to forbidding sexual immorality (1 Cor 6:18), something which Paul says to “flee.” God feels so strongly about this that he tells us to “avoid, escape, and disappear quickly” from temptations to sexual sin and from opportunities to make immoral decisions.

Though many good reasons for this prohibition can be given, the one Paul emphasizes here is because “God lives there.” There are things that other people tolerate and do of which you do not approve, and for that reason, those things do NOT happen in your home. In our home, for instance, we don’t smoke cigarettes or marijuana, etc.

Knowing this, it would be in appropriate for a guest or resident who moves in to do those things in our home. It would even be inappropriate for the previous owner to return and do those things. That’s the logic Paul is using here. Why should we abstain (or rather “flee”) from immoral behavior? Because God bought us, owns us, and lives within us.

We must offer up spiritual sacrifices. (1 Pet 2:5)

Just as God gave assigned special tasks to his people about building his house, so he calls followers of Christ today to offer up spiritual sacrifices to him. No longer do we offer animal or grain sacrifices, but we offer spiritual sacrifices, instead.

You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Pet 2:5)

Here, we are reminded that we are a “spiritual house” for God, which stands in contrast to the physical house of God in the OT. Instead of the tabernacle and Temple, God has chosen to live within us, instead. This means, then, that rather than offering up animal and grain sacrifices in a physical temple, we should offer up spiritual sacrifices instead. What are these spiritual sacrifices?

We should not limit the sacrifices here to any one item, for everything that is pleasing to God is probably included. Peter spoke generally and comprehensively of all that believers do by the power of the Holy Spirit.

These spiritual sacrifices, then, are anything we do in reliance upon Christ to worship God, to help people gain a positive view of God, and to help bring people into a close relationship with God.

We can be sure of his permanent presence. (Mt 28:20)

Finally, just as God lived continually with his people in the OT through the tabernacle and temple, so he lives with us today forever as followers of Christ. His indwelling and residence within us by his Spirit is permanent and forever.

I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Mt 28:20)

This means that if you’re a follower of Christ, then God not only dwells in you, but he is with you all the time, everywhere, in every place. What an encouraging reality – to know that God is always at home – in you.

There’s something deeply comforting and heartwarming about knowing your parents are always home. From the moment they soothed your first cries and rocked you to sleep in the baby room, their presence in the home has been a steady source of peace and care. As time passes, that same comforting constancy remains: there when you come home to from a day of play outside, to welcome you home when you get off the school bus, when you come home late at night after a long day of work, when you come home for break between semesters at college, when you bring your date over for dinner, when you bring your wife and young children over for the holidays, when you come to get investment advice, and when you visit to provide assistance in their old age or take them to visit the doctor – there until they breath their last breath. There until they’re not.

The “for sale sign” gets pounded into the front yard, the lights go out in the front room at night, and all sorts of strangers in strange car start touring the home, until someone buys it, renovates and remodels it, and begins making new memories of their own. The home that guaranteed your parents’ welcome, love, and presence is no longer open – your parents are no longer there.

As reflective and sad as this reality of life may be, how encouraging it is to know that once God moves into your life he will never move out. He will be there for the remainder of your life and he will be there with you for eternity.

From the Old Testament to the New, Scripture tells one great story: God desires not just to visit his people but to dwell with them. In the wilderness, he called Israel to bring willing offerings, to follow His blueprint, and to join Him in the work of building His house. He filled that house with his glory and stayed with them continually.

But in Christ, he has come even closer. No longer does he dwell in a tent or a temple, but in the hearts of those who trust completely in him. Because his Spirit lives within us, we offer our bodies to him, we glorify him with our lives, we offer spiritual sacrifices that honor his name, and we rest secure in his unbreakable promise, “I am with you always.”

The God who once pitched his tent among his people now makes his home in you. So let us live as people who remember, every day, in every decision, in every temptation, and every trial that God is not only near, he is here. And because he has moved in, he will stay with you forever

May our bodies and our lives, then, be a dwelling where he is honored, a home in which his presence is unmistakable because his presence with us is unbreakable.

Exodus 19-24

Have you watched a nature documentary with towering, aerial footage of majestic mountain ranges accompanied by dramatic, soaring orchestral music intended to emulate what it must be like to soar above the clouds like an eagle?

Or perhaps you recall the breathtaking moment in the “Test Drive” scene at the middle of How to Train Your Dragon, when Hiccup soars fly in perfect harmony, higher and higher into the clouds and evening sunset beyond the horizon. As wind rushes past them, the famous, rhythmic music of this scene grows and pulses majestically. The world looks small below them and above them stretches an endless blue sky.

This moment marks the beginning of a new relationship that will change the shape and purpose of their lives not only as individuals but together. In this fictional world, these two characters – once at odds – are about to embark on a series of many great adventures together that will require of them an all-new way of life and will deeply affect the people of the world around them.

God formed a special relationship with his people.

This is what happened when God rescued his people from four hundred years in Egypt, which had culminated in a long period of slavery and oppression. As we learned last week from Exodus 1-18, God saw the slavery of his people and he saved them.

You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. (Exo 19:4)

As God swooped down to save his people from slavery, he carried or led them to a mountain between Egypt and the Promised Land, called Sinai. The traditional site of this mountain is approx. 8,000 ft. tall known as Jebel Musa, about the height of four Freedom Towers stacked on top of each other.

This is the site where God formally established a special relationship with his people, the nation of Israel. By doing this, he was fulfilling a centuries-long promise made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he did so by forming a covenant with them.

Ancient covenants at that time in history were called “suzerainty treaties,” official agreements between a conquering king and the people he conquered. They explained how the conquering king would care for and protect his new people and explained how this new relationship would function in daily life. In other words, it explained the new cultural, social, and sometimes religious expectations of this new relationship.

