Thank you for taking the time to read the sermon this week. I am so glad to be able to post the sermon. I hope that all of you are doing very well, and I hope that everyone is having a very good week.
I haven't had a very good week. I haven't felt good all week, and I think I might be coming down with the flu. Please pray that I will get to feeling better. Also, I am going to start looking for a new job. The one I've been discussing isn't right for me in any way. It is just like the job I was in for the past three years. I want to keep doing my writing business, and I am going to get a part time job to supplement that. Please be in prayer about this. I am very, very down about all that has been happening in this part of my life. I need to find what I can do that won't make me so very depressed. I am also missing my friend Toby a lot, and I'm just down right now. Please be in prayer that the Lord will work in my life. Thank you for your prayers.
In other areas, please pray for those who were affected by the bad mud slides in California. So many have perished. Please pray for all the recovery efforts in that area.
Continue to pray for those in Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands who are trying to recover from the hurricanes. There is still so much that needs to be done.
Pray for peace in the troubled areas of the world. Please pray for peace in Libya, South Sudan, Yemen and Syria.
For our prayer focus countries, let us pray for Lebanon and Vietnam this week. Pray that many in these two nations will hear the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We started a series of messages last year in the book of Malachi. Last week, we studied what Malachi and Jesus had to say about the subject of divorce.
Today, we are going to look into what the final verse of Malachi chapter 2 has to teach us. Malachi 2:17 states, "You have wearied the Lord with your words. Wearied him, you ask? How have we wearied him? You have wearied him by suggesting that the Lord favors evildoers since he does not punish them. You have wearied him by asking, Where is the God of justice?"
I find this to be quite an interesting verse. As we have seen throughout the first two chapters of the book of Malachi, the people did not have the correct attitude towards the Lord. They questioned the Lord's love and goodness, and they did not treat the Lord with the honor and respect He deserved as being the King of all the Universe.
In this verse, God has become wearied by the people thinking that He condones the way of the evil just because they prosper and He does not punish them right away. They went so far to say that the Lord was not a just God.
These people had gone farther than just wondering about why the world is the way it is. I think that all of us from time to time look at this world and wonder why the evil seem to get ahead while those who serve the Lord sometimes don't. We wonder why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people.
In Psalm 73, Asaph wonders why the wicked prosper. He saw that they prospered in spite of their wickedness. Asaph says in Psalm 73:13-14, "Was it for nothing that I kept my heart pure and kept myself from doing wrong? All I get is trouble all day long; every morning brings me pain."
However, Asaph soon realizes that this is not the correct attitude for a person who is truly following after the ways of the Lord. Asaph goes on in Psalm 73 and says that he went into God's sanctuary and thought about the way of the wicked and their destiny. He realized that they were really on a slippery path and were living in a dream world. Asaph realized that when they were gone from this life, they would have no eternal reward. They would face the judgment of the Lord throughout all eternity. Asaph said that it was a foolish and ignorant thing to question that ultimate justice of God.
The people in Malachi weren't like Asaph. They seem to have actually believed that God was approving of wickedness because the wicked prospered. I think that they were trying to say that sins weren't really sins because God wasn't punishing those committing those sins. They were trying to say what was evil was actually good. For instance, since God hadn't brought punishment directly on those who had brought the poor sacrifices, it was OK to do that. Since God hadn't brought direct judgment on the corrupt priests, they must not really be corrupt.
It seems to me that they were also questioning if God really had the power to bring justice in the world. And this is the ultimate insult to God. It was questioning His power and His goodness.
The Bible is quite clear that our God is a God of justice, and that His justice will be brought to bear throughout the earth. Isaiah 30:18 states, "For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are those who wait for Him." Isaiah 51:5 tells us, "My righteousness draws near speedily, my salvation is on the way, and my arm will bring justice to the nations." Jesus says in Luke 18:7, "Will not God bring about justice for His chosen ones who cry to Him day and night."
God is powerful and He will bring justice to this earth. When Jesus comes again, He will rule and reign in righteousness, and justice will cover all of the earth and the universe.
In this life, sometimes the evil and wicked will prosper while those who do good don't have all the good things of this life. However, we have to realize that this life is very short in comparison with eternity. An illustration I like is comparing this life to a tiny grain of sand. Eternity is like all the beaches in the whole world. One grain of sand is nothing compared to all the sandy beaches in the world.
Those who practice unrighteousness may have a glimmer of good things, but in eternity, they will have nothing. Those who follow the Lord, will have the blessings of His love and presence throughout all of eternity.
Getting back to Asaph in Psalm 73. In verse 23 he states, "My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine forever."
Asaph recognized that God would deal with the wicked one day. He knew that no matter what happened to him in this life, the Lord was with him. In eternity, the Lord would be with him and help him forever.
A story that Jesus told really illustrates this whole subject quite well. The people in Jesus' day thought that wealth was a sign of God's favor and poverty was a sign of God's disfavor. Jesus told the story of the rich man and Lazarus to set people straight.
The rich man had everything, and Lazarus was homeless, starving and covered with sores. One day they both died. The rich man ended up in hell while Lazarus went to Heaven. God saw that ultimate justice was executed.
The Lord will always do what is right. We need to be faithful to Him and serve Him to the best of our ability as we are enabled by the Holy Spirit. We always need to keep an eternal perspective in all that we do.
Next week, I will have to post the verses on Tuesday as the library is closed on Monday for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I will post a review on Wednesday, and the sermon will appear on Saturday. I found some religious poems and prose poems that I wrote several years ago, and I am going to be posting them on the blog now and then as well. May God bless you all. Amen.
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