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Episodes
Weekly sermons and Bible studies led by a retired pastor of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
Episodes
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
Monday Dec 21, 2020
Monday Dec 21, 2020
Last week we heard God’s primary message to His people through Malachi: “I have loved you,” says the Lord (Malachi 1:2). God hates sin, but he still loves sinners. God uses the example of His own people of Israel, the line of Jacob, through whom He has been working out His plan for salvation, for them and for the whole world. This was happening in spite of their sin and rebellion against Him. Read Malachi 3:6-7. The Lord does not change, and He will not “consume” His people completely. The Jewish nation would continue, so that the plan of salvation could be completed for all nations. The Savior will come from the Jews, but He will be the Savior of all peoples. Note the strong emphasis on this in Malachi 1:5,11,14. God’s Name will be great among the nations, reaching everywhere, from the rising of the sun to its setting.
That is also the message of the Messiah, Jesus, for us in the New Testament. God hates sin, but He still loves sinful people. Our situation would be hopeless without Him and His saving work for us, while we were still sinners. Read Romans 5:6-11. Note how we are called “still weak," “ungodly," “still sinners," “enemies” who needed to be “reconciled” to God, and Jesus still dies for us in that condition, so that we might be saved through Him.
God loves sinners. Yet He also knows that He needs to keep calling His people to repentance, even 400 years before Jesus came. Recognize your own sins, and “Return to Me,” says the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of all, including all the many angels and the stars of the heavens and all things (Malachi 3:7). God speaks in Old Testament terms, with Old Testament standards. This is hard for us to understand, since we are not as familiar with the Old Testament and are actually free from some of these standards because of Jesus and the New Covenant. Still, as we listen we need to think of parallels - ways we are also called to repentance for our sins. A call to repentance is a key part of the New Testament, too.
For the Jews, the sacrificial system given to them by God was important for keeping them in relationship with God and His forgiveness, and prepared the way for Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice for sins on the cross. People were to offer “firstfruits” in response to God - the first and the best, for the Lord - not the last, the leftovers, and the worst. See the story in Exodus 12: 5,7,8,13-15 of a lamb “without blemish” to be sacrificed by the Jewish families. The blood of the lamb marked them to be rescued from the death that came to Egyptian families, so that they would be released by the Egyptians from slavery. They were to eat some of the lamb themselves, and repeat this sacrifice every year, as a memorial to God’s great rescue event for them.
This became a pattern for a whole system of Old Testament sacrifices. Notice how the animals sacrificed were to be without blemish, as described in Leviticus 22:19-23 and Deuteronomy 15:21, for example. This was in preparation for the perfect sacrifice of the perfect Jesus, who was the perfect Lamb of God, “without blemish or spot,” though He carried our sins to pay for them as He died for us on the cross. See 1 Peter 1:18-19.
The Old Testament sacrificial system also provided support for the Jewish tribe of Levi. those who would be priests and other workers carrying out these sacrifices and other work and rituals on behalf of God’s people. They could eat some of what was donated and sacrificed, as God directed. Read Exodus 23:16,19, where giving the first and the best of one’s crops and other bounty was emphasized. This food, etc., was stored at the temple in Jerusalem for the use of the Levites.
This system had broken down in the days of Malachi. Read Malachi 1:6-14. People were blamed for bringing to the Lord unworthy animals and produce as sacrifices, and the priests were especially blamed for allowing and accepting and sacrificing what was unacceptable. They set bad examples and taught and permitted the opposite of what God had told His people in Old Testament Scriptures. They made all sorts of excuses and did not even give the common respect to God which should have been given by a son to a father, or a servant to a master, or honor to a governor. By such unworthy gifts, they were despising the Lord’s Name and the Lord Himself. They were desecrating the Lord’s table, the altar of God’s presence. There was general lack of respect and care for the worship of God - weariness and snorting at the things of God. See an earlier example of this with the sons of Eli in 1 Samuel 2:12-17 and 27-29,34, and what happened to them.
As we hear all this, can we think of ways the same sorts of things, in New Testament terms, might be happening among us today? Do people turn up their nose at God and worship of Him? They say that they can worship God out hiking on a beautiful day or on the golf course or exercising or all the other things that become a substitute for worship time; but do they ever really think much about God’s Word and Sacraments, this way?
