Introduction
Some of the finest natural gold is mined or panned in places like Australia, Alaska, California and Georgia. But even in these gold centers, those who buy raw gold say that one hundred per cent pure gold in its natural state either does not exist or is extremely rare.
98% pure gold is probably the highest percentage that any prospector can ever expect to find. Most natural gold is around 70 to 90 per cent pure. Natural gold usually has quartz, copper, silver or other elements mixed with it. Hence, there is a need to refine gold in order to make jewelry, coins or watches.
In this morning’s Scripture reading from Malachi chapter 3, we read about how we humans are not perfectly pure and are like raw gold needing to go through a fiery cleansing and refining process.
Before we consider some of the teaching from Malachi chapter 3, here is the setting.
Background
The prophet Malachi lived around 400 years before the birth of Christ. Many scholars say that Malachi was the last prophet of the Old Testament and that there was no prophet for the next four centuries until John the Baptist appears in the wilderness of Judea.
The people in Malachi’s day should have been thankful and dedicated to the Lord. After all, God had just given them freedom after being held as hostages in Iraq for 70 years. But instead of being more committed to the Lord, the people had become indifferent.
Instead of giving their best sheep to the Lord, they gave to him the diseased ones. Instead of marrying a person because of her or his inner spiritual beauty, people were marrying a person because of her or his physical attractiveness. And when people did get married, instead of being faithful to their wives or husbands, they cheated on them.
The condition of the people of Israel could be described as sloppy, half-hearted, apathetic and blasé. This description could very well apply to how some of us. We are sort of going through the motions in our relationship with God. Our gifts of time, energy, focus, and sacrifices to the Lord are after thoughts or leftovers.
In today’s reading from Malachi 3, the Lord says that he will purge the mediocre attitude and the lukewarm spirit of the people. He will get rid of the grit and dross in their souls. He will burn out their “I don’t care” mentality.
- God Takes What Is Harmful And Makes It Helpful.
Malachi 3:3 states, “He [the Lord] will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver.”
The purification of gold is an invasive and tumultuous process. In ancient times, to remove the quartz, copper, silver and other elements and compounds stuck in gold, 1000 degreee Fahrenheit fire was used. If that weren’t severe enough, today heat is also used but we’ve taken the purification of gold to new higher levels of severity. Now days to purify gold to a greater degree than what the ancients were able to do with fire, we use toxic chemicals such as cyanide, mercury, lead, hydrochloric acid, or chlorine gas. All banned substances for us average people. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to start a gold refining operation in Kona? Can you imagine what the environmental impact statement would look like? Can you imagine the toxic waste that would have to be managed?
What is so amazing is that harmful energy like 1000 degree Fahrenheit fire and poisonous chemicals like cyanide and mercury improve the quality of gold rather than destroy it.
In a similar way, toxic and devastating events such being fired (notice the word fire,) getting injured, or having a falling out with a close friend often turn out to be the best things that could have happened to us. Instead of weakening us, these crushing occurrences strengthened us. Instead of demolishing us, they rescued us. Instead of punishing us, they blessed us by the grace of God. These so called bad events purified, got us straightened out, got us back on course, and put the fear of God in us.
A pattern that we find in the Bible from Genesis to Malachi and from Matthew to Revelation is that God takes toxic events and turns them eventually into pure gold.
The greatest and ultimate example of God turning what is lethal into what is alive is Jesus dying on the cross and rising to life. Even though Jesus did not need to go through any refining process, he willingly subjected himself to a brutal and tortuous execution in order to purify us from our sin. The cross and the resurrection together is the bill board message that God has purified sinful persons like us and made us worthy by the blood of Jesus to receive everlasting life.
- God’s Messenger Who Prepares The Way For The Refining of Souls Has Already Come.
Malachi 3:1 promises, “Behold, I send my messenger and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.”
We who live in the New Covenant also called the New Testament can read this verse from the stand point, “Behold, I, the Lord, have sent my messenger, and he has prepared the way before me.”
The season of Advent, the four weeks before Christmas, is an uplifting time when we recall how God kept His promises to send the Refiner, the Purifier, the Messiah, the Savior of the world.
The messenger whom God sent was none other than John the Baptist who deliberately dressed, talked, acted and preached like the Old Testament prophet Elijah. He was the Elijah whom the Old Testament stated would be God’s messenger to prepare the way for the Messiah.
John the Baptist’s message was basically the same as Malachi’s. Malachi’s main
theme was to shake people up from their half hearted, mechanical, and ho hum commitment to the Lord. This was the same emphasis of John the Baptist. He shook up the apathetic and the partially committed.
The plea from God’s messenger is the same plea to us. Wake up. Get focused. Pay
attention. Jesus is already here. He has already come. Rely on him to turn us into pure gold.
- What A Pure Gold Life Looks Like
Malachi 3: 5 describes, “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.”
When the Holy Spirit refines us often through painful events, our lives are changed. Our lives more closely resemble the pure gold life that God planned for us. Malachi 3:5 gives us a glimpse of what that pure gold life is like.
It means being careful to not get caught up in alternative solutions to Christ. In Malachi’s day, the Jewish people were very tempted to go to sorcerers or people practicing fortune telling and séances. God wasn’t good enough. People felt they needed to get a second opinion for life’s challenges. I don’t think any of us or at least many of us will ever resort to palm readers or tarot cards to find comfort, but some of us including myself fight the temptation to do things our own way rather than to wait upon the Lord. We become our own sorcerers, our own palm readers, our own deck of tarot cards when we do things in an alternate way than what God describes.
Malachi 3:5 also depicts the pure gold life has not committing adultery and not swearing falsely. Not committing adultery and not swearing falsely means being honest and truthful with those around us. Yes, it means not cheating on your wife or husband, but that’s just the start. It means being genuine and sincere with all people. Not doing things in secret that would break our promises or commitment to them. Telling the truth and not lying to anyone. When Christ refines us, we become more true first to God and then to others.
The pure gold life in Malachi 3:5 also includes fearing God. There’s a term in Malachi 3:5 that often gets overlooked. The term is “the Lord of hosts.” When I hear that description of God, I have to keep myself from imagining that the Lord of hosts means God standing in a big hotel lobby among a hundred convention volunteers each with a stick on name tag labeled “HOST.” “Welcome to the Gold Investors Convention. I am on the host committee. Do you have any questions that I could help you with?”
No, the Lord of hosts does not mean that God is chairperson of the host committee for a convention. The word in the original Hebrew was “sabbaoth” not to be confused with the similar sounding Hebrew word “sabbath.”
“Sabbaoth” was a frightful word. It meant thousands of heavily armed troops. “Sabbaoth” or hosts might describe the 30,000 combat soldiers being sent to Afghanistan. “Sabbaoth” or hosts does not mean smiling convention volunteers but stern, lean and mean troops marching into battle.
The people in Jerusalem at the time of Malachi had little respect or fear of God. They did not see him as a commander of thousands of warriors ready for action.
Today we too have lost that reverence for God as person who is not to be messed with. We look upon him as a smiling chairperson of a convention host committee (which he can be because he is the God who serves His creation through His Son Jesus) but he is more than a host. He is also the God who can send fire and toxins upon anyone who will take him lightly.
But as we trust in God and love Him because of the love that His Son Jesus gave to us, God will use His mighty hosts, His mighty army, to protect us. Even the fire and poisonous events that happen to us will be turned around to purify and strengthen us because of Chist’s victory on the cross.
Because of Christ, in spite of all the sediment and dirt in us, God looks upon us as pure gold.
Amen.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment