Chapter 3

The perpetuation of a nation through evangelism.

How can a nation avoid national discipline? How can a nation avoid the fourth and fifth cycles of discipline? Historically we can answer this and then we can answer it Biblically from this passage. Whenever you speak of a national entity that best represents the concept of divine institution #4 you always have to go back to the Roman empire. The Roman empire provided stability for the ancient world and the Romans as a republic and as an empire existed for some thousand years. All of the streams of ancient history flow into the lake called the Roman empire and all of the streams of modern history flow out of that lake, so the Roman empire is the dividing line between ancient and modern history. There was a time when the Roman empire was about to be destroyed. The cause was a number of things. One of the factors was the fact that in the three Punic wars by which Rome finally conquered the Carthaginian empire the flower of Roman youth was destroyed in battle. They were very thin population-wise as far as stabilised individuals was concerned. Hannibal spending some seventeen years in Italy drove the Roman farmer out of his natural habitat into the city of Rome. The result was that there was the rise of mobs in slums in the cities and mob rule became a very definite factor at the beginning of disintegration. Whenever you have the mob you can do one of two things: you can destroy the mob, kill people. This is the simplest way, or you can kill the leaders. And since time immemorial this has been practised for the protection of national entities. This is what Napoleon Bonaparte did to end the French revolution. If you do not stop a mob with law and order — and that means, of course, that someone has to get hurt on the mob side — then the mob will destroy you. And this is the way they began in the Roman empire: a. You have to feed a mob. If you are not going to destroy a mob you have to feed them. The Romans who had come into being through the action of free enterprise, the action of business, and so on. So if you have to feed a mob the first thing you have to do is have socialism in which the mob is fed at government expense. b. You have to entertain them. For that reason the Coliseum was built. As a result of these two factors the mob began to rule Rome. This was the mob of SPQR when Rome was a republic. It was Julius Caesar who finally wiped out the mob — at least temporarily. So historically Caesar’s rise to power brought stability back to SPQR. This was one of the big problems although they had all sorts of problems which were fantastic, but this was something which illustrates something that we have today. You cannot cater to people who are out of line from the standpoint of law and order and maintain a stability internally. Many nations have been destroyed because of this.

In the nineteenth century there were two areas of the world where people were facing destruction due to instabilities which existed. One of these was Africa. All parts of Africa which were not controlled by the British were in very serious trouble. In the tribal system of Africa people were killing each other off at a very rapid rate and the Africans were in the stone age — only 100 years ago. They were divided up into fraternities and they spent all of their time killing and eating members of other tribes, or enslaving and selling to the Arab slave traders. Much the same thing was true in India. And so there were these two massive population areas who were destroying themselves because they were minus the divine institutions, laws for believers and unbelievers, laws for people who live together in a national definition. What happened in the 19th century to preserve the people of both of these areas was, first of all, the coming of the British empire. The British moved into Africa and India and they began to stabilise. You see, someone came in representing law and order, and the British came in and they represented law and order at its best in modern history. They didn’t go in for benevolent United Nationsism which is maudlin sentimentalism or how to destroy people without really trying. Many parts of Africa in the last century was under British rule. The British did a fantastic job and, as a result, law and order came to Africa (and India). As a result the natives of Africa and the natives of India had something they had not possessed in a long time, they had freedom of choice. In this freedom of choice there was the rise of the missionary movement in which missionaries went to Africa and India resulting in millions and millions of black and brown people living in these two areas in the last century who are now in heaven and who are going to spend all eternity in the presence of God. Why? Because England brought to those areas the divine institutions and behind them evangelism, and one of the greatest evangelistic pushes of all time occurred in the last century under the British flag.

The United Nations has so interfered with Africa and India today that Africa has now gone back to the stone age and freedom has been destroyed. The same thing is true of India and for the first time the Indians appreciate the British because they realise what the British did for them. Law and order was so great in India under the British that Moslems and Hindus could live by the hundreds of thousands in the same area without wiping each other out. The freedoms that were enjoyed in those areas in the last century have now been replaced by some of the weirdest ideas that have ever existed in history, ideas which are represented in the UN concept. The United Nations is totally antagonistic to everything that is doctrinal and Biblical, and everything that makes for law and order.

Now the very thing that is destroying England is the same thing that is destroying America. It is a concept of national breast-beating, national guilt complex, and trying to compensate for a national guilt complex by picking out some downtrodden group and trying to elevate them to an area which cannot be accomplished by human means, by human planning and by human effort. Point of doctrine: Man by man’s efforts cannot solve man’s problems. And you cannot do these things by legislation. The thing that characterises Anglo-Saxon history is the fact that basically our problems have been solved by legislation, i.e. revolutions have been avoided, violence has been avoided, by the use of law and order and by the use of legislation. This is legislation which protects the individual under the divine institutions — legislation which protects his freedom and gives him the right of privacy, unless of course, he decides for crime. Common law in a national entity is designed to protect people, their privacy, their rights, their property. No one, no matter what kind of a cause they have, has the right to violate the property of some individual or individuals. And once you break that down and say, But we make an exception here because “these people are having such a hard time", then we are in trouble. Why are they having a hard time? When you stop and analyse it — and you can’t find anyone that will — you usually find that these people are criminal types or lazy or they lack the drive or they lack what is necessary to pull themselves out of a problem. Often they are in the spot they are in for one simple reason: although the opportunity is there they turn up their nose and say, No, I’m downtrodden, feed me, take care of me, and so on. A good honest attitude is this: It is better to earn five cents and just cling on than to sit down and allow a government to give you a dollar. Some people are unwilling to make their own way, they are corrupted by Satanic, cosmic-type thought patterns.

Historically there are two ways in which nations have worked their way out of a jamb. In

the first place they have work their way out by internal improvement, which means the establishing

of law and order. Once you establish law and order you work down to divine institution #3 where you straighten out families and marriage, and you wind up with divine institution #1, the freedom to choose. Now the external is the one that is probably the greatest protection that a national entity has historically, and the external means military build-up. You must have a good military system. There never has been a person or a nation that can survive without fighting for its freedom.

Historically no nation can survive except for one factor. When everything is going down in a nation there is only one way it can stay alive. “Ye are the salt of the earth", said Jesus. Salt is used two ways in the scripture. It was used as a preservative in the ancient world — the Bible must be interpreted in the time in which it was written. It is the believer in a national entity that preserves the nation. Salt is used to flavour food, and this is the concept of the believer witnessing. Here is one of the keys to national survival. The Jews were about to go under in Malachi’s day, about 420 BC, and the thing that preserved them was evangelism. As a result of Malachi’s message we have a fantastic national evangelism, believer’s witnessing and prophets preaching. As a result the fall of the nation was postponed for over four hundred years. So we have now come to the part of rebuilding and we must examine the spiritual factor.

Verse 1 — Jesus Christ is the inevitable solution now. “Behold” is calling attention to the fact that it is necessary for a message to exist. Before people can come to their senses and stop being deluded by Satanic concepts which will destroy them, they must have a message. The change must come to the individual and so it is a personal message to individuals in a national entity and the message must begin with the gospel. The ingredients of the gospel speak of the principle of grace and the planning of grace which took place in eternity past and, thirdly, the function of the plan which involves Jesus Christ, His uniqueness and the uniqueness of His work. There is the beginning of recovery. National evangelism doesn’t mean that everyone responds but it means that everyone has a chance.

“my messenger” — there has to be a messenger. The Hebrew is malak. It is necessary to remember something about prophecy. Every person who wrote in the Old Testament had a message for the people, a contemporary message. There must be a contemporary message as well as a future message. We in our day have so emphasised the future that we have failed to see the contemporary. The word malak, from which we get the word Malachi, means to speak to communicate, and so on. And the noun form here means “my messenger” — Malachi. We do not know Malachi’s real name but that isn’t important, it is his message that counts. The messenger here is the prophet and he is speaking to the people in 420 BC. So we have a near fulfilment — a contemporary message to the people — but there is also a distant fulfilment which has application to us today because the principles that are now going to be declared are the same principles we need for national recovery.

National recovery does not depend on the leaders of a country or the passing of laws, you cannot solve man’s problems by passing laws. You can’t pass laws telling people what to think, what to say, and what to do. You cannot legislate social life. These are not the responsibility of government. Then there is a far fulfilment which has to do with the nation Israel in the Tribulation and the second advent, and the Millennium when they are restored. All of these things are in view throughout this entire passage.

