[C]2000-07 by Richard L Zorek
- BASIC CHRONOLOGY:
- 606 BC: Jerusalem captured and Jews taken captive to babylon.
- 536 BC: Jews allowed to return by Cyrus the Persian-Zerubbabel, Joshua, Haggai and Zechariah.
- 458 BC: Ezra the priest returns.
- 445 BC: Nehemiah returns as governor, decree by Artazerzes Longimanus.
- 440-400 BC: Approximate date of writing of Malachi.
- Mal 1:1: "The burden of the word of the Lord to israel by Malachi." "Malachi" means "my messenger."
- Mal 1:7: "Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible." How could they despise his name when they were going to the temple so regularly? God begins to lay it out for them. The sacrifice they offered was polluted.
- Mal 1:8: "And if Ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and the sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts. God made it clear to Israel from the very beginning that nothing which was to be offered to Him was in any way to be maimed or defiled. In other words, when you give secondhand clothing to the mission, don't chalk it up as thinking God will give you credit for it. Granted, missions can use that kind of thing, but you are not giving sacrificially to God when you give that sort of thing. You are giving stuff you were discarding anyway.
- Mal 1:11: For from the rising of the sun even to the going down of the same my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. Could this be part of the reason that "God" is known everywhere?
- Mal 2:14: "Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant?" A covent is a solemn relationship that is characterized by defined terms that each party consents to. The covenant expounds the relation job description so that each spouse understands their role and responsibilty.
- Mal 3:6: "I am the Lord, I change not" Once in his younger and cruder days, God may have spoken about weights and measures, diet, money, sanitation, politics, economics, education, and more, but, now that man and science have supposedly caught up with him in these areas, and passed him, God is silent, and He deals only with spiritual matters as befits an aged declining person. The laws of this old and shriveled God are now primitive and obsolete, and man can now do a much better job in these areas. Yes? No!!! Such thinking limits God. It declares that God is not sovereign and has no word for every area of life and thought.
- Mal 3:8: Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings.
- Mal 3:9: Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Not only did the people bring the Lord defective sacrifices, but they failed to bring tithes and offerings commanded by the law. Consequently, He cursed their blessings and destroyed their crops. When we rob God, we only rob ourselves. We cannot keep anything that rightfully belongs to God.
- Mal 3:10: Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. Emphasize "meat." The place which is considered a storeouse is to provide weighty deep truths about God.
- Mal 3:11: And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts."
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This page was first created on March 15, 2001.