In Scripture, a covenant is a formal, solemn expression of God’s relationship to his people and their special relationship to him. Douglas Steward explains, “The first half of Exodus is all about rescue from forced service to a pagan nation, and the second half is all about proper service for the one true God by keeping his covenant.” God had rescued rather than conquered the Hebrew people so that he could form a special, caring, protecting relationship with them forever.

Ancient suzerainty treaties followed a standard pattern which consisted of six parts:

• Opening: identified the giver and the receivers of the covenant
• Prologue: explained the nature of the relationship between both parties
• Stipulations: explained various responsibilities the people would have to their new king
• Witnesses: listed important persons who could vouch for the authenticity of the treaty
• Documentation: an instruction to write down the covenant as a permanent record
• Sanctions: a set of blessings and curses tied to good and bad responses by the people

All six of these parts of such a treaty are present in God’s covenant with Israel and would have been recognized by them as such. The details of this covenant begin in Exo 20:1 but are continued and completed with the book of Leviticus, all of which was given at Mount Sinai over a period of nearly eleven months.

The book of Numbers gives additional guidance to the people during their 40 years of traveling in the wilderness, based on what God revealed in Exodus and Leviticus. Deuteronomy (which literally means “second law”) repeats and reapplies what God revealed at Sinai to the next generation of his people as they prepared to enter the land he had promised them. And God did all this to form a special, committed relationship with them, beginning at Sinai.

As he says in Exo 19:4, “I brought you to myself,” and in 19:5, “You shall be a special treasure to me above all people.” This is what God does when he saves people – he brings them into a close relationship with himself and they become a special, valued treasure to him, more than an ordinary, unsaved person.

God showed himself in a special way to his people.

As we read the beginning of this covenant relationship between God and Israel at Sinai, we see something very obvious. Though God was forming a close, committed relationship with them, coming close to God was both a captivating and terrifying experience.

God came to them in a “thick cloud” (19:9) His presence was marked by “thunderings, lightnings, and a thick cloud on the mountain” and “the sound of a trumpet” which “was very loud” (19:16). When the people saw and heard these things, they trembled.

The mountain was “completely covered in smoke,” and was on “fire,” and “it’s smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly” (19:18). “The blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder (19:19).

Because of this terrifying experience, the people remained at the base of the mountain and sent further up the mount only Moses in some cases and Moses and some other key, leading men on other occasions.

At the end of this awe-inspiring experience, “a cloud covered the mountain” (24:16), and “the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days.” “The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire on the top of the mountain” (24:17).

As God established this new, close relationship with his special people, he wanted them to realize how awesome, majestic, and terrifying he truly was. He did not want them to have a lesser, lower view of him, but to understand his greatness and glory. And this is important for us today. As Hebrews 12:28-29 tells us from the New Testament (NT) today:

Let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.

This has not changed from the Old Testament (OT) to the New. Our God was a consuming fire then and he is a consuming fire today. The Christian author, C.S. Lewis, tries to explain this awesome glory of God by how he describes the lion Aslan in his stories called The Chronicles of Narnia. The little girl, Lucy, asks Mr. Beaver, about the Aslan the great Lion, “Is he—quite safe?” To this, Mr. Beaver replies, “Safe? … ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

And so is our God. He is not little. He is not weak. He is not convenient. He is not easy to approach or understand. But he is great, and he is terrible, and he is good in every way, and he wants to be your God in a close and personal way – to be your guide and your protector, your true, forever King, as he did with the people of Israel.

Not only did God form a special, covenant relationship with his people and show himself to them in a special, terrifying way…

God gave a special purpose to his people.

He said to them, “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exo 19:6). From this, we see that God was not forming this close, special relationship with them only to be enjoyed by themselves. He did not intend for this to be an exclusive, isolated, reclusive relationship. He intended this special relationship to be the way that he would show the rest of the world his greatness and goodness through them and that, through them, he would draw the rest of the world into a close relationship, as well.

Priests are people who stand between God and other people so that through their experience with God and service for God can help bring other people also into a closer relationship with God. And while the nation of Israel would eventually benefit from the service of special, assigned priests at the tabernacle and temple, they were all considered by God to be priests to the rest of the world.

Today, the church no longer practices a formal priesthood. As the NT book of Hebrews clearly teaches, there are no longer priests in the church as there were priests in Israel, performing special, assigned services of sacrifice and worship. But we are all priests before God because of the salvation that Christ has provided.

You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light... (1 Pet 2:9-10)
God has given us – as he gave the people of Israel – a special task, to represent God to the people around us. For Israel, this was why God gave them the law. Through the law…
God revealed a special lifestyle for his people.

When we speak about the law in Scripture (or about God’s law), our minds typically zoom in on what we call the “Ten Commandments,” and for good reason. After God brought his people to Mount Sinai and revealed his terrifying, captivating glory to them, he spoke to them from the mountain.

Exo 20:1 says, “And God spoke all these words, saying …,” and when he spoke, it was the Ten Commandments that he gave to them. And after he gave these words to them, the people were afraid.

All the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die.” And Moses said to the people, “Do not fear; for God has come to test you, and that His fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.” So, the people stood afar off, but Moses drew near the thick darkness where God was. (Exo 20:18-21)

From this we see that contrary to prevailing perspective, God didn’t give the Ten Commandments to Moses privately at the top of Mount Sinai, he gave them directly to the people from the mountain in booming, terrifying voice that they could hear for themselves. And after this terrifying experience, they asked Moses to communicate to God for them alone so that they would not have to go through that experience again.

From this we see the Ten Commandments are an important feature in God’s covenant with Israel. But it is important to understand how they are important, for they are not important in the way that many people assume them to be.

