Oh, we have worship. And actually, much of our worship was the indispensable principle. We were singing it over and over, just calling on the Lord to minister to us.
Many of the songs we sang were about the finished work of our Lord Jesus and the Lamb. Recently, within the last, oh, I would say four months, I did a special study—not connected with any teaching, but just in my time with the Lord. I was tracing the Lamb through the Scriptures, seeing God’s heart on the Lamb.
A verse that had touched me some time ago was once again quickened to my heart. You know, we are talking about the Lord being unchanging. He never changes, always the same.
One thing that means is that everything He ever was, He is right now. But it also means that everything He will ever be, He is right now. I know someday, in a full manifestation, He will be King of kings and Lord of lords, and so on. But He is King of kings right now, and He is Lord of lords right now.
He was a Lamb from before the foundation of the world. In history, He was the Lamb. We read that forever in heaven He will be the Lamb.
But there is this mixing of metaphors. I have got a whole group of mixed metaphors from the Bible—very interesting. They would not be allowed in an English class, but I love when God mixes metaphors: “built up and rooted in Him,” that kind of thing; “the Sun of righteousness with healing in His wings.”
If it said healing in His rays—but healing in His wings. And we have such a metaphor. Let me give you that, because everything He will be, He is. So this will become our prayer as we look into God’s Word.
It is in the book of Revelation, chapter 7, verse 17. It is speaking about that day that we will know in a few hours:
For the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd,
And shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life:
And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Is that not a claim verse? The Lamb will be their Shepherd. The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will be their Shepherd, and He will guide them to springs of the water of life. And God will wipe all tears from their eyes.
It is not too much to ask that the Lamb, who is in the center of the throne right now, would be the Shepherd. Who is the Shepherd? The Lamb. Who is the Shepherd? The Lamb, who will lead them to living waters of life. Let us ask the Lamb to do that.
Our heavenly Father, how thankful we are again for Your precious Word and for the Holy Spirit, whose ministry and pleasure it is to unveil the Lord Jesus.
And we would ask now that the Lamb would be the Shepherd, would guide us to rivers of living water, and that God would wipe all tears from our eyes.
Search me, O God, and know my heart:
Try me, and know my thoughts;
And see if there be any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
We ask in the all-prevailing name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
I will ask you to turn again, please, brothers, to the book of Malachi. We will share what the Lord has shared with me, what He has put on my heart.
I can blast the trumpet and I can shout, but He has got to bring the walls down. All the Sheltons in the world are not going to do that if the Lord does not speak.
We have that forerunning ministry: we baptize with water, but there comes One after. If He does not come after, you are wet—that is all you are. We need Him to come after and baptize with life, with the Holy Spirit.
We are looking at this wonderful book of Malachi. I am so used to teaching a week spaced in between, and I am big on review. It is hard when we are meeting like this, because my temptation is to chew my tongue to a stump trying not to review, because I am so used to doing that. But anyway, this much review.
God is addressing, in this wonderful book of Malachi, His remnant—His people—those who have responded to His grace; those who have desired to be delivered from captivity and return to the land; to be right with God and surrounded with the knowledge of God.
They had tasted the Lord. They had seen His goodness. But, as I pointed out in the historical background, there were some years between that revelation of the Lord and where they were at the present time. It had been a long time ago that they had had a vital revelation of their God.
Because it had been a long time ago, because there were no special demands on their life at that time, and because there was no special crisis going on—which is designed to crowd us to Christ and lead us into helpless dependence—they had begun to cool down.
Their bodies were still going through the forms. Their bodies were still going through the mechanics of it. If you had taken them aside and queried them, they would have probably said, “Everything is okay. I am doing fine, thank you. God is blessing.” And indeed, He was.
But in their hearts, as you know, God sent His messenger. God sent His prophets to discover to them that, even though on the outside it looked okay, way down in their beings there were whisperings, stirrings, issues.
And God said, “We must deal with those issues.” Because God was also using that remnant to write a Bible—they did not know that—God had engineered the situation so that those big things which, for thirty-five hundred years, He had been expressing from His heart, He could now bring together.
Very much like He did with the seven churches of Asia, He brought all of those issues together and laid them out in Scripture so that every age and every generation might know the whisperings of the heart when we have issues concerning God’s love, His work, His people, His ways, His faithfulness, and the glory of the Lord.