“My messenger,” by interpretation is an unknown prophet who lived in 420 BC, but “my messenger” also has an eschatological implication and it refers also to John the Baptist who is the herald of the first advent. So immediately we see that eschatologically we are going to deal with the advents of Christ and their relationship to man. There are certain verses in the Greek of the New Testament which are comparable to this word “messenger” — malak: Matthew 3:3 where John the Baptist is called the messenger of the Lord; Matthew 11:10; Luke 1:76; Mark 1:2,3; Luke 3:4; 76:26,27; John 1:23. So we have two factors in the word “messenger: “behold” means concentrate, to concentrate in a public speaking situation — to the prophet who was living in 420 BC and later on when the herald of the King would be sent. The King is Jesus Christ. The herald comes first and announces Him and then the King will come, both first and second advents.

“he shall prepare” — this part is prophetical and refers to John the Baptist. The word in the Hebrew is the verb panah, here in the piel stem, and it means to clear the way, to clarify the situation. The piel stem is intensive and it is the perfect tense which means he accomplishes his job.

“before me” — Jesus Christ. John the Baptist is going to clarify the situation.

Notice what the overall subject is: the danger of the fifth cycle of discipline. There is almost 500 years to 70 AD, the second administration of the fifth cycle. They were about to go out here in 420 BC but there was delay for 500 years. However, inevitably the Jews will go out under the fifth cycle of discipline because they rejected Messiah. But the ingredients which existed in 70 AD, namely negative volition, was also present at the time of the writer, Malachi. So we have Malachi in 420 BC and we have “Malachi” in 30 AD, John the Baptist.

At the end of Malachi chapter two there is a question: Where is the God of judgement? This question is going to be answered throughout chapter three, it is actually the subject of chapter three: “Behold I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple” .There were believers who lived in Malachi’s day in 420 BC who were on positive volition, and they were seeking the Lord to protect them and to deliver them. The deliverance actually occurred here. There were people on positive volition in the days of John the Baptist and the days of the incarnation of our Lord. They too sought the Lord and seeking Him to preserve the nation. Here in 420 BC it was successful; in the days of our Lord we finally have a forty-year period of grace and then the fifth cycle.

“the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple” — this is the second temple, sometimes known as Zerubbabel’s temple. The Jews have had over 100 years of prosperity and now the temple, which was the basic system for communicating doctrine, is being neglected and they have got to get back to the doctrine that is communicated through the temple. In 30 AD, or sometime before that, Jesus Christ will come suddenly in the temple, and His coming is to indicate that everything in the temple represents Jesus Christ, His work, His ministry, His advent, His incarnation. So when it says here that He shall come suddenly into the temple it is the principle of the Lord during His incarnation walking into the temple and fulfilling that concept.

“even the messenger of the covenant [contract]” — coming suddenly was probably fulfilled in John 2:13-25. Jesus Christ is also called the messenger. The word “covenant” is a contract. The messenger of the contract is Jesus Christ, 1st advent. The contract: when Jesus Christ went to the cross He became our substitute, our sins were poured out upon Him and judged, and He took our place. In a contract you have two parties. Party of the first part: the members of the Godhead; party of the second part: man. And in the contract or the covenant God the Father is propitiated by the work of God the Son. That means He is satisfied; man is reconciled and he expresses it in a non-meritorious manner: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved” .So we have a contract. And the messenger of the contract is Jesus Christ who announced to His generation that He would go to the cross and die for the sins of the world and to declare the principle that the cross must come before the crown. Before there could be a stabilised Israel there must be the cross. You cannot have perfect environment, you cannot have many of these things for which man strives through liberalism today, apart from regeneration. The idea of everyone being equal is only accomplished at the cross where all believers enter into union with Christ. So the cross must always come before the crown. And Satan tries to interdict, and Satan has always come up with this idea by, for example, showing the Lord the kingdoms of the world and saying: “I will give you these if you will fall own and worship me” — in other words, by-pass the cross and I will give you the crown. But Jesus Christ refuses the crown from Satan and He picks up the crown Himself at the cross. And He will return and establish the Millennial reign, 1000 years of perfect environment.

“whom ye delight” — the Hebrew says, “who is precious.” This simply means top value, number one on your scale of values. And Christ must have first place is the principle. When Jesus Christ has first place here is where your happiness begins as a believer.

“behold, he shall come” — first advent; “saith the Lord of hosts” — God the Father who is the author of the plan.