How often do we offer God and others less than our best or not much of anything at all? Do we become weary of our Christian life and practice? Do we just go through the motions? Do we get upset at the tight policy we have about who can receive Communion at the Lord’s table, though we are simply trying to follow Scripture? Think of your own examples, and you will realize that we, too, are all sinners who need repentance and God’s forgiveness. How good it is that God still loves sinners, including us, even in our struggles and the pull to do just as so many others do - what we want and not always what God wants. We need to keep hearing what God says, through Malachi, for our own spiritual good.
Tuesday Dec 15, 2020
Tuesday Dec 15, 2020
We began with prayer and then looked at the first of a series of statements, questions, and answers that the prophet Malachi used in presenting God’s Word to the people of Jerusalem, as inspired by the Lord. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?”(Malachi 1:2). God often speaks of His love for His people; but the skeptical, maybe even sarcastic question of many of the Israelites may seem surprising to us. (Or maybe not. Remember that we are called to think about what our own response might be today to God. Do we also sometimes wonder if He really cares about us and loves us, especially if we have been going through rough times, as many of the Jews had been, after their return from captivity in Babylon?)
Remember also that what is said is in Old Testament terms. The Savior, Jesus, had not yet come. We might have expected something like the words of Hosea 11:1-5,8-9. Read how God pictures Himself as a loving parent, caring for His child, rescuing him from Egypt and helping him, though that child was often rebellious.
That, in fact, is the story of God’s people of Israel in the Old Testament. An old poem says, “How odd of God to choose the Jews.” Read Deuteronomy 7:6-8 and 9:4-7 and 10:14-22 to see that God did not choose the Jews because they were more numerous and powerful than others, or because they were better or more righteous than others and deserved to be this special people, but simply because of His mercy and love for them.
This choice was also not just for their benefit, but that through their nation would come the Savior for the whole world - an Offspring through Whom all the families of the earth would be blessed. See the promise to Abraham, when he was called to be the father of the Jewish nation in Genesis 12:1-3. The promise is repeated in Genesis 22:17-18, with the prediction that the Lord will provide His own Offspring, His only Son, as a sacrifice for the benefit of all nations. The promise is repeated again to Jacob in Genesis 28:14 and other places. God’s plan of salvation would be through a Jewish Savior for all people, and God therefore, in love for the Jews and for the world, would keep that nation going, so that the Savior could come.
In Malachi 1:2-5, God then focuses upon just one part of that salvation history, the story of Jacob and Esau, but does so in a surprising and almost disturbing way. “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert” never to be fully restored. We think of God as a God of love, as he is. What does God mean, then, when He says that He hated Esau? Scholars call this a Hebrew way of talking, with no gray areas, only contrasting black and white, to make a point.
When you read through the story of Jacob and Esau, you find that this simply means, to begin with, that God in His wisdom did not choose to bring the line of the promised Savior through the oldest son, Esau, as might be expected, but through the younger son, Jacob. This was predicted while the two boys, twins, were still in the womb. Read Genesis 25:21-26. Neither boy was perfect. Esau despised and was willing to sell his birthright privilege as the oldest son to his brother, just for some food (Genesis 25:29-34). Jacob was willing to trick his father and get the primary blessing from him by deception, pretending to be Esau (Genesis 27). Neither son “deserved” the primary blessing, but it was given, by undeserved love and favor, to Jacob. Esau was not really “hated” but Jacob, not Esau, and his descendants received the special privilege and blessing of being the chosen people from whom the Savior would come.
This does not mean that Esau was cut off from God’s help and blessing. Esau hated Jacob for a while, but they were later reconciled, and Esau offered to help Jacob. Later on, God told the Jews to give special privileges and respect to Esau’s descendants, the Edomites, in Deuteronomy 2:1-6. Sadly, the Edomites rejected the true God and became very wicked and extreme enemies of God’s people, and later on warnings were given by a number of Old Testament prophets that the Edomites faced destruction if they kept on resisting God without repentance. See Psalm 137:7, Amos 1:11-12, and Jeremiah 49:6-11, as examples.
Judgment finally did fall on the Edomites. Other history tells us that between 550 and 400 BC, Arab peoples forced the Edomites from their lands, never to return again as a nation. This is probably what is described in Malachi 1:3-5. It happened, though, not because God literally hated Esau and his descendants, but because of their continual sin and rejection of God and his mercy.