Many people believe that the Ten Commandments give us ten rules to live by, and that how well we live by them will somehow determine the closeness of our relationship with God, the genuineness, quality, or degree of salvation from sin, and odds of entering heaven after death. But this is not the case. God did not give Israel the Ten Commandments as a method, means, or way to have a relationship with him. He gave them to Israel as a result of and because they now had a relationship with him.

Remember – God had already saved them. God had already redeemed them. God had already declared his relationship with them. All any of them needed to do was believe on him alone as their God and Savior.

Think of it this way. At the Overmiller house, we have certain expectations and rules for behavior, ways that we expect those in our family to treat one another and people around us. We do not hold our neighbors to these expectations because they are not in our family. And if our neighbors choose to follow these expectations and rules, they will not become members of our family as a result.

So, people who attempt to follow the Ten Commandments do not become God’s special people. But God’s special people who have already been saved by him and given the special purpose of representing him to the world and bring other people to faith in him were to follow these commands in love.

To understand these commands even better, we should also acknowledge that they are not called commands. They are only called “words” (Exo 20:1). For this reason, many rightly call these “the ten words.” And this helps us better understand the purpose of these instructions. In ancient times, people did not view laws as tedious, technical commands and rules with many loopholes, limited only to what was stated. They were viewed, instead, as general, guiding, universal principles with many appropriate applications.

No Israelite could say: “The law says I must make restitution for stolen oxen or sheep [Exod 22:1], but I stole your goat. I don’t have to pay you back,” or “The law says that anyone who attacks his father or mother must be put to death [Exod 21:15], but I attacked my grandmother, so I shouldn’t be punished,” or “The law says that certain penalties apply for hitting someone with a fist or a stone [Exod 21:18], but I kicked my neighbor with my foot and hit him with a piece of wood, so I shouldn’t be punished.” (Douglas Stewart)

From this summary of ten key general statements by God about how his people should behave as priests and representatives of God to the world, God would go on to reveal a total of 613 more specific commands. These more specific commands are helpful because they helped the people of Israel apply the principles of these “ten words” in a wide range of specific ways appropriate for their situation, but those commands all tie back in one way or another to these ten original statements of the covenant.

Perhaps even more interesting is how God tucked away in later statements of the law two specific commands which Christ himself later said were the two greatest commands of all (Mt 22:37-39).

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

The first command, to love God, is given in Dt 6:5 and the second, to love others, is given in Lev 19:18. You might ask, “Why didn’t God just give these two most basic, overarching commands at the beginning of his relationship with Israel at Mount Sinai? Why did he wait until later?

The best answer seems to be that God, in his wisdom, knew that doing so would not cause his people to understand the breadth and gravity of their calling as priests of God. By giving the ten commandments first, then all 613 commands afterwards, he caused generation so people to first think carefully and realize fully how wide-reaching his expectations for his people truly were. Only then are we able to recognize the breadth and wide-ranging extent of the two overarching commands to love God and love others.

As we read the Ten Commands, though, and the more detailed instructions that follow, we see clearly that the people God has saved must live a different, special kind of life – one that cherishes, pursues, and values what is in the best interest of God and others over self. And this makes sense, because we have been redeemed by a God who has loved us this way and are called to reveal such a loving God to others.

As the king of this new people, God had saved his people from slavery so that they would show his love to the world. Since he had loved them and promised to care for and protect them as his people, he wanted them to pass that love, care, and protection along to the world around them, so that they, too, would come into a saving relationship with God.

The Secret Garden, written by Mary Sebag-Montefiore in 1911, tells a fascinating story. When Mary Lennox first arrived at Misselthwaite Manor, an imposing but largely abandoned estate, she was a lonely, bitter, and misunderstood orphan. She thought the world and the people around her were cold and harsh. But everything began to change when she discovered a neglected garden hidden behind an overgrown gate.

As Mary nurtured the garden back to life, she also helped a boy named Colin, a sad and sickly boy who lived at the Manor gain freedom from his feelings of fear and discouragement. By bringing him to the garden, Mary formed a close and special relationship with Colin and together, they embraced a new purpose – restoring the secret garden so that it would bringing joy, health, and healing to others, too.

When God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt, he brought them to Mount Sinai so that he could form a special, close relationship with them. And with this special relationship, he gave his people a special purpose – to represent and share his love, salvation, and goodness to the world around them. Like The Secret Garden, this relationship was meant not only to be carefully tended but shared. For Israel, this would happen as they lived out the special live that the “Ten Words” and resulting instructions explained, revealing what love for God and love for others looked like. And this was all because God had shown such indescribable love to them.

In closing, let me remind us of Paul’s words in Gal 3:24:

The law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

The commands at Sinai were meant to reveal God’s holiness and our need for a Savior, whether we learned these things from people of God who lived out those words or whether we learned them by reading and hearing Scripture for ourselves.

Today, through faith in Christ, we receive salvation from the slavery of sin and enter into a special relationship with God for ourselves. He rescues us, forgives us, and makes us his people. And as his people, we must live out the purpose of our new covenant relationship with him: to love God and love others, to reflect his holiness in the world throughout our lives.

Philip Ryken and R. Keny Hughes put it this way:

Like the Israelites, we are a kingdom of priests. Theologians call this the priesthood of all believers. God has made us his treasure, bringing us from slavery to royalty and setting us apart for his holy service. Since we are saved for God’s glory, our service is to worship God, to glorify him by declaring his praises. But we also have a mission to the world—not to rule it, but to serve it. The way we serve is by leading holy lives. What distinguishes us from the rest of the world is our personal godliness. Or at least it ought to, because the way we live is part of God’s plan for saving the world.

God is faithful to his people, he is faithful to his covenant. Will you be faithful to the new and special purpose he has given you in Christ? This is the purpose of our new relationship with God. This relationship is not for ourselves alone but for the people around us who need to know him and who need God’s salvation.

