Ron Dunn Podcast - Seven Sins Of Malachi Part 4

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

Ron Dunn brings his fourth message in the series from Malachi

The book of Malachi. I'm certain that there are some here tonight who have perhaps not been here. What we are doing in the book of Malachi is simply looking at the condition of God's people right before God went silent. When Malachi was closed, it was 400 years again before God spoke. And it's interesting to see what was the spiritual condition of the people of God after thousands of years of miracles and prophets and testimonies and statutes and what God had to say to them at the end.

And we mentioned the first night that the book ends with these words, with a curse. It is a very sad commentary, I think, upon the people of God that the last thing God would say to them before closing the seal of divine prophecy was with a curse, threatening them with a curse. You begin to see why God did it this way as we go through the book of Malachi. Because they are arguing with God. No other book in the Bible contains as many personal direct references from God to the people as does the book of Malachi. And God's method is, he makes a statement, as we saw yesterday, I have loved you, and then the

people deny that charge. They say, wherein hast thou loved us? And then God answers and shows them exactly how he has loved them and proves it to them. But it's characteristic of these people that they have become cynical and argumentative, and they will no longer accept the word of God at face value. They are skeptical, and they want to question everything that God says to them. We come to another one of these questions and answers in the last verse, Malachi chapter 2, verse 17. And then we will read through the fifth verse of chapter 3. Malachi chapter 2, beginning with verse 17, and reading through verse 5 of chapter 3. You have worded the Lord with your words.

Yet you say, where have we wearied him? When you say, everyone that does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them, or where is the God of justice? Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his people, even the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.

And he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering of righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord an offering of righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old and as in former years. And I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against false swearers

and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the followess, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord. The theme is struck in those last words of chapter 2. The prophet says, You have wearied the Lord with your words. That's very unusual. You'll never find that anyplace else in the Old Testament. But by their words, what they have been saying, God has grown so tired of hearing it. He has grown so weary of all the complaining and all the accusations and all

the childlike pouting that they have done. He said, you have wearied the Lord with your words. And they say, what do you mean? Like a child who's just been rebuked by his parent because he has responded in sort of a smart aleck way, you know. They say, don't talk to me like that. What do you mean, innocent? They say, you have wearied the Lord with your words.

And they say, well, the lord with your words and they say well wherein have we with him and the lord answers and gives them three occasions on when they have with the lord one of them we want to look at tonight he says when you say everyone that does evil is good in the sight of lord now that's what they were saying. Some of them were saying that. That's how cynical, that's how warped they were. They felt that God was disappointing them. They felt that God was not protecting them. They felt that God was not giving them what they really deserved as his people.

And so they said, well, everyone that does evil must be good in the sight of the Lord because it looks like the evil people are the ones who are prospering. And then they say, and he delights in them. God's pleasure is no longer in those of us who faithfully go through the ceremonies and those of us who have been persecuted because we have been his name. Now he delights. The wicked you are, the more he likes it. But that's not really what God is wearied by. And he separates these first two statements very definitely and gives the third one. Where is the God of judgment? Where is the God of justice? What has really worried the Lord, what God is really sick and tired of hearing from his people, is this, where is the God of justice? Where is he? Implying that they've been treated unjustly, implying that God doesn't even exist. Actually, this phrase, where is the God of justice,

is the same as saying there is no God. This statement really calls into question the existence of God and almost becomes what we would call today a Christian atheism. Where is the God of justice? I think many a time you and I have said the same thing. I know I have. You and I live in a world that is ordered by an orderly God, by a rational God.

After all, if he created all of this, he ought to be able to run it, keep it right. And if the one who made this world is a good God and a holy God and a powerful God, then things ought never to get out of control. The righteous ought to prosper and the wicked ought to go bankrupt. The righteous ought to walk through the earth unscathed by any kind of tragedy or heartache, and yet their burdens seem heavier than even the most wicked.

