Chapter 2:10-17

“Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously with one another by profaning the covenant of the fathers? ¹¹ Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem, for Judah has profaned the Lord’s holy institution which He loves: He has married the daughter of a foreign god. ¹² May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob the man who does this, being awake and aware, yet who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts!

¹³ And this is the second thing you do: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying; so, He does not regard the offering anymore, nor receive it with goodwill from your hands. ¹⁴ Yet you say, ‘For what reason?’ Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, with whom you have dealt treacherously; yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant. ¹⁵ But did He not make them one, having a remnant of the Spirit? And why one? He seeks godly offspring. Therefore, take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.

¹⁶ ‘For the Lord God of Israel says that He hates divorce, for it covers one’s garment with violence,’ Says the Lord of hosts. ‘Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously.’ ¹⁷ You have wearied the Lord with your words; Yet you say, ‘In what way have we wearied Him?’ In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them,’ Or, ‘Where is the God of justice?‘”

As we continue on in the conversations that we have been exploring between God and the children of Israel, one of the things that we can see plainly is that God is an involved God. He is not some distant God who is at arm’s length to His people; rather, He is an intimate God even when His people are in the wrong. He does not abandon them; rather, He is there and working to correct bad behavior as any loving parent would.

Today we are going to explore God’s hatred of infidelity. As a faithful God, the very idea of unfaithfulness is an abomination to Him. God is faithful, and He expects His people to be faithful as well.

• Unequally Yoked (married), verses 10-11

God is not against the Gentiles. He is against their gods. The very bloodline of Jesus has Gentile women in it; Rahab and Ruth are Gentile ladies. What God did not want was that the women brought the worship of their gods with them. Jezebel was probably one of the most famous Gentile queens in Israel, and she brought the worship of Baal with her into Israel and caused the people to hate Yahweh; men like Elijah had to worship the True and Living God in fear and not openly. Even King Solomon, the wisest man to walk the planet except Jesus, was turned away from God by his pagan wives.

1 King 11:1-4 “But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go into them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father.”

One of the ways that Satan attacks God’s people is with spiritually unequal relationships. If you are a child of God, saved and secure in Jesus, you need to marry someone who is saved and secure as well. If you are a conservative Bible Christian, one who has been brought up to the strict interpretation and application of the Bible, then be wary not to get out of that. God has someone for you, and so does Satan; be very discerning. When a saved person and a lost person get into an intimate relationship like that of husband and wife, more often than not, the saved person leaves following the Lord or limits how they can follow the Lord. Imagine child-rearing with a person who has a different moral compass than what you know the Bible to teach? This is very hard. If Solomon was led away, don’t fool yourself; so will you be.

Even in a secular business, you need to be wary of partnering with a lost person. Their moral boundaries may be different than yours, and they may be willing to compromise in places that you won’t for the sake of profit. Marry someone who loves the Lord and is sold out to Him. Marry someone who is longing to grow in his or her intimacy with the Lord. Marry someone who understands that God’s boundaries are there for our benefit because He loves us and that He wants the best for us.

Sadly, the priests here were married to pagan lost women; they had the pagan religions in their home and then came to serve God in the Temple. This is infidelity. You pretend to serve God on the outside but serve a pagan statue in your home. God begins to pull away and stops hearing your prayers. He refuses your worship and your sacrifices. Your children grow up with mixed signals and, more often than not, turn away from the true and living God to serve idols.

Some idols are not made of stone or wood; they can be philosophies that become our gods like the ‘wokeness’ and ‘social warriors’ infiltrating a lot of churches. The transgender ideologies that are creeping into the local churches and ‘new revelations’ that you hear a lot of pastors talking about – these are just as pagan as having a little statue in your home, church, or office.

• Loveless Marriages, verses 12-16

Let me be totally upfront and honest; I am divorced. My first wife left me and moved away after about 16 years of marriage. We are still friends, and we talk, but she did not want to be married anymore. Over the years, we have mended, and she even has met my current wife. They spent a lot of time talking, and I can honestly say that there is no animosity there. Neither she nor I were unfaithful; and while I did not want her to go, over the years, we have talked things out, and there was a lot going on under the surface with depression and the like that I did not know, nor did I understand, and it appears that she did not at the time either.