Discussion Questions

• Can you think of a relationship in your life that changed after a defining moment (a conversation, commitment, or shared experience)? What changed after that moment?
• How does our experience in modern life compare to ancient times when covenants were common?
• Why is it important to remember that God is the one who enacted the covenant with Israel?
  • How should this affect our lives?
• Why is it that some feel uncomfortable with presenting God as terrifying?
  • What do we miss about God if we try to make him out to be “safe?”
• How would our spiritual lives change if we felt and believed deeply that “God is a consuming fire?” (Hebrews 12:28-29)
• What is a priest?
  • In what ways are Jesus’ followers to be like priests?
• What are some practical ways you can live out the special lifestyle God has revealed to us to love him and others?

Exodus 1-18; 2:24-25; 3:16-17

Today we begin a New Year with a new preaching series. In this series, we will familiarize ourselves with some important big-picture, overview messages from the Old Testament (OT) books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. Then we will take an in-depth look at the message of three OT books called “minor prophets” – Hosea, Habakkuk, and Malachi.

To help make this preaching series (and all other Sunday AM sermons this year) more meaningful, we’re providing a weekly devo guide. These guides will offer questions for both children and adults to ask about the Bible passage for the upcoming sermon. They will be organized into 5 days and even offer prayer helps, too. They are ideal for personal, couple, or family devotions, whichever you prefer.

To summarize how the OT books we are looking at work together, we should view Exodus and Deuteronomy as books that show how God formed a special covenant and relationship with his people, Israel. Then we should view the OT prophets as books which describe how his people responded to their covenant with him and how God responded to them over a period of many years afterward.

This preaching series – called “Forever Faithful” – will help us better and more deeply understand how God thinks, feels, and behaves towards his people and will, I trust, help correct two crucial flaws in our thinking. The first flaw is that we tend to view ourselves in too positive a light, and the second flaw is that we tend to view God in too negative a light.
First, we tend to feel that though we know God is good and loving, he is also somewhat distant and disengaged, harsh and disappointing. We might not say this directly out loud, but our attitudes, words, and behavior speak more loudly and directly than we realize.

Second, we also tend to feel that though we know we are imperfect and sinful somehow, we are also generally good, reliable, and faithful to God. We might not say this directly out loud, either, but again, our attitudes, words, and behavior speak more loudly and directly than we realize and betray our real beliefs.

These two flaws in our beliefs and perspective greatly diminish the quality of our emotional, spiritual, and social lives, so correcting these flaws can go a long way in helping us improve the quality of our relationship with God and the people in our lives.

From this series, we’ll discover the great reality that though we are more difficult and unfaithful than we care to admit, God is more loving and loyal than we can ever comprehend. We’ll see that God is unfailing in his love and loyalty to his people, and this great reality should give our hearts the comfort, courage, and confidence we need to rise above our hurts and failures to take our next steps in following him. Will you grow in your loyalty and faithfulness to God knowing that he is so faithful and loyal to you? And will you let his loyal love motivate you to be faithful and loyal to the people in your life – your community, church, or family? That is the hope and my prayer for this preaching series.

This is an important message for our hearts to hear because the qualities of commitment and loyalty are remarkably rare today. We resist and resent commitment and break commitments and relationships like unsubscribing from a streaming service. Rather than remain loyal throughout years and life, we quit jobs, ghost friends, and abandon churches and family for an easier life and greener pastures. And though there can be good, valid reasons for such changes, we must not let the exceptions become the norm. Sadly, for anyone paying close attention, it is clear that the exceptions have become the norm.

At a wedding, the bride and groom commit to love one another “for better or for worse.” But such a commitment means almost nothing today – nice sounding words with a million exceptions. And while the power to end a relationship gives me an illusion of freedom, it quietly reduces my confidence that anyone else will be loyal to me when I am at my worst.

Thankfully, God is not this way. Though you are far more difficult to love than you will ever comprehend and more disappointing and disloyal to God than you can ever admit, you can know with certainty that if you are in relationship with God, he will never withdraw his love or loyalty from you. With God, your relationship begins and never ends. No matter how difficult, costly, or unlovable you may be, he will pursue and love you forever.

For you to be a faithful, loving, loyal person – to God and others – you must first be convinced that you are loved by a faithful, loyal God who will never let you go. That’s what this preaching series is all about and is why it’s called “Forever Faithful,” because it will show that God is that faithful, loyal, loving God we need to counteract and rise above the disloyalty and resistance to commitment that permeates not only the world around us, but especially our own hearts. We will speak more about these themes in future sermons, but for now, let’s learn what Exo 1-18 teaches about being “Redeemed by God.”

God sees the slavery of his people.

These chapters tell the story of how God fulfilled his promise to a few men who believed him centuries before. He told Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob he would form their descendants into a special nation with a unique relationship to him. They would become the people through whom he would bring his promised Savior and King to the world.

Between the last chapter of Genesis and the first chapter of Exodus had passed about 430 years, from the time Jacob the patriarch moved into Egypt and the time when Moses led all of Jacob’s descendants out (Exo 12:40-41). From Exo 1–18, approximately 80 years passed from the birth of Moses to when he led the Hebrew people out, through the Red Sea, and to Mount Sinai – where the 10 Commandments were given.

At Mount Sinai, the Hebrew people became the official nation of Israel and began a very special relationship between God and his people began. In a real and profound way, what happened at Sinai resembled a solemn wedding ceremony in which God committed himself in an unending covenant to his people, a covenant he would never break, no matter how badly or difficult his people would behave.

