What do you expect from God? Fatherhood? Malachi 2.
"She's a bad mother," "She's not normal, is she? You have kids and you love them.
"I'm ashamed of my family, and thinking what people out there might think of me, knowing that it's my sister."
"She's just degraded my family to be honest... and made a mockery of everybody."
So said , Karen Matthews' sister and brother in response to the guilty verdict of Karen Matthews in kidnapping and imprisonning her own daughter for 24 days so that she might get her share in the £50 000 reward money.
The nation is outraged when parents neglect, or even worse, abuse their children, particularly when it was for such calculating and self-interested reasons.
This is not the only case in the news recently of such an abuse of the trust given to parents. We have heard the terrible accounts of baby P and others who should have received protection from their parents, but whose parents did not meet the mark.
What about God? If one of the names that God gives himself is “Father” does this raise questions for you as to the kind of Father that God is? If not only was Karen Matthews Shannon’s mother, but in a very real sense God was her father, and he knew where Shannon was even better than Karen did, why did he let it happen?
One might of course, see God’s hand at work; Shannon was, after all found relatively unharmed.
But not situations of abuse result in the safety of the one abused.
In what sense can God be seen as Father, when he allows so much evil to prosper in this world?
Some Atheists have come on the offensive and suggested that the God of the bible may be like a Father, but he is like an abusive Father.
So Austen Cline wirtes, “When nonbelievers look carefully at stories in the Old Testament about God's relationship with his "children," it can be difficult to avoid the conclusion that the relationship looks an awful lot like those which characterize abusive families. The behavior, attitude, and demands of God in the Old Testament are very similar to the behavior, attitude, and demands made by abusive fathers and husbands. Why shouldn't this character simply be labeled as abusive?”
Let me read some of the verses from this morning’s passage...
“If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send(D) the curse upon you and I will curse(E) your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. 3Behold,(F) I will rebuke your offspring,[a] and(G) spread dung on your faces, the(H) dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it.”
Judah has been(W) faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For(X) Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. 12May the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant[e] of the man who does this, who(Y) brings an offering to the LORD of hosts!
How are we to understand this as the words of the one to whom we Pray, “Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be your name.”
If you are a Christian this morning, and you understand God to be your Father, what kind of Fatherhood are you expecting from him? Is it the kind of Fatherhood that makes sense of this messed up world?
If you are not a Christian and you are considering what it would mean to relate to God as Father if you came to put your trust in Christ, what should you expect? Would having God as your Father mean that he will protect you from every trial that you might face? If not, how can you know that God is worth having as your Father?
Sometimes our understanding of God as our Father becomes distorted; it is at these points that there is the need to clarify and meditate on the security and the beauty of a right understanding of being God’s children.
That father-son relationship was being particularly taken for granted in dangerous ways by God’s people Israel, 450 years before the coming of Christ; Malachi had the difficult message of revealing people their wrong assumptions, and challenging them to a more healthy view of God.
If we are to understand what it means to have God as Father, then this tough passage in Malachi 2 is a good place to start. It doesn’t hide from the hard truths about God’s Fatherhood, and yet presents a picture of God that is majestic and awe-inspiring.
In this chapter we shall find three things about what it means to live with God as Father, that we must understand if we are to see him clearly and enjoy him fully.
To live with God as Father means we are to
1) Reflect his character
2) Recognize his justice
3) Rely upon His Son
And now, O priests, this command is for you. 2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. 3 Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, [1] and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it. [2] 4 So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the Lord of hosts. 5 My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. 6 True instruction [3] was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. 7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people [4] should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. 8 But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts, 9 and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction.”
10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? 11 Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. 12 May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant [5] of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts!
13 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? [6] And what was the one God [7] seeking? [8] Godly offspring. So guard yourselves [9] in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, [10] says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers [11] his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
1) Display his name… our relationship with him requires a covenant.
From the very beginning of the world, the way in which God has related to his people is through covenants. We read about three of them in the passage here. There was a covenant with Levi – a covenant for the priests. There was a covenant with the Fathers (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). There was the covenant of marriage.
A covenant is more than a mere agreement: it is the foundation of a relationship of dependence. When God forms covenants with people he is saying to them, “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”
In one sense then, we are all in covenantal obligations towards God whether we know it or not. The very fact that God is our creator declares him to be our God, and that we are his people and ought to live under his rule.
But there as well as this general covenant with the whole of humanity (even fallen humanity, repeated to Noah) we saw last week that God has taken the initiative in bringing certain people into a deeper relationship with him. One where he is not just their father by right, but also in the reality of an enjoyed relationship.
We are all spiritual runaways who, like the prodigal son, desire to leave the family home of God’s fatherhood, and seek our won way in the world. In the specific covenants that God makes, he welcomes and remodels what it means to be in relationship with him as Father.
