Malachi 2

CHAPTER 2THEME: The priests reproved for profanity and the people rebuked for social sinsIn this chapter we come to another section, but it is still dealing with the priests. God is reproving the priests for their profanity. They were profane (fanus means “temple”); they were against the temple. Instead of serving God, they were opposed to God, disgracing God in the very service they were performing in the temple. In the first chapter, we saw that the priests were despising God’s name, and I mentioned the old sick cows which they presented as an offering to God. The real condemnation of that practice was not because they were giving a valueless thing to God and He was rebuking them because they were not giving as they should. A little later He will come to that and will ask the very pointed question, “Will a man rob God?” But here the emphasis is not upon the value of the offering but upon the character of the offering that was placed on the altar. In the Book of Leviticus we find that there are five great offerings mentioned, and each of them points to Jesus Christ. Each offering had to represent the One who was coming, and this One was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. He was perfect, and the offering which represented and pointed to Him must be without blemish.

The sweet savor and even the nonsweet savor offerings pointed to the Son of God. Now in the days of Malachi the priests were despising God’s name in that they were bringing to God an imperfect offeringan old sick cow! It was blasphemy to bring a diseased or crippled animal to the altar as a representation of the perfect One who was coming. The same thing is being done in our day. A few years ago the very popular rock opera Jesus Christ, Superstar presented the Lord Jesus as an immoral, confused man. Well, the world cannot forget Him that’s for sure, but the world is not thinking rightly of Him. Those who represent Him in books and plays and even in the liberal pulpit are despising the name of God. We hear flippant expressions like “the Devil made me do it.” Well, the Devil didn’t make you do it; you did it because you have that old sinful nature. Another expression is “God will get you!” No, He won’t! Do you think God is running around paddling little boys and girls? Oh, my friend, let’s guard against misrepresenting God. Our God is gracious, and He is to be held in reverence. He does judge sin and will judge sin in the future. He is called the awful God, that is, the awe-inspiring God. He is the reverend God. He is to be respected. He is to be worshiped. He is to be adored. The other night I was listening to snatches of Bach’s music and was struck by the fact that it was nothing in the world but praise to God. We don’t have much of pure praise to God even today in our so-called fundamental churches. Our failure to praise God and our praise of men instead is another way in which we despise God’s name. This is a condemnation of our contemporary church. Since all true believers are priests in the age in which we live, this prophecy of Malachi’s which is directed to priests has real meaning for us. In chapter 1, verse Mal_1:6, God addresses the priests and rebukes them for despising His name. Now in chapter 2, verse Mal_2:1, He addresses them again

Malachi 2:1

You see, He is still dealing with the priests.

Malachi 2:2

They were not taking their office seriously. And God was going to judge them more severely than he would judge the people. Why? Because of their position of responsibility. They were permitting this sordid condition to exist. They were shutting their eyes to the fact that people were bringing lame and sick animals for sacrifice. God had given them the law of truth, and they were to teach it to their people. Now I am going to make a very strong statement. I would rather be the worst sinner on this eartheven a gangster or a murdererthan to be a minister who goes into the pulpit with an unbelieving heart and gives only a few little pious platitudes to the congregation. God is certainly going to hold that man responsible.

Malachi 2:3

“Behold, I will corrupt your seed.” Apparently God had been blessing the people, and they had been getting abundant harvests at this time. You will remember that the priests were to be given the tithe of the cropswheat, barley, figs, grapesa tenth was given to the Lord to support the priests. Now God says that He will corrupt the seed out there so that they wouldn’t be getting the tithe that they had been getting. Their affluent society was about done with. “And [I will] spread dung upon your faces.” The interesting thing was that all the maw of the sacrificial animal was given to the priests, but the dung in the maw was rejected and taken away. It could never be left in the sacrificial animal. Therefore, when God says that He will spread dung upon the faces of the priests, it is as if He is saying that He is going to rub their noses in it. And when that happens, they will not be able to serve at His altar. Why? Because no unclean thing can come there, and they will certainly be unclean! This is strong language that God is using here.

Malachi 2:4

This tells us the reason that God chose the tribe of Levi. If we look at Levi, the son of Jacob, we would never choose him because he had nothing to commend him to God. And when old Jacob was dying, he called his twelve sons to stand around his bedside, and he gave a prophecy, which we find in Genesis 49, concerning each of them. He combined Simeon and Levi into one prophecy: “Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.” They felt justified in doing it because their sister had been raped, but they were murderers. Jacob’s prophecy continues: “Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel: I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel” (Gen_49:5-7). How was God going to scatter Levi in Israel? They would become the priestly tribe. They didn’t get any territory of the land but were scattered among the tribes. But how could they become the priestly tribe when Levi himself was such a rascal and a murderer? We need to follow along in history to see why God chose the tribe of Levi. Centuries later, when the children of Israel went into idolatry and made the golden calf to worship, Moses called for the idolaters to be slain. It was the tribe of Levi who did according to the word of Moses. When Moses was about to die, he gathered the tribes around him. The twelve sons of Jacob had become more than a million people who were gathered around Moses. Now Moses gives a prophecy to each of the tribes, and this is his blessing on Levi: “…Let thy Thummim and the Urim be with thy holy one, whom thou didst prove at Massah, and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah; who said unto his father and to his mother, I have not seen him; neither did he acknowledge his brethren, nor knew his own children: for they have observed thy word, and kept thy covenant. They shall teach Jacob thy judgments, and Israel thy law: they shall put incense before thee, and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar” (Deu_33:8-10). Notice that although Levi himself was a brutal murderer, the tribe that came from him observed the Word of God; they kept His covenant. And God made them the priestly tribe to teach the people of Israel the law of God and to offer prayers and sacrifices before Himthose sacrifices pointed to Christ. Therefore, “Bless, LORD, his substance, and accept the work of his hands: smite through the loins of them that rise against him, and of them that hate him, that they rise not again” (Deu_33:11). That is the covenant which God made with the tribe of Levi. He was to teach Israel, he was to serve at the place of prayer, the altar of incense, and he was to offer the burnt sacrifices which point to Christ. When we move forward in history to the time of Malachi and the remnant which had returned to the land of Israel after the Babylonian captivity, what is the tribe of Levi like? Well, we have seen that he is willing to shut his eyes when a sick cow is brought as a sacrifice to God. He is despising the name of God, and he is disobeying God. Therefore, how can he teach God’s Word to the people?