In Exo 3:16, God told Moses to tell the Hebrew people, “I have surely … seen what is done to you in Egypt.” This means that though they couldn’t see God and may have felt like he was far away and unconcerned with their problems for 430 years, he was completely aware of what they were experiencing and paying close attention. What evidence was there to show that God was paying close attention to them?

• Exo 1:1-7 shows that despite being displaced for centuries, they expanded from 70 people to abt. 2-3 million. Exo 12:37 says that about 600,000 adult men left Egypt, which would indicate 2-3 million to account for women and children. Despite being displaced, they became “exceedingly mighty,” or a powerful influence (1:7).
• Exo 1:8-22 shows that despite their horrible slavery conditions and Pharaoh’s attempt to kill their newborn sons, God protected them through the bravery of two midwives.
• Exo 2:1-25 shows how God raised up from them a man named Moses thanks to the bravery of the Hebrew midwives, Moses’ mother and sister, and even a daughter of Pharaoh. Not only did God protect this man from death by Pharaoh, but he prepared him to lead God’s people to freedom. He did this by giving him 40 years of training in Pharaoh’s palace followed by 40 years of experience as a shepherd in the wilderness.

In between those 40 years, though, Moses did something that taught him and us a very important lesson about God. We do not save ourselves – he alone saves us.

[Read Exodus 2:11-15.]

From this we see God was not calling Moses to rescue his people by “taking matters into his own hands,” literally. Instead, he was calling Moses to listen closely to his words and teach others to follow his words by faith, even in the face of great or increasing difficulty.

The children of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry came up to God because of the bondage. So, God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God acknowledged them. (Exo 2:23-25)

After 430 years in Egypt, God remained faithful and loyal to the covenant he made with Abraham (Gen 12:1-3). He had made a solemn agreement and commitment to Abraham that he would multiply his descendants and settle them safely in the land called Canaan. He had also promised that he would bless them and make them a blessing to the world.

God intervened to save his people from slavery. No matter how difficult, costly, or unlovable they would be, over any length of time, he would pursue and love them forever.
God saves his people from their slavery.

In Exo 3:17, God also told Moses to tell the people of Israel, “I will bring you up out of the affliction in Egypt … to a land flowing with milk and honey.” God not only sees the slavery and suffering of his people – he intervenes. What did this intervention look like when he acted to saved the Hebrew people from slavery?

• He raised up Moses and Aaron to be leaders of his people and speak out to Pharaoh on their behalf (3:1-22). In doing so, he revealed himself to Moses and the Hebrew people by his most personal name, “Yahweh” or “I AM.”
• He confronted and humiliated Pharaoh and Egypt – the superpower of the world at that time – through a series of ten extraordinary, overpowering plagues, showing his power over the false Egyptian gods and ungodly leaders. The remarkable thing about these plagues is that they could only be performed by an all-powerful, supernatural God with no human explanation.
• In similar manner, God miraculously parted the Red Sea so that the millions of Hebrew people he had rescued could walk over to the other side on dry ground. And not only that, but he wiped out the entire Egyptian military force by returning the waters to their place once they had all entered the seabed (Exo 12-15).
• While the millions of Hebrew people traveled through the wilderness, God miraculously provided large flocks of quail, daily supplies of bread from the sky, and water from dry rocks (Exo 16:1–17:7).
• He gave them a tremendous victory over a surprise attack by an army of people called the Amalekites, longtime adversaries of the Hebrew people (Exo 17:8-16).

After hearing this summary of God’s actions on behalf of his people, we see once again that after 430 years of seeing what his people experienced, God remained faithful and loyal to the covenant he made with Abraham.

In the children’s book called “Horton Hatches an Egg,” by Dr. Seusss, a kind-hearted elephant agrees to sit on the egg of a lazy bird while she takes a break. She goes away and never returns, leaving Horton to guard the egg. He endures fierce storms, freezing rain, scorching sun, and relentless ridicule from other animals. Why would an elephant do such a silly thing? He is even captured by hunters and hauled across the ocean to a circus—yet through it all, he never abandons his promise.

His famous line captures the theme: “I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one hundred percent.” Against every danger and cost, Horton’s loyalty never wavers, and in the end, his faithfulness is rewarded when the egg hatches into an elephant-bird. The story illustrates how true commitment means keeping your word no matter how hard or inconvenient it becomes.

Far more importantly, in history and not fiction, God promised that he would bless the Hebrew people and make them a blessing to the world, and that’s why he intervened to save them people from slavery. No matter how difficult, costly, or unlovable they would prove to be, over any length of time, he would pursue and love his people forever.

Salvation is entirely of God.

As we read the opening chapters of Exodus (1-18), we should all notice one obvious detail – that everything which happens is somehow from God. Psalm 3:8 makes this reality very clear – that whenever God intervenes for his helpless, undeserving people, “salvation is of the Lord” (Psa 3:8). It is always, entirely of him. When God saves his people, he alone is the one who does the work and he alone is the one who makes it happen.

In Exo 1-18, God is the one who did all the saving. God is the one who intervened. His people were unable to save themselves, and in many cases, his people were not behaving in a way that deserved God’s favor. The story of the Exodus, then, is a story of God as a loving husband pursuing his future wife, his people, at great expense. When we see all that he did to redeem them and make them his people, we know that nothing will ever cause him to let them go.

To summarize all that God did, preview the start of next week’s sermon, hear how God himself described all that he did in Exo 1-18 to redeem his people from slavery in Egypt:

You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. (Exo 19:3)

This beautiful, majestic description of God “carrying up his people on eagles’ wings” communicates two very personal and important things about God’s commitment and salvation of his people.

