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Episodes
Weekly sermons and Bible studies led by a retired pastor of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
Episodes
Monday Jan 25, 2021
Monday Jan 25, 2021
In this study, we come to the final two sections of Malachi that we have not yet studied: Malachi 3:1-4 and 4:1-6. These two passages fit together and are most important, in that they predict the future of God’s plans for His people and the great hope in what God was going to do for them and for us.
The other things we have heard in Malachi are also important (all of God’s Word is); but much has been the Law, showing both the priests and the people their many sins and the real need for repentance.
God has been very patient with His people, but He does not want them to take His mercy and love for granted. See what is said in Psalm 50:19-23. God is not like us, and He is serious about His will, even if He seems to be silent and doing nothing about evil at times. He always wants to bring people to repentance and faith and salvation. See also Romans 2:3-4. Don’t take God’s kindness for granted. It is meant to lead you to repentance and to draw you closer to Him. That is what much of Malachi has been about.
Martin Luther included in his 95 Theses, at the beginning of the Reformation: “The whole life of a Christian is to be one of repentance.” Again and again we hear the Law of God and recognize our sins. We bring them to the Lord and repent of them, wanting to be better, and we put our trust in God’s mercy, by His grace.
And there is mercy from God, as we hear from Malachi 3:1-4. “Behold!” - Pay attention. Something really important is happening. Another “messenger" (not Malachi) is coming to “prepare the way before Me,” God says, through Malachi. For the Lord Himself will also then come suddenly to His temple. The messenger will bring in a time of refining and purifying, in preparation for Him, and He will then continue this purifying.
The picture images are of gold and silver, whose impurities must be melted out with fire, and of newly shorn wool or woven cloth, which is washed by a fuller with a strong and biting alkali soap. David used this image, after he had done great evil, and repents and prays, “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow”(Psalm 51:7).
Who needs to be cleansed in this way? It is not the enemies here, but God’s own people - the sons of Levi and the people of Judah and Jerusalem. Then they can be righteous and more pleasing to God. If they are not cleansed and reject this, then judgment and trouble are coming for them, v.5 says.
What is all of this referring to? The New Testament makes it clear. Mark 1:2, Matthew 11:10, and Luke 7:37 all quote directly from Malachi 3:1 in saying that John the Baptist is this messenger; and John’s Gospel speaks about him, too, with his strong calls for repentance and a cleansing baptism for forgiveness. He was getting people ready for the coming Lord, Who was Jesus Himself.
Go back to Malachi 4:1-5. Again it begins with “Behold” in verses 1 and 5. Pay attention! This is important! A time of judgment is coming when the arrogant and evildoers (who do not repent) will burn like stubble. But for those who fear the Name of the Lord, who fear, love, and trust in Him, “the Sun of Righteousness will come” bringing righteousness and healing and joy (like a calf set free from a pen) and victory over evil, “when I act, says the Lord.” Again it will be the Lord Himself Who will come, bringing these blessings to His people, as in Chapter 3.
But again, also, someone else will prepare the way for the Lord. In Malachi 4:5, it is Elijah who will prepare for “the great and awesome day of the Lord.” And what will this Elijah do? He will help change the hearts of people, and draw them together, the fathers and the children, and get them ready for the Lord and help them escape “utter destruction” for their sins.
Again, the New Testament identifies this not as the literal Old Testament prophet, Elijah, who does come to Jesus along with Moses at His Transfiguration. (See Matthew 17:1-3). This Elijah, predicted by Malachi, is John the Baptist. Look at Luke 1, when an angel appears to Zechariah and announces that he and his wife will have a son, John, who will, in verses 16-17, do exactly what Malachi predicts. He will turn hearts “in the spirit and power of Elijah" and get people ready for the Lord’s coming.
Read also Luke 1:67-79, where Zechariah himself predicts the coming of the Lord (Jesus) to make people holy and righteous before Him, and says of his own son, John, “And you, child, will be called prophet of the Most High, and you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways.” It is exactly what Malachi predicted. And with the coming of the Lord Jesus, as described in Luke 1-2, will also come salvation, forgiveness, the mercy of God, and even “the sunrise shall visit from on high” bringing great light and peace. Jesus is the “sun of righteousness” predicted by Malachi, coming from heaven, Who will bring healing to this troubled world.
Later on in Luke 2, the infant Jesus suddenly comes one day to the temple, brought by Mary and Joseph, and both Simeon and Anna realize that He is the promised Savior they have been waiting for, for so long (Luke 2:22-38). When Jesus is 12, He goes the the temple again and astounds the religious authorities with His knowledge, in His Father’s house (Luke 2:41-49). Early in His public ministry, Jesus comes and cleanses His Father’s house, the temple, from improper things happening there; and he does it again during the last week of His life (Matthew 21:12-13). He is the Lord coming suddenly to His temple, just as Malachi predicted (Malachi 3:1); and John the Baptist has prepared the way for Him, in his own ministry.
Go back to Malachi 4 one more time. These are likely the last words spoken by a prophet in the whole Old Testament, spoken by Malachi. By God’s inspiration, he tells the people in verse 4 to look back to the Law of Moses, which was crucial to the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, and to seek to follow that word and will of God, in repentance and faith. That Word would guide and guard them until the coming of Jesus. (See Galatians 3:23-29.)