What a change has taken place! Even after the seventy-year captivity, Levi hasn’t learned the lesson. “My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name.” God is saying through Malachi that Levi previously feared Him, but now the tribe doesn’t. “The law of truth was in his mouth.” He had taught the truth of God. But these priests are not only failing to teach the truth of God, they also are breaking the commandments of God. He continues, “The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.” He had been a good example, you see, to the people. What a change has taken place. There is a real application in this for us today. No one can serve God without a reverence for His name. That means that Christ must be lifted up before the people. If Christ is lifted up, He will draw men to Himself. He is lifted up by our witness, and that must be by our lives as well as by our words. Our example is just as important as what we say.

Malachi 2:7

The priests are to be messengers of the Lord of hosts. The word messenger, as I have pointed out before, is also translated “angel,” and in the Book of Revelation we find the Lord addressing the “angel” of the church of Ephesus, etc. To whom is He speaking? He is addressing the one who is the leader of the church, the one who is teaching the Word of God in the church. Now let me sum this up by giving my interpretation of thisand you may not agree with it. I believe that the sole duty of the pastor of a church is to teach the Word of God. God have mercy on the church that expects its pastor to be the public relations man, running all over the countryside visiting sick babies and burping them, and expects him to spend his time in the administration of church affairs when he should be studying the Word of God and then teaching it to his people. Once I had a telephone call from a man back east who was an officer in his church and was dissatisfied with his pastor. He said that his pastor spent his time studying instead of administering the affairs of the church. So I asked him, “Did you tell me that you are a deacon?” “Yes.” “Have you yourself been visiting the sick?” “No, sir, I keep pretty busy.” “Do you know that that is your business? You are to visit the sick. You are to take charge of the administration of the church. His business is to teach the Word of God. If he is not teaching the Word of God when he gets into the pulpit, that is another story. But if he is spending his time in studying and giving out God’s Word, then he is doing what God has called him to do.” Remember that a situation like this confronted the apostles in the early church. The Hellenistic Jews were complaining that their widows were being neglected and preference was being given to the native-born widows. The matter was brought before the apostles, and they did a marvelous job of handling it. They told the church to appoint deacons to handle it. They said, “…It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables” (Act_6:2). Having completed my ministry in the church, I stand at a great vantage point today. I thank God that I have reached the place where I no longer have to burp babies and, although I have a little to do with administration, that is not how I spend my time. I am currently spending more time in the study of the Word than ever before, and I thank God for it. If I could relive my days as a pastor, I would spend more time studying the Wordsome folk thought I spent too much time as it was. But I believe that studying the Word and teaching it is the pastor’s business. God says that it was Levi’s business, but in Malachi’s day the priests were not doing it. Therefore, God says to the priests,

Malachi 2:8

There was a time in our own land when ministers were listened to, but that day is past. God said this would happen when the ministry is not giving out His Word.

Malachi 2:10

“Have we not all one father?” There are some expositors who say that the “father” refers to Abraham since both Israel and Judah are mentioned in the verse that follows. However, I think that the next question makes it clear that Malachi is speaking about God as the Father: “Hath not one God created us?” He also makes it clear in what way God is the Father. He is the Father by creation. But man lost that relationship. Adam was called the son of God, but after the Fall, he begat a son in his own likenessnot in the likeness of God, but in the likeness of his own fallen nature. Therefore, when the nation Israel comes into view, we do not find God speaking specifically of any individual Israelite as His son. Rather, He speaks of the corporate body of the nation as a son.

Never in the Old Testament does God refer to an individual as His son. Even of two men who were outstanding, Moses and David, it was “Moses my servant” and “David my servant.” Never does God say, “Moses my son” or “David my son.” Individuals become sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. God is the Father of mankind in the sense that He is the Creator. This is something that has been greatly emphasized in our contemporary society, and I think properly so. On a telecast I heard a man, who was definitely an unsaved man, play up the fact that we are all human beings and that we ought to show respect and consideration for one another. Well, that is true. As far as he went, he was entirely accurate. You are a human being and I am a human being, and I should accord to you the same rights and privileges and respect that I would like to have for myself. “Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?” We all are the creation of God. “Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?” Now here they were, a chosen people, yet breaking God’s covenant and dealing treacherously one with the other. They were not right with God, and so they were not right with each other. This is certainly true of man in our day. I personally have to say that there are a great many unsaved people that I wouldn’t trust. And, unfortunately, having been in the church most of my life, I have to say that there are a lot in the church whom I would not trust either. I have no confidence in them at all. Why? They deal treacherously. There is nothing that hurts the cause of Christ more than a church fight, conflicts in the church, and leaders who are at each other’s throats. Regardless of how evangelistic a church may be, its witness is nil when those conditions exist.

Malachi 2:11

THE SINS OF DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGEHe is very specific now: “Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem.” Now we know whom Malachi is talking about: “Judah” is the tribe of Judah, “Israel” includes all the twelve tribes, and “Jerusalem” is the capital. “An abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem.” God is talking about how they profane the covenant of the fathers by dealing treacherously with one another. They are profaning the holiness of the Lord. God is holy, and God loves holiness. God doesn’t love sin; He hates sin. Now God will spell it out to them. He specifically tells them what He is talking about (see Gen_6:1-7). “And hath married the daughter of a strange [foreign] god.” The men saw the beautiful foreign girls who lived around them when they returned from the Captivity. So they were leaving their wives and marrying these foreign girls who served heathen, pagan deities, and brought idolatry into the nation. We see this same thing all the way through the Word of God. I believe this is the situation in Gen_6:1-7 where we are told that the sons of God were marrying the daughters of men. I certainly do not hold the view of some expositors that the “sons of God” were angels who were cohabitating with human women and producing some sort of monstrous offspring. Our Lord expressly said that angels do not marry (Mat_22:30). Rather, this marks the beginning of the breaking down of the godly line of Seth as they intermarried with the ungodly line of Cain. We see this happening again when the children of Israel were nearing the Promised Land. The king of Moab hired Balaam to curse Israel because the Moabites feared them. When God would not permit Balaam to curse them, he gave the king of Moab some very bad advicebad for Israel. He said to let the daughters of Moab marry the sons of Israel. They did intermarry, and this brought the idolatry of Moab into Israel. Again after the kingdom of Israel was divided, the idolatry of Phoenecia was introduced into the northern kingdom by the marriage of Ahab with Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbaal, who was first an idolatrous priest, then king of Tyre and Sidon. Now this was happening again in Malachi’s day. We learn from Nehemiah that there were all kinds of pagan people living around the returned remnant. A young Israelite would see some good-looking foreign girl and decide that he would like to have her for a wife. So he would get rid of his own Israelite wife and marry this pagan girl. It is the same old story that is being reenacted in our day. I have been sounding a warning here in Southern California since 1940, but the divorce rate keeps climbing. Nobody is paying any attention to me, but I’ll keep on saying that a believer and an unbeliever ought not to get married. Any girl or any boy who flies in the face of God’s very definite and specific instructions in this connection is just flirting with trouble. Believe me, problems will be coming their way. It cannot be otherwise.