First, it describes God’s loving care for his people as the tender, observant care of a mother for her young child. Philip Ryken and Kent Hughes explain it this way:

The picture is of a mother eagle caring for her young. Eaglets are especially helpless, remaining in the nest for as many as 100 days. Then, as one commentator explains, “When it is time for the young birds to leave the eyrie and learn to fly, the eagle stirs up the nest, but does not abandon her young. If they experience difficulties, the mother bird swoops down below them and lifts them on its wings back to safety.” This is precisely what God did for his people in the wilderness. They had been delivered from slavery, but they were vulnerable to starvation and to attack by their enemies. So God lifted them up on his mighty wings, providing them with food, water, and victory in battle.

Second, it describes his God’s majestic, powerful care of his people as a mighty warrior rushing in to overpower and overwhelm the enemy. Ryken and Hughes also explain:

This beautiful image is richly symbolic. The eagle is a fierce bird of prey; it attacks its enemies the way God attacked Egypt. It is also a bird of rescue. This is wonderfully portrayed in J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy The Hobbit. At two different points in the story the heroes are rescued by eagles. The second time is near the end, when they are surrounded by hordes of goblins. Just at the moment when all seems to be lost, one of them “gave a great cry: he had seen a sight that made his heart leap, dark shapes small yet majestic against the distant glow. ‘The Eagles! The Eagles!’ he shouted. ‘The Eagles are coming!’”

Today, we must remind ourselves that salvation is entirely of God. For us today, thousands of years after God rescued his people from slavery in Egypt, we know a thing or two about slavery ourselves. Paul tells us in the New Testament (NT) that:

• … before we believe on Christ for salvation, we are “slaves of sin.” (Rom 6:6)
• … “Christ has made us free … from the yoke of slavery.” (Gal 5:1)

Jesus himself taught the same thing when he said:

• “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.” (Jn 8:34)
• “If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (Jn 8:36)

Just as God rescued his people from slavery in Egypt, so he rescues his people from slavery to sin by his miraculous birth, perfect life, sacrificial death, and stunning resurrection from the dead. And just as the Hebrew people celebrated the Passover meal to remember God’s salvation from Egypt, so we celebrate the Lord’s Supper to remember God’s salvation of our lives from sin.

As we reflect on God’s loving, powerful salvation from slavery in Egypt, may we be even more aware and more grateful of Christ’s salvation of our souls from slavery to sin and death. And may we realize the incredible price of Christ’s resurrection and the incredible power of his resurrection.

May we realize that the God who does such things to rescue us from slavery and bring us into a relationship with him will not abandon us either, no matter how difficult or undeserving we may be. Salvation is entirely of God from the beginning until the end. And since we did nothing to save ourselves and God did everything, we can be sure that he will love us relentlessly to the end, pursuing us, protecting us, and providing for us forever.

When we look at the story of the Exodus, we see that redemption is entirely God’s work. For 430 years, Israel was away from their land and then groaned under slavery, powerless to change their condition—yet God saw, God heard, and God acted. He raised up a deliverer, displayed His power over Egypt, parted the sea, and provided for his people every step of the way. Why? Because he is forever faithful to his covenant and his people. He carried them on eagles’ wings and will do the same for all who follow Christ.

That same God has redeemed us through Christ, rescuing us from slavery to sin. If He did all that for Israel and gave his Son for us, we can be certain he will never abandon us. May you find great comfort, courage, and confidence in the loyal love of our God who is forever faithful—and let that love move you to be increasingly faithful and loyal to him and to the people he has placed in your life, no matter what personal or relational difficulties or dysfunction you have experienced. Your God is forever faithful to you.

Discussion Questions

• Why is it important for us to hear about God’s covenantal nature? What are ways that we as individuals struggle to imitate his faithfulness and loyalty?
• What does the Exodus narrative reveal about God’s awareness of his people’s suffering, even during long periods when he seems silent or distant?
  • How should these things shape the way believers respond to prolonged hardship or unanswered prayer?
• What evidence from Exodus 1–2 shows that God was actively working for Israel’s good long before he openly intervened to rescue them?
• Why did God not allow Moses to deliver Israel by taking matters into his own hands, and what does this teach about how God accomplishes salvation?
• What practical attitudes or behaviors today resemble trying to “save ourselves” rather than trusting God to act in his way and timing?
• What difference does it make to live daily with the conviction that the God who saved you will never abandon you?

Galatians 4:4-7

Anyone who drives knows the satisfying feeling of “perfect timing.” By “perfect timing,” I mean when you’re driving a long stretch of road and all the lights turn green right as you approach them, or when you approach a parking spot near the entrance to a store in a crowded parking lot just as another customer is leaving, making the spot available to you. “Perfect timing!” we might say whenever things like this occur.

As satisfying as things like this may be in our day-to-day lives, they are only nice circumstances that make our day easier. But “perfect timing” is of absolute importance in other scenarios. Making a trade on the stock market or in crypto at the right moment can make the difference between making or losing millions of dollars. Timing a concrete pour correctly before a storm hits can determine not only whether you will waste a large sum of money but, more importantly, whether the building will have structural integrity.

Then there are countless examples of how two people cross paths at the perfect time with life-altering effects. An unemployed person just happens to cross paths in a checkout line with an employer who is looking for his exact skillset. Two unmarried people just happen to cross paths at a restaurant leading to a lifetime of marriage. Or a doctor just happens to be sitting next to a stranger at a baseball game who suffers an unexpected heat stroke, only to provide critical life-saving guidance.

Christ’s birth happened at the right time.

According to Scripture, the birth of Christ which we celebrate at Christmastime happened with perfect timing. Paul says Christ was born “when the fullness of time had come” (Gal 4:4). This envisions a woman giving birth to a child at full term, after a long period of waiting, when everything has progressed well and the time is just right.

The birth of Christ was not an emergency response, backup plan, or random act of intervention by God. It was a perfectly planned event which happened at precisely the right time in history, like when NASA carefully prepares to launch a space mission. After thousands of years of promises, prophecies, and preparation, Christ was born at the precisely the right time to save people from their sins.