As He closed the Old Testament, He engineered that situation so that He might deal with those things in picture form. Through Malachi, His messenger and prophet, He takes His people aside, brings them into a private room, and says, “We need to talk.”
He digs down and begins to expose because of His great love. He loves us far too much to let us go on with these issues. He deals with them in order that He might give, in each case, the perfect answer.
You know how the book is laid out. God speaks, and they speak back: “I say to you, but you say.” There is always this response. God lets them get it all out, and He talks to them. It is a personal interview, a communication between God and His people.
After they have said what they can say, He presents the perfect answer that deals with that issue. As they embrace that answer, that issue is gone forever. It is God’s answer for that issue.
When we come to the New Testament, He will expound on that and give it in fully developed form. But now, in the Old Testament, He gives these pictures. I have divided it down, and you can look at those notes again, into these six issues. Some see more than that. I do not know any that see less than that, but some see more than that.
The first whisper had to do with harboring a suspicion. “I have loved you,” says the Lord. And they said, “How have You loved us? You sent the devourer into our lives. How can You say You love us when this?”
So He gives a word. He says, “Look at your brother Esau. Look at Edom. Take a good look at somebody I hate.” They were able to see, as they looked out their window, the devastation.
We went to the New Testament:
What then shall we say to these things?
If God is for us, who is against us?
He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
How shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?
Once you see Him—once you see the One that God hated for our sake, our brother, our twin, our flesh and blood, our kinsman-redeemer—then we are persuaded that nothing will ever separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Sweeping that away, we began to look in our discussion at Malachi 1:6-2:9: the inward thoughts of the heart concerning the work of God. Follow along, please, as we read these verses.
A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master:
If then I am a father, where is Mine honor?
And if I am a master, where is My fear?
Saith the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise My name.
And ye say, Wherein have we despised Thy name?
Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine altar.
And ye say, Wherein have we polluted Thee?
In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible.
He addresses the priests in order to reveal the attitude of the heart concerning the work of God.
Ye say also, Behold, what a weariness is it!
And ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts.
That is, the ministry, the work. That is where we left off: the service of the Lord. The symptom that there was an issue in my heart was that the service, the work of God, had become tedious. It had become a burden. It had become drudgery. It had become very difficult, very hard.
They had lost their joy in ministry. That was the symptom. I suggested to you that that is a real problem. We did not touch yet on the real problem, but it was so intertwined with God’s perfect answer that you almost cannot give the answer without giving the problem. So we have just looked at the symptoms so far.
The symptom is a great fatigue in the work of the Lord. We illustrated it this morning. I want to say one more thing about the symptom before we look at God’s perfect answer.
God’s heart, in all of these issues, was very burdened. God did not want them to be burdened with His work. That is why He addresses it. He did not want them to have this as a great drudgery. That is why He sits them down and talks to them. That is why He sent His messenger.
Before we look at the perfect answer to that second whisper, let me tell you another reason it is so serious to have that symptom. Not only because it hurts God—it hurts the Lord.
Look, if you would, at Malachi 2:1-2. We will come back to this in another connection:
And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you.
If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart,
To give glory unto My name, saith the Lord of hosts,
I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings:
Yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart.
It is that expression in verse 2: “I will curse your blessings.” You have to tie that into the ministry of the priests in that day. After they did their service, after they offered the lamb, after they did their priestly service, then they would come out, because God accepted that, and they would bless the people.
That is how it worked. They would do their service, and then they would bless the people.
On the level of earth, this scares me to death. Is it possible, because of a whispering in my heart, because of some attitude in my heart, that I can do some service of the Lord which I intend to be a blessing—and that is the purpose of it—and then God, because of something in my heart, curses the blessing?
I tell you, brothers, no matter what the service is, if it does not have the anointing of the Lord on it, it not only does not bless; it does the opposite of it. It hurts. It brings a curse.
This is a very serious thing. It not only dishonors the Lord and hurts Him that His work would be a drudgery to His people, but even after that drudgery we might say, “Well, I did it anyway. I went through that, and I did not enjoy it. It was hard. Now God will bless it.”