But he also tells them to look forward to John the Baptist and above all to Jesus, the Light of the world (John 8:12) and “the bright Morning Star” (Revelation 22:16). As the sun is the star for our world, Jesus is the “sun of righteousness” for our lives and our eternal future, as we trust in Him. The Lord gives a very fitting link between the Old and New Testaments, in Malachi. It is all God’s Word for us.
Sunday Jan 24, 2021
Sunday Jan 24, 2021
“Do We Get It?” (Matthew 20:20-28)
Lutheran Schools Week
The text for our sermon today is the Gospel Lesson and especially these words of Jesus: “Whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26-28).
When people are trying to explain something to you, do you always get what they are saying right away? Obviously, it doesn’t work that way too much of the time. It takes more explaining and more time before you really understand. My wife would say it’s like trying to teach me how to do something new on my iPhone; or Amanda, our technical support person, trying to show me how to use the microphone for the worship service. It’s not always easy to learn new things.
That is why, as we begin Lutheran Schools Week in the LCMS and at St. James, we are especially grateful for our teachers and all those who support them. They teach and teach and teach – and try various approaches to reach all their students. It is not easy and it takes time – but what joy there is when children do understand, when they get something, when they learn and grow.
We know how hard this process is as parents, too. Our children don’t learn how to tie their shoes on the first try – or maybe even the hundredth try. They can’t ride their new two wheel bike immediately. Learning how to play basketball or a musical instrument takes lots of time and practice and teaching.
And the most important thing we want our children to know, ultimately, is about God and His Word and His will and God’s love for us in Jesus our Savior. That’s why we have not just a school, but a Lutheran school, where the Good News of Jesus can be freely taught, in word and deed and in every class. That’s what our school teachers are dedicated to doing, too, day after day, year after year, as they also teach and teach and teach about Jesus.
And that’s not at all easy either, as our text for today says, especially when God’s way goes against our human way of thinking. Earlier, Peter had said to Jesus, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Peter was exactly right. Jesus was the promised Savior, the Son, sent from the Father, for our benefit. But Jesus knew that Peter and the others did not really understand what that meant – and what that meant for Peter or for Jesus Himself.
And so we read in the Scriptures that: “From that time, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised” (Matthew 16:21).
Peter didn’t want to hear that, and tried to shut Jesus up; but Jesus kept on teaching and teaching the truth (Matthew 16:22-23). A little later, Jesus said again to His disciples, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day. And the disciples were greatly distressed” (Matthew 17:22-23). They must have thought, “What glory and honor is there in all this talk about suffering and dying?” – and they must have been thinking about glory for themselves.
For just a little later, we read that “the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Maybe they hoped that Jesus would say, “Why, it’s you disciples who are the greatest.” Instead, Jesus placed a little child right in the midst of them and called them to simple, humble, childlike trust in God, no matter what. That is greatness in the kingdom of heaven, He says (Matthew 18:1-4).
Jesus just keeps on teaching and teaching the truth. Just before our text for today, Jesus said again, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death and deliver Him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and He will be raised on the third day” (Matthew 20:18-19).
But neither the disciples nor those around them were really getting what Jesus was saying. They should have been very concerned about Him and the dark days ahead for Him and giving Him their help and support. Instead, they are thinking of themselves and what they can get out of Jesus in glory for themselves. We heard in our Gospel lesson that the mother of two of the disciples comes with them and asks Jesus for something. She was like most moms, wanting the best for her children, and so she said, “Say that these two sons of mine can have the most glorious spots, closest to you, on your right and left, in your kingdom” (Matthew 20:20-21).
Well, the other 10 disciples hear of this and they are indignant, very angry at the two brothers (Matthew 20:24). They probably all thought that the best places ought to be theirs, instead of the others. It was a hot, angry, sorry mess among the disciples – and this was just before the Palm Sunday events and the last days before Jesus’ death. And Jesus Himself is forgotten in all this. (Do you remember the words of our Epistle lesson, where Paul warns, “If you bite and devour one another. watch out!” (Galatians 5:15) That is what was going on among the disciples.)
And I wonder if we aren’t part of that sorry mess ourselves, all too often. Don’t we sometimes think and act just like those disciples? We forget our sins and think we’re pretty decent people. We surely deserve things to be better for us than they are., especially in these Covid days. Why doesn’t God give us more of a break and more good things? Surely He will, if He’s a good and fair God. Those sorts of thoughts at least go through our minds, at times.
As our text goes on, Jesus continues to teach and teach the truth. Jesus said on another occasion, “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34). We are captives to sin and cannot ever overcome that sin by our own efforts, if left on our own, no matter what we do; and we are headed for what our sins deserve – death, eternal death.
But then Jesus brings wonderful Good News, as our text ends: “The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28) – actually for all people, as other Scriptures tell us. All that talk about suffering and dying was about that “ransom” price that Jesus Himself would have to pay and did pay on the cross to set us captives free and give us forgiveness and new life. We are headed now for eternal life, through Jesus.