Where is the God of justice? You say, well, I don't know that I've ever asked that question. I think you and I have asked that question a thousand times without knowing it. Every time we question why, every time we say why, why me? Why has God allowed this to happen? Why didn't God do this? Why didn't God answer my prayer? What we're saying is, where is the God of justice? Because we do believe that we deserve justice. Years ago, I found a little book in a Denver bookstore. I had not seen the book

before, but it was on sale for a dollar and a half, and I felt like I could afford to chance a dollar and a half if the book wasn't any good. The name of the book is How Can It Be All Right When Everything Is All Wrong? by Lewis Smedes, who is a professor at Fuller Seminary. Let me just read what he says in the introduction to this book. Believing does not come easy for me. It never has come easy. I suppose it never will. I almost always believe in God in spite of the problems and pains that tell me things are so wrong that believing in a good God doesn't make sense. The things I say here are filtered through many years of believing against the grain. Too many people

I care about hurt too much to let believing come easy. People close to me get cancer and die too soon. My prayers do not take away the pain or hold back the tolling of the bells. My friends' marriages turn into battlefields, and their children go through a hundred kinds of many hells. God does not do many miracles for my crowd. But the pains of people in my little orbit are just starters. Those starving children I pray for across the sea keep on dying, and the oppressed people I pray for keep getting their heads banged and their freedoms choked. I am not whimpering, for I know that we make many of our own miseries. I am only admitting that when I believe that God really cares, I feel a lot of hurts that tell me he does not seem to care enough. Faith does not break loose

in my head with a whooping hurrah for God. Believing sneaks into my soul while my mind is saying, My God, where were you when I needed you? I think it is always refreshing to listen to an honest man. He makes statements that most of us would be reluctant to make because they seem to be unreligious, irreligious, unspiritual. And I guess the phrase that means so much to me in that statement was this, believing against the grain. Believing against the grain. Believing does not come easy for me. Believing does not come easy for me.

It is hard to believe. Is there anyone here tonight that would admit the same thing? There have been those times when actually I've had to have faith strictly by faith. There was nothing else to support it. I had nothing but the bare word of God.

That's all I had. Where is the God of justice? Not long ago, a young man was killed in our town in an automobile accident. He was not a Christian, and none of his family were Christians. And they asked one of the ministers at our church to perform a funeral and handle that. And so he did what I suppose every minister does in preparation for a funeral. He would drop by the mother's house where all the family was gathered to make arrangements and see what kind of music and so forth. And as he got ready to leave, he said to this mother,

Would it be all right if we had just a word of prayer before I left? And to his amazement, this mother just broke out in a shout of violence. And she said, No, no, there'll be no praying here in my house. God took my only son. There'll be no praying in this house. When he told me that later, I said, You know, that's probably the first time she's given God credit for anything. That's right.

I would be willing to wager that when that son had been born to her, there was nothing like this. God has given me a son. Why is it we only associate God with the bad things that happen? I was preaching Sunday morning over Pleasant Valley, and I mentioned that statement in the book of Job that I just never can quite get over. When after all this suffering has come to him,

and his wife says, why don't you go ahead and curse God and die, he makes this statement. He said, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Now, I know I could do part of that. I could say the Lord giveth and the devil takes away. God help us. Isn't it true today that so often, anytime anything untoward happens to us, anything adverse or anything unpleasant, it seems to be always the devil's fault? Or God is depriving me of justice.

Where is the God of justice? And I want to answer that question tonight out of this passage of Scripture. About once every 20 years, I get a picture made for publicity purposes. I really do. I hate to go to the photographer. I am not photogenic. That's putting it mild photographer. I am not photogenic. That's putting it mildly. I am not.

And I've got one good side, and it's sort of at an angle, and you've got to catch it just right with a light on it. I just look weird and awful. And the one I'd been using had been made in 1972, and I began to have pastors send it back to me and say, couldn't you get another one? One church even volunteered to pay for it if I would get another one made. First Presbyterian Church, as a matter of fact, in Chattanooga, Tennessee,

volunteered to pay for my picture. And so last August, I yielded. And I went to the photographer. And this photographer is sort of a character. He's sort of an out-of-work comic. And we were talking about how long it had been since I had a picture made, and he made some kind of remark about it.

And I said, well, you know, to tell the truth, I never can find the picture that does me justice. I was just joking. He said, Pastor, you don't need justice. You need mercy. And I want to tell you tonight, very seriously, that all of us are asking for justice, and we are demanding justice. And what we need is mercy.