You and I – like every other human – have enough trouble with showing up to events on time and with scheduling and planning out the timing of events and goals in our lives. How much more overwhelming would it be to schedule, prepare for, and plan out the birth of Jesus over thousands of years of history and civilization? Even the most skilled obstetrician or midwife cannot guarantee the accuracy of a baby’s due date.

But Christ was born at the perfect moment, at the perfect time. World conditions were just right and even the stars in the universe were perfectly aligned for his birth! But not only was he born at the perfect time, he was born for a special purpose.

His birth was for a special purpose.

Paul says that when Christ was born, “God sent forth his Son” (4:4). This “sending forth” is far more meaningful than a stork sending a cute baby down from the sky. It means to send out someone on a mission – to dispatch them for a special purpose or task, like when a special operations soldier is sent on a mission to protect and defend his nation or when a humanitarian worker is sent to provide critical aid and relief after a natural disaster.

In this case, God the Father was sending God the Son to save his people from their sins. Said another way, first person of the triune God (or Trinity) was sending the second person of the triune God to save us – God was sending God on a mission.

This statement says some important things. First, it shows that God, who like us, only has one nature, is not like us, being only one person. He is a single, unified being comprised of three persons – Father, Son, and Spirit, all three mentioned in this passage (4:4, 6).

That God is three co-equal persons in one divine being and with one divine nature is a core, fundamental belief of biblical Christianity. But according to a recent Barna survey (March 26, 2025), only 11% of American adults believe in the Trinity, incl. only 16% of self-proclaimed Christians. The percentage is higher for Protestants than Catholics, and the percentage per generation differs, too: Boomer (18%), Gen X (11%), Millennial (7%), Gen Z (8%). Knowing this should encourage us to emphasize this truth in our teaching.

This statement – that “God sent forth his Son” – also shows us that when Christ was born, he did not begin to exist at that time. He was, instead, sent on a mission to be born. In other words, he already existed – eternally in fact – and was simply changing the form of his existence in order to become a human being. Unlike every other human being, he did not begin to exist the moment he was conceived. He had already existed as God the Son for eternity, having no beginning nor end, but became a human being at his conception.

He received a human nature.

At his birth (or conception), Christ was “born of a woman” (4:4). This means he became a human being like you and me. By doing this, he took for himself all the qualities of human nature, except for sin. He would now understand what it’s like to be human, not only because he is omniscient as God, but because he is also now a human being. Like you and me, he experienced tiredness and pain, hunger and thirst, weakness and rejection, and – most importantly – temptation to sin. But unlike you and me, he never sinned. He fully experienced temptation but never gave in.

For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted. (Heb 2:18)

Now that God the Son has become human, he is both able to assist and understand us in our weaknesses and temptations. And as a human being, when he died in our place for our sins, he really, truly bled and really, truly died. This means he was able to perfectly serve as an actual, legitimate substitute for our sins. It also means that he perfectly understands whatever experience you have as a human being, no matter how difficult your experience may be. Jesus is both God and man, making him our perfect Savior.

He submitted himself to the law.

Not only did he receive a human nature at his birth, but he also placed himself under the authority of God’s law. He was “born under the law” (4:4). This means that he lived with the full expectations of God’s law placed upon him. He did not get special treatment and exemptions because he was God. He faced the same expectations that God places on every human being through the divine, moral law.

Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. (Heb 5:8)

This means that he did everything the law of God required a person to do and he refrained from doing all the things that the law of God prohibits a person from doing. He did all this perfectly without exception. In doing so, he revealed through his attitudes, behavior, and words a complete and perfect love for God and for other people. In this way, he “fulfilled the law,” doing what no other human being is able to do.

Now, what is the purpose of God’s law? It is to show us two things. First, it is to show us what it means – in practical terms – to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor the same way. Second, it is to show us – in practical, provable ways – that we do not love God with all our heart and we do not love our neighbor as ourselves.

But Christ is the great exception. He actually lived a life of perfect love for God and perfect love for neighbor in a way that perfectly fulfilled the law of God. And by doing this, he made the impossible possible for us. We are unable to fulfill God’s law, so God is unable to accept and recognize us as his children. But because Christ fulfilled the law perfectly, he did so for us. He died in our place to absorb the guilt of our sins (our own failure to fulfill God’s law), then he offered us his record of perfect obedience to God instead. By doing this, Paul says that Christ “redeemed [rescued/freed] us who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (4:5).

He made a way for servants to become sons.

When Paul says that people who believe on Christ for salvation are “sons of God,” he is not referring to becoming children of God through birth. He is referring to becoming children of God through adoption. This adoption does not refer to our modern concept of adoption, either. Instead, it refers to how Jewish fathers would officially acknowledge either their children or servants as “official, independent adults.”

In first-century Jewish culture, fathers would care for their young children and any servants that their household employed. These people would follow strict rules, be assigned mentors, tutors, and supervisors to govern their actions and behavior, etc. But when household servants or children proved to their fathers that they were mature, reliable, and responsible, fathers would then “adopt” them.

This “adoption” meant that they would formally and officially announce that the child or servant be recognized as an independent adult in his own right, able to form his own house, establish his own business, and – most importantly – represent and carry on his father’s personal and family reputation in the community at large.

Such a person was no longer subjected to meticulous rules, guidelines, and oversight assigned by their father, as they had been in their developmental years. Why? Because they had proven themselves to be reliable and responsible and the father believed that the child no longer needed such regulations.

This did not mean that they could now go on living loosely, however they wanted. There would certainly be consequences for making poor or wrong decisions – as every adult well knows. But this did mean that their father was not trusting them to make good, moral, noble, and right decisions on their own, without rules, regulations, and parental supervision monitoring their every turn.