We are also set free, Jesus says, from the hectic, chaotic struggle of this sinful world, where people vie to become “great ones”, by their own power and effort and authority, and ruling and lording it over others, manipulating them, as if they were “god-like” themselves (Matthew 20:25). “It shall not be so among you,” Jesus says. “But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave” (Matthew 20: 26-28).
And this is not a scary, but a freeing description of life, for us. We don’t have to earn points with God by what we do. Jesus already has paid the full ransom price for us. We try to do our best, but we also know and confess our imperfections, for Jesus already knows all about us and still loves and forgives us. And Jesus already did come to live perfectly in our place and to serve us and help us to grow and learn more, where we are weak, even as we desire for our own children and grandchildren.
All of this is true for all of us, in Christ our Savior, and also for our school. We thank our Lord for all of our teachers and their support staff, for their faithfulness in what they do. They are certainly not getting rich and they don’t have a lot of honor or fame and may even be opposed by those in our secular society who don’t like Christianity and its values. But the Lord has brought His blessings, from generation to generation.
I tried to think of teachers from my time at St. James whose names are still around at our church. I could only think of the Klaiber name – as Gertrude Klaiber was my second grade teacher, filling in only one year at that time. My mother also went to the school, another generation back, and the only name I could think of that is still around was the Decker name. Teacher Decker was one of my mother’s teachers, and we still have Deckers in our congregation today. We also have, of course, on our current faculty two people who were themselves students at St. James – Jake Rogers and Amanda Goodspeed.
We thank God also for all of our parents and teachers and their students at St. James. The school would not exist without them and their great help and support and work with the teachers.
We thank the Lord for the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod for its help and assistance in many ways, including some of the service materials today.
We thank the Lord for all of you in our congregation and in area congregations, who continue to help by your prayers and gifts and support. That is very much needed for the future, too.
Above all, we thank our Lord for His underserved blessings to us, in Christ, day after day. Remember that every time Jesus spoke of His suffering and death, He also spoke of His resurrection. He still lives and gives us hope for this life and our eternal future, as well. To God be the glory, now and forever. Amen.
(Some of the general sermon ideas here may have come from materials from the LCMS, though I am not sure. I re-wrote and added to what I was given, quite a lot.)
Sunday Jan 24, 2021
Sunday Jan 24, 2021
Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany, based on:
Sermon originally delivered January 22, 2012
Tuesday Jan 19, 2021
Tuesday Jan 19, 2021
In this study, we began with one more important concern Malachi raises about our dealing with others God has placed around us. In Malachi 2:11, we hear that quite a number of Jews who returned to the land of Israel were “marrying the daughter of a foreign god” - marrying women who were not Jews and worshipped false gods and might lead and actually were leading some Jews away from the one true God. The Old Testament warns about this in a number of places, including Deuteronomy 7:3-4. A New Testament example is 2 Corinthians 6:14. Note the contrast between the temple of God and idol worship.
A prominent example of how that could happen was the story of King Solomon, a wise man in many ways, but not at all about marriage and the very harmful influence his many wives had on his spiritual life and activity. See 1 Kings 11:1-8 and the reference to Solomon in Nehemiah 13:26-27. Remember that Malachi did his prophetic work at the time of Nehemiah or soon after and he dealt with many of the same issues as Nehemiah did.
An example of this is in Nehemiah 13:4-5, where a priest who was to care for the temple, God’s house, allowed a man, Tobiah, to move into one of the large areas of the temple that was supposed to be for storage of things donated and kept to support the priests and Levites and others who served at the temple. If you read Nehemiah 4:1-3 and 7-8, you find out that this Tobiah was not even a Jew, but an Ammonite who would believe in false gods.
Tobiah had been very critical of Jews rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and had even plotted, with others, to fight against the Jews. He and others did not want these Jews back in Israel. Maybe the Jewish priest was trying to keep peace and pacify Tobiah, by letting him have a place in the temple. But such non-Jews were never even to set foot in most of the temple and certainly were not to have a place there; and we have already heard how many Jews were “robbing God” by not bringing the gifts and offerings that they should have and that should have been stored where Tobiah was staying. We hear what Nehemiah does when he discovers this, in Nehemiah 13:6-9. What the priest allowed was a desecration of God’s house, and all had to be ceremonially cleansed and rededicated to its proper use. Cooperating with those following false gods could and did lead to very serious problems.
As we go back to Malachi 2, Malachi is most concerned about Jewish men marrying women who worshipped false gods; but as part of this, too many of these Jewish men had already been married to believing Jewish women. They were now also divorcing their wife in order to marry a non-Jew who could easily lead them into following false gods. This was the worst of situations.
Malachi gives, then, the very high standard God wishes for marriage, in Malachi 2:14-16. Read that and then think of this description by Dr. Roehrs, a Lutheran commentator:
This reproach contains one of the warmest and tenderest descriptions of marriage to be found in the whole OT. The sanctity of the selfless commitment of love under the witness and blessing of the Lord (covenant), the fervor of young wedded love (wife of your youth), the enduring companionable affection of later years (your companion), the godly offspring with which the Creator can bless the union - all are there.
Why give all this up, God is saying through Malachi, especially in exchange for a believer in false gods who can lead you to eternal spiritual disaster? Stay married to a believing person.