We see three such covenants here.
i) Levi (4-7)
So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the Lord of hosts. 5 My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. 6 True instruction [3] was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. 7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people [4] should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.
The priesthood was given a special responsibility for running all of the affairs in the temple, and also for instructing people about the law.
§ Life and peace
Because “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God”
Where does our life come from…
This covenant relationship showed how we are entirely dependent upon God for our life.
§ Fear
Taught to onour the Lord: the sacrificial system itself was to teach people that unless they were holly they could not approach a holy God.
§ True Instruction
Under the new covenant we are all priests: does our life yield true instruction? Does our life
§ Walking with the Lord and causing repentance.
Did you know that repentance was needed?
Writers like the atheist Austen Cline equating God’s demands that we honour him with the insecure demands of a viscious father demanding honour from us don’t fit… human parents are to be like God in some respects: they are to display his love, his care, his self-giving nature, his authority. But they are not to BE God. They are not to demand the honour that God alone deserves.
But God does deserve all our honour. It is manipulative for a parent to weigh down a child by saying, “Look, you owe me everything… you are my child and so you must live for me.” But with God, it is quite true; He has given us our lives; time you wake in the morning it is God’s new mercies that you are experiencing.
Parents are given their children in trust: God is the true giver.
ii) Israel
10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?
§ He is the creator of the covenant
This isn’t talking so much about the fatherhood of God over all of humanity, but of the way in which God is particularly Israel’s Father.
This is something we saw last week: but it is good to restress it hear: God is the one who initiates and defines the covenant relationship. That is what his covenants with his chosen people show.. that he is the God who creates the conditions whereby we can have a relationship with him, not us.
In the Christianity Explored Course we are doing at the moment, Rico Tice talks about how he might go about trying to get an appointment with the queen… He stands outside Buckingham Palace with a placard suggesting a time for tea. Obvisouly it doesn’t work. If he is to have tea with the queen, it will need to be her initiative, not his.
How much more so with God.
Have you ever said, “I like to think of God as being…” Well, that tells us a great deal about you and your desires, but it tells us very little at all about God. He reveals himself in covenants that he makes with us. We are called to respond in love.
In fact, the root of idolatry is the desire to define God for ourselves rather than listen to his self-definition. That was why there were such strict laws in the Old Testament against intermarrying with foreign women in the Old Covenant. It wasn’t that God was a racist who thought that there shouldn’t be any racial intermarriage. There are plenty of positive examples of that in the bible: Moses and Zipporah, Boaz and Ruth, to name but two.
The prohibition was to marry a foreigner who hadn’t come to faith in the Lord and thus joined the covenant people of God. And, whenever we see Israel marry idolaters it is not long before Israel is joining them in their idolatry.
As we are to see in the next section, marriage is theologically defined for the Christian. That is, marriage isn’t primarily about the two people getting married, it is about the God they are trusting; have a look down at the verses about the marriage covenant:
But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? [6] And what was the one God [7] seeking? [8] Godly offspring.
The one flesh relationship is to be a covenant relationship between one man and one wife, to demonstrate the one God in whose image we are made...
Our marriages are to be self-consciously modelled on the Love that the one God has for his people; and the Love that the Father has for the Son, the son’s submission to the father, and God’s people’s submission to Christ.
How then can you have a marriage between a Christian and a Non-Christian that is doing this. The Christian and the Non-Christian will have fundamentally different understandings of marriage.
And the marriage will be a partnership in something. The very oneness of marriage defines it as a partnership. What is it a partnership if it is not in bringing glory to the one true God, through trust in his Son?
If you are an unmarried believer in the Lord Jesus, the application of this is quite clear; don’t enter into a marriage or potential marriage relationship with someone who is not a Christian. Don’t even flirt with the idea, any more than you would seek to flirt with the idea of bowing down before a bronze idol. I you have specific questions of application on this do come and ask me afterwards. In fact, the whole approach should be the other way round... if you are honest, what is it that you find most attractive about someone you might consider marrying? Pray that the Lord would work in your heart that you would find godliness more and more attractive, and worldly wisdom or beauty less and less significant. Regularly read through proverbs and find your spouse on the pages of that book so that you know what you are looking for before you find yourself meeting eyes with them across a crowded room.
If you are a believer already married to a non-believer, this doesn’t mean that your marriage is nullified. Perhaps you have been converted since your marriage. Perhaps you made a foolish choice of marriage partner. That is not the unforgiveable sin. This doesn’t relegate you to the status of second class Christian. We have all made very foolish choices in our lives. That is why we all need Jesus.
But we should all recognise the particularly tough calling that those married to unbelievers have in this world, to seek to model half of the relationship between Christ and the church when your spouse isn’t seeking to model the other half. Sometimes they will actually model it well without realising it; but it is hard not to be able to talk with your spouse about how you could better be bringing glory o the Lord in the way in which you love one another.
