24 October 2023
God is loving and wrathful at the same time. If you stand in His wrath, you'll think He seems angry toward you. If you stand in His favor, then He will seem loving. It really depends on where you choose to stand.
Malachi's prophecy seems pretty angry for obvious reasons. The shepherds of the people had positioned themselves in God's wrath. They walked through the rituals more as a matter of keeping up with their cultural heritage, not from any real loyalty to Jehovah as a Person. Even when they used the right words, they had invested those words with meanings that were quite different from what God intended.
Thus, they could act all innocent when Malachi delivered a word of condemnation. It was as if God warned them to stop tracking dirt into the Temple, because they didn't come to see Him, that's for sure.
For quite some time, the leadership had admired the way other kingdoms did things. They were really impressed with Egyptian and Persian wisdom, pomp and grandeur. They wanted to be like those ancient civilizations. Thus, they kept mimicking the pagan ways, the emphases on worldly wisdom. The Judean leadership wanted to be "smart" like the others. Doing so meant transgressing the very direct commands of God.
Churches today choose pastors by resumes, copy the way entertainment franchises work, insist on professional standards, and advertise as if to draw customers. If Malachi were to come back and preach today, the churches would call him a crank and a weirdo, and never listen at all. They refuse to trust God to do the same things He did in the Bible.
The reason people build all of these institutional structures is because they aren't willing to trust the Lord to do what He promised. People are fearful of losing control over something in which they believe they have a critical investment of time, resources and care. It's part of that same fear of the unknown, the fear of ghosts, etc. Some part of you knows God could do certain things, but you just won't give Him room to do it His way.
People have their lives all planned out, based on cultural expectations, and don't want God coloring outside the lines. Yes, I realize we have the vast weight of a whole civilization to counter here. The majority of those who claim to follow Christ cannot even imagine something so monstrous has happened; they typically reject the necessity of ditching their western heritage. It's too much work.
The western church brand of holiness will not see many miracles. Instead, all the warnings of Malachi apply today.
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