Malachi is giving the same high standard that Jesus describes in Matthew 19:3-9. Jesus is being asked His view about divorce. Was divorce OK for any and every reason, as some liberal Jews thought? Jesus takes us back to Genesis and God’s original plan: one man and one woman united in a lifelong commitment in marriage. Why then , some ask, did Moses allow for divorce in some circumstances? See Deuteronomy 24:1. Jesus simply says that it is because of human “hardness of heart” - the reality of our being sinful people in a sinful world, ever since the fall into sin. “It was not so from the beginning," Jesus says, and still upholds the very high view of God about marriage. That is the goal. However, even Jesus give one grounds for divorce, the reality of adultery.
We cannot get into all the issues of marriage and divorce in this study. There are certainly other grounds, too, like “desertion” and an interesting passage related to what Malachi talks about here, in 1 Corinthians 7:12-16. In this very rare case, Paul gives his opinion: “I, not the Lord,” he says - about a believer married to an unbeliever. We all know that marriages do not always work out as God intended. Sin infects us all, and even the “best” of marriages ( if we can even say that - we ultimately live together in love only by God’s grace and forgiveness) have plenty of struggles and challenges.
In all this, we need to keep in mind both the Law and the Gospel of God. The Law shows us, above all, our sins. See Romans 3:19-20. Malachi is very strong in speaking the Law in Malachi 2:14-16, and in calling us “not to be faithless to the wife of your youth." In most translations, from the King James Version on down to the NIV, God says in verse 16, “I hate divorce." I am no Hebrew scholar, but that seems to be what the Hebrew says. The ESV, though, understands verse 16 to refer to the husband who hates his wife and divorces her, in what can too often become a bloody, messy, violent situation. In either case, God hates all sin, not just divorce, and all the lack of love and understanding that comes out in any relationship, at times. The Scriptures also show very clearly that even great leaders like Abraham and Jacob and King David also had failures in their marriages and families. The Law speaks, and God condemns sin.
At the very same time, God still loves us sinful people of this world, with all our failures and problems, and wants to bring us hope and forgiveness. That is why He sent His only Son to be our Savior. Many churches had an Epistle reading, this past Sunday, from 1 Corinthians 6:12-19. It is a strong passage of Law about morality, including sexual morality, and calling us to use even our bodies in a way that honors God. But right before that in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Paul includes a long list of sins, all of which God hates, including various kinds of sexual immorality.
He is writing to people in Corinth, a Greek seaport city with the bad reputation those cities often have. The morality of the Greco-Roman world was very low, and there was not high respect for the sanctity of marriage. Paul has to say in verse 11, “And such were some of you.” The church in Corinth was a congregation of sinners, as all churches are.
But then comes the Gospel, as verse 11 goes on, “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” “You were bought with a price," Paul says - the price Jesus paid on the cross for the forgiveness of all our sins, no matter what they might have been. In Christ, the church is also a congregation of forgiven sinners. We do not have to torture ourselves about past problems and failures and sins. Christ has been tortured in our place for the forgiveness of them all. The forgiveness of sins is real, and we start fresh and new as God’s people.
There is one more section of Malachi that we still want to look at today. Read Malachi 3:16-18. We live in challenging times still today, as Malachi did, with sinful ideas and actions all around us and sometimes within us. What is a believer, who wants to try to follow the Lord, to do? Certainly we are all called to repentance for our own sins - to ask the Lord to forgive us and to help us follow our Lord more faithfully, wherever we are weak. If we have been sinned against by others and even badly hurt, at times, we are also called to ask the Lord’s help to forgive, as we have been forgiven by Him, and to have His healing from the troubles and hurts of the past.
For all of that, we also need each other. Malachi 3:16 says, “Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another.” What did the believers in the Lord talk about? Surely they encouraged and helped and prayed for one another, and listened to the messages that Malachi and others had given to them in the Word of God and what that meant for them. The talking is centered on the Word and will of God. See Deuteronomy 6:6-9, as an example.
It is really what we try to do even toda in Bible study, and in worship, when we speak God’s Word to each other in our liturgy and are strengthened together by Word and Sacraments. (How good it will be, when the Covid problems are past us, to meet directly and talk and ask questions more directly and discuss things together. I try to anticipate questions, as I teach through Zoom and podcasts, but it is often more of a lecture than a discussion. But we do the best we can, even with these limitations.)
The amazing thing is that in Malachi 3:16, we hear that “the Lord paid attention and heard them.” He know us and hears us and cares about us, too. He pays attention to us! And He gives us great promises, as we seek to “fear, love, and trust in Him,” as the Catechism says.
We hear that “a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed His Name.” The book of remembrance is parallel to what is called “the Lamb’s book of life” in Revelation 21:27 and by other very similar terms. It is a way of saying that our future is secure, now and eternally, through our connection with Christ, as our Lord has brought us to faith and keeps us in faith, through the Holy Spirit, working through Word and Sacrament. The study of Scriptures about this Book of Life could be another whole study, which we cannot get into today. If you want to read more on your own, here are many of these references: Exodus 32:32, Psalm 56:8, Psalm 69:28, Psalm 139:16, Isaiah 4:3, Daniel 12:1, Philippians 4:3, Revelation 3:5,13:8, 17:8, 20:13,15, 21:27.