So we have briefly a statement. In other words, the messenger is saying: This generation is going to recover. The fifth cycle of discipline is going to be cancelled in 420 BC, but the issue will come again in 30 AD. The fifth cycle will be hanging over the nation in 30 AD and will be accomplished in 70 AD. God, in grace, allows forty years because of the great revival which started at Pentecost. They faced the issue in 420 BC; they will face the issue in 30 AD. They will pass in 420 BC; they will fail in 30 AD, and the failure will be the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

All of this is really announcing the structure of the passage, the concept of the passage. And in this particular passage there is one question: What is going to save the nation? In 420 BC the nation Israel — Judah — was saved and delivered back to Christ — a maximum number of people believing in Jesus Christ. The same issue came up again in 30 AD and they failed, but there was still a revival, and the revival which started at Pentecost preserved the nation for another forty years. This meant that a new generation came into the picture before they finally went out.

Application

1. Malachi applies to Malachi’s day — contemporary.

2. Malachi applies to future things for Malachi’s day — such as the first advent.

3. But, application to us right now: What is going to preserve our nation? How are we going to reverse the trend that exists today? The answer is evangelism, a maximum number of people receiving Jesus Christ as saviour. The salt of the earth is the only answer.

One principle we must always remember and which is found throughout the scripture is that fact that the cross always precedes the crown. The first advent of Christ is designed for eternal salvation. The purpose of His coming was to be judged in our place, to pay the wages of sin which is spiritual death. And so the sins of the world were poured out upon Him and judged, and as a result we have eternal life. Eternal life comes by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the means of entering the plan of God. It also has other temporal repercussions because in the plan of God, phase two, God has designed for us His own happiness. But at the same time it has a collective or a national result and from the national standpoint it means the prosperity of the national entity. This is very important to us as believers that we might have our freedoms protected, that evangelism might be on a bona fide basis, and that there might be in the devil’s world the protection which is so necessary for the perpetuation of the angelic conflict. Eventually everything is connected with the angelic conflict. Man is created in order that the angelic conflict might reach a correct solution, that the righteousness of God might be vindicated. For the righteousness of God expressed itself in the angelic conflict by the judgement of the fallen angels, including Satan. This judgement has been called to question by the greatest genius ever created, Satan himself, and in his objection Satan declared that God was unfair to take his creatures, the fallen angels, and cast them into the lake of fire forever. This is exactly what the sentence is upon the fallen angels and in order to demonstrate that Satan’s position is untenable God created mankind. Certain things had to occur in the creation of mankind. Although man was perfect as far as he came from the hand of God he was given the free will, the volition by which he might choose another course. Inevitably he did and this explains why sin, and it also explains why suffering. The result of man’s sin is the old sin nature and basically the old sin nature is the source of all suffering in the world, apart from certain Satanic activities. In addition to that it became necessary to provide a way of salvation so that man could still have a choice. Even though man is spiritually dead he must have a choice. The choice is provided by the cross, by Christ dying for our sins, and inevitably in the fullness of time Jesus Christ had to come into the world.

Inevitably, as a part of the plan of God, we are going to spend eternity in His presence — phase three of the plan of God — and there are two big issues between phase one, salvation, and phase three which is eternity. The issue has to do with the individual believer which is personal, and the collective concept which is national. The believer has a personal relationship with God and that personal relationship is designed for his inner happiness, perfect happiness from God. The collective or the national relationship is designed to operate under the divine institutions and to perpetuate the angelic conflict to the end of human history. With this in mind God has provided two categories for the believer. He has provided for him personally; He has provided for him collectively. As a believer learns doctrine and utilises these things an amazing thing happens. He finds that his own environment, his own national entity, is changed in spite of every Satanic attempt to make it different. Everything is changed for the better; this is the salt of the earth concept.

A similar situation existed back in 420 BC. In that year the prophet Malachi saw the collective concept breaking down. We have already seen the breakdown of the divine institutions or the detriment which came to the nation collectively, starting with the believers and having repercussions in very area of life. And then, secondly, there was the breakdown individually, so we have a minus doctrine concept there. These are dealt with, one and then the other.