There are other examples of this love/hate language in the Scriptures, as a sharp contrast. In Genesis 29, Jacob is deceived into marrying the wrong woman. He chooses to marry a second wife, too. (The Bible describes this, but does not show approval, and there is always trouble when we see examples of polygamy and other immorality.) Jacob loves his second wife, Rachel, more than his first wife (Genesis 29:30). In the very next verse, we hear that “the Lord saw that Leah was hated.” We don’t know if Leah was really “hated” in our sense of the word. All we know is that Rachel was loved more. This passage goes on to tell us that Jacob had several more children through Leah, including Judah. It was through this son of Jacob that the line of the promise of the Savior ran. In spite of messy, sinful human beings, God continued His loving plan of salvation, with His people and sometimes in spite of them.
Here is one more example of this unusual use of the word “hate”, from Jesus Himself. Read Luke 14:25-26. Read this in light of Matthew 10:34-37. Does Jesus really want us to hate our family members and even our own lives? Clearly not, based upon many other Scriptures that teach us to love one another, including and especially our family. See Ephesians 5:25,28,33; 6:1-2; 1 John 3:1-2; and on and on, including Jesus’ example with His mother in John 19:25-27. What Jesus means is that we are to love Him more than we love family (Matthew 10:37). If it is a question of doing what our family wants or what God wants, “We ought to obey God, rather than man” (Acts 5:27-29 and Acts 4:17-20).
(I dwell on this because in my ministry I have seen some extreme cultic groups that have tried to control people, by cutting them off from their family and allowing them only to listen to fellow members of their cult. They quote Luke 14:26, distorting the context of the whole of the Scriptures, in trying to isolate people and make people hate their families and stick with false, cultic ideas. Rather, we should let Scripture help us interpret Scripture.)
Finally, Paul quotes Malachi 1:2,3 in Romans 9:13, in the New Testament. This passage could use lots of study. You will see, though, that Paul uses this and the story of Jacob and Esau to show that people are not saved by their race or bloodline, but by being “children of the promise” through faith in Jesus by the mercy and love of God. “Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,” Paul says (Romans 9:6-13).
He agonizes, as a Jew, over the fact that many of his fellow Jews are part of God’s Old Testament chosen people and yet are rejecting the Savior, Jesus, Who came to save them and the whole world (Romans 9:1-5, 31-10:4). Paul emphasizes that people will be saved not by their race, even as Jews, or by their own efforts, but by being brought to faith by the grace of God and to see and know the love of God through God’s plan and will, ultimately carried out through Jesus (9:30-10:4). It is “not because of works, but because of Him who calls... So then, it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, Who has mercy” (9:11,16).
We still may have questions about all this. Paul raises several and responds to them all. Has the Word of God failed? (9:6) No, it still saves, though people can resist its clear message. “Is there injustice on God’s part? Why does He find fault?” (9:14,19) Ultimately, Paul says, Who are we to challenge the Almighty God and His plan for mercy and love, centered in Jesus? Can the clay challenge the Potter or the molded its Molder? (9:20-21)
We are grateful to live in New Testament times, where we can look to Jesus our Savior and the certainty we have in Him and what He has done for us. We listen to Gospel promises like John 3:16, Romans 5:6-8, Romans 8:32-35, 1 John 4:11,16, and so many more. We simply trust God and His life-giving Word in the whole Bible, but especially in Jesus.
Martin Franzmann has written, in his commentary on Romans 9, page 172: “The Word of God, then, creates the people of God and defines the people of God. The Lord spoke, and His will was done... What Paul is saying is this: If you would know where Israel is, look where the promise is, not at Abraham and Hagar and Ishmael, (and all the) tawdry stories of the flesh of man at work. The will of God in sovereign freedom overrules the fleshly will of man; God creates His Israel as He wills.”
Monday Dec 07, 2020
Monday Dec 07, 2020
We began this study with prayer, as always, and with a short history of the period of time in which Malachi was a prophet and other Scriptures you can read to get more background. If you were with us in the Daniel study, you know that the leaders of the Medo-Persian Empire took over Babylon and the Babylonian Empire in 539 BC. These new, largely Persian leaders quickly decided to do the opposite of the Babylonian approach to conquered peoples. The Persians allowed people, including Jews who had been carried away into captivity for 70 years, to begin to return home to their own countries and rebuild and even worship their own gods.