God summarizes these promises in Malachi 3:17-18. “They shall be Mine... My treasured possession... I will spare them.” This will all be even more clear, as Jesus came to be our Savior and when He comes again on the last day, for the final division of all people for eternal life or eternal sorrow. The griping of people in Malachi 3:13-15 will finally be ended, and there will be perfect peace in heaven. We have all that to look forward to.
Next week, we will look at promises given to us through Malachi about the coming Savior Jesus, and John the Baptist, who would prepare His way.
Monday Jan 11, 2021
Monday Jan 11, 2021
We heard last week that faithlessness toward God and His will was at the root of the problems for many of the priests and people of Israel. Read again the words of Malachi 2:8-11. “You have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant... You do not keep My ways... (v.8-9) Judah has been faithless and abominations have been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem” (v.11).
Note also in that section that being faithless toward God often also leads to being unfaithful to our fellow human beings. “You show partiality in your instructions” -favoring some people over others and not being fair to all (v.9). “Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?” Are we not all important to God our Father? “Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?” (v.10)
Read Matthew 22:34-40, where Jesus Himself quotes from that Old Covenant, Old Testament, to say that God’s will can be summarized as love for God, first and foremost, but also love for our neighbor (Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18). The two go hand in hand. We show our love for God by how we act toward those people God has placed all around us. He is their “Father” too.
While you are here in Matthew’s Gospel, read also the surprising words of Jesus in Matthew 23:8-11. Obviously, other Scriptures make it clear that we need teachers and we are to honor our human father and mother (the 4th Commandment) and we need instructors. We can use those words in reference to others.
The point of Jesus, though, is that it is very easy for human leaders and teachers to get all wrapped up in themselves and what they are saying and doing. Their thinking and ideas can become most important, instead of listening to the one true Teacher, the one true Father, the one true Instructor - our Lord God and His Word. Leaders can get far off track and neglect God and His will and the people around them.
That is what Jesus is accusing the religious leaders of His own day, the scribes and Pharisees, of doing in all of Matthew 23, just as Malachi was accusing the people of his day. Real greatness (Matthew 23:11-12) consists in listening to God and trusting and loving Him and then being a servant to other people.
The danger of big titles is that we can claim too much for ourselves and believe those claims. That was the concern of Martin Luther and early Lutherans about the Office of the Pope and Papacy in their own day and still a concern today. The Pope is called The Holy Father of the Roman Catholic Church. If that meant only that he is counted holy through faith, through God’s grace (which we and all Christians are), that would be correct and OK. But in the Catholic view:
- he is The Holy Father, above others;
- he can sometimes speak in an “infallible” way (no mistakes or errors) in some moral and theological statements;
- he has unique power to forgive sins;
- he can still declare “indulgences” - forgiveness or “time off” from what we still need to do to pay completely for our sins, in purgatory after this life;
- there is so much else, too, that makes Lutheran reject the Catholic Office of the Papacy.
But what should we say about a term like “pastor?" A pastor means literally a “shepherd“ who is to care for his sheep, the people of his congregation. With that term, too, there are warnings in Scripture. Read what Peter says in 1 Peter 5:1-5 and note that the term “elder” is the equivalent of a pastor in this context. (Peter is considered the first pope in the Roman Catholic Church, in an unbroken line of popes ever since - an idea that is hard to prove, historically. Peter does not, though, put himself above other elders, other shepherds, but just calls himself a “fellow elder” even though he was an apostle and direct witness of what Jesus did for us, as the Savior of the world.)
Peter says that shepherds, pastors, are not to be “domineering” over the flock, but to be examples in serving their people. Pastors are also to remember that they have a “Chief Shepherd” to Whom they are accountable, the Lord God. Note also the importance of everyone, including pastors, being clothed with humility toward one another (v.5).
All of this is to say that leaders especially, and we all, are accountable to God above all, and unfaithfulness to Him can lead to unfaithfulness to and sin toward one another, as we heard in Malachi 2:10. God goes on in Malachi 3:6 to point out evils that He is a witness against, where God’s people were being unfaithful to Him and to one another.
First, God says that He is against “sorcerers.” Sorcerers were common in ancient times, using charms, spells, and other “supernatural” powers that could supposedly give them control over others and get what they themselves wanted from others.
Christians certainly believe that we can pray to God and ask for His help and guidance and His direction, through His Word. Sorcerers, however, seek help from false gods or evil supernatural forces like Satan and his evil angels. See a whole list of things in Deuteronomy 18:9-14 that were commonly used in ancient times, but which God’s people were not to be involved with at all.
Ask yourself, how many of these things do people still try to use today, against the will of God? Read Isaiah 47:8-15, where people are forgetting God and trusting themselves and their “sorceries” and “enchantments” and “charms” and “stargazing” (astrology) and saying, “I am, and there is no one besides me” who is important. All this is consulting false powers and false gods and directing people away from the one true God.
Maybe you heard this past week of a U.S. Rep. who opened a session of Congress with a prayer to Brahma, the creator god of Hinduism, one of their thousands of gods. We live in a free country, with freedom of religion, and people have the right to pray as they choose, whether we like their choice or not. However, this Rep. is a United Methodist minister, supposedly a Christian, calling upon a false god. What is he teaching - that any source of power and any god will do? This is a clear violation of the 1st and 2nd Commandments. This is the very sort of thing that God says He will witness against. (Read also Isaiah 43:10-13 and 44:6-20.)
