"Prophetability - lessons of strength and power in the minor prophets!"
Malach means messenger. In English the wordis translated two ways depending on who the messenger is. Malach either means messenger, like an “angel” or “preacher/pastor.” A Pastor serves in a roll much like that of an angel. Perhaps you are having a difficult time seeing your pastor as “angel-like,” (I hope not) but the office of the pastor is the office of God’s messenger. Now that doesn’t mean whatever the preacher says is God determined. It does mean, however, that God means to use ministers to speak “through” them the His word.
Unlike other prophecies we have studied, Malachi’s message was to God’s people and it was addressed to the “pastor” or “priest.”
Notice Malachi 1: 1-5. The Bible says; “A pronouncement: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi “I have loved you,” says the Lord. Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?” “Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the Lord’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau. I turned his mountains into a wasteland, and gave his inheritance to the desert jackals. "Though Edom says: “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of Armies says this: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called a wicked country and the people the Lord has cursed forever. Your own eyes will see this, and you yourselves will say, ‘The Lord is great, even beyond the borders of Israel.”
These verses follow a pattern of writing that is repeated throughout the prophecy of Malachi. The Holy Spirit is taking on the roll of a prosecutor who is defending God’s loyalty and faithfulness to His people and accusing the people of God of claiming the contrary. This book is a reminder to step back every time you start to doubt God and take inventory of just how amazing He is to all of us. Allow me to remind you of some aspects of God’s character we are reminded of in Malachi.
God defends His love. God claims to have loved Israel but they were asking; “How?” God reminds them that they are His choice people and He has fought for them over and over. God will FIGHT for you! What has God brought you out of? It will be a wonderful reminder of the fact that God defends His love.
God deserves our best. God spoke to Malachi about how His people were bringing a broken-down worship to the altar. The animal sacrifices were not their best but lame and sick. God help the church that gives God a broken down, half-hearted, puny worship. Our God is a big God and He deserves a big worship!
God will definitely hold pastors accountable. In chapter 2 the Holy Spirit admonishes the priests….“O Priests, if you do not listen and if you do not set your heart to honor my name, says the Lord Almighty, I will send a curse on you and I will curse your blessings….”In my ministry, hundreds of times, the people I pastor have wanted me to pray for them a blessing, a healing, God’s favor, direction, and other things. I don’t have any power to do that myself. Only as God chooses to do it through me will it happen.
Whenever any messenger of God begins to be unwilling to do His will over our own God will take our anointing away. That won’t be good for anyone.
God desires for His people to honor our Commitments. In Chapter 2:10 – God asks: “Don’t all of us have one Father? Didn’t one God create us? Why then do we act treacherously against one another, profaning the covenant…” To profane a covenant means to break it. There is a covenant we have with our parents. The covenant is to honor them. God promises long life when we do. The people in Malachi’s day were not honoring God as their Father and God said; “If I am your father then where is my honor?” Later in Chapter 2 the writer turns to Marriage. In V.16 the writer states; “If he hates and divorces his wife; says the Lord God of Israel, he covers his garment with injustice; says the Lord of Armies.” God wants us to work on our marriages and strive to resolve our issues but if we have to divorce then at least we should try to keep it amiable.
God has destined you for victory. Although God promises to judge all sin and all sinners, He has pre-destined to save those who will accept Christ Jesus. Chapter 4 ends the message of Malachi and the old testament with words of victory for the believer. Chapter 4: 1 proclaims; “For look, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and everyone who commits wickedness will become stubble…”Of all the wickedness the Holy Spirit could have named to conclude the O.T. He specifically mentioned “arrogance.” V.2 says; “But for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out and playfully jump like calves from the stall. You will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I am preparing, says the Lord of Armies.
When Christ Jesus our Lord appears, to rescue Israel from her enemies, and to deliver them, the wicked will be consumed by fire and burned to ash, and those who have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb will walk on their ashes into the millennial reign of Christ and 1000 years of peace on this earth! - Dr. Wiley Hughes
Rev. Wiley Hughes
D.Min., Psy.D., FBPPC, LPCA, NCC
Apostolic Leader of Destiny Now
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