No, He will not. No, He will not. That is why this thing is so serious. And all of that happens, my brothers, without departing from orthodox theology. Oh, may God search our hearts.
Is there an answer, a perfect answer, for boredom and burdensomeness in the work of God? Indeed there is. Indeed there is. That is the glory in this book. He does not just take you down and whip you to death. He gives us the perfect answer. He points us to the Lord in a way that is alive and takes us out of this.
So let us look at that perfect answer. He does not come right out and give the answer. He drops hints. Let me isolate three hints He drops to get you to the answer.
The first one He mentions right away in verse 6:
A son honoreth his father, and a servant his master:
If then I am a father, where is Mine honor?
And if I am a master, where is My fear?
You see, right at the beginning, as He sits them down, they do not know the problem yet. They have expressed, “It is wearisome. It is tiresome. It is so hard to serve the Lord again, over and over again. Another phone call, another letter to write, another visit, another gift to give. Oh, it is just getting so old. They are not responding, and nobody appreciates me. Hey, what do I have to go through?”
That is where they are. Those are the symptoms. God begins, as He starts to talk to them, by introducing something that should ring a bell: relationship.
A son and a father—there is a relationship. They forgot something. Now He is beginning to drop hints at what is wrong in this whole service thing. A master and a servant—there is a relationship.
He goes deeper. He drops another hint. There is a word that He uses over and over. As you study the Word of God under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, pay close attention to recurring expressions or recurring words.
If God says it once, it is enough. If He says it twice, it is enough enough. If He keeps on saying it, there is probably some reality there that you need to focus in on.
I am going to give you the recurring word: “My name.” Chapter 1, verse 6: “My name.” Verse 11: “My name will be great.” Again: “My name.” Verse 14: “My name.” Chapter 2, verse 2: “My name.” Verse 5: “He stood in awe of My name.”
He sits them down. They do not know the problem yet, and He begins to say, “There is relationship. You despise My name. My name, My name. My name is to be great in the world. My name. Look what you have done to My name.”
What does He mean, “My name”? He is not talking Bill and Ed and Pete and Bob and Doug. That is not what He means by “My name.” He is using this in the sense of Isaiah 9:6:
His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His name is Who He is. That is His name. It is Him. It represents the Person.
In this section, it is different than the rest of the book. What is His name in this section? Glance again: verse 6, “Lord of hosts”; verse 8, “Lord of hosts”; verse 9, “Lord of hosts”; verse 13, “Lord of hosts”; verse 14, “I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts.” Chapter 2, verse 1: “Lord of hosts”; verse 4: “Lord of hosts”; verse 7: “Lord of hosts”; verse 8: “Lord of hosts.”
Am I making this up? It is right there. They do not know there is a problem. All they know is that they have been burdened down with the work of God. He comes in and says, “We need to talk. We need to talk relationship. We need to talk My name: Lord of hosts.”
“I am the God of the armies of heaven and earth.” That is what “Lord of hosts” means. “I am the God of the armies of heaven. Do you know Who I am? We are talking about serving Me.”
That is what He is getting down under their heart. He says, “We have a problem: relationship. We have a problem: Me. You forgot Me in all this service, in all this work. You forgot My name. Do you know Who I am? I am the Lord of the armies of heaven and earth.”
Did you get it? He says it again: “The Lord of the armies of heaven and earth.” You understand? “The Lord of the armies of heaven and earth,” again and again and again—one, two, three, nine times.
Then He drops another hint, in case they did not catch on. Chapter 1, verses 7-8:
Ye offer polluted bread upon Mine altar.
And ye say, Wherein have we polluted Thee?
In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible.
And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil?
And if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil?
Offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee?
Or will he accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts.
Malachi 1:12-14:
But ye profane it, in that ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted;
And the fruit thereof, even His meat, is contemptible.
Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it!
And ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts.
And ye have brought that which was taken by violence, and the lame, and the sick;
Thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the Lord.
But cursed be the deceiver, who hath in his flock a male,
And voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a blemished thing:
For I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts,
And My name is terrible among the nations.
Do not read that la, la, la. In the Old Testament, the animal sacrifices were a picture of Who? We cannot forget that. It is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Old Testament, we only have a picture. The reality is infinitely greater than the picture. That is just the picture of Jesus, and they were offering an imperfect picture of the Lord Jesus.
