God's Blunt Warning | Malachi 2:1-17

You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bible Guys. I'm Chris, I am, and we are the Bible Guys today. Because Jeff is out of pocket. Uh, he actually has something, a little little voice thing happening. I kind of feel like we should call it the Bible Guys Platinum Edition. Ooh, ooh, the Platinum Edition. So it so this is the upgrade, the upgrades. Nice. Nice, Wow, I like the confidence. That's awesome. Okay, well, welcome to the Bible Guys, Platinum Edition. We are Chris and Wesley. Yes, and today we are your Bible guys. And so before we dive into Malachi chapter two, which is a lot of serious warning from God against the real the worst leaders, Yes, blunt warnings to tell it like it is, we are going to dive into a segment that our beloved death Ray has chosen for us called Who's most Likely. I feel like Desiree is like world like renowned. She is well when it comes to the Bible guys. Uh, you know, listeners, they hear Desiree's number or not number they hear. I hope not her number. That'd be bad. But they hear her five five five one two one two. But they hear her name all the time. You know, you know we should do we should because she's right there. We should ask her to come on the Bible Guys tomorrow. I think we should. So if you've missed the one time that Desiree has appeared on the Bible Guys, tune in tomorrow and hopefully Desiree will come and be our guest and possible. You look excited about that. No, she is not. She does not. She's behind the scenes. She's the one that controls and runs all of the Bible Guys podcast. She does a great Josh Shenanigans. So this this segment is called Who's most Likely? And I look forward to doing this with you because it's gonna help me get to I mean, obviously, I know you for you know years, I've known you for gosh, how long have we known each other. I first met you when we were at the retreat center. Oh yeah, when you got sick. Oh yeah, well I was in your room. There's a whole story that we have to share sometime about don't eat bad beef jerky from a gas station. That's we're just going to leave it right there. That was bad too, It was bad. But anyway, yeah, so, I mean, it's been probably close to twenty years, I would say so. But anyway that this helps me to get to know you even better. Who's most likely here, here's the first thing, Wesley, who's most likely to talk their way out of a speeding ticket? Who do you think me or you? I'll say you on that one. Yeah. You know what's so funny is that I would say me too. Yeah, because just by the nature of who I am. But strangely enough, I don't think I've ever ever tried to talk my way out of a speedy tabe. Normally, I'm just like I did it, you know, like whatever it is, like I did it. And I've gotten Unfortunately, I've had my share of speeding tickets. I hate to say that loud. My wife right now is saying things audibly to the to the to her phone right now. Yeah, she doesn't like that part of me, as she should not. But but I've never tried to talk my way out of a speeding ticket ever. I've normally just said yes, sir, no, sir, sorry, thank you, and then just moved on. I probably should try to talk myself out of it. But the funny thing is, I think officers appreciate when you're just honest. Yeah. One time I was in California and I was with my whole family going to Universal and I remember there was an h o V lane and you know how they have those double lines. I just I just literally crossed out, not realizing they were dashed double lines, but not realizing that you can't enter in and out of an h o V lane. Yeah, not really, at least not first anyway. So this guy, and by the way, it was my birthday. Yeah, and so my cop pulls me over, a police officer and uh and he says, hey, you can't go in and out of those lines. Well, I wasn't speeding, and I said, and I said, hey, I said, I'm so sorry. I'm not from here. I don't necessarily have these where I live. I said, And it's my birthday today, you know. I said, I'm so sorry. You know, could you cut me a break? And he goes, nope, oh he gave me ticket. Oh wow, I'm a guest. I'm just thinking, Wow, that guy must have really been desperate. On his quote a bit, he's probably heard every story. Yeah, he's just like, nope, I'm not I'm not doing it. But he saw it was a rental car. I'm good gravy. So anyway, okay, Number two, you want to read the second one, you don't have it with you. I'll read this second. It is who's most likely to ex who's most likely to adopt a pet raccoon? Not it? Not it? I'm out. Okay, Well, it depends that if my daughter Tory is living with us, If she's still with us, the answer is deaf. No, she is definitely afraid of. So she's not an animal person. Well, there are certain animals. She loves animals, but she calls them raccoons. She hates raccoons and wolves and coyotes. Those are the three things. I'm not kidding those that I can call her right now and say what are the three animals you hate? She say, wolves, coyotes and raccoons. Yeah, but if she's not there, my wife would definitely take them in. Yeah. All they have babies. You can't let the babies stay out there. Right right? Okay? Number three, who's most likely to survive on a desert, deserted island the longest. Now, that was probably written for Jeff. That would have been Jeff is the hunter, the outdoors man. Yeah, that