June 1st, 2021, will be twelve years that my current wife and I have been together. I met her long after I had been divorced and actually had planned to quit the ministry. I had resigned from my church, the one I am still at, and was planning to move away. But God opened a door for me to meet this lovely lady who loved Him and to marry into a family that loves Him. And, as they say, the rest is history. We have been married 11 of the 12 years, and she still wows me whenever I see her.

What was happening here in Israel, what God is addressing, is that the priests had put away their ‘older’ wives and married younger pagan women. They had left the women that they were supposed to love until the end of life and not only divorced them but were now treating them badly. God hates divorce, and in the book of Hosea, He sends the prophet to marry a harlot, a prostitute, and this was a picture of Israel. She was a spiritual harlot to God, always seeking after pagan spiritual lovers. But God redeemed her time and time again. God treats Israel as a wife. See Ezekiel 33.

The book of Proverbs, verse 5:18, tells us to rejoice with the wife of our youth.

When I was in seminary, the professor reminded us that it did not say rejoice with your young wife. This was about the permanency of marriage; all the way through the Bible, the man is instructed to love his wife and the wife to be submissive to her husband. Men, pastors, preachers, God wants you to love your wife like He loves Israel and the local church – sacrificially. In the same chapter of Proverbs, we are told to let her beauty intoxicate you (NIV) all of your life.

But this was not the case here in Israel in the days of Malachi. These priests had abandoned their wives and taken younger pagan wives, so God no longer regarded their worship. He no longer heard their prayers. In 1 Peter 3:1-7, we are warned by the apostle that the way we treat our wives will play a part in the way God hears our prayers. This was being played out right here before us in Malachi 2. How is your relationship with your wife, dear pastor, preacher, and leader? If you love her, cherish her and honor her. God will hear your prayers and receive your worship.

• Messed Up Morals, verses 16-17

When we get relationships wrong, it tends to get everything else out of whack. The family unit is the foundation of all society. It is not an accident that God built the family structure first, one man and one woman together for life. This foundation stone is the sure footing for all of us, and when we get out of whack and out of God’s perfect plan, then the moral basis of society can be compromised.

We are seeing that more and more today. In the early 1970’s, the push to accept homosexuality as normal. Then in the 1980’s, the gradual push on the homosexual and lesbian lifestyle in movies and TV shows. Do you remember “Three’s Company”? Where a man could live with two girls as long as they all think he is gay. Then the 1990s and the push to make ‘same-sex marriage’ be allowed and accepted. This gradual erosion of the family was the catalyst to the vast majority of our moral perversions that we see today. Now more than ever, we see evil being called good and good actually being hated and despised.

Well, the erosion of the family unit in Israel in the days of Malachi, with the priests abandoning their wives and getting new pagan wives, led to moral decay as well, and God says that they are calling evil good and vice-versa.

It does not take long for the moral decay to set in and for evil to prosper and choke all that is good in society. We see that firsthand before our very eyes, and I do not think that any generation has seen the erosion that we have seen at the rate that we have seen. Oh man, we went from the strong family in the mid-1960s to the total destruction of the family in less than a generation. The idea of the Biblical family of one man, one woman, and children born in wedlock has become the bane of society. But when a people and especially the spiritual leaders, are morally corrupt, then the Lord stops hearing the prayers, and people begin to think that God is not there. He is there, but there comes a point where people have to reap what they have sown, and the consequences of their actions come home to roost.

We here, as a society, are reaping what we have sown and bearing the consequences of our unashamed rejection of God and His righteousness.

Thankfully, God is merciful to those that love Him and are like the 7,000 men and their families that had not bowed to Baal in the days of Elijah. We need men and their families who will stand for what God says is right no matter the cost and no matter the changes in society. Let us stand together!

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch

Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/ (under construction)

Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

Chapter 2:1-9

“And now, O priests, this commandment is for you. ² If you will not hear, and if you will not take it to heart, to give glory to My name,’ Says the Lord of hosts, ‘I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have cursed them already, because you do not take it to heart.