In the Old Testament, in the picture, the fire consumed the lamb. When you get to the reality, the Lamb will consume the fire. The fuel for the fire is our sin, and when that was done, the fire went out. That is the Lamb. Blessed be the Lord.
This morning I told you that in Leviticus 21, five times the offering was called the food of God. The animals pictured Christ, and that is called the food of God. That was His meat. That was His feast. That was what God fed on.
That is His beloved Son, in Whom He is well pleased. In one of the ceremonies, they took the lamb and the priest ate some. Then God said, “Give some to the people,” and the people ate some. God said, “Burn some,” and the part that was burned, God ate.
It is a picture of God sitting down at the table with all His people. The priest ate some, God ate some, and the people ate some. They were all at the table feasting on the Lamb. That is what is pictured here.
Something happened when they started to view God’s work as a burden. Something happened that changed their attitude toward the sacrifice, and they began offering a lamb with a mangled ear. They began offering a lamb that was lame, crippled, defiled in some way—blemished.
Why would they do that? Some suggest it was mercenary. They just wanted the good lambs for themselves. I do not know. They are in enough trouble; I hate to blame them for that. I do not know why they did it.
I think their attitude was—as you will see more clearly when I touch the problem—I still have not mentioned the problem. But when the work of God becomes a burden, you become slipshod in the work of God, and you do not give your best.
You are tired, weary, and it is old hat. So, “Oh, it is them. All right, well, you know, I spoke on that once before. Where are those notes? Get those.” It is just that way, and you give a mangled lamb sometimes.
I do not know. Maybe it was mercenary. I would not put it past some priests to do it just for what they could get out of it. But I incline to think that they just became careless because of the ministry.
What was so serious about offering the Lord an imperfect sacrifice? Let me nail it down to two things, and then we will see the problem.
Of course, the first is obvious, and you can see it in the book: it did not satisfy God’s heart.
When you talk the work of God, when you talk ministry, when you talk Christian service, you had better have in your heart that great truth: the end, the goal of ministry, is the pleasure of the Lord. It is to serve Him. It is to satisfy His heart.
The only thing that satisfies His heart is His Son. That is His food. That is what He eats. They were handling His food. The picture—their attitude toward the picture of the Lord—was their attitude toward the Lord.
They were handling that which satisfied God as if it were nothing, and they were bringing an incomplete Savior to Him. That is the first thing that makes it so serious: it does not satisfy God.
The second thing we have already touched on in the expression, “I will curse your blessing.” Because it did not satisfy God, He did not accept it.
You say, “Well, that affected the priest.” It affected the priest, but who else did it affect? It affected all the people, because that was their ministry.
You need to understand that, in God’s original intention, God’s original blueprint, He chose the priest to represent the people. He was in between. He was to take one hand and hold the Lord, and with the other hand take the people, and by God’s grace bring them together. That is ministry.
In the picture, that symbolic temple—the holy of holies—that is where God was. Out in the outer court, that is where the people were. In the middle, that is where the priest was. That was his ministry: to take Him and to take them and bring them together.
How did they do that? By offering Him a precious Lamb. As they offered Him a precious Lamb, He was satisfied, and the people were brought into union.
Let me ask you: if that is happening—if I am just offering Him His Son, and God is using me to bring them and Him together—is there any weariness in that? Any bondage in that?
Now I will tell you what the problem was. May God help us with this.
The work became a burden because the work became their work. The work of the Lord became the work of man.
When God’s work becomes man’s work, I tell you, you will be crushed under the burden of that thing. There is no greater burden that I know of than to make His work my work, to make His work your work.
There is a great weariness in being involved in any religious operation when God is not in it. That is what they were experiencing.
All of a sudden, the work of the Lord—which was to offer Him that which would satisfy His heart and be used by Him to unite a sinful people with a living God—that was ministry. But all of a sudden, that was not ministry.
Now I was cutting up the lamb, getting the wood, making the fire, getting the incense, fixing the table, trimming the candles, getting all of that cleaned up, and getting ready to do it again. It became the work of man.
Here is how you can tell. Here is some of the talk. You see, you are sliding into this:
I tell you, we make ourselves tin gods. Tragic, when we take on the work of God. It is His work. It is not our work.