If that’s you, Seek the support, prayers and encouragements of others. You will need it.
If you are married to another believer, there are many applications.
Be one who will support those who are married to unbelievers. Be one who would gently encourage those who are single and might be tempted into a relationship with an unbeliever.
But, perhaps most of all, if you are married to a believer, make sure that your marriage is radically centered upon Christ. There are those who weep every night that they are unable to share their purpose in marriage with their unbelieving spouse: Let’s not be those who have believing spouses but might as well not the amount that we plan together how to bring glory to Christ in our marriages.
Your Christian life isn’t just something that you do together as a married couple. It totally defines your marriage: allow it to… what is it that settles an argument in your marriage: or a discussion, if you prefer t o call it that. Let’s have marriages where the only thing that will settle an argument is a clear conclusion that this is what will please the Lord… the only point in having a difference of opinion is never to be the husband’s opinion against the wife’s opinion, but only ever a different understanding of what would best please the Lord… and if that is the discussion going on, we will be reminded that one thing that certainly will please the Lord is when that discussion is taking place in a loving, listening, considerate manner.
This brings us onto the third covenant relationship that we find in this chapter:
iii) Marriage covenant.
She is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? [6] And what was the one God [7] seeking? [8] Godly offspring. So guard yourselves [9] in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, [10] says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers [11] his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
As we saw earlier, the marriage covenant here, even though it is a covenant between a man and a woman rather than between God and people, is made to display something about God. His oneness:
We could certainly have a whole sermon, or sermon series on the idea of the “oneness” of God. His oneness has many implications: he is eternal; he is unchanging;
As it relates to covenant, his oneness is significant because it shows that he is Faithful. He doesn’t sign up to something that he thinks better of. He is utterly committed. If you doubt how committed he is to the covenant with his people, look at how he keeps promises over thousands of years. Look at the extraordinary lengths he went to to keep them.
Look at the cross, and the cost he was willing to pay to rescue his people.
God is faithful.
He is the father who never gives up on his children; there is nothing that can separate those who are in Christ Jesus from the love of God. Not even our own stupidity, stubbornness and sinfulness. He will overcome.
And that is why God has given marriage: to be a life-long union that would display his eternal faithfulness.
That is why he hates divorce. (see footnote of v16 – very hard to translate, but almost certainly ‘I hate divorce’)
He doesn’t hate divorce because he is a kill-joy wants to tether people to the pain of an unhappy marriage. He doesn’t hate divorce because he imagines marriage always to be easy. He hates divorce because we are to keep our marriage vows as a model of how God keeps his. To break them is to tell lies about God.
Every time we are unfaithful to our spouses in thought, word, or deed, we are telling lies about God, and calling him a promise breaker. And in divorce, where that promise is finally severed, we are saying that God is going back on his commitment to his people, or that it’s not worth being his.
When people lovingly persevere in difficult marriages it is a great sign of our loving and persevering God.
Now, I know that there are some of you who are divorced, and that too is not the unforgiveable sin. Also, the partners in a divorce, though both imperfect are not always both equally culpable. We don’t have time to go into more depth on the whole subject of divorce now, and the painful subject to how to rebuild life ater divroce, though we should be just as committed to loving and supporting the divorcee as we are to the Christian married to an unbeliever.
I’d be happy to talk with you at the door, or to meet up for coffee in the week if you have further questions raised by this.
But in each of these three covenant note, that we are to display God’s character. This would be even more the case in the new covenant…
The church, as the New covenant people of God is to be a display of unity, as we love one another. John 17:11
We are to be a church who realizes that HE takes the initiative, and we are merely to joyfully respond. That is why the majority of our morning services are not taken up by us singing or praying to him, but in us hearing from his word.
We are to be a people who know that we are utterly dependent upon God for spiritual life and health, and come together before him in prayer.
These are three reasons for our Sunday Evening Service… Make it a priority.
2) Recognize his wrath…
Do remember way back to the beginning of our first point, where we thought about how a covenant declares “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” The covenants then stipulate how we are to live as God’s people, under his loving rule.
In one sense this is part of the blessing of being God’s people: the blessing of the calling to display his character… but the problem is that we choose a curse rather than a blessing.
Imagine these three covenants to be a gallery of wonderful portraits of the character of God. Each of them making a Damian Hurst look like a worthless pretence.
We’ve been given these priceless pictures to enjoy and live with. But we have taken black marker pens and scribbled all over it… You’ve probably all seen cartoons of the Mona Lisa with a rudely sketched pair of glasses and moustache. But imagine that the curator of the Louvre were to do that with the real Mona Lisa. He would loose his position immediately. In fact, it would have been far better for him if he had never had that position in the first place.
That is the position that covenant breakers should be in…
Their blessings have become a curse in the starkest possible terms.