³ Behold, I will rebuke your descendants and spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your solemn feasts; and one will take you away with it. ⁴ Then you shall know that I have sent this commandment to you, that My covenant with Levi may continue,’ says the Lord of hosts. ⁵ ‘My covenant was with him, one of life and peace, and I gave them to him that he might fear Me; so he feared Me and was reverent before My names. ⁶ The law of truth was in his mouth, and injustice was not found on his lips. He walked with Me in peace and equity, and turned many away from iniquity. ⁷ For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and people should seek the law from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.

⁸ But you have departed from the way; you have caused many to stumble at the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,’ says the Lord of hosts. ⁹ ‘Therefore I also have made you contemptible and base before all the people, because you have not kept My ways but have shown partiality in the law.“

This is our third conversation that God is having with the people of Israel, they that had returned from the captivity in Babylon and then Persia. God is calling out the problems that He is seeing and working to set things in order.

God is a merciful God, but He is first and foremost a Holy God. He is patient and kind, but He hates sin, and as a perfect God, has to address what He is seeing. His desire is to correct bad behavior and to preserve the future. Our actions have consequences, and often the consequences are not seen right now but in the generations to come.

God addresses the problems with the priest here, and it is clear that the vast majority did not listen since the priests are totally corrupt by the time Jesus is walking the streets of Jerusalem. They are totally sold out to power and have no appreciation for the truth at all. They, the priests, orchestrated the execution of the Messiah and pledged allegiance to Ceasar rather than their rightful King. God is addressing the roots of this corruption here in Malachi some 400 years before the real problems came to the surface, and if that vast majority of the priests had made a change, maybe things would have been different in Jesus’ day.

Think with me for a few minutes; Herod asked the priests where the king of the Jews would be born. They knew where, in Bethlehem, but NONE of the priests went with the Wisemen to see their King. So let us look at how they got to this sad place and then take a look at where we are today. We are in the same place, and many of our ‘spiritual’ leaders are just fakes seeking power and money. We are in a sad state; as such, many of the Lord’s people are not excited for Jesus’ Second Coming, just like the leaders were not excited for His first one.

• Spiritual Leaders Should Seek to Glorify God, verses 1-2

I am my greatest enemy. I am a sinful man. Yet when I was 17 years old, the Lord called me into the Ministry. I did not know what I was getting into, and now some 37 years later, I would never go back and change it. But I was taught early and often by some of the greatest preachers and pastors that you have never heard of. Their ministry is about Jesus, Jesus, and Jesus. Every sermon, every lesson, every talk should point to Jesus. He is the answer and the solution.

If they recall Jesus and never remember who I am, then I have done my job. The purpose of us preachers, pastors, evangelists, Sunday School teachers, and the like is to glorify God. The word glorify comes from a Greek word that means ‘to form the right opinion of,’ thus my job, our job as preachers and pastors is to teach the Bible so that the people listening form the ‘right opinion’ of God. Do they see Him as Holy? Do they see Him as Perfect? Do they see Him as Loving? Do they see Him as All-Powerful, All-Knowing, and Ever-Present? Do they see Him as the Righteous Judge to whom we will all answer? Do they see Him as Truthful and Trustworthy? Do they see Him as the Personal and Intimate God? Do they see Him as Merciful and Gracious?

I can go on, but you can see the responsibility is real and serious. But this is what God called us to do. This requires commitment and time, it requires learning and preparing, and it requires that we know the English language as it is a very vague language and can be used to do just as much damage as good using the same words. It means we have to be careful to carry the name of Jesus carefully. We use the 4th Commandment, “You shall not take the name of the Lord in Vain,” to talk about swearing or people using the ‘OMG’ phrase. But I hear a Jewish man talk about that commandment, and he said the real context is that we are not to take the name of the Lord to do evil and use it as an excuse to do wrong. Thus, we leave a negative glorification of God, not the right one.

Pastors and preachers should carry the name of Jesus carefully. How many times have we heard someone assume God was an ogre because they had encountered someone at a church who was one? That person did not carry the name of Jesus carefully. They left the wrong impression, a negative conclusion about God; they did not glorify Him.

