“ Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, ‘What have we spoken so much against thee?’

 “Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts. And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.” Malachi 3:13–15

———————

This is the eighth and final charge, and what a thumbnail sketch it is, of a disaffected  priesthood, and how applicable to our modern day!

Serving God in vain. Isn’t that the crisis of faith experienced by so many pastors and shepherds in the world today? 

What good is it, is the cry? Why are we of all men, the most miserable? Where is the promise of His coming, for since our fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they did in their day, in fact, they are getting worse!

The proud are exalted , and those that work wickedness and fraud use the Law as a shield to delay or defer justice. The protections of the Law were given to shield the innocent, yet those protections are now abused to aid the guilty, ask any police officer or prosecutor today…… and God seems to be oblivious to the point of non-existence! 

He is not. 

Malachi 3:16–18 (KJV): Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. 

“And they shall be mine”, saith the LORD of hosts,” in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. “

His words through the prophet Malachi shook the righteous priests to their core, and they spoke —often— to one another, and their speech was —so— remarkable, that a book of Remembrance was authored, containing the names of those that held on to their faith!

What is the end-game for this Remnant ? To return, and Judge in righteousness, representing the LORD Himself, and accurately distinguishing between the righteous and the wicked.

In the Old Testament, a part of the priests work, was judicial—- dealing with disputes, assigning penalties for crimes, and teaching people the Law of the LORD, much like the courts do today, and the corrupt priests perverted justice!

Beware…..

Malachi 4:1–6 (KJV): “ For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. 

 ——But unto you that fear my name —- shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. 

 And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts. Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. 

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. “

Here is the last nugget…. the Day of the LORD…. the coming of John the Baptist, the preaching and ministry of Christ, His return, the millennium, and the post millennial destruction of this fallen planet!

Hold fast to the Word, and your faith in Him! Christ was reviled, rejected, poor, hungry, beaten,and killed for His Words, but endured all of that, because of the joy set before Him.

Let us shoulder our own crosses and carry them faithfully, following in our Masters footsteps, for the day WILL come, when every deed will be brought into the light and given its just reward. 

Let us persevere, and speak OFTEN one to another, to continue to fear God, and depart from evil, for great is our reward in Heaven!

Hallelujah!!