Malachi 2:12

“The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar.” It doesn’t make any difference who he is, he will suffer the same judgment. “And him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts.” Neither will he escape if he goes through the temple ritual but continues to live in sin. My friend, a true child of God will not continue to live in sin. That is the reason the prodigal son down there in the pigpen finally came to himself and said, “I will arise and go to my father …” (Luk_15:18). He was a son and not a pig. He had the nature of his father and could not continue to live as a pig. I received a startling letter from a church officer here in Southern California who asked for help because he “couldn’t give up the awful sin of adultery.” If he is a child of God, he will get out of the pigpen. Nothing but pigs love the pigpen and are satisfied to stay down there. A son will get out of it.

Malachi 2:13

The wives of these men who were divorcing them and marrying foreign girls came to the altar weeping. They shed their tears upon the altar, and God said, “I heard them. Then later you came along very piously and placed your offering upon the same altar on which were the tears of your wives! I want you to know that I paid no attention to your offering.” The church officer who wrote me the letter (to which I referred earlier) may be the treasurer of the church or the head deacon. I can assure him that God is paying no attention to his “good works.” In fact, it would be better if he stayed at home and kept out of sight. God makes it very clear that He “regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand.” He knows your hypocrisy and will not accept your service. Now the men in Malachi’s day, with feigned innocence and pretended ignorance, ask why

Malachi 2:14

“Yet ye say, Wherefore?” God is offensive even to suggest that He wouldn’t accept their offering. The thought is that they were saying, “Why wouldn’t He accept it? I brought a very nice fat lamb to offer.” When they ask the question, Malachi spells out the answer for them in neon lights so they cannot misunderstand Him"Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously." You see, the Israelite married a Hebrew girl when he was a young man. But when he grew older and moved among the pagan and heathen about him, he decided that he wanted to marry a pagan with whom he had gotten acquainted. “Yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.” His Hebrew wife was the one with whom he stood before the priest and covenanted to be faithful and true to her. The next verse has always been a difficult passage to interpret, but it is my feeling that Dr. Charles Feinberg is accurate when in his book, The Minor Prophets, he says that the natural interpretation is that the prophet is speaking of divorce. And the reference is to the original institution of marriage by God Himself.

Malachi 2:15

“And did not he make one?” goes back to the original creation of man and woman. Adam was a half and Eve was a half, and together they made one. This is evident when a child is bornhe is part of both parents. The two are certainly one in the child. “Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore [why] one? That he might seek a godly seed.” You see, she is to be like he isspiritually as well as physically for the sake of the family. A home where there is divorce or where there is polygamy is not a fit place in which to raise children. My friend, if you are a young lady, you ought not marry that young man unless he believes as you do because, actually, you are supposed to go his way. And you are going to find the going rough if you are a child of God and he is not. If you are a young man or a young woman, let me say this to you. If you think that you can win your sweetheart to Christ, make sure that you do it before your marriage because that is when you have the greatest influence. I tell you, a young fellow in love will do almost anything to please the girl he wants to marry. But after marriage he will not be anxious to please her. And, of course, that holds true for a young woman in love also. If you don’t win your sweetheart to Christ before marriage, you are in trouble, and I mean deep trouble. “Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.” Malachi is warning them to watch what they are doing. God had specifically forbidden His people to intermarry with the heathen. You may remember that Nehemiah, after he had built the walls of Jerusalem, had returned to his job as the king’s cupbearer down in the capital of Media-Persia. But after he had been there for awhile, he got a vacation and came back to Jerusalem. He found that old Tobiah, an Ammonite, an enemy of God, had been moved into an apartment in the temple! The high priest had made this arrangement for him because his son had married the daughter of Tobiah. Do you know what Nehemiah did about it? He went over there and pitched out all of Tobiah’s belongings, even the furniture, and told him to take off.

You may think that is pretty rough and certainly not very polite. No, it wasn’t polite, but it sure did cleanse the temple! As a matter of fact, Nehemiah was pretty rough with his own people whom he found had intermarried with the pagans of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab. Nehemiah himself records his treatment of them: “And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them, and plucked off their hair, and made them swear by God, saying, Ye shall not give your daughters unto their sons, nor take their daughters unto your sons, or for yourselves” (Neh_13:25). And he reminded them of the disaster which had come to their nation through intermarrige with the heathen. Oh, how we need laymen like Nehemiah in our day to stand for the Word of God!

Malachi 2:16

In the Old Testament, when a man married a girl, he took his garment, his outer garment, and put it over her. This lovely custom was to signify that he was going to protect her. This was the lovely thing which Boaz did for Ruth. Ruth was a widow and, according to the Mosaic Law, she had to claim Boaz as her kinsman-redeemer before he could act. He could not ask her to marry him; she had to claim him. So Naomi, acting like a regular matchmaker, sent Ruth down to the threshing floor. It was harvest time, and all the families were camped around the threshing floor. At night, to protect the grain, the men slept around it with their heads toward the heap of grain and their feet stuck out like spokes of a wheel.

Ruth followed Naomi’s instructions and laid at the feet of Boaz. When he realized that someone was there and asked who it was, she replied, “…I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy skirt over thine handmaid; for thou hast a near kinsman” (Rth_3:9). She was asking him to put his cloak over her, asking for his protection as her kinsman-redeemerin other words, asking him to marry her. In marriage a man offers a woman his protection and his love.And she offers her devotion and her life to him. This is a beautiful picture of Christ’s relationship with believers. In Malachi’s day the men of Israel were dealing treacherously with their wives. They had covered them with their garments in marriage, but now they were covering their garment with violence. In other words, they had divorced their wives. Notice that God says that He hates divorce"the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away." God’s ideal for man from the very beginning was that there should be no divorce. We know that, because Jesus said that Moses allowed divorce because of the hardness of men’s hearts but that from the beginning it was not so. Then how was it at the beginning? “And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him” (Gen_2:20). To begin with, we learn that among all the creation of God that was beneath man, none could take the place of what God would create for Adam, that is, a wife. God had created all other creatures by twos. Neither could man find a mate from the angels which were created above man.

So man was pretty much alone. God let Adam give names to all the animals so that Adam would discover for himself that he was alone and that he needed somebody there with him. Only half of him had really been created at the beginning. He needed somebody like he was and yet different from him. He needed one who was a help “meet” or fit for him. He needed someone to be fitted to him.

He was just a half, and he needed the other half to be put there so that together they could be one. That was the thing God had in mind. God created Adam first and allowed him time to realize that he needed someone else. I really get provoked when I hear people talk as if sex is something that is bad. Of course, the sex act outside of marriage is wrong. But after all, who was it that thought of sex? God is the One who thought of it and made it. He is the One who designated man and woman. He had in mind a marvelous arrangement when He created the sexes. “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof” (Gen_2:21). Why did God do that? Why didn’t he take her from the ground as He had done with Adam? Because she was to be like Adam and yet different from him. She must come from man because man is not really a whole person. She was made from his side. This is not some foolish story. God wants to impress upon man that woman is part of man, that he is only half a man without a woman. It has been said that God did not take Eve from Adam’s head so that she should be his superior. Neither did He take Eve from his foot to be his servant. He took Eve from Adam’s side to be his equal and to be his companion. She came from near his heart so that he would love her. She is to be his helper. Together they become one. One plus one equals one. That is God’s arithmetic, and that is accurate. The Scripture knows nothing about this idea of either women’s lib or the other extreme, the inferiority of women. God put woman on a high plane. It is obvious to us already that the people in the days of Malachi had lost that vision. That is why God was reminding them, “When you sin against the wife of your youth, you are sinning against Me.” God protects the status of women. “And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man” (Gen_2:22). She must have been a beautiful creation. God brought her and gave her unto the man. Certainly God made that marriage. The institution of marriage was made in heaven. God’s intention was for marriage to be a blessing. God blessed it, and He intended for it to work for man’s benefit. “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man” (Gen_2:23). What is woman? Adam was ish, and woman is ishah. She is the other side or other half of the male. We call them male and female. She is “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” She is called woman because she was taken out of man. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen_2:24). This excommunicates mothers-in-law and fathers-in-law. This removes them from the new family. I’m afraid a great many folk today do not get the right instruction about marriage. A marriage establishes a new creation. Papa and Mamma are not a part of the new creation. The young couple has left them. And they, the man and wife, shall be one flesh. “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (Gen_2:25). This was before sin had entered into the world. Neither one looked with lust upon the other because at that time they were innocent. They looked upon each other with tenderness and with love. There was a mutual respect. Each of them could truly say, “You are the one for me.” The creation of Eve made Adam a man, all man. The presence of Adam made Eve a woman, all woman. Then sin entered into the world. It marred everything, including the relationship in marriage. When we get to the time of Moses and the Law, we find that divorce was permitted. This does not mean that it was God’s intention when He instituted marriage, but He permitted it, as Jesus said, because of the hardness of man’s heart. The Mosaic Law said this: “When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house” (Deu_24:1). “Uncleanness” in the bride implies that her husband found that she was not a virgin; then he could write her a bill of divorcement. She had deceived her husband by not being what she claimed to be.

He had been “taken in” by her. Naturally, this would lead to trouble in the home, and lead to fighting later on. By the time of the New Testament, the interpretation of “uncleanness” had become so broad that if a wife even burned the biscuits, that would be grounds for divorce. When Jesus was asked the question, “Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?” the rabbis were teaching that a wife could be divorced upon the slightest whim, which was certainly contrary to the intent of the Mosaic Law. There were other specifics in this Mosaic Law: “And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance” (Deu_24:2-4). That would be progressive prostitution, and it would lead to the sort of thing we are seeing in our contemporary society, to people being married and divorced seven or eight times! To do that is absolutely to ridicule the marriage vow. The problem that was prevelant in Israel at the time of Malachi is prevalent in our contemporary culture today. We have certainly changed our viewpoint on divorce in recent years in this country. I suppose that divorce is one of the most controversial subjects that any Bible teacher has to discuss today because there is confusion as to what the Bible really says on that problem, and there is a great difference and wide diversion of interpretation. If I may use the colloquialism of the streetit is a hot potato. You cannot say that there are no grounds for divorce, although that was the unanimous decision of the church one hundred years agoin spite of what the Word of God had to say. The Lord Jesus made two things very clear on this subject of divorce: (1) Moses had permitted divorce because of the hardness of heart of the people; and (2) there is one clear-cut basis for divorcethat is fornication, unfaithfulness on the part of either the man or the woman. Notice this record in Matthew’s Gospel: “The Pharisee also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?” (Mat_19:3-5). As I mentioned before, Jesus goes back to the beginning, to the time of creation, when God instituted marriage. “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so” (Mat_19:6-8). Then He sets down the reason for which divorce is allowed: “And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery” (Mat_19:9). It is quite interesting how the disciples followed up that statement with a question: “His disciples say unto him, If the case of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry” (Mat_19:10). In other words, “If it is really that strict, if there is one and only one reason for divorce, then it would be better not to get married at all.” Then our Lord explained the liberty that we have: “But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother’s womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it” (Mat_19:11-12). It is not necessary for everyone to get married. There are some men and some women who do not need to marry. By no means is it a sin to be single.

Some folk simply do not need to get marriedthey are eunuchs from birth. Others are made eunuchs by man, such as Daniel in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. It was forced upon them and served the purpose of making captives more docile toward the king, and it also enabled them to devote more time to their studies. Then there are eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. There are men who have kept themselves eunuchs in order to serve the cause of Christ and the cause of the church. It is wonderful if a man or a woman feels able to do that.