Where is the God of justice? First of all, he is on his way. He is on his way. Notice the way he opens that third chapter. Notice how God answers that question. The people in their self-righteousness are rising up and they're saying, where is the God of justice? They can say that because they're confident he's nowhere around and immediately the answer comes back and says behold and really the translation ought to be behold me i mean god's getting personal not just behold but he said you behold me look at me i'm the god of justice and he said i will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me,

and the Lord whom you seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. Where is the God of justice? He's on his way. You can rest assured of that. Down in verse 6, I started to read it because it really is the tail end of this passage,

but we dealt with that earlier. He says, I am the Lord, I change not. I change not. It may sometimes appear, my friends, that God has changed, or else he is no longer around. Because we see things going on that offend our sense of justice and our sense of righteousness. And at times, I think, honestly, to tell you the truth, we get a little indignant at God.

Some time ago, a family that had belonged to our church suffered a tremendous tragedy. Their son committed suicide, went into the bathroom one night and put a shotgun to his head and blew the trigger. We went over. They were no longer members, but I always go over because I always get called on those things. It and always hard to say anything of comfort to them, but they were doing as well as could be expected. That's been a year or so ago. A few weeks ago, this father called me. I told him that any time he wanted to talk, to call me, I said to him, you're doing good now, but you won't do good in a while. This is the easiest part. The hard part comes in about six months or a year. You call me. He called me one day and he just wanted to talk about it. And he was saying,

you know, he said, I know that God is in control. And he said, I know that good comes out of evil. He said, as a matter of fact, several of my relatives have been saved as a direct result of my son's death. And there was a quietness on the line for a moment. And then a choked voice said to me, but that isn't enough. That isn't enough and I know that glory always comes to God out of everything but some grief stricken parents may be forgiven by saying

Lord get your glory someone else get your glory from somebody else I've lived for you I've served you I've tried to live a whole life do this to somebody else who's backsliding do this to somebody else

who uses your name in vain where is the God of justice? And there are days when the sky is clouded and you and I don't know if God is there or not. I think that's why you find that repeated and monotonous almost phrase throughout the Word of God, and God, and God, or but God, God did see, God remembered Noah, God remembered Daniel, God remembered Joseph.

Again and again, by the course of events of our lives, it seems that God has forgotten us or else he no longer cares. We end up saying, where is the God of justice? He's on his way. And secondly, you won't like it when he gets here. He's on his way. And you won't like it when he gets here he's on his way and you won't like it when he gets here now there is a certain little comical ironic note I want you to notice in that first verse he says behold I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me and the Lord, now notice, whom ye seek. And that is a very strong word for seek.

It is use of a blind man groping in the dark for something. These people have just been like blind people, so desperate to find the Lord, they're groping for him in the dark. They don't know where to find him, but they're groping for him. And they're searching, searching. He says, these whom you seek shall suddenly, without warning, come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in,

he shall come. Now, God is being sarcastic there in two ways. Number one, he says, you seek him. This one that you come, the one that you seek, you know, the one that you've just really been trying to find, you know, the one that you're really delighted in and you say your whole heart is filled with love for him, he's coming. And he's coming to his temple.

You know the temple that you've been disappointed in? The temple that you thought when you built it a hundred years ago, God would descend and the glory and the golden age would begin and it didn't begin and so you started asking about a hundred years ago, where is the God of justice? Well, he's on his way. He's going to come to that very temple that you have despised, that very temple whose altar

you have polluted. He's going to come, this God whom you seek and who you're so anxious to see, he's going to come and you won't like it when he gets here. Because notice what he says in verse 2. But who may abide the day of his coming and who shall stand when he appears for he is like a refiner's fire

and like fuller's soap. You see what God's saying? He's saying, oh yes, he's coming but who will be able to abide the day of his coming who will be able to take it who shall be able to stand and that's a military word used to hold your ground and God is saying who will be able to stand before the Lord and hold their ground you say you're looking so forward to it now

and that you want it to happen, you want it to come. I want to tell you something, when you do come, when it does come, you'll wish that it hadn't for nobody will be able to bide the day of his coming. Nobody will be able to stand in the day of his appearing.

And I think what this is saying to us is this, all of us, as far as I would know, I'd give every one of us tonight the benefit of the doubt, all of us tonight are seeking the Lord, right? I think that's a safe assumption. We're all seeking the Lord.

I doubt seriously if the majority of us have come here to this conference simply to have something to do. I think whether we express it or not, there is a desire in our heart for the Lord to descend from the church that he seems to be absent from,

for God to display his glory. Sometimes you get so hungry for it. I forget sometimes what it's like. I can go back and play some old tapes of a number of years ago in different places and you can just feel the glory of God coming through those tapes. And I turned to my wife and I said, I had forgotten it was like that. I had forgotten it was like that.

Lord, do it again. I so much long to see God to come back to his temple, which has become despised and polluted. And I think all of us tonight could say that, that we're seeking the Lord. But when he comes, it's going to be not quite what we expected. I really do have the opinion, which I greatly respect, that most of us who are tonight praying for revival would stop praying for it

if we knew what revival really was and what it really involved. You see, we're saying, we want the God of justice to come. Get these fellows. Get these fellows over here. We see these wicked men. We see these dishonest men.

We see these unbelievers, these pagans. We say we want the God of justice to come and deal with them. But here's what's so amazing. When the God of justice comes, they don't need to be worried about the heathen. They need to be worried about themselves. The question is not where is the God of justice.

The question is how am I going to take it when he comes? Because he's going to come to do a couple of unpleasant things. Number one, he's coming to purify us. Notice how Malachi puts it in verse 2. He is like a refiner's fire and like fuller's soap, and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver. Now, of course, the two comings of our Lord, the first and the second coming,

are always compressed in the prophet so that it is all one event. And what he is saying here is applicable to us in that the Christ has come and has brought salvation, and he is doing this. He comes to us in revival and comes to us in judgment and comes to us in visitation, and he will yet come to us personally and physically. And so all of this can be applied to those of us today. And so he says he comes to refine. He comes to purify.

He comes as a refiner's fire. I think if I were to ask God tonight to do something in my life, to get out some of the dross, to get out some of the dross, to get out some of the evil, the last thing I would expect would be that God would use a fire to do it. When I'm praying that God will

help me to find all of Him for myself, when I'm praying that God will help me to be what I ought to be, when I'm praying that God will help me to be what I ought to be, when I'm praying that God will help me to overcome the sins that those so easily beset me, what I'm thinking of is that one night I'll be in a meeting like this and the glory of God will come down and we'll be so caught up in it and we'll be just carried along on the tide of revival and it'll be such a thrilling experience. But that is usually not the way it happens. God comes to us not in the great revival,

not in the great charismic, ecstatic feelings, but he comes to us in the painful pressures of life as a refiner's fire. As a fire. And of course, we immediately think of what Peter says writing to those Christians. He said, I know that you're in heaviness right now because you're going through a trial.

But he says, your faith that will be tried by fire is more precious than gold that perishes. Gold is precious. And you purge it and purify it by the fire. Interesting thing here. Have you noticed that he put silver before gold? He put silver before gold. By the way, what time am I supposed to be through? Okay, I didn't look to see what time I started. He put silver before gold. Now,

throughout history, from the early times, from ancient man, way back to the Egyptians and the Greeks, gold was always more precious than silver. Gold, of course, was the reflection of the sun, and silver was the reflection of the moon, and they made their coins in circles like that because that represented the sun and that represented the moon. That's why we don't have perpendicular money. We have round coins. But gold was always more highly valued than silver. And yet here, Jesus says, first of all, he's going to refine the silver.

And that order is significant. And here's the reason. He says he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and he shall purify the sons of Levi. He shall sit as a refiner and he shall purify the silver. Now the refiner would sit,

actually sit by that silver. And unless immediately when that silver. And unless immediately, when that silver would lose all of its oxygen and then it would be bright and shiny, you would immediately have to pour carbon. They used charcoal into that silver so that it would not absorb, once again, 20 times its weight in oxygen.

It would be ruined almost if you didn't do that. So the refiner had to stay close by. He had to sit there, keeping his eyes on it, careful, watching. And when suddenly that silver became shiny, he put in the carbon, put in the charcoal, and what happened was this. That silver became more and more silvery until the refiner. How did the refiner know when it was finished

and when it was enough? When he could see his image reflected in the silver. And he sits there, and he watches, and he watches, and just at the right moment, he puts in the necessary ingredient, and he can always tell when it's worked because he can see his face in it. The Lord is a refiner. The Lord does use fire.