• Spiritual Leaders are called by God, verses 4-5

In these verses, God accounts how He chose the tribe of Levi to be the Priestly tribe. All of the priests who served in the Temple, who served a High Priest and shared in the work of the Temple and Tabernacle, came from the tribe of Levi. It was their calling from birth, and they were groomed to take the various responsibilities that came with being born in the tribe of Levi.

In like manner today, pastors and preachers are called by God; they are not called by mom or grandma, and they are not called by a group of men. God calls preachers, and if He did not call you, then you are not in it for the right reasons. The calling is for life. Yes, we all stumble and fail, but the calling is for life. There is no real retirement from the calling of God. The priests of the Old Testament served in various capacities until they died. God called sinful men so that we can identify with the people we serve. Yes, serve. This is the most important work that we do. We serve the Lord’s people; we are under-shepherds with the Lord, and we will answer to Him as to how we fed, watered, and cared for His people, His sheep. See Ephesian 4: 10-12,

“He who descended is the very One who ascended above all the heavens, in order to fill all things. And it was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for works of ministry and to build up the body of Christ.”

He, God, Jesus, is the one who calls the spiritual leaders. It is not a hobby or something that you just did because your dad did it and because you like it. If your calling is not from God, you have bitten off more than you can chew, and the Devil is at the door waiting for you to use you; yes, even as saved people, he can use you. He will bring glory to you and anyone else except Jesus, and he will use you.

As I mentioned before, being a servant is important to the heart of a pastor or preacher. We must be the head servants in our churches; it is not another’s job. Take the lead and serve. Get dirty and sweaty, show by example, and if you are a good servant leader, you will glorify God. Jesus was the Perfect Servant Leader. See Philippians 2: 5-8,

“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”

Jesus came to seek and save the lost, He did this by walking among the sinners of Israel, interacting with the outcasts and dregs of society, and He loved the unlovable, in man’s opinion.

We are the sinners of the world, the dregs of our society, and the hated of the world, yet Jesus still walks among us. Our job is to bring the modern outcasts into the eternal family of God. It is a calling from God, or the burden of the call will eat you, and the costs will be too much as you are not sure-footed in God’s calling, God’s approval only, and in pleasing Him and Him only as need be. The cost will loom on the horizon of every decision and not the power of the call from God, and you will fail. You may be successful in man’s eyes with a big ‘church’ and a lot of money, but you will fail because the goal of ministry is for me to fade and Jesus to be glorified, lifted up, and loved.

I/ We preachers are just dust, earthen vessels to be used and used up by and for God, for His glory, His goals, and His plans, not ours.

• Spiritual Leaders Need to Know to Teach the Bible Carefully, verses 6-7

The Bible!!! This is the book that we need to know. Did you know that the local church existed for 1900+ years without Christian bookstores? Yes, we did. Preachers and pastors saturated themselves in the Word of God. They read it over and over again.

I am blessed to have been raised and am still a part of a group of preachers that challenge each other to read the Bible a lot. In the past few years, I have read through the Bible multiple times. Last year I read through the New Testament 4 times, and this year I made a pledge to only read the Book of Proverbs for my personal devotions, and I have read through it close to a dozen times. We have forums where we discuss the Bible, learn from each other. This lesson series that I am working through has been 12+ years of teaching through the Bible verse by verse. I have taught through John, Revelation, Romans (twice), Daniel, Zechariah, Ruth, Esther, Matthew, and in church, I have taught through 1,2,3 John and 1 Corinthians verse by verse.

I am not boasting; that is my job as a preacher and pastor. Teach the Bible all the time. Right now, I am preparing for a series on the Trinity.

The priests’ job in the day of the book of Malachi was to know the law of Moses. They were to know it in and out and be able to use it to lead the people in righteousness. They led the people in disputes, and they were to rely on the OT Law to guide them in settlement and the way God wanted things done, not man’s opinion.

What does the Bible say? That was drilled into my head in our preaching classes. Many of us young preachers would begin a lesson with the phrase, “This is what I believe.” one of the old preachers would stop you and say, “Brother, I don’t care what you believe, what does the Bible say?” They would say it lovingly but firmly. What does the Bible say? Preacher/pastor, God called you to tell people what He said; that is it. Tell people what the Bible says. Often what it says is not popular.