I have known several preachers who have never married. I thought I would do the same in my ministry and decided that I would be an old bachelor all my life. But I soon learned that bachelorhood wasn’t for me. This is an area in which God has given us great liberty. But the important thing is this: Christ said that if you do choose to get married, it is a lifelong commitment. The only ground for divorce is fornication by your mate. In the days of the early church this matter of fornication arose in the Corinthian church. People of different religious backgrounds were in the church, and there were couples who had married when they were pagans, then one of the spouses became a Christian. What should be their relationship after one of them became converted? Paul addresses himself to this new situation: “And unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lord, Let not the wife depart from her husband: but and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife” (1Co_7:10-11). If a couple had been married when they were pagans and now one is converted to Christianity, the Christian is not to walk out on the marriage. If the believer departs, he is to remain unmarried or else be reconciled again. “But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy. But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace” (1Co_7:12-15). Although Jesus said that fornication was the only cause for divorce, the pagan member of a marriage may want to walk out on the marriage.

After the partner becomes a believer, the pagan party man say, “I don’t like this arrangement. Things are different now from when I married you. I’m going to leave.” In such a case Paul says to let the unbeliever go. Whether the unbeliever goes out and gets married again or not, in this situation I assume it would mean that the believing husband or wife would be free to marry again. When Paul said, “A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases,” what is the bondage? It is the marriage vows. When he says, “God hath called us to peace,” I believe he is saying that God does not ask any man or woman to live in a hell at home. Never. If they find that they cannot get along together, that they fight like cats and dogs, I think that they ought to separate. On several occasions I have advised couples to separatebut neither of them is to remarry. Their problem is not divorce, it is marriage. They should not have married in the first place. God has called us to peace; therefore the home is not to be a boxing ring. It is not a place for karate; it is a place for love. A home of love is God’s ideal for man. From the beginning God did not intend to have divorce, but, because of man’s sin, He permitted it. You may say, “Well, divorce is sinful.” Sure it is, and so is murder. But a murderer can be saved. In fact, one was dying on a cross next to Jesus, and he got saved. When Jesus Christ died on the Cross, He died for all sins.

The thief on the cross was both a thief and a murderer, and his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His shed blood saved him. A thief can be saved, and a divorced person can be saved, too. So let’s not put divorce in a special category all by itself. If an unsaved person has been a thief and then repents and gets saved by coming to Jesus Christ, he is forgiven for his thievery. We would permit such a man to get married. We would do the same for a murderer.

Then let us be fair about divorce. There are people who get divorced before they are saved. When they come to the Lord Jesus Christ, they are forgiven for that sin. I think such a person is free to marry again, and I feel that this is implied in the Scriptures. Now as an addendum to this important section on marriage and divorce, I would like to look at it from a little different viewpoint by including a message which I have entitled The Best Love (which is also available in booklet form). THE BEST LOVEThere is an obsession with sex today that is positively frightening and absolutely alarming! You need only consult contemporary literature to recognize this. In a leading British paper some time ago, this statement was made: “Popular morality is now a wasteland, littered with the debris of broken convictions.” And it was Judge Barron of the Superior Court of Massachusetts who said, “At too many colleges today, sexual promiscuity among students is a dangerous and growing evil.” The Billy Graham paper, Decision, had an editorial (I suppose it was way back in 1964) on the church and the moral crisis in which there is this quotation: “So our young people go riding down the highroad to hell in an atmosphere that would make any self-respecting animal sick to its stomach, and no one thinks that matters are as bad as they seem.” That is a tremendous statement. An outstanding Christian writer in America says, “But where are the compelling external cries to match the inner voices of the soul which at times murmur darkly and other times shout clamourously that all is not well, that wayward feet are treading the way of wrath, the path of judgment?” Then he goes on to say, “The answer is not simply in passing more laws. It is to be found in regeneration by His Spirit, who alone can set men’s souls on fire with a divinely sent thirst for greater purity, both for the individual and for the body politic. Apart from such spiritual burning and purging, men sink beneath the weight and corruption of their own sin.” These quotations go back to about 1965. But there are other voices being lifted in alarm. Yet all about us are the advocates of this erotic cult that falsely claim that all of this emphasis on sex is a signal of a new, broadminded and enlightened era. The facts are that there is nothing new about it. Furthermore, it does not mark the entrance to abundant living. On the contrary, it has characterized the demise of all decadent and decaying civilizationsEgypt, Babylon, Greece, and Rome to name but a few. The sex symbol marks the decline and fall of many a great and noble people. It is part of the death rattle of a fading nation. The French Revolution marked the departure of the glory of France, and it was during that time that a prostitute was placed on an altar and worshiped. The excuse for paying this abnormal attention to the subject, given by these purveyors of filth and licentiousness, is that a blue-nosed generation of the past put the lid down on it. The false charge is made that the Bible and the church have frowned upon the subject of sex until it is taboo today and can only be whispered of in secret. They go on to place the blame for present-day marriage failures and the increase in divorce on the gross ignorance of young people. “If only they knew more about this fascinating subject,” they counsel, “there would be success in marriage.” It is true that the Puritans were blue-nosed, and they probably were a little extreme. I would certainly agree with that, and I would not want to go back to that period. But the tragedy of it is that this present generation hasn’t found the solution either. After all, the Bible doesn’t go with either crowd.

I do not think that the Puritans had a Bible basis for their beliefs in this area. Who was it that thought of sex? This crowd in Hollywood thinks that they originated it. God is the One who started all of this, my friend, and He wanted it put on a holy basis. This modern crowd also plays upon the fact that we Americans do not like censorship, and therefore they should be free to say and publish what they choose. Well, these modern Pied Pipers of Hamlin are leading the younger generation into a moral morass of debauchery with dirty sex books and pornographic literature. They give the impression that you must be knowledgeable of this lascivious and salacious propaganda in order to be sophisticated and suave and sharp. The bible of this group is Playboy magazine. These filthy dreamers have flooded the marketplace and the schoolroom today with this smut and depravityso much so that a modern father said, “It is not how much shall I tell my son, but how much does he know that I don’t know!” In spite of all this new emphasis on sex, the divorce courts continue to grind out their monotonous story of the tragedy of modern marriage in ever increasing numbers. Now a knowledge of the physical may have its place in preparation for a happy marriage, but it is inadequate per se to make a happy home, and it gives a perverted and abnormal emphasis which does not belong there. As Dan Bennett said, “One of the troubles with the world is that people mistake sex for love, money for brains, and transistor radios for civilization.” That is the problem of the hour. The Word of God treats the subject of sex with boldness, frankness, and directness. It is not handled as a dirty subject, and it is not taboo nor theoretical, but it is plain and theological. The Bible is straightforward, and it deals with it in high and lofty language. This is the reason we are spending time on this subject here in Malachi. God lays it on the line to these people that this is part of the reason they went into captivity, and it is part of the reason they have been scattered. I think it is time that God is heard. I feel that the pulpit is long overdue in presenting what God has to say on this subject, but it should be kept on the right plane. In the very beginning it was God who created them male and female. It was God who brought the woman to the man. And I would like to add this: He did not need to give Adam a lecture on the birds and bees. God blessed them, and marriage became sacred and holy and pure. And, my friend, it is the only relationship among men and women that God does bless down hereHe promises to bless no other. He says that if marriage is made according to His plan, He will bless it, and there will be happiness. God wants His children to be happily married. He has a plan and purpose for every one of us if we would only listen to Him. The Lord Jesus says to the church at Ephesus, “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love” (Rev_2:4). Yet the church in Ephesus is the church at its best. The church has never been on a higher spiritual level since then. It is difficult for us in this cold day of apostasy to conceive of the lofty plane to which the Holy Spirit had brought the early church in its personal relationship to Christ. The believers in the early church were in love with Christ. They loved Him! And five million of them sealed that love with their own blood by dying as martyrs for Him. I would like to make a couple of changes in the translation of Rev_2:4. The word for “first love” is protan in the Greek. It means actually the “best.” It is the same word our Lord used in the parable of the prodigal son where the father put on the son the protan robethat is, the “best” robe. And to the Ephesian believers Christ is talking about the best love. To this church on its high plane, into which a coolness was creeping, Christ says, “Nevertheless I have against thee that thou art leaving [not had left] the best love.” Salvation is a love affair. The question that the Lord asks all of us is, “Do you love Me?” He is not asking, “Are you going to be faithful?” or “Are you going to the mission field?” He is not asking “How much are you going to give?” or “How much are you going to do?” He is asking “Do you love Me?” Then He will tell you that you are to obey Him and that there will be something for you to do. The apostle John put it like this: “We love him, because he first loved us” (1Jn_4:19). The second book I ever wrote was on the little Book of Ruth. My reason for writing it was to show that redemption is a romance. God took the lives of two ordinary people, a very strong and virile man and a very beautiful and noble woman, and he told their love story.

In that story God revealed to man His great love for him. It was a way to get this amazing fact through to us: Salvation is a love affair. In Christ’s last letter to the Ephesian church in the Book of the Revelation, He sounds a warning. We do not quite understand this. But I go back thirty or forty years to His first letter to these believers, written through Paul. We call it the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians. In this epistle He discussed this matter of marital love and compared it to the love of Christ for the church. This has been one of the most misunderstood passages in the Word of God.

Listen: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord” (Eph_5:22). There has been natural resentment against this on the part of some, especially very dominant women, for many years. And the women’s liberation movement would oppose it. But to resent this is to miss the meaning that is here. Submission is actually for the purpose of headship in the home. It is not a question of one lording it over the other; it is headship for the purpose of bringing order into the home. But in addition to this it reveals something else that is quite wonderful. He says, “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body” (Eph_5:23). The analogy, you see, is to Christ and the church. Christian marriage down here, if it is made under the Lord, is a miniature of the relationship of Christ and the church. Christian marriage is an adumbration of that wonderful relationship between Christ and the believer. Christian marriage and the relationship of Christ and the church are sacred. Now will you listen to me very carefully. The physical act of marriage is sacred. It is a religious ritual. It is a sacrament. I do not mean a sacrament made by a church, nor is it made by a man-made ceremony. But it is a sacrement that is made by God Himself, one which He sanctifies, and He says that this relationship is to reveal to you the love of Christ for your soul. Therefore, the woman is to see in a man one to whom she can yield herself in glorious abandonment. She can give herself wholly and completely and find perfect fulfillment and satisfaction in this man, because this is the man for her. She delights in her husband, in his person, his character, his affection; to her he is not only the chief and foremost of mankind, but in her eyes he is all in all. Her heart’s love belongs to him, and to him only. He is her little world, her Paradise, her choice treasure. She is glad to sink her individuality in his. She seeks no renown for herself; his honor is reflected upon her, and she rejoices in it. She will defend his name with her dying breath; safe enough is he where she can speak of him.

His smiling gratitude is all the reward she seeks. Even in her dress she thinks of him and considers nothing beautiful which is distasteful to him. He has many objects in life, some of which she does not quite understand; but she believes in them all, and anything she can do to promote them she delights to perform…. Such a wife, as a true spouse, realizes the model marriage relation and sets forth what our oneness with the Lord ought to be (Richard Ellsworth Day, The Shadow of the Broad Brim, p. 104). My beloved, that is a marvelous picture of the wife in a real Christian marriage. The man is to see in the woman one he can worship. Someone says, “Do you mean worship?” I mean exactly that. What does worship mean? You will find that worship is respect that is paid to worth. If you go back and read the old marriage ceremonies, you will find that the bridegroom always said, “I with my body worship you.” That is, he sees in her everything that is worthwhile. He must love her so much that he is willing to die for her. Now the Bible is very expressive, and I do not know why we should be so reluctant to speak as plainly. If you turn back to the Song of Solomon, you will see the picture of the bridegroom and what he thinks of his bride: “Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee…. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters” (Son_4:7; Son_2:2). That is rather expressive, is it not? That is what the bridegroom says. Now hear the words of the bride: “My beloved is mine, and I am his: he feedeth among the lilies” (Son_2:16).

You do not go any higher than that! In that moment of supreme and sweet ecstasy, either the wife will carry him to the skies or plunge him down to the depths of hell. Either the husband will place her on a pedestal and say, “I worship you because I find no spot in you,” or else he will treat her with brutality. When the latter happens, he will kill her love, and she will hate him and become cold and frigid. In counseling we find that this is one reason that a great many marriages are breaking up. Bacteriologist Rene Dubos of the Rockefeller Institute has made this statement, “Aimlessness and lack of fulfillment constitute the most common cause of organic and mental disease in the Western world.” This is breaking up many a marriage. A wife becomes dissatisfied and frustrated: she becomes nervous, neurotic, and nagging. And the husband settles down to a life of mediocrity: he becomes lonely and either develops into a henpecked Mr. Milquetoast or a domineering brute. You will find both in our society. Now let me ask a question, and this is rather personal: Are you the kind of woman that a man would die for? I am going to be very frank. If you are just one of these little beetle-brains who is merely a sex kitten making eyes at every boy that comes along, although you may have a hairdo like a Navy balloon that is ready to make an ascension on the poop deck of a destroyer, you will never be the kind of woman that a man would die for. If you do not have beauty of character, if you do not have nobility of soul, you will be but a flame without heat, a rainbow without color, and a flower without perfume. The Word of God deals with the outward adorningand do not misunderstand, the Bible does not militate against it. All of us ought to look the best we cansome of us have our problems, but we should do the best we can with what we have.

God intends us to enhance the beauty He has given us. There is no reason for any woman not to dress in style. But God puts the emphasis, not on the outward adorning, but on the meek and quiet spirit, the inward adorning, which is with God of great price. “Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price” (1Pe_3:3-4). Now, young man, are you the kind of man that a woman would follow to the ends of the earth? You may look like a model for Hart, Schaffner and Marx but have no purpose, no ambition, no heart for serving God as a Christian, no capacity for great and deep things, no vision at all. If you are that kind, a woman will not follow you very far. She may go with you down to get the marriage license, but she also will be going down to get the divorce later on. All across our west there are monuments erected to the pioneer wife and mother. I noticed one as I was traveling through Colorado. She is a fine-looking woman, crowned with a sunbonnet, the children about her holding on to her long, flowing dress. You know she did not go to the psychiatrist or the marriage counselor. Do you know why she never had to go to the preacher to talk about her marriage breaking up? Because one day a man came to her and said, “I am going west to build a career and home.

Will you follow me?” She said, “I will.” And she learned that this man would stand between her and danger; she had many experiences when he protected her from the menacing Indians of that day. She had no problems about whether he loved her or not. And he did not doubt her loyalty. They loved each other. These are the kind of people who built our country. It is the other element that is tearing it to piecesmy lovely countryhow I hate to see it happening. I know that someone is saying right now, “Preacher, I am not that kind of person. I’m no hero.” Young man, God never said that every girl would fall in love with you. Ninety-nine women may pass you by and see in you only the boy next door who uses that greasy kid stuff. That’s all. But let me say to you very seriously, one of these days there will come by a woman who will see in you the knight in shining armor. It is God who gives that highly charged chemistry between a certain man and a certain woman. A young woman may be saying, “But I’m not beautiful of face or figure.” May I say this to you, God never said that you would attract every maleonly animals do that. Ninety-nine men will pass you by and see in you no more than what Kipling described as “a rag, a bone and a hank of hair.” But one of these days there will come by a man who will love you if you are the right kind of person. You will become his inspiration. You may inspire him to greatnessto write a book, to compose a masterpiece of poetry or music, to paint a picture, or even to preach a sermon. If you are his inspiration, do not ignore him, do not run from him. God may have sent you together for that very purpose. There will come that one. Perhaps you are thinking, “Preacher, you are in the realm of theory. What you are talking about is idealistic. It sounds good in a storybook, but it does not happen in life.” You are wrong. It does happen. I think of the story of Matthew Henry. I’m sitting right now in my office looking at a set of books called Matthew Henry’s Commentary. If anyone ever wrote a musty commentary, Matthew Henry did. Although a great work, it is to me the most boring thing I have ever read. I never knew that fellow was romantic at any time in his life. But when he came to London as a young man, he met a very wealthy girl of the nobility. He fell in love with her, and she loved him. Finally she went to her father to tell him about it. The father, trying to discourage her, said, “Why, that young man has no background. You do not even know where he came from!” She answered, “You are right. I do not know where he came from, but I know where he is going, and I want to go with him.” She went. Nathaniel Hawthorne was merely a clerk that anybody would have passed by, working at the customs in New York Cityuntil he was fired for inefficiency. He came home and sank into a chair, discouraged and defeated. His wife came behind him, placed before him pen and paper, and putting her arm about him, said, “Now, Nathaniel, you can do what you always wanted to doyou can write.” He wrote The House of Seven Gables, The Scarlet Letter, and other enduring literaturebecause a wife was his inspiration. Theirs was an eternal love. “In one of her last letters the widow of Nathaniel Hawthorne penned this ineradicable hope, which became an anchor of comfort in her soul’s sorrow: ‘I have an eternity, thank God, in which to know him more and more, or I should die in despair’” (Walter A. Maier, For Better Not For Worse, p. 556). You say I am talking about theory? I am talking about fact. Let us go back to the very beginning. Consider Adam and Eve. That was a romance! Listen to this: “So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. [She is the other part of you. She’s you.] For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh” (Eph_5:28-31). Eve was created to be a helpmeeta help that fitfor Adam. The language is tremendous. She was taken from his side, not molded from the ground as were the animals, but taken from a part of him so that he actually was incomplete until they were together. God fashioned her the loveliest thing in His creation, and He brought her to Adam. She was a helpmeet; she compensated for what he lacked, for he was not complete in himself. She was made for him, and they became one. “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen_2:23-24). Let me move down in history. I want to mention a story that always thrilled me. It is the story of Abelard and Heloise. When John Lord wrote his Great Women, he used Heloise as the example of love, marital love. The story concerns a young ecclesiastic by the name of Abelard. He was a brilliant young teacher and preacher in what became the University of Paris.

The canon there had a niece by the name of Heloise whom he sent to be under Abelard’s instruction. She was a remarkable woman; he was a remarkable man. You know the storythey fell madly in love. But according to the awful practice of that dayand this day as wellthe marriage of a priest was deemed a lasting disgrace. When John Lord wrote their story, he gave this instruction, which I would like to share with you. It is almost too beautiful to read in this day.

It is like a dew-drenched breeze blowing from a flower-strewn mountain meadow over the slop bucket and pigsty of our contemporary literature. Here is what he wrote: When Adam and Eve were expelled from Paradise, they yet found one flower, wherever they wandered, blooming in perpetual beauty. This flower represents a great certitude, without which few would be happy,subtle, mysterious, inexplicable,a great boon recognized alike by poets and moralists, Pagan and Christian; yea, identified not only with happiness, but human existence, and pertaining to the soul in its highest aspirations. Allied with the transient and the mortal, even with the weak and corrupt, it is yet immortal in its nature and lofty in its aims,at once a passion, a sentiment, and an inspiration. To attempt to describe woman without this element of our complex nature, which constitutes her peculiar fascination is like trying to act the tragedy of Hamlet without Hamlet himself,an absurdity; a picture without a central figure, a novel without a heroine, a religion without a sacrifice. My subject is not without its difficulties. The passion or sentiment is degrading when perverted, it is exalting when pure. Yet it is not vice I would paint, but virtue; not weakness, but strength; not the transient, but the permanent; not the mortal, but the immortal,all that is ennobling in the aspiring soul [John Lord, Beacon Lights of History, pp. 23-24]. Abelard and Heloise, having fallen in love, were not permitted by the church to marry. Therefore, they were married secretly by a friend of Abelard. He continued to teach. But the secret came out when a servant betrayed them, and she was forced into a nunnery. She was never permitted to visit him, and he was never permitted to visit her. Abelard was probably the boldest thinker whom the Middle Ages produced.

At the beginning of the twelfth century, he began to preach and teach that the Word of God was man’s authority, not the church. This man, a great man, became bitter and sarcastic in his teaching because of what had been denied him. When he was on his deathbed, for he died a great while before Heloise, being twenty years her senior, he asked that she be permitted to come to see him. The church did the cruelest thing of allthey would not allow her to come. Therefore he penned her a letter. To me it is the most pathetic thing I have ever read.

He concludes it with this prayer: When it pleased Thee O Lord, and as it pleased Thee, Thou didst join us, and Thou didst separate us. Now what Thou hast so mercifully begun, mercifully complete; and after separating us in this world, join us together eternally in heaven. It is my personal belief that in God’s heaven they are together. This brings us to a tremendous verse. Malachi has concluded the section on social sins which relate to the family and divorce. They were sins which were like a cancer gnawing at the vitals of the nation. And they will destroy any nationours will not be an exception, I am sure.

Malachi 2:17

“Ye have wearied the LORD with your words.” I can’t help but laugh at that. God says, “I’m so tired of those long, pious prayers that you say. And I am so tired of your testimonies. You really make Me weary.” You remember that back in the first chapter they had said of their perfunctory service to God, “Behold, what a weariness is it.” God says, “You don’t know the half of it. You bore Me to tears by your hypocritical service.” “Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him?” We see again the feigned injured innocence of these people. They are offended that God would dare say this of themthey are entirely ignorant of their sins. They ask, “In what way have we wearied Him?” Note that this is the fifth sarcastic question of the people to God’s charge of their phony and pseudo worship. Contemptuously and impudently, they contradict God"In what way have we wearied Him?" Well, God has an answer for them. He lays it on the line and tells it to them like it is: “When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment [justice]?” They are maligning the character of God. This is a philosophy that arises rather frequently in the history of mankind. Man says, “Look, I see men who are big sinners and yet they are prosperous. They don’t seem to have problems or trouble like I haveyet I am trying to serve the Lord. Why does God permit that sort of thing?” The psalmist expresses this same complaint. He saw folk about him who were getting by with evil and not serving God at all. Yet they were the ones who seemed to prosper the most. He wrote: “But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked” (Psa_73:2-3). As he looked around, he saw the rascals getting richer and richer while the poor got poorer and poorer. And the poor saints of God were the ones who were not prospering at all. This was exactly the complaint of the people in Malachi’s day. And that attitude produces very quickly a “new morality.” When they feel that “every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the LORD,” they begin to call evil good and good evil. It pays to do evil. We have much the same attitude in our day. Most people would say that crime does pay. People get by with as much as they possibly can. This applies to the big corporations as well as to the average man. The government spends our money without any kind of responsibility to the people. The lackadaisical attitude in Washington is one of the real problems in the world today. The politicians try to curry favor with the rich and please the powerful. The little man is stepped on, and nobody cares. Why doesn’t God do something about it? The psalmist got his answer to this problem because he went to God. “Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end” (Psa_73:17). You see, he had been looking at the immediate present. But how about the far-off future? What about their eternal state? From where you and I stand, their little day is ancient history, but way back then they made their decision for eternity. And for our generation time is slipping through the shuttle fast, let me tell you.

So what about the godless today? Well, they can build a “new morality,” they can accumulate as much money as they can, but those who do evil today will face the Judge tomorrow. They are going to answer to Him. We need to be very careful about sitting in judgment upon the apparent inaction of God in our contemporary society. This reminds me of an incident when two of us seminary students were traveling together and picked up a hitchhiker who reeked of alcohol. He smelled like a still that had just come out of the Kentucky hills. He apologized for it and said that he knew he shouldn’t drink. We witnessed to him of Christ, and my friend said something that was startling to me at that time, but I certainly concur with it now. He said to him, “We’re not condemming you for getting drunk. You are a lost man on the way to hell; so you had better squeeze this life like an orange and get all you can of its juice while you’re here. You won’t have this liquor when you get over there. Go ahead and live it up. But you are moving into eternity. Did you ever stop to think about that?” Any unsaved person who is familiar with the Word of God knows that he is a sinner and that there is a God of justice. But don’t expect God to move in judgment immediately. When I was a kid in southern Oklahoma, we used to swipe watermelons. I am honest with you when I say that every time I went into the watermelon patch to swipe a watermelon, I thought that there would be lightning out of heaven that would strike me dead. But I was going to steal those watermelons regardless! That is the willfulness of the human hearteven of a little boy. However, the Lord doesn’t operate quite like that, although He may do so. Because God does not always judge immediately, man interprets this to mean that God will not judge him at all. “Because sentence against evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecc_8:11). If a man gets by with it once, he will figure that he can just keep on getting but with it. The people in Malachi’s day asked, “Where is the God of justice?” Well, God will give them His answer in the following chapter.