In verse 2 the Jews are about to face the fifth cycle of discipline. It will be postponed nearly 500 years. The possibility of the fifth cycle of discipline existed in 420 BC and it was postponed until 70 AD which is roughly 491 years (in going from BC to AD you have to add an extra year). In that 500 years we have the ingredients right here and the ingredients begin with a concept which is going to be brought out by the second advent of Christ. All of the concept is not given because Malachi was the last of the prophets and already in written form we have all of the Millennial concepts. The second advent of Christ leads to 1000 years of perfect environment on the earth, and in that 1000 years certain things are true. For example, in the individual concept there is spirituality, the filling of the Holy Spirit concept, which will include at that time ecstatics, and the removal of religion which is so detrimental to a nation. The filling of the Holy Spirit plus the removal of religion leads to the revival of Judaism with meaning, and that is the story found in Ezekiel chapters 40-48. In those chapters we have the revival of the Levitical offerings and the modus operandi of the Levitical priesthood. For the Levitical priesthood was the centre of spiritual life in Israel in 420 BC and will be again at the second advent. Already we have seen in the first two chapters how the Levitical priesthood has been criticised by the prophet for their spiritual failures.

Notice that both of these are individual situations: the individual’s spiritual life, the removal of religion for the believer in that day — the Millennium — being spiritually self-sustaining. This forms the framework for perfect environment which includes collective factors: the revival of the divine institutions and the perpetuation of them for a period of 1000 years. In the correct perpetuation of these things you have some by-products such as economic prosperity and world peace which are developed and perpetuated through the divine institutions. And you also have a fourth category where you have changes of topography which lead to changes of weather.

The prophet at this point collects, as it were, in principle; he doesn’t take details. He develops the principle in the next three verses. Now we have the second advent of Christ tied in with principle. The reason Malachi does this is that he is not going to go back to the details given by Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel who gave a fantastic number of details. But he is going to take the principle of perfect environment. Why? Every prophet who spoke of the future, e.g. the Tribulation, the second advent, and the Millennium, also had a message for his contemporaries, the people of his day. Here in 420 BC we have the Jews about to go out under the fifth cycle of discipline so the prophet Malachi says: Focus your attention now on the second advent, the Millennium. Jesus Christ is going to return and when He returns there are certain things He will do. He will set up perfect environment, and in doing so will release the divine institutions from their shackles, from such things as socialism. He is going to take the concept of free enterprise and economy and free it from the controls of sincere but misguided government and government agencies. He is going to take these things and release them so that a perfect prosperity can exist. And if that is going to be the situation when Israel reaches its peak, even in the devil’s world right now, in 420 BC, we could have these things. In that day they will have them by the personal reign of Jesus Christ on the earth; we can have them now through Bible doctrine.

Now that is his message for the next few verses.

We need to also keep in the mind the basis for this chapter which goes back to the last verse of chapter two: Where is the God of judgement?

Verse 2 — again we go back to that question: Where is the God of judgement? “But who may abide the day of his coming?” The apostates, the scoffers mentioned at the beginning of 2 Peter chapter 3 say: Where is the promise of his coming? That is a special group of scoffers and they are attacking the second advent of Christ. Here is Malachi chapter 3 we have the apostates saying: Where is the God of judgement? They are attacking the second advent. Satan is really disturbed about the second advent. Theologians, religious types, have always despised the second advent of Jesus Christ and you can understand the reason for it when you think of it in terms of the angelic conflict, not in the terms that only Christ can do these things but in the terms of the angelic conflict. There are two things you must remember about the second advent. First of all, the second advent terminates operation footstool and therefore the angelic conflict shifts gears. And with the completion of operation footstool and the removal of Satan and the demons from the earth this is all but the finish as far as Satan is concerned. Satan will be released at the end of the Millennium for just a short period of time. He will lead in one last revolt and will be put down but operation footstool just about finishes up everything for Satan. Therefore Satan cannot stand the second advent. Satan likes to deny the second advent and to ridicule the second advent because to Satan it is his doom. The justice of God has been demonstrated, the righteousness of God has been demonstrated, Satan has had it and he knows it. Operation footstool occurs at the second advent.

Now from the human viewpoint man doesn’t like it either. Satan doesn’t like it; man doesn’t like it. Man would like to think that he can bring about world peace, that he could solve the problems of poverty, that he could provide for man a state of equalisation in which all people are equal. To man, none of these things are possible. Man’s ego is involved. He has been saying since the beginning of time that world peace can be brought about by disarmament. The whole disarmament concept ignores the most basic principle of Bible doctrine, the old sin nature. The war on poverty is another concept. The idea of helping the poor is a Biblical concept but the idea of a socialistic government to solve the problems of poverty is ludicrous. Jesus said the poor you will have with you always, and that you shall have wars and rumours of wars. You cannot eliminate war, you cannot eliminate poverty, you cannot eliminate the evils of man as long as the devil rules this world, and the only way that you can have anything that is pleasant in this life is through Bible doctrine. Malachi is saying that when Christ returns and personally reigns we will have perfect environment. In the meantime this is the devil’s world and operation footstool is not in effect, it is in process. There must be the Rapture of the Church and there must be the Tribulation. And the big Satanic thrust that goes on in every generation is: Where is the promise of His coming? Where is the God of judgement? The second advent principle is this: when Christ is personally on the earth, fine, He will solve what man can never solve. But in the meantime there is only one answer. From 421 BC down to the second advent there is only one answer and that one answer is in Bible doctrine. Bible doctrine is for born again believers but there are certain principles of Bible doctrine that apply to the human race in general. And it is the application of principles of doctrine in the human race that have caused, in certain periods of history, world peace and almost the abolition of poverty — for example the period of the Antonine Caesars; for example, the period prior to Malachi and the period after Malachi in Israel; for example, 19th century England, and so on. So occasionally there is a breakthrough in history and this breakthrough comes through the application of Bible doctrine.

“But who may abide [endure with happiness] the day of his coming” — this again emphasises evangelism. The word for “abide” is the Hebrew word kul in the piel stem, a participle. It means to endure and grit your teeth in the qal stem, but in the piel stem (intensive) it means to endure with happiness. So the question now is: When Christ returns, who is going to endure the second advent with happiness, and who is not going to be happy? Malachi’s emphasis at this time is on evangelism and he is simply showing by eschatological illustration the principle that the only way to endure with happiness in any adversity or any unusual situation in life is to be born again. Israel at this time is having some very serious difficulties and people are generally unhappy. And when you are facing unhappy people the first thing you say to them is: You must be born again, get into the plan of God, He has an answer for all of this but the answer is no good until you face the cross.

How can Malachi illustrate this dramatically? He has to take something that is common to the people of his day. So what does he do? He picked the second advent of Christ, and the second advent of Christ was as well-known a conversational piece in his day in Judah as football is in our day. They didn’t always understand it but people generally were cognisant of the second advent and what was supposed to happen as a result.

“and who shall stand when he appeareth?” — the word “stand” is a qal active participle and it means to be able to stand up, or stand acquitted, at a moment of judgement. The word almost comes to mean, Who will survive? “He appeareth” is a reference to the second advent. This is a niphel infinitive of a verb raah. Raahin the niphel means to be seen. In the qal stem it means to see. Christ will be seen at the second advent. Who will be able to stand up under judgement and be acquitted when He [Christ] is seen? How is He going to appear?

“he is like a refiner’s fire, and like a fuller’s soap” — a fuller is simply a cleaner. They didn’t have a dry-cleaner in those days but they had a group of people who went into business down by the riverside and they had a kind of a soap which they called fuller. The point is that in order to take a dirty garment and make it clean you would take water and “fuller” and apply it. On the other side you have a clean garment. This is the point of the second advent. When Christ returns all the unbelievers who are alive are the “dirt,” and only those who are believers go into the Millennium. Concept: Only a believer can appreciate all that God provides under perfect environment situations. It takes something to appreciate perfect environment. The point is that when you have something that is good you have to have the capacity to appreciate it, to know that it is good. Some people do not have capacity because they have no appreciation. There are some people who are alive when Christ returns and they have no capacity to appreciate perfect environment, no capacity to appreciate Him and to appreciate what He provides, and they are dirt which is comparable to the unbelievers of the Tribulation. In other words, we have here the baptism of fire.

The refiner’s fire: a refinery in those days was usually an iron pot that wouldn’t melt. Into it you would put the ore and heat it. Now what happens when you put a big fire under the pot? The slag rises to the top and is skinned off, and eventually nothing is left in the pot but pure gold. Malachi is using the second advent and in the second advent God’s judgement of fire is applied to the people of the Tribulation, and the believers, pure gold, go into the Millennium. The unbelievers, the slag, are cast out.

Verse 3 — “he shall purify the sons of Levi.” Why does he mention the sons of Levi? Because in 420 BC the sons of Levi were the priests and theoretically the spiritual leaders. The unbelievers are about to be removed by judgement and the believers will go on to the prosperity of the nation. This will occur not only in Malachi’s day but will occur at the second advent. At the second advent the tribe of Levi will be well represented among the survivors at the end of the Tribulation. The believers of the tribe of Levi will go into the Millennium and will act as priests in Israel. The unbelievers of Levi will be cast off and identified with fire. Attitude toward Christ makes the difference. In other words, he is saying to Levi, the cross must come before the crown and you cannot have the crown unless you go by the cross. Levi in Malachi’s day were depending upon the first birth, they were born into the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron. Therefore, they were functioning on the basis of their first birth and Malachi is saying, You can’t depend upon the talents and the abilities of your first birth, you have to depend upon the second birth, you have to depend upon spiritual ability and spiritual talents.