There are only 2 genders, male and female. You cannot change what God has done; you will be either male or female for eternity no matter how many drugs you take and surgeries you have. Marriage is for a man and a woman; nothing else will work. Jesus is the only means of salvation; there is no other way. Hell is real. Judgment is coming, and we will all answer to God. The world cannot change God’s view by legislating sin to be legal. The Bible is God’s only word to us, and it does not need to be reinterpreted or changed.

We live in a celebrity-ruled world, but remember, they killed Jesus, Stephen, and almost all of the apostles for teaching the truth. You are not called to be popular, but you and I are called to tell the truth. That means countless hours of reading and studying, even and especially when you don’t want to. I will confess that some days it takes all I have to read one verse, other days I can read entire books. But on those days that it is hard, I have learned that consistency is more important than anything else.

Learn how to teach the Bible, ask the fundamental questions: who said, to whom did he/she say it, why did they say it, when did they say it, what did they say, and what did it mean at the time they said it. These are the rules of interpretation. The last one is the most important of all — what did it mean when they said it?

The English language is a fluid language; if I said a man was gay in the 1960s, it meant he was happy. If I say that in 2021, it means he is attracted to men. So, if we are reading a book dated in the 1960s, we must interpret the book to see what it means in the era that it was written in. Well, that is why we study things like culture and history in regards to the Bible; this is why we even look at secular Jewish and Roman historians to find out what things meant then. Then we can properly interpret and apply them today.

The Bible has not changed, and God is not progressive. He does not have to be; He has neither a past nor a future; He is Ever-Present.

Pastor/ preacher, know the Bible, love it, love its message and its author. It is all we need and more than we will ever need. We will never get to the end, and we never complete it. There is always more to learn and more to grow into. The more you study, the more you realize that you are the one who needs it the most. It challenges you and calls you out, and God transforms you into a person only He can make while still struggling with my sinfulness and humanity. Lord help me!

• Spiritual Leaders are Dangerous When they Defy God, verses 8-9

Jesus calls them wolves. Undisciplined and Biblically illiterate spiritual leaders are wolves. They seek fortune and fame at the expense of God’s people. Sadly, what happens is that God’s people begin to be drowned out, and then the fans of the wolves keep calling wolves and hate the pastors who are the servants of Jesus the King. Truth becomes the enemy and lies the norm.

Remember, they killed Jesus for preaching the truth. They killed a Man who could raise the dead, heal the sick and cure the diseased; they killed a Man who loved the poor, fed the hungry, and befriended the outcasts. Remember that it was the religious leaders that led the charge to kill this Man. Remember that the crowd followed the wolves, the very people that hate them and killed them, their own people, and they hated the Man who told the truth. Wolves devour their prey, but they are always looking to fight the leadership for power, and the only way to maintain power is to be nastier and meaner than the other guy.

This is what is happening in the Lord’s churches today; there are constant power struggles, and men come in who use the Bible as a springboard to teach lies. Remember what Paul said in Galatians 1:8,

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”

Wolves are majestic-looking animals, but they are dangerous and deadly. They seek to kill and eat. The leader who is ruthless and insubordinate is intolerant, and questioning the leadership is met with deadly force. We see this in the Lord’s churches today, and we have an abundance of wolves, men who are obviously not called by God. They take the word of God and lie about God. Each sermon reminds you how good you are, but the Bible tells us we are evil and ONLY GOD is GOOD.

Somewhere along the lines, we began to measure success in God’s churches by how many we had in church, not by how many lived like Jesus. We wanted subjects over submission, and we traded disciples for attendees. There are many churches here in Ontario that have hundreds, if not thousands, that attend, but few are members who serve each other and take responsibility. Church has become something they do, not someone they are. They no longer glorify God. Why? Because the preacher does not lead that way. There is a paid staff, and the guy in the pew is just a number to keep the money rolling in, not an active follower of Jesus.

Hey, Sean, are you knocking on large churches? No, I am not. What I am asking is that no matter how big the church, that we, the preachers and pastors, make sure that Jesus is the Head, the King, the One we glorify.

Remember, all preachers and pastors leave, some in U-hauls and others in hearses, but if Jesus is the Head of your local church, He never leaves.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch

Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/ (under construction)

Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca