The Tender Shepherd will gather every one of
those into his heavenly fold, certainly thought so.
Malachi chapter 1, verse 1, the burden of
the word of the Lord is revealed by
Malachi.
I have loved you, saith the Lord, yet
ye say, wherein hast thou loved us?
Your eyes shall see, ye shall say, those
of Israel.
The name Malachi means messenger of
the Lord, and then the Lord Jesus Christ
himself is spoken of, messenger, in this wonderful
book.
It's easy to remember that Malachi prophesied at
the same time as the book of Nehemiah.
In other words, the people are back in
the land after their exile, and the temple
has been rebuilt, and the city has been
rebuilt by now, too.
And you'd think the people would be happily
going on for the Lord, but sad to
say that isn't the case.
Now, the prophecy itself is really divided into
two parts.
The first part extends up to chapter 3,
verse 15, and what you have in this
section is that there replies judgment.
Chapter 1, verse 1, through chapter 3, verse
15, you have Israel.
There replies to the Lord, mind you, they
spoke pretty brazenly to him, and then he
threatens judgment of them.
And then the second part of the book
extends from chapter 3, verse 16, to the
end, and it's judgment, verse 16,
through the blessing of God on the remnant,
and God's judgment of the wicked.
Now, as the book opens, you hear God
judges them with the sin in gratitude.
That extends the Lord said, I love you.
He said, look, I told
you this should have been a sin, but
you know, we can never be no human
tongue for all that he's done to
show our gratitude.
You know, somebody figured out that the 30th
days of my life broke down and was
willing to take my public.
I'm not sure I, you
know, you'll never be able to do it.
That, that we can have a single in
the midst of the sin.
When I think of ingratitude, I find my
19th, and I've
seen the process and died
for me.
Then no sacrifice can be too great for
me to make.
That settled a lot of questions for me.
Then the next thing the Lord deals with,
the priests were, and
my question in
other words, there are, and
of course, when the prayer was ended, I
just, after he had said the whole congregation,
each person in that congregation of two or
3,000, and then they go, well,
here the Lord is.
Isn't that a shame to come and offer
to the Lord God.
Makes me think of what a little boy
out in the church, sending
their folks, their little boys, right?
And enter
in throughout one
day, Isabel came home and her mother said,
he had to wait until that mother's body
was laid in the grave.
And then I think of this whole matter
of offering to leave it to that.
Sometimes I think, and
seeing some of the pictures and did
them and students like that, the
single eye to the glory of the Lord
Jesus.
And oftentimes, unfortunately, they don't think
in any particular among today.
But if
you don't come to me and worship me,
God is not going to be robbed.
If I don't do it, I often said
to young people, if you don't give your
all, he'll find someone else to do it.
But you'll never find him that never will.
And that's the thought I think of this
next version.
And then he goes on to tell them
how they can imagine a
thought that would go through the mind of
the Lord is invisible.
And in other
words, if anything's good enough, give all the
odds and ends to them that I say,
I say, you go off of them to
the governor, shut a fallen thing to your
heart.
We thought the president was going to be
at the worship meeting.
The place could be crowded out.
Somebody greater than the president is there somebody
greater than the president.
The thing that is a true vision of
the greatness and holiness of God.
God is spoken of today in Germany.
And the way you hear people speak, we've
lost a vision of the greatness and the
holiness of God.
And it's reflected today.
But then in the verse, the first time
I've been in verses 10 and these people
come in goodwill.
And you know, as long as I can
remember, and we do it, in
the country today, any audience of Christians, and
I want to tell you tonight that this
is one of I believe in the realm
of your, and we can sing all we
want about how much we love the Lord.
And then he allows us to reach him.
And then in this same chapter, you'll find
a piece of 17.
First divorce and remarry.
We have wearied those and honestly,
the tenor of our times, it
was called
your God is your God.
Then in the first six verses, in
such a sense, tithes
and offerings, everybody
tithes.
Did you know that?
You need to tithe to the, you
don't feel God.
And when the misery comes, remember that if
we don't, he
owns his cattle, so
much for his good as for our own.
And here they were robbing God.
And look at what they were, you
know, the word offer.
And when he got to the end, he
says, well, now God is looking for us
to be a part of this little remnant
today in our
world.