Malachi lived after the Israelites had return from exile in Babylon and had rebuilt the Temple and walls of Jerusalem as recorded by Ezra and Nehemiah. Yet again the people fell away from wholeheartedly serving the true God. He reminds them of how much He loves them (Malachi 1:2) , but they are not listening. Their lifestyle and offerings were just a ritual, they were not wholeheartedly worshipping their God, and God was very displeased. The Israelites were treating God as second best in carrying out their worship and service in the Temple. God through Malachi challenges them as to their complacent behaviour (Malachi 2:9) But He also challenges them to how much blessing they would receive if they give themselves wholeheartedly to serving Him.
God challenges and reasons with Israel, highlighting how much He loves them as His children, but how they bring their second best to the alter of worship, they have no respect for Him - Malachi 1:1 An oracle: The word of the LORD to Israel through Malachi. 2:"I have loved you," says the LORD. "But you ask, `How have you loved us?' "Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" the LORD says. "Yet I have loved Jacob,
3:but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals."
4:Edom may say, "Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins." But this is what the LORD Almighty says: "They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called the Wicked Land, a people always under the wrath of the LORD.
5:You will see it with your own eyes and say, `Great is the LORD - even beyond the borders of Israel!'
6:"A son honours his father, and a servant his master. If I am a father, where is the honour due to me? If I am a master, where is the respect due to me?" says the LORD Almighty. "It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name. "But you ask, `How have we shown contempt for your name?'
7:"You place defiled food on my altar. "But you ask, `How have we defiled you?' "By saying that the LORD'S table is contemptible.
8: When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?" says the LORD Almighty.
9:"Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?" - says the LORD Almighty.
10:"Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you," says the LORD Almighty, "and I will accept no offering from your hands.
11: My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations," says the LORD Almighty.
12:"But you profane it by saying of the Lord's table, `It is defiled', and of its food, `It is contemptible.'
13: And you say, `What a burden!' and you sniff at it contemptuously," says the LORD Almighty. "When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?" says the LORD.
14:"Cursed is the cheat who has an acceptable male in his flock and vows to give it, but then sacrifices a blemished animal to the Lord. For I am a great king," says the LORD Almighty, "and my name is to be feared among the nations.
Having given a sound warning to the people, God continues to warn the Priests who serve and minister in the Temple, they will be made a humiliation if they do not turn back to serving Him wholeheartedly – We read in Malachi 2:1:"And now this admonition is for you, O priests. 2: If you do not listen, and if you do not set your heart to honour my name," says the LORD Almighty, "I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to honour me.
3:"Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. 4 And you will know that I have sent you this warning so that my covenant with Levi may continue,” says the Lord Almighty. 5 “My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. 6 True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.
7 “For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty and people seek instruction from his mouth. 8 But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi,” says the Lord Almighty.9 “So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law.”
God continues to contest their unfaithfulness, he says in - Malachi 2:10 - 10 Do we not all have one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another? 11 Judah has been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves by marrying women who worship a foreign god. 12 As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord remove him from the tents of Jacob[c]—even though he brings an offering to the Lord Almighty.
13 Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer looks with favour on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands.14 You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
15 Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly off-spring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. 16 “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful. 17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. “How have we wearied him?” you ask. By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?”
God now warns them of his impending judgement, but challenges them to turn their lives around and see what great blessings He has on offer for them. Malachi 3:1 "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the Lord Almighty.
2:But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap. 3:He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness,
4:and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.
5:"So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud labourers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the LORD Almighty.
6:"I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.
7:Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you," says the LORD Almighty. "But you ask, `How are we to return?'
8:"Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me. "But you ask, `How do we rob you?' "In tithes and offerings.
9:You are under a curse - the whole nation of you - because you are robbing me.
10:Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.
11:I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not cast their fruit," says the LORD Almighty.
12:"Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land," says the LORD Almighty.
13:"You have said harsh things against me," says the LORD. "Yet you ask, `What have we said against you?'
14:"You have said, `It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty?
15:But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.' "
16:Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honoured his name.
17:"They will be mine," says the LORD Almighty, "in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him.
18:And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.
Through reading the book of Malachi we can identify with the prayer written by David in Psalm 51: 1Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
2Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
3For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
4Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight;
5Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
6Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
7Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
9Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.
10Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you.
14Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God, you who are God my Saviour and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise.
16You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.