And the clergy has taken over. Some have seen that a little bit, and so they are trying to solve the problem. They say, “Well, we need to understand it is not really your work. It is our work.”
That does not solve the problem. That is not solving the problem. So I step aside and let the other brothers—others have gifts—let them come and let them do it, because it is not my work; it is our work. So we should share the burden.
Brothers, may God help us not to share the burden. Drop the burden. It is not my work. It is not your work. It is not our work. It is His work. His work. The Lord’s work. It is the Lord’s ministry.
Remember in Matthew 16, Jesus did the same thing. He took His people aside because they had started to miss it. He said, “My name, My name, My name, My name. Me, Me. Relationship. Who do people say that I am?”
They said, “Well, some say You are John the Baptizer. Some say You are Elijah. Some say You are one of the prophets.” “What do you think, Simon? Who do you think I am?”
He looked up to heaven, and God gave him an answer in his heart—a revelation of God. He said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Usually we stop there. You know what the next verse says? I am paraphrasing. It says, “Good. You see it? Get out of the way. I will build My church.”
That is the context. It is My work. “I will build My church,” and it is based on that revelation.
When it becomes your work, when it becomes my work, it is a great, great bondage. It is an awful thing, brothers, for a frail human being to try to take on his shoulders the work of the Lord.
Only God can do His work. I said there is no greater burden than trying to do God’s work. Let me give you the other side: there is no greater joy than watching God do His work.
There is no greater joy than watching the Lord do His work to bring people into union with Him. That was the second whispering.
I am going to ask you to turn, please, to chapter 2, as God summarizes. After He identifies the problem, after He shows them, “It is not your work; it is My work. It is what I do.”
It is 2 Corinthians 2: we are a fragrance of Christ to God among men. It is the same thing. We offer Christ to God, and those who perish smell it, and those who do not perish, who receive it, smell it. It is offering Christ to God, and God uses that to unite sinners. That is what ministry is. That is what this service is.
God reflects back. As He is talking to these people, they are sitting down in the counseling chair. “You forgot relationship. You forgot all about My name. You forgot Who I am. You did not understand that you cannot give Me a mangled Savior. I am not satisfied, and it will not help them.”
We cannot give anything but a complete Savior. We have to give a whole Christ to the people, to bring to the Lord, so that God can bring the people. That is what He will accept.
God reflects back and says, “You know, that is how it was at the beginning.” He talks about the covenant of Levi. I will not hardly make a comment; I just want you to read these words as God looks back and says, “Now this is what service is.”
My covenant was with him of life and peace;
And I gave them to him that he might fear;
And he feared Me, and stood in awe of My name.
The law of truth was in his mouth,
And unrighteousness was not found in his lips:
He walked with Me in peace and uprightness,
And did turn many away from iniquity.
For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge,
And they should seek the law at his mouth:
For he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.
Malachi 2:4 says He longs that this covenant might continue with Levi. That is what it is all about. He revered Me. He stood in awe of My name. He walked with Me in peace. That is the solution. Perfect answer. Perfect answer.
You say, “What if the work becomes a drudgery?” Lay hold of a full Christ and begin to offer that to the Lord. Your heart will dance. You will frolic. It will be amazing. You will spin around in sheer delight as you watch God do His work and God build His church.
Once it becomes your work, you are dead. Once it becomes my work, it is all over. It is all over. Do not get into that Christless struggle.
All right, so much for that. Now I am going to ask you either to look at the handout sheet or just pay attention as we introduce this next whisper.
All of this pressing, probing, and heart-searching is not negative. God is not out to get you. He does not dig down to make you feel badly.
He does not want you having suspicions of His love. He does not want you burdened down by shouldering something that was never intended for your shoulders.
And so, once again, He digs. They are whispering now about the people of God.
This is one of the areas where the Lord really convicted me. He did a number on me, really, in a lot of these. But how He ministered to my heart in this—may God help us.
Our Lord Jesus, when He walked on the earth, walked in a seamless garment. And He wants to do it again.
The problem here with God’s people—may God help us as we look at it—is the third whisper. Chapter 2, verse 10:
Have we not all one Father?
Hath not one God created us?
Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother,
Profaning the covenant of our fathers?