God also witnesses, in Malachi 3:5, against “the adulterers.” This can refer to people being unfaithful to the one true God and going after false gods. This can also refer to breaking one’s marriage vows, a violation of the 6th Commandment. (We will hear more about this in next week’s portion of our Malachi study.)
God also witnesses against those who “swear falsely.” This would be a violation of the 8th Commandment, where people are a false witness against others and harm them by not telling the truth about them, in court or otherwise.
God also witnesses against “those who oppress hired workers in their wages.” This would be a violation of the 7th Commandment, where one steals from others by not paying them what they deserve or not paying them in a timely way. In ancient times, people were often day workers and were to be paid at the end of each day. If that pay was delayed, that could create real problems for the workers and even their survival. (See Leviticus 19:13, for example.)
God also witnesses against those who mistreat “the widow and the fatherless.” These are some of the most vulnerable people in the Old Testament, and it would be easy to take advantage of them or simply to neglect helping with genuine needs that they might have. (See Exodus 22:22-23 and Isaiah 1:16-17, 23 and James 1:27.)
Finally, God witnesses against “those who thrust aside a sojourner.” A sojourner is someone who is a foreigner and not an Israelite. (See such Scriptures as Exodus 22:21 and Psalm 146:7.) Note that in the Psalm and in other Scriptures like Deuteronomy 24:14-15, 17-18 and 27:19, the sojourner is connected with the widow and the fatherless, mentioned earlier as a special concern of God’s. Does this say anything about how we are to treat people from other countries who are in our own country?
God adds these words to His people at the end of Malachi 3:5: when you mistreat others “you do not fear Me,” says the Lord of hosts. Awe and reverence and respect for God and His Word call His people to try to treat other people with love and care, as God wishes. If you were raised as a Lutheran, you probably remember that in the Small Catechism, Martin Luther also shows so many ways that we violate all these Commandments, in one way or another. Remember that we sin, not only by deeds, but also by wrong thoughts and evil words.
Our Lord adds, in Malachi 3:6, that He does not want to “consume” His people, destroy them, because of their sins. He is still calling them to repent and return to Him in faith and to seek again to do His will. The Lord does not change. There is always hope in Him and His mercy and forgiveness - and for us, too, in Christ.
Next week, we hear one more strong section of Law, as God warns us through Malachi about the issue of divorce and then the danger of marrying people who worship false gods. Then we begin to hear more about what God plans to do about all these problems of His people. Again, there is hope, even in gloomy times.
Sunday Jan 10, 2021
Sunday Jan 10, 2021
Sermon for the Baptism of our Lord, based on:
Sermon originally delivered January 8, 2012
Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
Tuesday Jan 05, 2021
As always, we began with prayer, asking God to guide us and our study. We turned then to Malachi 2:8-9, where we reviewed the strong indictment of God’s people and their sins. These words are particularly aimed at the priests and the tribe of Levi. They were to be leaders of God’s people, and yet they went far astray. Two times God says that they had turned aside from and not kept His ways They had corrupted God’s covenant with them, and in the process, caused many of the people to stumble by their bad instructions.
Hearing this is a reminder to us today to pray for our pastors and teachers and other spiritual leaders, that they remain faithful to God’s Word and teach faithfully. It is so important and is such a big responsibility. I ask your prayers for me, too. Though I am retired and have much less direct responsibility, I need your prayers, that when I teach, I do it clearly and faithfully, according to God’s Word, too. If something does not sound quite right, be sure to ask. Pastors are not perfect obviously, and questions help us clarify things, for greater understanding.
Older ones among us may also remember the problems we had in our own Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in the 1960’s and 70’s, when some leaders and teachers were getting off track in their teaching and treatment of the Scriptures. How important strong pastors and faithful lay leaders of the Lutheran Laymen’s League of that time and others were in getting our church body back on track. I am grateful for Pastor Lang, from St. James, and his lay leaders and others, for their part in this process at that time. It was crucial for our Synod and for a young person like me, in college and seminary then.
Malachi reminds, in Malachi 2:10-11, that the root problem in his day was lack of faithfulness to God and His Word and will. People were “faithless” and “committing abominations” and “profaning God’s covenant” and “profaning the sanctuary of the Lord, which He loves” - and which was the place where He brought His gifts of forgiveness and blessing to His people. Unfortunately, as we have heard in past weeks, people were corrupting the sacrificial system with the wrong kinds of offerings - and sometimes just not offering much of anything to the Lord, in gratefulness for His love. To see that, read Malachi 3:8-10, where we hear: “Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing Me,” says the Lord.
Part of the Old Testament system for God’s people was “tithing” - giving 10 percent of one’s income or crops or whatever one earned to the Lord at the temple. This was to provide “food in the Lord’s house." God did not need the food and other resources; but the priests and others of the tribe of Levi did. This was a way of supporting all the Levites, so that they could then do their work at the temple, on behalf of others. Sadly, the “tithes and offerings” were not coming in as they should have. Apparently some Levites had to go find other work and support themselves and could not carry out their temple duties as they should. The system was not working because of human failure.
God says, “Don’t rob Me. Bring in the full tithes.” Then God says something very surprising, “Thereby put Me to the test” and you will see that I will pour down blessings and care for you and your crops and you will have what you need and “you will be a land of delight” (Malachi 3:10-12).
This was a very rare idea. See Matthew 4:5-7, where the devil was tempting Jesus and trying to get Him to do something dangerous and crazy, just to test God and see if He would help. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:16, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”
Malachi tells us that many of the people were actually skeptical of God and His promises. He did not seem to respond to them, even when they did make some offerings to Him. Read Malachi 2:13. They were upset and weeping and groaning because God seemed not to pay any attention to their gifts. God was not blessing what they did do. Why bother to do anything at all?
This sounds very much like the story of Cain in Genesis 4:1-8. His brother, Abel, gave an offering of the firstborn and best of his flock. Cain simply gave of the fruit of the ground. God had no regard for Cain’s offering, most likely because of his seemingly bad attitude and poor offering and just going through the motions without genuine gratitude and because “sin was crouching at his door” and he was not battling it. Cain becomes so angry that he kills his brother. (This is something that we will hear more about next week in our study. If our attitude toward God is bad, that will negatively affect our attitude toward others, too.)
Malachi speaks of that faithless attitude toward God also in Malachi 3:13-15. God has just promised blessings in Malachi 3:10-12, as we have heard. But the people are thinking and saying harsh things against God. “Evildoers test God by their evil and they prosper. Nothing happens to them. It is vain - useless and worthless - to serve God and walk humbly before Him. It is the arrogant who are blessed.
Such attitudes were there with Cain. They were there even with the prophet Jeremiah, in weak moments. See Jeremiah 12:1. As we read all this, we need to be asking ourselves: Are some of these our problems still today? Are we sometimes skeptical of God and His ways? How is our giving? Do we ever rob God, with our attitude about our own time and talents and treasure?
Under the New Covenant in Christ, we are not bound by Old Testament standards, on some of this. There are no more animal sacrifices needed. Jesus has done all we need, by His sacrifice for us. Tithing is mentioned only a few times in the whole New Testament. Only once does Jesus tell some people to tithe, the Jewish scribes and Pharisees who were still under Old Testament law, but He actually scolds them for neglecting “weightier matters of the Law,” under the coming New Covenant, the New Testament, things like “justice and mercy and faithfulness,” which Jesus Himself was bringing into the world and living out for us. (See Matthew 23:23-24 and its parallel, Luke 11:42.) A Pharisee also brags about his tithing in the parable Jesus tells of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14). The Pharisee tithes, but the one who goes home justified, declared right with God, is the tax collector, who simply confesses his sin and pleads for God’s mercy. The only other mention of tithing in the whole New Testament is in Hebrews 7:4-9, where we hear the Old Testament story of Abraham giving a tithe to Melchizedek and how Jewish Levites were still requiring tithes in the temple at Jerusalem - a system which was soon to disappear, along with the temple (Hebrews 8 and following).
Some would say that if the Old Testament standard was tithing, then that should be the goal for New Testament Christians. That is never commanded under the New Covenant. Rather, we read, “Each one should give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” See 2 Corinthians 9:6-9 and 1 Corinthians 16:1-2 and giving in gratitude for all that Jesus gave up for us to be our Savior (2 Corinthians 8:8-9).
In all this, the key is faithfulness, trusting that God will help and bless us and keep us in faith, as He knows best. Read Psalm 73 in closing this study. The Psalmist Asaph also has weak moments and almost stumbles and falls, with questions he has about God and His ways and how the evil seem to do well, with few consequences. The Lord awakens him to renewed faith, for this life and for eternal life to come. Asaph says, “You hold my right hand. You guide me with Your counsel, and afterward You receive me to glory.... My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:23,24,26).
Sunday Jan 03, 2021
Sunday Jan 03, 2021
Sermon for New Year's Eve, based on:
Sermon originally delivered December 31, 2011
Tuesday Dec 29, 2020
Tuesday Dec 29, 2020
We began our study with prayer, asking for the Lord’s guidance. I then talked about the value of asking questions if there are things we do not understand or need clarified. That is the way we learn. Someone asked this week, "What does it mean, that the Lord’s name 'will be feared among the nations'?" (Malachi 1:14). Does that mean that we should be afraid of God - to have fear or terror when we think of Him or hear His name?
That is not the primary meaning. Fear of God means, above all, a deep awe and respect for God because of Who He is and what He has done for us, as King of Kings and Lord of hosts, (v.14) the Creator and Lord of everything, including all the universe and the myriad of stars we see at night and all the angels who serve Him. We honor and respect and love Him because He first loved us.
It is true, though, that fear of God can also sometimes mean that people should be afraid of God, when they are rejecting Him and His will, and refuse to listen to Him, and keep on doing so without sorrow for their sins and without repentance for them or asking for forgiveness. People can go so far away from God that they lose faith in Him and think they can do anything they want with no consequences. See Malachi 2:17, where some people are saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them.” They are saying, in effect, God doesn’t seem to care about what we do. There is no “God of justice.” Why not just do what we want? Nothing bad will happen to us.