Oh, and this “adoption as sons” meant one more thing for people who reached this status. They would become full inheritors of their father’s estate. This meant that they would become entitled to all the rights, privileges, and resources associated with their father’s legacy and estate. Paul calls this being an “heir” (4:1, 7).

All of this leads to a serious but special conclusion…

Those who believe on Christ should live as adult children of God.

We won’t take the time to do so today, but if you reach the surrounding verses in Galatians 4, and if you read even more fully the entire letter that Paul wrote to the churches and believers in Galatia, you will find that this is what this letter was all about.

Paul wrote to people who claimed to turn on Christ as God and Savior. But as he followed the progression of their life after they claimed to believe, many were returning to their way of living before they believed on Christ. They were doing this by resubmitting themselves to Old Testament (OT) laws – OT ceremonies, circumcision, dietary practices and restrictions, and the required observance of religious seasons and holidays.

In this letter, he makes the point very strongly that living this way is like a mature adult person going back to living like an immature child. A young child needs meticulous rules, responsible guardians, sticker charts and incentives, imposed schedules, and more. But a reliable, responsible adult no longer needs such things. And if an adult returns to childish ways, it raises the question of whether they can be trusted as a reliable, responsible adult.

In the case of our faith in Christ, when people who claim to believe on Christ submit themselves (or re-submit themselves) to ceremonies, rituals, rules, guardians, dietary restrictions, required holiday observances, etc. to live out their faith in Christ, it raises the question of whether they understand Christ at all. People with a complete, correct view of Christ don’t live that way. Those things were not given to us by God to make us God’s children. They were given to us to reveal our need for Christ.

When Christ came at Christmastime, he came at the perfect time to life out a perfect life – becoming the only person to fulfill the law of God. Knowing this, we must turn away from and move on from the law to put our complete faith and trust in Jesus Christ as our God and Savior, trusting completely in him. When we do this, then God accepts us fully as his children on the basis of Christ’s perfect, obedient life and death. This is why God the Father sent God the Son at the perfect time. To free us from the law so that we might live as fully accepted and responsible children of God.

When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. (Gal 4:4-5)

The birth of Christ frees us from childish observance of the law to be faithful, reliable followers of Christ who love God and love others freely and genuinely by the power of the Holy Spirit, not because the law tells us what to do. As we wrap up this holiday season and year and prepare our hearts for a new year head, I have two important messages for you today based upon Christ’s birth and life as Paul explains it in Gal 4:4-5.

Rest in Your Identity

First, because Christ came at the perfect time to redeem us, you no longer need to live like a helpless, immature child under the law. If you have trusted Christ as your God and Savior, you are fully accepted as a reliable, responsible adult child. You are adopted by God thanks to the birth, life, and death of Christ for you.

This means that you cannot earn God’s favor through rituals, rules, or performance—it is already completely secured by Christ’s perfect obedience and sacrificial death. So, stop striving to prove yourself to God. Instead, rejoice in the security of your relationship with him and you’re your full access to all that he is and all that is his forever. Let this truth quiet your fears and free you from the exhausting cycle of trying to measure up. You belong to him, and nothing can change that.

If you have not yet turned to Christ alone for salvation from the law’s demands, then I urge you to put your trust in Christ today as your God and Savior. He will forgive your sins and give you a close and complete relationship with God forever, one that rests entirely upon his birth, life, and death for you and not on your own performance. What rest and peace this will bring to your tired, sinful soul.

Live Like a Mature Child of God

Second, with acceptance by God as a reliable and responsible adult child comes privilege, but with it also comes responsibility. Just as an adult child represents the family name, you represent your amazing heavenly Father in the world. Therefore, we should live out the freedom Christ gives us not to indulge our fleshly, selfish desires but to love God and others sincerely by the power of the Spirit.

This is why Paul goes on to urge them to leave fleshly behaviors and pursue godly virtues by the power of the Holy Spirit (not as legal obligations).

I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. (Gal 5:16-25)

Mature sons and daughters don’t need sticker charts or rigid rules to guide them – they live out of love and gratitude, instead. So, ask yourself whether you are living like a mature child of God, or have you slipped back into childish rule-keeping and religious duties? True freedom in Christ is not lawlessness—it is Spirit-led obedience that reflects the character of your Father.

Imagine a child who has spent years in foster care, moving from home to home, never sure if they truly belong. Then one day, a loving family adopts them—not just legally, but relationally. They give the child their name, their home, and their inheritance. That child no longer needs to live in fear or try to earn acceptance by an adoptive family; they are fully part of the family. But with that new status comes responsibility: to honor the family name and live in a way that reflects the love they’ve received.

That’s what God has done for us through Christ. We were spiritual orphans under the law, but at the perfect time, God sent His Son to redeem us and adopt us as His own. We don’t have to earn His favor—it’s already secured. And now, as His sons and daughters, we live in freedom—not to indulge ourselves, but to represent our Father well in the world.

How will you put your acceptance and freedom in Christ to work in a responsible, reliable way this coming New Year? How will you show your love for Christ and share that love with others as God the Father calls his children to do? This is why Christ was born.

Discussion Questions

• What can we learn about God from his perfect timing and planning in the birth of Christ?
• How should confidence in God’s perfect timing affect the way Christians respond to seasons of waiting, uncertainty, or unmet expectations?
• What is the problem with the statement, “Jesus’ true nature is divine, but he became like a human?”
• What difference does the humanity of Christ make for his followers?
  • What about the practical difference it makes for them that he fulfilled the law?
• How might your attitude or perspective change if you believed that you were accepted as an adopted child of God?
• How can believers distinguish between Spirit-led obedience and rule-driven religious performance?
• What are some practical steps that we can take to rest in our identity in Christ?