He begins by giving us two pictures. The first is this: “Do we not have one Father? One God has created us.” I have read various commentators, and they are trying to identify that father. Some say that is Abraham, Father Abraham. He did not create us. It is Father God.
What God is forcing His people to see is an Old Testament illustration. He is forcing His people to see that the whole world, every person, was made by Him, and we are all brothers by creation. We are all in one family—a human family.
He is not talking church, not here. He is saying there is one God, one Creator, and we are all in one big family. Why cannot we get along? That is basically His illustration.
He gives a second illustration in Malachi 2:14-16:
Yet ye say, Wherefore?
Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth,
Against whom thou hast dealt treacherously,
Though she is thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.
And did He not make one, although He had the residue of the Spirit?
And wherefore one? He sought a godly seed.
Therefore take heed to your spirit,
And let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.
For I hate putting away, saith the Lord, the God of Israel;
And him that covereth his garment with violence, saith the Lord of hosts:
Therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously.
This is an illustration. Do not make the illustration the point. Make the illustration the illustration. As you come in the Bible, you come upon an illustration and say, “This is an illustration, but what does it illustrate?” We have to look at the point God is making.
Clearly, in the context, if you knew the background here, you would know that at this time there was a tragedy: God’s people were putting away their wives, and they were taking heathen wives, for whatever reason. Nehemiah 13 gives you the awful details of that, if you want to look it up.
The prophet relates it to the Lord. He says in Malachi 2:14—and this is one part that got me—“I was there when you made your wedding vows.” That is Malachi 2:14. “I was there. I was a witness when you made your vows.”
It is not one hundred percent clear in verse 13 whose tears those are that cover the altar. Some people think they might be the hypocritical tears of the husband, who are like Esau without repentance, yet they are crying for some kind of blessing. Some think it might be the tears of the poor women who have been divorced and dumped.
This is an accurate description of what was happening at the time. I could not say it this well, so I jotted it down. I got this out of a commentary. I do not give you the names of the commentaries, because some of these I cannot recommend across the board.
He is describing the situation, and this is accurate:
She whom you thus wronged was the companion of those earlier and brighter days when, in the bloom of her young beauty, she left her father’s house. She shared your early struggles. She rejoiced in your later success. She walked arm in arm with you along the pilgrimage of life. She cheered you in its trials with her gentle ministry.
But now, when the bloom of her youth has faded, and the friends of her youth are gone; when the father and mother whom she left for you are now in the grave; now you cruelly cast her off as a worn-out, worthless thing. You insult her holiest affections by putting another one in her place.
That is what was going on. It may be that God was a witness to those early vows and the witness of the tears of those who were divorced.
Glance at Malachi 2:15. I want to just get by this verse. It looks complicated. It really is as simple as it seems complicated. I think the New American Standard actually confuses it a little bit.
And did He not make one, although He had the residue of the Spirit?
And wherefore one? He sought a godly seed.
Therefore take heed to your spirit,
And let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.
What does that mean? Listen to the American Standard Version of 1901:
And did He not make one, although He had the residue of the Spirit?
And wherefore one? He sought a godly seed.
Therefore take heed to your spirit,
And let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.
I think His point is this. If you disagree with me, that is all right. I think He is saying this: when God made Adam and Eve, He made them one.
After He created Adam, and after He created Eve, did He still have power to create more if He wanted to? Did He have a residue of the Spirit? Was there extra power in there?
Then wherefore one? Why did He not make two wives for Adam? Why did He not make three wives for Adam? Why did He not give him ten wives or twenty wives? If He still had power, if He still had a residue of the Spirit, wherefore one?
That He might have a godly seed. That is what that is saying. He is talking about the illustration.
He has given two illustrations, and the two illustrations are these: “I am the Creator. There is one human family.” That is one illustration. Marriage: “I hate divorce. I made them for one union.” There is a picture there. That is how I made it.
What is the problem? He has sat His people down. He has given these two illustrations because He has heard another whisper.
Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother?
We have one Father, one Creator. Why do we deal treacherously? That is the problem: man, each one against his brother.
That is the story of human history: every man against his brother. As soon as man broke with God in Genesis 3, he broke with man. In Genesis 4, Cain rises up and slays Abel. As soon as he broke with God, he broke with man.