Go back to Malachi 2:1-2. God speaks very strongly to that attitude, found among too many of His own people, including the priests themselves, whom He addresses. He commands them with a strong warning that there can be consequences, the judgment of God upon sin, if there is no faith and repentance. He calls them back to the highest meaning of fearing God’s name - “to take it to heart to honor My name, says the Lord of hosts.”
God then reminds them of His original intent in having priests from the tribe of Levi. Read Malachi 2:4-7. It was a “covenant of fear” in the best sense, of “standing in awe of God and His name.” The priests would then bring God’s “life and peace” - His “peace and uprightness” to people. They would “guard knowledge” and give “true instruction” as “messengers of the Lord of hosts” and “turn many from iniquity," from sin to the Lord.
There is the meaning of repentance - to wish to turn away from evil and turn to the Lord, in awe and respect for His love and care for His people. God would bring that repentance and forgiveness to people through the instruction of the priests and the priestly activities and sacrifices of the Old Testament, preparing the way for Christ.
This was not happening, though. Read Malachi 2:8-9. Too many priests had “turned aside from the way” of the Lord and “corrupted” His covenant. They were, in fact, “causing many to stumble” away from God “by their instruction.” That is why God gives such a strong warning to the priests in Malachi 2:1-3. God uses very strong, dramatic language in these verses. If His priests “will not listen” and will not “take to heart” what God is saying, they will receive “the curse” instead of “a blessing” from God. They might even say the words, “The Lord bless you," and yet actually be leading the people astray, away from God by bad teaching and approval of wrongdoing and mocking the true sacrificial system.
God expresses the terrible seriousness of this wrongdoing by the priests by saying that He would “spread dung” (animal excrement) on their faces - “the dung of their offerings." Anytime animals are around, there will be dung. This was true, even around and in the tabernacle and then in the temple in Jerusalem. There were specific Old Testament instructions for dealing with the dung and other refuse from the animal sacrifices. Read Leviticus 4:12, 16:27, and Exodus 29:14, as examples. The dung and other things were to be taken and “burned outside the camp." They were even called “a sin offering” because the dung represented the sinfulness and uncleanness of the people, which needed to be forgiven by God.
All this is very strong Law of God. God does hate sin and calls everyone to repentance, to recognition of and confession of our sins and our need for God’s forgiveness. In the Old Testament, soiled, dirty clothing was often used as a symbol for the uncleanness of our hearts. See Zechariah 3:1-5, where another priest of God, Joshua, had “filthy garments” and Satan was accusing him of His sins; but God takes away those “filthy garments” and clothes him with pure clothes and forgives his iniquity, his sin. See God’s description of even our “righteous deeds” as a “polluted garment," a filthy rag, in Isaiah 64:6. (The Hebrew for this verse refers to human bodily fluid, which can pollute and needs to be discarded.) In contrast, though, God really wants to clothe us with the “garments of salvation," the “robe of righteousness," provided for us in Jesus and His sacrifice for us (Isaiah 61:10-11). See also the contrast between those with “soiled garments” and those “clothed with white garments" in Revelation 3:1-6 and Revelation 7:9-13.
This is what God wants for all people, forgiveness and cleansing. But if people keep on rejecting God and His will, and wallow in their sins, apart from God, as some of the priests were doing, God gives the final terrible warning in Malachi 2:3: “You shall be taken away with the dung” and discarded, outside of God’s presence, forever. This is literally one of the Biblical picture images for hell. There was a trash dump outside of Jerusalem, called Gehenna, where dung and other refuse were dumped, which was always smoldering and burning. It became a symbol for “hell," the eternal consequence of sin, without God’s forgiveness.
Remember, though, as harshly as God speaks through Malachi, there is still time for the priests and everyone else to be brought to repentance and to return to the Lord in faith (Malachi 3:6-7). That is what God really wants and why He sent Malachi to speak God’s Word of truth to the people.
The New Testament has the same kinds of warnings. God does not want us purposely “to continue in sin," but to battle sin (Romans 6:1-2). We are not “to make a practice of sinning” for “sin is lawlessness” and it hurts us and others (1 John 3:4). Paul’s Letter to the Romans is full of the Gospel, the Good News of what Jesus has done for us as our Savior. In Him alone is our hope.
Paul begins, though, with very strong Law. Read Romans 1:18-32, which warns of the wrath, the anger of God, about sin and its consequences. All kinds of sin are mentioned, and the warning is given, “Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done... Though they know God’s decree that those who practice these things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” Jesus Himself talks more about hell than anyone else. See Matthew 5:21-22 and Matthew 10:28, as examples.
The goal of all this, of course, is not simply to condemn, but to help us all know our own need for the Savior Jesus, and to bring us to the eternal hope we have in Him, as we live in repentance and trust in Him. See what the Law shows us, very simply, in summary, in Romans 3:19-20, “knowledge of sin" and what the Gospel brings to us, in contrast - forgiveness and rescue by Jesus, in Romans 3:21-28. In Christ is our ultimate hope, as forgiven sinners, trusting in Him. He is the One who gives us such faith, by His grace.
Tuesday Dec 29, 2020
Tuesday Dec 29, 2020
Sermon for Christmas Day, based on:
Sermon originally delivered December 25, 2011