Joseph Shulam: Malachi - A Message for Today's Church

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.

Shalom. We have arrived now at the last prophet of the Minor Prophets. There are 12 Minor Prophets, and the last one is Malachi. The name Malachi, it's actually not a name of a person, it could be a name of a person, but it's not normally in the Bible the name of a person. It appears in several places in the Bible. The most famous one is the discussion of Moses with God about not going with Israel all the way to the land of Canaan from the Sinai desert, and so in Hebrew, it reads, "Malachi will go in front of you." In English, it reads, "My messenger shall go before you." So Malachi means "my angel," "my messenger," and it doesn't have to be a personal private name, but it could be. We don't know a person like that in the Bible with that name, but we have the use of the word Malachi in the book of Exodus a couple of times and in other parts of the Bible as well.

It doesn't really make a difference. God is talking, revealing himself to a person, a messenger, an angel, with some very serious issues to discuss. Right off the beginning, God says to this messenger, to this Malachi,

"I have loved you," says the Lord. But your response to me is, "In what way have you loved us?"

I feel goosebumps when I read this text. Here is God that revealed himself to the whole nation of Israel in Mount Sinai, led them 40 years in the wilderness, got them across the Jordan, and delivered the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, the Perizzites, the Hittites, into their hands, and gave them the land of Israel as an inheritance forever, fought their wars, gave them victories over their enemies. We are talking about a post-exilic prophecy. In other words, they went to the Babylonian exile, and now they're coming back just like Haggai, Habakkuk, Malachi, First and Second Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah—all of those are post-exilic. They're prophecies, and Daniel and Ezekiel written during the Babylonian exile, now they're back in the land, and God says, "I love you," and they say, "Hey, what do you mean you love us? How do you love us?" What's wrong with you guys? Don't you realize how much God loves you, how he sustained you, how he warned you, how he sent prophets and men to bring you back into the straight and narrow path, provided you protection from your enemies? Israel then was surrounded by the same enemies that Israel today is surrounded around all of our borders, except the western border that is the Mediterranean Sea. Lebanon, Syria, Jordan—at that time, Jordan was in the hands of the Ammonites, Moabites, Edomites. Little old Israel responds to God:

"How have you loved us?"

And God responds, which is quoted in the New Testament as well:

"Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" says the Lord, "Yet Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."

A very strange text by the creator of the universe, the father of mankind. That's his response to Israel. What does it mean? It means that I let Esau on his own, didn't give him revelation, didn't dwell in the midst of the property, the land of Esau on the other side of the Jordan. I didn't give them my Tabernacle to dwell in the midst of Israel, and I've loved Jacob who is Esau's brother, and took care of Jacob from day one, led him to Mesopotamia to the house of Laban. He married two sisters there, he came back rich after 21 years of working for Laban. I gave him the mountains of the land of Israel as an inheritance. It used to be a wasteland where jackals roamed freely. Now it is an inhabitant land by Jacob and his seed as an everlasting inheritance.

Even though Edom, Edom is Esau, the descendants of Esau.

Even though Edom said, "We have been impoverished, and we will return to build the desolate places," thus says the Lord: "They may build, but I will throw it down. They shall be called territory of wickedness, and the people against whom the Lord will have indignation forever."

And God says to the people of Israel through this angel, through this messenger, Malachi: "You are going to see the Lord magnified beyond the borders of Israel." In other words, you guys think that you're exclusive, you guys think that you own me. No, you're going to see that I am going to expand my knowledge, my favor, not only exclusively for you guys, but for beyond the borders of Israel. And God continues to complain through Malachi to the people of Israel:

'"The son honors his father, the servant his master. If then I am the father, where is my honor? And if I'm the master, where is my reverence?" says the Lord of hosts.'

And now he addresses the priests, the religious leadership of Israel. It is not the first time he did the same things in the days of Ezekiel, condemning the shepherds of Israel in chapter 34. Horrible condemnation, and in the end, it tells the leadership of Israel, "You know what? You're no longer going to be my shepherds. I am going to shepherd my own flock. I'm going to take care of my people. I'm going to take them to green pastures. I'm going to make sure that the sick one is healed and the broken one is repaired, and they will enjoy my personal care and shepherding of them because you shepherds are not doing a good job. You feed yourself from the fat of the flock, you dress yourself with the best wool that you can get from the flock, and you ignore the sick, you ignore the needy, you ignore the..."

You know what? Jesus said the same thing to the people around him. He said, "I was naked and you didn't clothe me. I was hungry and you didn't feed me." And they said, "When did we do that, Lord?" He said, "As much as you did it to one of the least of those." The same message is here in Malachi, but it's not only in Malachi. The same message exists in all the prophets, the classical prophets, the books of prophecy in the Bible. Too much religion, too little faith can make the religious people blind spiritually, deaf spiritually, crippled spiritually. And they may be living in houses of pleasure, in palaces, wealthy, but the emptiness inside, the void, the lack of the presence of God in their lives, doesn't make them happy, and they could not be happy. How did these people dishonor God? Here it is, verse 7 of chapter one:

"You offer defiled food on my altar. But you say: 'In what way have we defiled you?' By saying the table of the Lord is contemptible."

And in what way are you dishonoring me? You're giving me the second quality, third quality of sacrifices. 'You offer to me a blind sheep as a sacrifice.' This is evil. If I translate this, folks, to today's church or to today's synagogue, it'd be the same thing. You act so pious, you come to the house of the Lord to offer sacrifices, and then you put your leftover change in the collection dish. You make sure that you wear the best clothes and have the nicest houses and good cars, and yet to me, you give second hand. In other words, God says here, if I translate into Western civilization: "You treat me like a secondhand rose, like the famous song. But I am your father. I am the creator of the universe. I am the god of all the world. Don't think that I'm blind and I don't see that you're offering to me a blemished sacrifice, the lame and the sick. If you were offering the same to the governor, to the judge, to your king, to one of the ministers, what would he do with you?" But in spite of all that, Malachi says:

"Now entreat God's favor, that He may be gracious to us. While this is being done by your hands, will he accept you favorably?" says the Lord of hosts.

No, God will. That is the difference between us and God: that his love takes into account our weaknesses, our lack of faith, and in spite of our weakness and our lack of faith, he offered his son as a sacrifice to save us, us wretched people. And the problem is, there comes a time when God says in Malachi, "I have done everything. I've loved you. You don't know that I love you. You don't accept my love. I will withdraw. I will stop accepting your offerings. I will stop dealing with you exclusively, and I will be great among the Gentiles. They shall offer incense, good smell to my pleasure, to my name. They will give pure offerings to my name, and my name shall be great among the Gentiles." That's verse 11 of Malachi chapter 1. Strong condemnation of the people of Israel in his day. It's sad.

I am a Jew, a disciple of Yeshua for, you know, more than 60 years. I love God, and I love the Messiah, my savior, and when I read these things, it's painful. It's painful to my heart, but it's not only painful for Israel because I see that the majority of the churches are doing the same thing that the Israelis did in the days of Malachi, when they returned from the Exile when they were blessed when God was good to them. We have the story of Jesus and the ten lepers in Samaria. He healed ten lepers; only one, the Samaritan, the non-Israelite, the non-Jewish, came back to say thank you, and Yeshua blesses him and says, "Where are the other nine?" And I say when I read this, "Where are my brothers and sisters in the churches?" Beautiful churches, beautiful people in many cases, especially in Asia, they're the upper class. And the prophet is harsh, strong, and clear in his condemnation of the people of Israel, who is a part of it, who is sent to them as a messenger, and it is not sparing. God is not sparing the Revelation that he's giving to Malachi. I am in chapter 2, verse 2 now:

"If you will not hear, and if you'll not take it to heart to give glory to my name," says the Lord of hosts, "I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have cursed them already because you do not take it to heart."

'You're not taking me to heart. You're not taking me seriously, the one who took you out of Egypt, the one who gave you victory over your enemies, the one who provides food and dress and health and the land of milk and honey to you.' Yes, Malachi is very strong. I encourage you to read all the prophets that we talk about because he, on the one hand, points to the corruption of the priesthood, the corruption of the politician, the corruption of the Levites. Even though he says:

"Judea has betrayed me."

In chapter 2, verse 11, and that it did Abominations, it's true today as much in Israel as it's true in any other part of the world. It's true in Israel as well. I don't have to be politically correct because the church in general tolerates what God said is an abomination, like LGBTQ whatever it is, I don't even know what these letters mean, but it doesn't mean honorable behavior, godly behavior, natural behavior. Yes, they're called abominations. And in verse 11 of chapter 2 God says through his messenger:

"Judah has dealt treacherously and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem, for Judah has profaned the Lord, the Lord's holy Institution, which he loves."

Yes, and of course, God again is saying, essentially saying what he said in the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 32, verse 17 to 21, and then Paul repeated in Romans 11, verse 25-26: "I will provoke you Jews, you Israel, by the Gentiles, and they will provoke you to return to me." Essentially, that's the paradigm that the prophet brings here, based on Deuteronomy. My time is getting short, but in chapter 3 of Malachi, which is the last chapter, the prophet is proclaiming that somebody is coming, a messenger is coming:

"Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way for before me."

"I will come personally," God says, "but I will have a messenger that will prepare the way for me, and I will appear suddenly,

"...the messenger of the Covenant, in whom you delight. Behold, he is coming," says the Lord of hosts, "but who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire, launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and purify the sons of Levi, (that are supposed to be my servants,) and purge them as gold and as silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness."

Then, verse 4, in chapter 3:

"Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasant to the Lord as in the days of old, as in former years. I will come near you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, adulterers, perjurers, and against those who exploit wage earners and widows and orphans, and against those who turn away the stranger, the alien....."

"....For I am the Lord, and I do not change. Therefore, you are not consumed, sons of Jacob. Yet from the days of your forefathers, you have gone away from my ordinances and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you."

Very strong verse, verse 7 of chapter 3: "You take one step toward me, I'll run toward you." That's the essence of what God says. "I will be glad to take you back, but you have not yet made up your mind. You're saying, 'What way shall we return? We don't know how to return.'" So God is not going to get robbed by men. He's not going to get dishonored by men, and those who try to will be cursed, but at the end of it, there will be a reconciliation between the fathers and their sons. Not only between God and Israel, but between fathers and sons in this world. Especially, our generation needs that desperately. And with those words of comfort of reconciliation the book of Malachi ends. God is going to make his people jewels as a man spares his own son who serves him. God is going to spare his children, Israel. A wonderful ending of the book of Malachi, and a wonderful ending describing the great and terrible day of the Lord that is coming. 'Yes, I will send Elijah as a foreteller of my coming. I will send Elijah, and he will bring fathers to their sons and sons to their fathers, and the peace will start in the families and expand to the rest of the world. The curse will be lifted up for the rest of the world, and Israel will return, the relationship, as the father and his son. Great message, harsh in the beginning, and wonderful, hopeful in the future. May God bless all of us, and may we not give God a secondhand rose, less than the best, because if we do, God will be angry with us like he was with Israel when they did it. God bless all of you.