Some Jews started to return in 537 or 536 BC and were able to get resettled in Israel and soon built an altar and began again some of the Old Testament animal sacrifices and festivals. Opposition came, though, from the people of Samaria and other ethnic groups, who were not happy with these returning Jews and put many barriers in their way. Most rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple there, very important for Jewish worship, stopped until 520 BC. The Lord then raised up the prophet Haggai to call the Jews to get busy with rebuilding the temple, and raised up the prophet Zechariah to encourage the people to keep rebuilding and get the temple rededicated to the one true God. He also spoke of many warnings and promises for the future. (Haggai and Zechariah are the books of Scripture just before Malachi.)
The temple was finally finished in 515 BC, with a building similar to but much simpler than the great temple of Solomon. Temple rituals began again and Passover was celebrated again, remembering God’s rescue of His people from slavery in Egypt, long before.
We know little more about what happened in Israel until around 464 BC. We have one Biblical book, the story of Esther, a Jewish woman who becomes the wife of a Persian king and helped protect Jewish people in Persia from their enemies. This story happened some time in the 480’s-460’s BC, and is very unusual, in that God is never directly mentioned in the book. It is clear, though, that God continued to care about and protect the Jews and kept them going as a people. You can find the book of Esther earlier in the Old Testament.
Around 466-464 BC, Ezra, a Jewish scribe and expert in the Law of God, was allowed to go to Israel, with the support of Persians, along with some other leaders and religious teachers. He found things to be a mess, with the people far from God’s will and in need of much spiritual help and teaching from God’s Word. Ezra worked especially on spiritual reform, but it was not until 444 BC that Nehemiah, a Jewish man who served the Persian king, was allowed to go to Israel, as governor of that Persian province.
Nehemiah was an aggressive leader in civic and political affairs. Jews had been back in Israel for nearly 100 years, and still the walls of Jerusalem had not been rebuilt, and the people were “in great trouble and shame” (Nehemiah 1:3). Nehemiah pulled the people together, and in 52 days, in spite of opposition from neighboring peoples, the walls were rebuilt and the gates of the city repaired. Clearly this work “had been accomplished with the help of our God,” Nehemiah said (Nehemiah 6:15-16).
Nehemiah remained in Jerusalem as an effective leader until 432 BC, when he returned to Persia. He did return later, but things had gone downhill again for the Jewish people, and they had fallen back into bad religious and moral practices. (You can read more about all this in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, just before the book of Esther, and located a few books before the Psalms, in the Old Testament.)
It was around this time, 430 BC or a little before or after, that the prophet Malachi did his work, as directed by God, and preached and wrote to his people. His writing raises many of the same concerns that Ezra and especially Nehemiah had. It has very strong Law, but also hope in God’s love for His people and for the future.
We know nothing about Malachi, other than what is in this short book. The name “Malachi” means “my messenger." Malachi is clearly a messenger from God, and most think that Malachi was his name, reflecting his calling from God. Malachi is an important book, as it is the last book of prophecy in the Old Testament. There had been a prophecy in Amos 8:11-12 that said, “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land - not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the Word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.” The people still had what was revealed in the Old Testament, but nothing new; and they often forgot or neglected what God had already given them.
400 years passed, then, without another true prophet of God, from the time of Malachi until the time of Christ and those preparing His way. Malachi is therefore an important link between the Old and New Testaments. There were other writings in this in-between time, including some known as the Apocryphal Books, which some listened to and read; but the Jews knew that these were not truly God’s Word, and they were not ever included in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Turn to Malachi 1:1, which begins, “The oracle of the Word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.” The word “oracle” can mean a message, but it literally means “a burden." Malachi has the heavy burden, the heavy responsibility, of proclaiming the Law of God - to call people to see their sins and wrongdoing against God and the great need for repentance; but he also had the great burden of clearly proclaiming the Good News of God’s love to this troubled and weary people, not eager to listen.
Malachi is only 4 chapters, with 55 total verses, but in it are a series of statements and 22 questions, which often show the skeptical and even sarcastic attitudes of many of God’s people. You can see how this works by just looking at the first part of Malachi 1:2: “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?” It is a skeptical, challenging question from the people. Another example is in verses 6-7, when God tells the priests, “You despise My Name.” They respond, “How have we despised your name? How have we polluted you?”