That is the story of society: every man against his brother, nation against nation, husband against wife, father against son, mother against daughter, neighbor against neighbor.
But you know where we are. We are not only one by creation; we are one by redemption. Every man against his brother—this division—that is the problem with the people of God: this division, that we are not one. That is the thing that is breaking God’s heart.
The Holy Spirit mentions a word five times in this section—again, a recurring expression. The word is “treacherously.”
Verse 10: “Why do we deal treacherously?” Verse 11: “Judah hath dealt treacherously.” Verse 14: “Against whom thou hast dealt treacherously.” Verse 15: “Let none deal treacherously.” Verse 16: “That ye deal not treacherously.”
It is bigger than not getting along. It is dealing treacherously. That is disunity in its fully developed form. That is the worst kind of disunity—supreme disunity.
You say, “What is treachery?” A deceitful enemy; somebody undercover, evil. In this world, we are living with treachery. You get on a plane and you never know where that suicide bomber is, whether he has something under his coat or something in his shoe. You say, “That is treachery.”
You cannot even turn around and see a little child running toward you without wondering whether the child is wrapped in explosives or something like that. That is treachery. But that is not how it is used in Malachi.
It is not some enemy who is camouflaged. In the book of Malachi, it is the treacherous husband. It is not an enemy. It is a friend.
It is the platoon leader. It is your buddy. It is your neighbor. It is your sister. It is your brother. It is the church—a group of people professing the covenant of the Father, one by creation, one by redemption, the unique people of God.
We are the body of Christ, related to Him by redemption. It is not shocking with unbelievers. God tells us in Philippians, “In nothing terrified by your adversaries.” You expect it from the adversary.
But treachery in the family—that is Malachi. Getting stabbed in the back by a brother, by a sister. That is what this is about. God says, “I hear it. There is a whisper. Something is going on down there.”
It is an awful problem of division among God’s people. If the devil has any wisdom in any of his operations, he is effective when he divides the people of God.
It is an awful thing. The Bible does not just talk about it in one or two places. God says, “This is breaking My heart. This is the central issue I want to talk about in all of these problems: this awful problem of disunity among God’s people.”
He shows its extent by getting into the most intimate relationship on the face of the earth, even in marriage.
Brothers, our unity was designed by God, as you know, to be the sign to the world that we belong to Him. It was given as a sign to me to know that I have passed from death unto life because I love the brethren.
Is there a perfect answer—a perfect answer for this whole issue of disunity? Indeed there is.
God passes by all the surface answers. You know: “How are we going to get along? Well, you have to try to communicate, try to understand the other person, learn their personality so you do not rub them the wrong way, be politically correct, make sure you avoid certain issues and do not say certain things. With so-and-so, you have to use kid gloves.”
He bypasses all of that, and He gives us the answer. Malachi 2:15:
Therefore take heed to your spirit,
And let none deal treacherously.
Verse 16:
Therefore take heed to your spirit,
That ye deal not treacherously.
The key is in “take heed to your spirit.” What does that mean? Take heed to your spirit so you do not deal treacherously.
If I have a problem with my brother, I thought I was supposed to take heed to his spirit so I do not deal treacherously. He does not say, “Take heed to his spirit,” or to your wife’s spirit, or your son’s or daughter’s spirit, or your neighbor’s spirit, or your elder’s spirit, or some brother or sister’s spirit.
Brothers, listen. Understand what I am saying. He does not even say, “Take heed to your sin.” He does not say that. He is going deep. He is going deep. He is saying, “Take heed to your spirit.”
Under the old covenant, this was a marvelous hint of what was coming in the new covenant. What does it mean to take heed to your spirit?
I will tell you the simplest thing it means. There is one hundred percent certainty of this: at least it means it is a spiritual problem. Right? Take heed to your spirit. It is a spiritual problem.
Taking heed to the attitude of your heart—all those emotions: hate, anger, bitterness, jealousy, revenge, vindictiveness, unforgiveness, and all those things we are familiar with. How are we going to deal with all that? Do I have to make adjustments to everybody I talk to and try to figure everything out?
He is your Creator. He is your Father. He is your Groom, your Redeemer.
I am going to make a statement, and I do not want you to misunderstand my statement. I never have a problem with Lillian.
