BACKGROUND:
Will this judgment from God bring about the end of Israel? Will the people be consumed by the refiner’s fire? No, for as other prophets had predicted, Malachi stated that Israel will be delivered in the day of the Lord. The descendants of Jacob will not be destroyed. This is because of God’s covenant promise. A promise is only as good as the person who makes it. God will keep His promise to the nation of Israel—it will not change—because His Word, like Himself, is immutable. This is the basis for Israel’s hope.
Malachi’s continues to lay out the judgement of God. Malachi lays out God's condemnation of Israel’s disobedience to God’s decrees throughout her history. This calls to mind God’s comments about Israel’s stubbornness at Sinai (Ex. 32:7-9), which Moses repeated before the nation entered Canaan (Deut. 9:6-8, 13, 23-24; 31:27-29). Certainly the history of Israel from that day to Malachi’s substantiated the prophet’s charge. Malachi then voiced the Lord’s appeal and a promise. If Israel would return to Him (in faith and obedience), then He would respond and would return to her. This promise was based on the covenant God made with Israel (Deut. 4:30-31; 30:1-10).
Again Malachi placed Israel in the role of questioning God’s charge: How are we to return? Only one who is aware of the path he has taken can retrace his steps. But Israel pretended to be ignorant of her waywardness.
SO WHAT? (what will I do with what I have read today?)
When I read the two verse from Malachi today, I was reminded of my need to be forgiven. We all need to be forgiven. We have done wrong. We have sinned. We have each of us gone astray.
Luke tells us about an intriguing incident that happened while Jesus was having dinner one day at Simon the Pharisee's house. It was a common practice in Middle Eastern culture that during a dinner like this one, the house was open to anyone. Sometime during the meal, a woman came into the house, a woman who had a reputation around town. Jesus was at the table in typical fashion, leaning on one arm, eating with the other, His feet extended behind Him when she came in and walked toward Him.
This woman's life had been changed by Jesus, she had discovered a fresh start, Jesus had given her a reason for living, and out of her deep and uncontrollable gratitude she began to cry and her tears fell on the feet of Jesus...feet that were dirty and dusty from the walk over to Simon's place. She immediately began to dry Jesus' feet with her hair, never noticing that her tears, mixed with the dust on His feet meant mud in her hair, and when she had dried them, she started kissing them, and poured perfume on the feet of Jesus.
Simon just didn’t understand, he just didn’t get it. So, Jesus told Simon a story about two men who were in debt, different amounts, one owed the creditor an amount equal to five hundred days' pay and the other fifty days' pay, but neither of them could pay their debt, so the debtor forgave them both.
Then Jesus asked Simon an interesting question, "...which of them will love him more?" And Simon answered, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled." Jesus said, "You have judged correctly," then He explained to Simon about the depth of this woman's love because her huge debt had been canceled, paid. Then Jesus turned to her and said, "Your sins are forgiven." Wow! She had been carrying such a burden, such a load of guilt and shame because of who she was in town and what she had done. And with one short statement, Jesus lifts all that burden, all that shame, all that guilt off of her and sets her free. She knew the gift of forgiveness…a fresh start!
And we need to know that gift too. Here’s why…
1. Because we are in debt!
"Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty." Luke 7:41
A denarius was equal to one day's wage. Although the amount of their debts were significantly different, the fact is...they were both still in debt.
Spiritually, all of us are in debt, some of us are a lot deeper in debt than others. Some people have stretched the truth, others have created lies. Some people have lusted, others have had affairs. Some people have cheated on their taxes, others have robbed a bank. Some people have driven 1 mile per hour over the speed limit, others don't realize a speed limit exists. Some people do just enough to get by on their jobs, others get paid for what they never do. You get the point, it's simply a question of degree of debt; it’s not whether or not we're in debt.
"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." 1 John 1:8 (NIV)
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23 (NIV)
2. Because we are in debt over our heads!
"Neither of them had the money to pay him back...." Luke 7:42
Whenever the debtor couldn't pay the debt...he was in over his head, and at great risk. Let’s apply the biblical story to us…spiritually we're in over our heads.
The sin debt we owe to God is beyond our ability to repay. We can't work hard enough, pray diligently enough, give abundantly enough, or live rightly enough to pay our debt. God knew that and He gave us both Christmas (that means God sent Jesus to us) and the cross (that means Jesus died in our place) so that we could do something about our debt. He saw that we were spiritually bankrupt, and if we just tried to reorganize our lives, file a spiritual bankruptcy form, we would fail. We needed our debt forgiven, paid, and his answer was Jesus.
"For the wages of sin is death…." Romans 6:23 (NIV)
The sin debt that we owe God is beyond our ability to repay.
Why else do we need forgiveness?
3. Because we cannot cancel our own debt!
The end of verse 42 tells us, "...so he canceled the debts of both." That's what Jesus did on the cross, He canceled, He paid my debt, and He paid yours.
"Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins."
Hebrews 9:22 (NLT)
"Christ’s death was … a one-time event, but it was a sacrifice that took care of sins forever." Hebrews 9:28 (MSG)
In the book of Ephesians, Paul tells us that God has chosen to adopt us as His children through Jesus (1:5). Through Jesus' death on the cross, when we accept what He did for us, God adopts us into His family.
Here's what that means. When the Roman adoption was finalized it was really finalized, it was complete. The person who had been adopted had all the rights of a natural born child in the new family and completely lost all rights in their old family. In the eyes of the law the person adopted was a new person. So new that even all debts and obligations connected with the previous family were abolished as if they had never existed.
"In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace." Ephesians 1:7 (NIV)
When you are willing to give, really give your life to Jesus and let His death on the cross be the price paid for your sins, to stop trying to do it on your own and start trusting what Jesus did for you, then you are forever forgiven, that's God's gift to you – THAT’S CALLED GRACE!
Lord, draw people to ourn prayer time this morning. I love you guys. Stay faithful. Stay the course.
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