‘Almighty God is good and just’

Brothers & Sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ,
This morning we continue the series on the last book of the Old Testament.
Fundamental to our understanding of what is going on is:
The Covenant God made with Judah.
The covenant: Is not God our Father?

Did He not create us? He is Almighty God!
The covenant God made with His people is everlasting!
Burdened, Malachi, asks, Why have you broken faith?
The Lord says, “I love you!”
Israel responded: “God, how have you loved us?”
In other words: “prove it that you love us.”
They look at their circumstances and see plagues, pests, numbers are few and the Persians still rule. Even though they wail and complain, God’s great Name will be revered by all in spite of the irreverence of Israel.
Israel spurned God.
Israel refused to respect God as their Father.
Almighty God sees and loves His people.
In love God sends His prophet to tell them what He thinks of the way they are living.
God does not take delight in evil but wants people to repent of their evil ways and honour Almighty God first and always.
‘Almighty God is good and just’
Almighty God says,
“Set your hearts on honouring me!”
We know, as the heart – so the actions follow.
What did the priests do?
They neglected their duties to God.
They neglected their covenant responsibilities.
How?

They went through the motions of sacrifice – but their hearts were not in it.
“What a burden,” they said.
The priests did not teach the people to honour the Lord their God first and always.
They accepted the offering of blind, diseased, maimed and lame animals from the people, in blatant disobedience, thinking this was good enough for God.
How will God discipline them?
Malachi paints it in stark terms.
“I will smear your faces with the dung of your festive sacrifices.”
In other words, God will take away their place of honour and humiliate them.
God will not allow his glory to be given to another.
Judah has broken faith, abandoning their responsibility to live as the holy people of the one true holy living God.
They married women who did not know or serve God.
These women would be a snare to them, leading them astray and break the first commandment.
The second issue that God was unhappy about was the attitude of His people concerning divorce.
He wanted them to get their priorities right!
If things were not bad enough, the people in Malachi’s day, “Wearied the Lord with their words” saying,
“All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord and he is pleased with them.”
What blasphemy they were uttering.
What a blatant lie.
‘Almighty God is good and just’
There may well be times when it appears that evil doers prosper.

There are times when we might be like the Psalmist in Psalm 73 and say,
“Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure… “
But the people in Malachi’s time did not think the same way as the psalmist – they had broken faith with God. They had no regard for God and thought that there would not be any consequences for Judah breaking faith, abandoning their responsibility to live as the holy people of the one true holy and living God who knows our heart.
God addresses this thinking and behaviour brutally and honestly.
God’s promise to those who seek him with all their heart, to those whose desire is to see the kingdom of God established and God’s Almighty Name honoured.
See and know ‘Almighty God is good and just’.
The day is coming when, “Suddenly the Lord who you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant whom you desire, will come, says the Lord Almighty.”
The kingdom of God will be established.
The angel appeared to Zechariah as he was serving as priest in the temple and told him that his son was to be born to prepare the way for the Lord.
The people in unbelief may well say:
“Evil is okay with God – He does not care. “Where is the God of Justice?”
The prophet replies to the unbelief of God’s people:
No matter what you may think, ‘Almighty God is good and just’
Isaiah prophesied, A Messenger of the Lord will prepare the way – a voice crying out in the wilderness, repent, flee from the wrath to come!

The Lord will arrive suddenly – unpleasantly.
My friends, God is good. He does not approve of evil.
He is going to refine His people.
His messenger will make that abundantly clear.
He will make clear people’s responsibility to the Lord.
Malachi tells God’s people the nature of their evil.

• sorcery
• adultery
• perjury
• defrauding workers of their wages
• oppression of widows & orphans
• depriving aliens (foreigners) of justice
  

God’s desire is that his people repent of their evil ways. Turn and honour God first and always. The Lord Almighty does not turn a blind eye or suffer the wickedness of evil people for that would be contrary to his character.
The prophet foretells what God will do in 400 years time.
The messenger of the Lord will prepare the way of the Lord.
John the Baptist would come in the spirit of Elijah.
He came to prepare the way for the Lord.
He preached, “He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.” John 1:15
Matthew records the message of John the Baptist, “I baptise with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.
He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” 3:11,12

John the Baptist came with the call to the people of his day – ‘Repent, for the kingdom of God is near. Those who acknowledged their sin and repented were baptised in the Jordan river.
Those who hardened their hearts would see that the Lord is just.
The first coming of the Lord and the second are connected together in this prophecy.
We see the 2 fold nature of prophecy –
Like viewing a mountain range from afar – as you get closer, you see it is not one range but two.
The Messiah – Jesus Christ would come born of the virgin Marry, preach the kingdom, heal the sick and seek the lost.
As the faithful covenant keep he would fulfil all that the prophets had written in the past concerning his coming.and usher in the eternal new kingdom of God.
Jesus would come to show that God is good – so good that through his sacrifice on the cross, the elect would be cleansed from their sins.
We all have sinned and done what is evil in God’s sight.
How then will we escape the wrath of a Holy God?
The Heidelberg Catechism Q.A. 60 asks, ‘How are you right with God?
“Only by true faith in Jesus Christ. Even though my conscience accuses me if having grievously sinned against all God’s commandments and of never having kept any of them, and even though I am still inclined toward all evil, nevertheless, without my deserving it at all, out of sheer grace, God grants to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness and holiness of Christ, as if I had never sinned nor been a sinner, as if I had been as perfectly obedient as Christ was obedient for me.
All I need to do is to accept this gift of God with a believing heart.”

God is a refining fire.
He is Just and will not leave sin unpunished.
How will we escape the wrath of God to come?
Only as we surrender our lives to the only saviour, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Those who God has chosen to save, repent.
By faith in Christ, God cleanses us from all sin.
We are washed in the blood of Christ, our sin removed from God’s sight as far as the East is from the West.
Let us never forget God’s grace and mercy.
The perfect covenant keeper is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Through faith in Him, God’s people receive the gift of righteousness and are thus enabled by the power of the Holy Spirit to live a life pleasing to God.
The offering that the redeemed bring to the Lord is a living sacrifice, a life of self denial, taking up our cross and following Jesus.
God does care about what people do and how they live.
Wickedness will be met with judgment.
God will show His justice on the last day when Jesus comes to judge the living and the dead. So let us examine our lives in the light of the Gospel.
Let us work out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that the Lord does care about every aspect of our lives.
To live for the Living God, to serve Him and honor Him is the reason we have been given life and breath.

God wants Lordship over every area of our lives.
Let us humbly pray: Lord, show me your way that I may walk in it.
We join with the Psalmist praying,
“Have mercy on me O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me and I will be whiter than snow…
Let me hear joy and gladness..
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing heart to sustain me.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you…
My sacrifice, O God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” Psalm 51
My friends, if we have never humbled ourselves before God confessing our wretchedness. If we have never, as it were, been stripped bear before a holy and just God and cried out like the tax collector, “Lord have mercy on me a sinner.” we will not be justified in God’s sight.
To rely on our parents faith will not suffice.
If we think that ‘all who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and that He is pleased with them’ the day is coming when we will have a rude awaking.
Let us flee to the only Saviour!

Those who have rejected the free offer of a good and gracious God in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ will have to give an account to a holy, righteous and just God.
Unless we have been clothed with Christ’s righteousness by faith, we stand condemned.
My dear friends, there is always a battle for our allegiance.
The world offers us much, but always on its terms.
God calls us to faithfulness on His terms, even when obedience is costly.
God is calling you and me to pray the Lord’s Prayer and to live it out.
We cry out to the Lord,
“Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in
the way everlasting.” Psalm 139:23,24.

Amen.