If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. 3 Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, [1] and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it.
Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. 12 May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant [5] of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts!
13 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? [6] And what was the one God [7] seeking? [8] Godly offspring. So guard yourselves [9] in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, [10] says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers [11] his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
The Priests had a wonderful charge to proclaim the character of God, and the people’s dependence upon him. But they abused it.
We too have this charge
- Eldres: Pray for us
- Priesthood of all believers… seek to learn more about God, that you might be more faithful.
Israel had a wonderful charge to display the character of God to a lost world by being distinctly different from the pagan nations around her. But Israel was so indistinct that members of Israel were happy to form the most intimate of partnerships with idolators.
What about us as a church? Do people find you strange in little obediences that the world will not understand?
Israel’s marriages were to be a display of the faithful God who had chosen them. Is it a consistent thing that Non-Christians would notice the marriages that we have as Christians, and understand that they must be built on more solid foundations than their own. Do they see Christ in them?
Is God harsh in punishing covenant breakers? Is he an abusive father who punishes his children for no good reason to out of all proportion to their crime? If we doubt the seriousness of unfaithfulness to God, we have not begun to understand who He is.
When we think of the stories of those who have mistreated the trust they have been given with their children, and we are outraged at what they have done to treat those who are so innocent, whom they should have loved, who they had a responsibility to have a relationship where they were working for their good and not their harm. When we think of that relationship and compare it with our relationship with God, we can do that. But God is not the abusive one in that relationship. We are. Every good thing we have he has provided for us. And we? Though he is infinitelymore innocent than any child. Though he is infinitely more worthy of of love; though we have an infinitely higher responsibility to work for his good and not his harm than we do even for our own children, we have treated him with contempt and abuse. He has given us everything and we have thrown it back in his face. We do this daily. Every time we sin against anyone, we are sinning far more against God.
Though he is the faithful God, we are in a word faithless towards him; like adulterous spouses; like abusive parents; like rebellious children.
What could be an appropriate punishment for whose who have broken faith with God?
God is not harsh. He is infinitely just… but he is also infinitely kind.
If all the covenants we read about in malachi 2 show us that we are faithless, as even our own marriages daily show us, they point to our need of a new Covenant. A covenant where those who are faithless again and again can come and find forgiveness, rather than a curse. Where those who have caused others to stuble with their words, will not be made to stagger under the weight of their sin; where those who have desecrated the very presence of the Lord with us are not sut off from that presence forever.
How could there be such a covenant?
Only if there is one more faithful than us whose faithfulness can cover our unfaithfulness. Only if there is one who could take that curse from us and endure it himself.
We will hear in a little while the words of institution of the Lord’s supper…
“This is my blood of the New covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”
If we are to live as God’s children it will not be enough merely to reflect his character. It will not be enough merely to recognize his wrath. We need to Rely entirely upon his son.
- Rely upon his son.
The various covenants that God makes before the coming of Christ are not failures, though they most certainly result in curses. They display our need for a new covenant. By the time that Malachi was speaking Jeremiah had already spoken of it some 150 years earlier.
31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”It is in this New covenant we see that God is not only infinite in his justice; he is also infinite in his grace. He would not only rightly punish sin; in the person of Jesus Christ he would bear that punishment for his children, those he was calling to faith.
So, we return to the thought of the Fatherhood of God. Does God’s anger show him to be indeed a loving father…
Let’s conclude with seom words from Charles Spurgeon.
There is often more love in an angry father's heart than there is in the heart of a father who is too kind. I will suppose a case. Suppose there were two fathers, and their two sons went away to some remote part of the earth where idolatry is still practiced. Suppose these two sons were decoyed and deluded into idolatry. The news comes to England, and the first father is very angry. His son, his own son, has forsaken the religion of Christ and become an idolater. The second father says, "Well, if it will help him in trade I don't care, if he gets on the better by it, all well and good." Now, which loves most, the angry father, or the father who treats the matter with complacency? Why, the angry father is the best. He loves his son; therefore he cannot give away his son's soul for gold. Give me a father that is angry with my sins, and that seeks to bring me back, even though it be by chastisement. Thank God you have got a father that can be angry, but that loves you as much when he is angry as when he smiles upon you.
Go away with that upon your mind, and rejoice. But if you love not God and fear him not, go home, I beseech you, to confess your sins, and to seek mercy through the blood of Christ; and may this sermon be made useful in bringing you into the family of Christ though you have strayed from him long; and though his love has followed you long in vain, may it now find you, and bring you to his house rejoicing!
Go away with that upon your mind, and rejoice. But if you love not God and fear him not, go home, I beseech you, to confess your sins, and to seek mercy through the blood of Christ; and may this sermon be made useful in bringing you into the family of Christ though you have strayed from him long; and though his love has followed you long in vain, may it now find you, and bring you to his house rejoicing!