would definitely be him. But what about me or you? That'll be tough. I'm not really like a outdoorsy kind of person, but I think but here's the thing with me though, with my personality profile, I'm a figure it out person. Okay, so I would figure out something. I mean, we could maybe extract, you know, liquid from boiling a plant. I don't know, I'd figure out something to survive. Yeah. Well, then I'm gonna go with you because I think I would die in the first week. I would die in the first week. I I don't think you. Can get water from coconuts. Yeah, you can't coconut water whatever you want to call it. Well, and my only my only knowledge would come from movies, Like I would say, yeah, I've seen I've seen Castaway with Tom Hanks. And maybe that is not the best movie to yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it took a while for him to get rescue, well. Said, yeah, so well, you know, to be fair, he just he was a sailor too. Yeah, he just couldn't get off the island. Yeah, so okay, number four. You want to read number four. I read it. Who's most likely to win a reality show? I'm going to say you one hundred percent. Yeah, I'm gonna say me because I've seen my share of reality, right, And. I'm not a reality I'm not a just uh. I'm a documentary person and think, but I'm not just like. I won't just sit down and watch a lot of just normal sit coms TV shows. I just don't. Yeah, you know, my daughters loved their guilty pleasure was The Bachelor. I had two daughters. I still do obviously, but but you know, growing up in high school, they would watch The Bachelor, and so that was one thing that I did with them. And let me tell you something. I I I love hated it. I love to hate it. I loved to hate it. And I remember you made a reference. It went right over my head. It was something about a rose and I'm like, I have no idea what he's talking about. Those those that that is probably the worst reality show I have ever subjected myself to in my life. And I watched and I saw all the seasons, and I just watched it with them and I love to hate it, but it was It's the same question all the time, you know. So what so getting the rose? What would that mean to you? This rose ceremony? Well, it would mean everything. It's the same answer, it's just a different character. Anyway, here's number five. Who's most likely to order dessert before dinner? Now see that this is complicated because it depends on where I am. Like, if I'm on vacation, I might order it. Like if you go to a really nice I love Italian food, So you go to a nice Italian restaurant, you see they got like Canoli's. Well, I mean I could have a canol before you know, ma lasagna comes, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well hey you're you're you're my people, Yeah, because I am Italian and I love Italian food is one of my favorites. Yeah, I would. I'm gonna go with you then, because for some reason, I don't ever eat dessert before dinner. Jeff definitely would. Yeah, but I'm not a dessert guy, which is sort of weird. I'm really not a dessert guy overall. I'm not a sweets guy. Oh man, but just stre that's me all day. Yeah, brownies, cookies. Yeah, I'm not a sweet skuy, so so it is. It is a little strange for even me to say that out loud, even to myself. So I'm gonna go with you. So all right, Well, hey, we're at our time. We're actually past our time, so we need to move on to Malachi Chapter. Two Malachai two. This is one through seventeen. Oh, I forgot the bad transition yesterday. Oh oh yeah yeah. Hey, hey, speaking of not being a sweet guy, this is not a very sweet message to the people of Eatam. That wins the record for worse transition. Yes, yeah, there you go. I totally forgot the transition yesterday between me and Jeff. One of us always remember, yeah, and so help me remember that tomorrow. That is good. Go ahead. Malachi second chapter and again this is God being blunt and direct. Verse two says I'm sorry. Chapter two, starting at verse one, says, listen, you, priest. This command is for you. Listen to me and make up your minds to honor my name, says the Lord of Heaven's Armies, or I will bring a terrible curse against you. I will curse even the blessings you receive. Indeed, I have already cursed them. Because you have not taken my warning to heart. I will punish your descendants and splatter your faces with the manure from your festival sacrifices, and I will throw you on the manure pile. I think that's pretty's pretty direct. It's pretty direct. Verse four. Then at last you will know it was I who sent you this warning, so that my covenant with the Levites can continue, says the Lord of Heaven's Armies verse five. The purpose of my covenant with the Levites was to bring life in peace, and that is what I gave them. This required reverence from them, and they greatly revered me and stood in awe of my name. They passed on to the people the truth of the instructions they received from me. They did not lie or cheat. They walked with me, living good and righteous lives, and they turn many from lives of sin. The words of a priest's lips should preserve knowledge of God, and people should go to him for instruction. For the priest is the messenger of the Lord of Heaven's Armies. But you, priests, have left God's paths. Your instructions have caused many to stumble into sin. You have corrupted the covenant I made with the Levites, says the Lord of Heaven's Armies. So I have made you despised and humiliated in the eyes of all the people, for you have not obeyed me, but have shown favoritism in the way you carry out my instructions. Are we not all children of the same Father. Are we not all created by the same God? Then why do we betray each other, violating the covenant of our ancestors. Judah has been unfaithful, and a detestable thing has been done in Israel and in Jerusale. The men of Judah have defiled the Lord's beloved sanctuary by marrying women who worship idols. May the Lord cut off from the nation of Israel every last man who has done this and yet brings an offering to the Lord of Heaven's Armies Verse thirteen. Here is another thing you do, so God is on a role. Here here's another thing you do. You cover the Lord's altar with tears, weeping and groaning because he pays no attention to your offerings and does not accept them with pleasure. You cry out, why doesn't the Lord accept my offering? I'll tell you Why Because the Lord witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young, But you have been unfaithful to her, though she remain your faithful partner, the wife of your marriage vows. Didn't the Lord make you one with your wife and body and spirit? You are his? And what does he want? Godly children from your union? So guard your heart, remain loyal to the wife of your youth. For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel. To divorce your wife is to overwhelm her with cruelty, says the Lord of Heaven's armies. So guard your heart and do not be unfaithful to your wife. You have wearied the Lord with your words. How have we wearied him? You ask? You have wearied him by saying that all who do evil are good in the Lord's sight, and he and he is pleased with them. You have wearied him by saying, where is the God of justice? Wow? Yeah? So God was a little clear, blunt. Yeah, man, And you could definitely sense God God's you know, anybody who talks that way, even even from a human standpoint. Yeah, you can tell that the hurt. Yeah right, you could sense God's pain and all he wants is a relationship, and so he says, you know, hey, I've been good to you and I've given you statutes, I've given you decrees, I've given you laws, and I've just asked that you just obey them. And they're not It's not exactly as if God is giving them laws that are hard to obey. Right, They're just they're honoring laws. They're definitely faithful laws, right, you know, to be faithful to your wife, to to not divulge in sin and wicked you know, idolatry practices. So you know, it takes discipline. It takes resisting of temptation and you know, you know, rejecting what other people around you do. So it does take discipline. But these aren't exactly you know, hard things compared to the author and giver of life and blessing. Right, you could sense God's pain. And I want to just pause there for a second, Chris, because I think that's something that people need to understand, is we can hurt God's feelings. That's right, God has emotions. I think for some people we think of God as being almost like this statue like figure far off and you know, he speaks with a very deep voice and things like that. But God has emotions. It says, I'm a jealous God. Yeah. So when people, you know, when when when everybody, you know, his creation, his beloved creation, whom he loves, you know, worships somebody else in place of him, he flat out says, I am a jealous God. Yeah. Yeah. And so you know it's so interesting is that? Uh you know again, this is this is sort of the last bits. These are the last bits of the transition between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. So the Old Covenant is, you know, the system that God set up, you know, the sacrifices for sin were you know, temporary offerings, you know. And what I mean by that is they would shed the blood of the animals and they would cover the altar, and it was a temporary covering, right. The new Covenant is Jesus Christ. You know, God himself becomes flesh and and and and makes the ultimate sacrifice and says about himself that this sacrifice is once and for all. So the new promise, the new Covenant to his people, is made by Jesus Christ. And so I always say this, like, how can God talk like this? People say the God of the Old Testament is so harsh compared to the New The God of the New Testament, the God of the Old Testament was so you know, just like God would never say this today, to which I would say, God has never changed. Right, So the Bible says that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And I think God for that, yes, that we don't have a God that flip flops. And that's right, that's right. The only difference is God's reaction to our sin has changed drastically, yes, right, So it's and it's because of Jesus Christ. Right, whereas before, you know, God is like there's a punishment, there is a curse, there is a penalty, you know, and and and the disobedience of people, and and and and I do believe that God still has some of that, right, Like there there are some things that God reserves to, you know, to do. God can do whatever he wants want to do. God can discipline his children. God can bring about hardship. I've always said that there are three things that can turn you back to God, but always choose