You say, “Oh, you have a perfect marriage.” I did not say that. I did not say that. I said I never have a problem with Lillian. And you know why? Because my problem is always with Jesus. It is not with Lillian.
What He is saying, when He says, “Take heed to your spirit,” is that this whole problem of disunity is a spiritual problem. If you are right with the Lord, you will be right with man. That is what He is saying. It is a spiritual thing.
If you are right vertically, you are going to be right horizontally. You have got to be right with the Lord. You say, “Well, I have been having such-and-such a problem with that person.” Take heed to your spirit. Your problem is not with that person. It is always with Jesus.
That is the answer for this whole thing. I consider Ephesians 2:11-22 to be the greatest passage in the New Testament on dealing with the differences among the brethren.
One of the great principles of that chapter is this: the war is over. It is all done. He has not called us to make the unity of the Spirit. He has called us to keep the unity of the Spirit, because it is already made. We do not have to make it. It is already made. He has made the unity.
Those who are mentioned in that chapter, who were far off from God and from each other, have been brought nigh by the blood of Christ.
You may not like it, but I am one with you, and you are one with me, and we are one with each other. We are one with every Christian on the face of the earth.
God hears the whispers when we do not show that oneness. We are joined to each other as really as we are joined to Jesus Christ.
The only thing that can disrupt that unity is when something happens to my spirit. That is why He calls again. He turns us to the Lord, to walk in union with the Lord. That is the answer.
If this hand is living for the pleasure of its head, and this hand is living for the pleasure of its head, these hands are in union.
It is when there is something wrong with my head—or if, you see, this arm, you can cut it off. I live; the arm is dead. This arm does not have a life of its own. It shares the common life of the body.
The body only has one life. It does not have two lives. Every time there is conflict, somebody has their own life. There is only one life in the body, and you know His name. It is our Lord. It is the Holy Spirit of God.
Our spirit has a door on it. You say, “Where do you get that in the Bible?” It is amazing when you read how it is used.
I will tell you, sometimes, honestly, I can hear the door slam in my heart.
When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 6:11, he said, “Our heart is opened wide for you.” You know what he is saying? The door is open. I am right with God, and the door is open wide.
Then when he gets to chapter 7, verse 2, he says, “Will you make room for us in your heart?” What he is saying is, “Open the door. Open the door.”
Our heart has a door on it. Our spirit has a door on it. Have you ever gone to somebody’s house, and you know they are there, and they do not want to see you? You knock at the door, and they do not come to the door.
That is happening in the body of Christ. We have closed our door. Brothers, take heed to your spirit.
This is a simple, simple truth. I hope this never happens. I am only giving it as a terrible possibility, but it is possible.
It is possible that someday, because I take my eyes off Jesus, you may have to put me out of your fellowship and out of the church.
If you put me out of your fellowship and out of the church, you still cannot close the door of your heart for me. That door stays open at all times. Take heed to your spirit.
We are one, and that door is always open. God says this perfect answer: “Take heed to your spirits, that we do not deal treacherously one with another.”
Those are God’s perfect answers. You are doubting His love? Take a look at the Lord Jesus on the cross.
You are burdened down with His work? It is because you have made it your work, and it is not His work. Come back again and offer a Christ up to Him, and watch God begin to work, and you will get the joy back.
You have problems one with another—disunity in home, in the family, with your wife, with your husband, with your wife. I forgot where I was.
Take heed to your spirit, brothers. Take heed to your spirit. It is a spiritual thing. We need to always be focused on the Lord. We will pick it up there tomorrow. Let us pray.
Father, thank You so much for Your Word.
Thank You for the grace You have to come to us and sit us down and listen to our foolish rationalizations and denials.
Thank You for probing, for discovering to us, and for showing us our heart, and then showing us our Lord Jesus.
Oh, Lord, we do not ever want to try to offer You a picture of Your Son that is mangled. We pray that we might ever be lifting up to You a Christ that is full, complete, and perfect.
We know that satisfies You, and with that comes the blessing. You draw people unto Yourself, and You bless us by using us.
Lord, work that in our hearts.
And then, Lord, we pray that we might see that You have made us one. Teach us common life and the headship of Christ. Teach us to live for the pleasure of the Head, that we might be one.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Thank you, brother.