I tell you what, you can trust God and still get hurt. And I don't believe in this kind of faith that says if you trust God, you'll be shielded from every kind of adversity and situation. I don't believe in that at all. God, the Bible doesn't teach it, and experience doesn't teach it. You can trust God and still get hurt. But I want to tell you something. While you're going through the fire, the Lord Jesus is sitting right there watching. Close.

Concerned. Contemplating. Watching. He's not off somewhere tending to something else. He knows you're going through the fire and I dare not leave my child while he's going through the fire.

I sit and I keep an eye on him and I make sure nothing goes wrong. I watch over him. I even order his disorder. I even arrange his unarr eye on him and I make sure nothing goes wrong. I watch over him. I even order his disorder. I even arrange his unarrangement. And I watch. And when it's just right, I add the necessary ingredient of patience

or faith or endurance or love. And then I begin to see my face reflected in his life. That's what he does. You see, the one thing that I think we ought to understand tonight is this. God does use the fire. He really does. But I want you to remember something, folks.

God is not an arsonist. He is a refiner. And that makes all the difference in the world. An arsonist uses fire to destroy. A refiner uses fire to purify and make beautiful. So the next time you're in the fire, you remember, bless God, it's a refiner sitting there, not an arsonist. And then he goes on to say he will purge them as gold. We don't have time to do any else.

But just let me mention one thing, or two things, all right? Good. Notice who this is directly directed at. In verse 3, And he shall purify the sons of Levi, the priests. Why? So they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Now folks, there is a very, very important principle, I believe, in God's dealing with his people. God through them from the very beginning has appointed priests. He has appointed prophets.

He has appointed apostles. He has appointed pastors and teachers and evangelists. Why? So that they may offer righteous sacrifices under the Lord, thereby bringing the blessings of God upon the people. It is my conviction, and again I think I have the right to say it because I am one, but I believe that the primary channel of God's blessings to the people in the church comes through the pastor, comes through the man of God, comes through the under-shepherd. I never will

forget a number of years ago, there was a black evangelist from Cartoon Sudan visiting in my church. He came into my office, and before he went out to the service, we knelt, and he led us in prayer, and he said, Dear God, unless you bless the pastor today, the people will go away hungry. Now, that made an impression on me. That really put the onus on me. Lord, you mean to tell me if these people go away hungry today, it's because I wasn't blessed? Lord, unless you bless the pastor, the people will go away hungry. No wonder the people were polluted, the priests were. I don't blame the people in our church today for being backslidden and cold and different

and hard and mixed up and in error. I blame the ministers who through the years have taught them that. Ultimately, finally, the guilt must lay at the foot of the pastor, of the ministers, of the priests, because the people, generally speaking, don't know any more than what we've told them. They just do what we tell them to do. They've listened to us. We've instructed them. We said, we know, we know, we know. We'll tell you what to do. And it's interesting

to me that when God begins to work, he always starts at the top. Starts with the priests. And that's because dead fish always rise to the surface. And if you're going to clean out a stagnant pond, you start by dredging the surface. Get all the dead fish off. God starts at the top. God is coming, and you won't like it when he gets here, but you'll be glad he came. That's number three. God is coming. You won't like it when he gets here, but you'll be glad he came. If you'll notice in verse four, this is so beautiful, Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, as in former years. I don't know that you and I have the capacity to appreciate that. Such beautiful language there.

Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant be fragrant be acceptable unto the Lord as in the former days as it used to be when the glory of God dwelt unhindered and God was pleased with his people

if I will allow the Lord as he comes to refine me as fire, as silver, and to purge me as gold, and the priests will be able and the ministers will be able to once again preach the word as they ought and minister as they ought, the conclusion is this, that then there shall be offerings from every Christian, every church, the offerings will go up unto the Lord, and they will be pleasant unto Him, and it will be just like it was in the days when God's glory was upon us. Where is the God of justice?

He may be closer than we realize, and I trust that we'll be ready for Him when He comes. Would you pray with me? The Ron Dunn Podcast is available only for personal edification, not to be duplicated, uploaded to the web, or resold without prior written consent. It is managed and operated by Sherwood Baptist Church. If you would like to listen to additional Ron Dunn messages, visit sherwoodbaptist.net slash bookstore and search Ron Dunn.

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