the first one. There's conviction, misery, and tragedy. Right. Conviction is the Holy Spirit convicting you, and God uses a myriad of things through conviction, right, but God forbid it should come to misery or tragedy. So God can still do those things, of course, but we have to understand that Jesus Christ has paid for all of our sins. And the Bible actually says there's no condemnation. There's none who are in Christ Jesus. Right, So that's the new promise. So you could almost sense the Old Covenant, the frustration of the Old Covenant. People not obeying the Old Covenant, not even in this point, understanding the Old Covenant, not understanding much of anything, even down to the priests and the people who are supposed to be in forcing the God's laws don't even understand them. Yeah, can we touch on something in verse two, it says listen to me and make up your minds to honor my name. When I read that, I think about the fact that there might be some listeners right now listening to us, and they're kind of on the fence with God. They're on the fence in their Christian walk. They're trying to straddle both sides of the fence. And later on in the Bible it talks about how God says, I would rather you be hot or cold, but a lukewarm person I will spew out of my mouth. So there's a listener right now, and you're thinking, you know, like you're playing both sides of the fence. You're trying to be holy, you know, on Sunday, but Saturday is a different story. You got to make up your mind. You got to make up your mind. Will I serve God? Or am I not gonna serve God? But you can't straddle the fence. Listen to me and make up your minds to eyes under my names is what God is saying right here. Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's really good. And so God's called a faithfulness is the same call that we should have in our lives. Right and by the way, when he was talking about the city of Edom, there's a note here that says Malachi's first prophecy pertained to the Lord's judgment of Edom, where Petra is located. You've seen Petro, right, you know. Petra is most famous I think in our generation for Indiana Jones and the people of Doom. Yeah right, yeah, that's where the that's where the Cup of Christ was being held in that movie. Right, yea, But it says Petro was the capital of the Nebutaeans, who first appeared in history in three twelve b C. The Nebuteans were of Arabic origin, and they occupied the old land of Edom and made Petra their capital. Petra lay in an impressive valley about one thousand yards wide among the mountains of western Edom, some sixty miles north of the Gulf of Aquaba. So's that's just a little cool tidbit that you know that here we have, you know, the remains and the ruins of a city. And even today people who go to Petra can see the houses that were still carved out of the sand, the red sandy stone, and the mountains that are right along the walls. That just line up with you know, you know everything that history, you know, the Bible in the history line up right, Yeah, And so it's kind of neat. Yeah, one more thing, because we're running out of time verse thirteen, when God says, and here's another thing you do. God is just on a roll here, just listing out everything they've done wrong. But that one line you cover the Lord's altar with your tears, weeping and groaning, and I think about how I've done that in my life where I'll go to God and I'm complaining about, you know, what God didn't do and how he didn't do this, and it's like, well, wait a minute, did I do what he told me to do? Right? So it's kind of hard to be angry at him and say he's not doing what he's supposed to do when we're not doing what we're supposed to do. Sometimes it's kind of like, and I'm speaking for myself, we want to live our lives however we want to live. But God, on the back end, can you still bless my mess? Right? And that's kind of how we live sometimes, and God is saying, no, you got to choose. It's either me or the other way. But you got to make a choice. Yeah. And and it's one thing to say, God, please bless my mess, because I pray that way all the time, God, please bless my mess. But it's another thing to get angry at God for not blessing your mess, right because. And when you are happily in your. Mess right right? Right? Yeah? Because because it says it says, you know you're weeping and you shed tears on the altar and you're and you're wondering. You're confused as to why God doesn't accept your worship, right, And that's really the that's really the heart of it, right, because the people were confused thinking that God should behave, like you said, right conveniently according to whatever they want. I do whatever I want to do, but God still blessed me on the back end, right, right. Yeah, Well that's that's the people who Jeff Jeff's favorite phrases, people who treat God like a GD in a bottle. They just say, they just say, God, just just please just grant me these five things, you know, and then and then I'll be happy, you know, not even really caring about much of anything else. But but yeah, so you know, chapter three, believe it or not, Tomorrow we're going to find out that the coming day of Judgment is on its way and that's not going to be a pretty sight. But that's where we are. So hopefully our time is up and we will see you tomorrow on the Bible. Guys,