As we go through Malachi, we will hear things that are hard to understand. We will also hear things that seem irrelevant to us, since they talk about Old Testament Law, some of which is no longer binding upon us as we live under then new covenant, the New Testament. But as we hear the statements and questions, we need to think about whether we too respond to God as the these Old Testament people did and need repentance and a new focus on God’s real love for us, as well.
I will quote again from Walter R. Roehrs, who wrote an earlier Concordia Old Testament commentary: “A church in which people’s worship, their marriages, and their morals are all in perfect order, a church which can boast of a live sense of the presence of God in all aspects of human life, a church which feels no need of a returning Elijah to lead its members to repentance and reconciliation - such a church may dispense with Malachi. The rest of us will find his oracle with its strong Gospel and its unsparing exposure of our sins, a disquieting and a salutary word, a gift from Him to Whom all the prophets testify.”
Monday Nov 30, 2020
Monday Nov 30, 2020
I recently read Acts Chapter 9, including verse 31, “Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord” (NIV). Shouldn’t the church always be a place of peace? What is this about the church enjoying only “a time of peace”?
It is true that in Christ our Savior we enjoy “the peace of God which surpasses all understanding” and which “guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). We also have “peace with God” through the forgiveness of our sins and all that Jesus did for us; and we have confidence about our future (Romans 5:1-2). That never changes, as we remain in faith in Christ. God is faithful, and He keeps His promises to us. He will be with us to help us (2 Timothy 2:11-13).
At the same time, we live in a world that is often hostile to Christian ideas and principles and therefore to Christians, too. Acts 9 begins with a man, Saul, who was very anti-Christian and wanted to capture Christians and throw them in prison. It was not a peaceful time for the church (Acts 9:1-2). Jesus solved that problem by appearing to Saul and bringing him to faith in Him (Acts 9:3-19). Saul, whom we later know as the apostle Paul, soon became a positive witness for Jesus and was in trouble himself for teaching that Jesus was “the Son of God” and the “Christ,” the promised Savior (Acts 9:20-28). Some now wanted to kill Saul for being a Christian, and he had to be helped to escape and go for a while to his hometown of Tarsus (Acts 9:24-25, 29-30). It was certainly not a peaceful time for Saul, but once he was gone it was quieter for the church for a while. The devil is always at work to disturb the church and Christian people, though.
We also participate in churches that are made up of imperfect people, declared “saints” by faith in Jesus, yet still sinners, forgiven by Him. There will be times of conflict and misunderstanding among people, even in the church. Note that just before Paul’s words of peace for the church at Philippi, Paul has to encourage two women in the church to work on their dispute and “agree in the Lord” - and he asks that others in the church “help these women” (Philippians 4:2-3).
See also in 1 Corinthians 1:10-11 that Paul has to appeal to some of the “brothers” in the church at Corinth to “agree” with one another and stop their “quarrels” and “divisions." If you read on in Acts 9:32-43, you will find that the church, continuing in peace, still had sick and bedridden people, widows who needed help and support, and people dying. The Lord was there, and helped with these people according to His will; but the church finally lived by peace and hope in the perfect peace which will fully come only in heaven (Romans 5:1-5). (This still true to this day. As I was typing this study I received an email, asking prayer for someone’s friend who is in the hospital.)
We need the church, where we can hear the Word of God and receive His gifts of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper and be strengthened and encouraged and pray for and be prayed for by our fellow believers, as imperfect as we all are. Ultimately, though, our hope is not in the people of the church, but in Christ and what He has done for us and what He promises us. Read 1 Corinthians 1:2-9 and note the emphasis on what God does for and what He gives to us in Christ. Paul does not thank the church; he thanks God for what He has been doing in the church and that He will sustain us to the end, in Christ. Read also Ephesians 2:13-22, where Paul makes it clear that “Christ is our peace” and where we have divisions and troubles, He seeks to forgive us and bring us together and build us up together as His people.
When we enjoy outward “times of peace” in our lives and in our churches, let us thank God. These are privileged times, in which we can be strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, through God’s Word and one another (Acts 9:31). Then we are ready and can cope with the more difficult situations we all face at times - at work, among friends and family, with Covid and other ills, and sometimes even in the church itself.
The writer to the Hebrews puts it simply, “May the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good, that you may do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20-21).
Monday Nov 30, 2020
Monday Nov 30, 2020
Sermon for the First Sunday in Advent, based on:
Isaiah 64:1-9
1 Corinthians 1:3-9
Mark 13:24-37
Sermon originally delivered November 27, 2011