Malachi had to gear his message to the people of his day and that is why he geared it to the sons of Levi. Why? The Levites had great musical talent, they could open their mouth and sing beautifully, they were great speakers, they were attractive people — they were born with certain natural talents. Moses was a Levite. The point is, the Levites had talent by physical birth. And God is saying through His prophet Malachi: “I can’t use any of it because you are not born again.”

The “sons of Levi” are the spiritual leaders, and there is a purpose — “that.” There are two times when the sons of Levi are going to be purified. One is in 420 BC as a result of Malachi and the Levitical priesthood will function again. This means the dissemination of doctrine. But the other time is at the second advent as described in detail by Ezekiel chapters 40-48 when they will function again to the spiritual blessing of the Jews. So we have a dual fulfilment.

“that” introduces a purpose clause. As far as the Millennium is concerned this is very clearly traced out at this particular point. “That they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness” — the offering in righteousness: Ezekiel chapters 40-48. When Christ returns to the earth there will be established a Millennial temple during that entire thousand years. It will include offerings, and people will say, Well now that the cross is past why the offerings? This is a remembrance, the Jewish communion table during those thousand years, and they will remember Christ in this way, they will be taught Bible doctrine in this way, and Bible doctrine will be perpetuated through the use of the offerings.

Verse 4 — “pleasant” means acceptable. The word “acceptable” means that God stabilises the national entity as well as the spiritual life. So believers are blessed and the nation is blessed. Believers are in the nation, they are doubly blessed. The principle again: There is the personal blessing to the believer with Bible doctrine; there is the collective or national blessing because of the correct function of the divine institutions under divine sponsorship and blessing.

Verse 5 — The cleansing of Israel. He goes back to the Tribulation and this time he is going to amplify why unbelievers are removed, and we are going to have some things that are incompatible with perfect environment.

“I will come near to you to judgement” — this is the baptism of fire at the second advent — “I will be a swift witness against” — you actually have unbelievers described and unbelievers do a lot of different things. These aren’t the only sins of unbelievers but these are sins incompatible with the perfect environment of the Millennium. These people are not being judged because they commit these sins, these people are being judged for one reason: they are unbelievers, John 3:18. These sins are mentioned only to show that the sins are incompatible with perfect environment, that’s all. There are hundreds and even thousands of sins that could be listed that the unbelievers were committing. And it should be noticed that this same list of sins occurs again in Revelation. It also occurs in part in 2 Thessalonians 2. But the point is that people who do these sins are not in the baptism of fire, it is the unbeliever. The unbeliever has certain functions that are incompatible with perfect environment. They are:

“sorcerers,” which is a piel participle from the verb kashaph. It is the piel stem which is intensive. The word means to mutter a magic formula and it has to do with demon possession. Unbelievers are demon-possessed; there will be no demon possession in the Millennium. Demon possession is designed to sponsor religion. Most forms of demon possession are designed to impress people so they will accept a form of religion. Most bona fide miracles of healing today are the result of demon possession. Speaking in tongues is a result of demon possession. There is a tremendous area of extra natural phenomena which can be attributed to the various types of demon possession. Demon possession is incompatible with Christianity; demon possession is religion. Demon possession is the devil’s communion table, 1 Corinthians 10:19-21. All religion somewhere has behind it demon possession and there are various ways in which the demon possession occurs. Sometimes it is through idolatry and sometimes it is through the incantation, magic formula, and other factors which involves the individual unbeliever surrendering his volition to a demon or demons. There will be no religion in the Millennium. Many of these unbelievers are demon possessed, religious, a part of some religious system, and since demons are removed from the earth demon possession is removed. In other words, religion is incompatible with perfect environment. Point of doctrine: You cannot have perfect environment and religion; they cannot coexist. If religion dominates it removes pleasant environment; if the environment dominates it removes religion. Pleasant environment comes from one source: grace. And grace orientation comes from knowledge of Bible doctrine, and the extent to which we have a pleasant environment it doesn’t depend upon socialising, it doesn’t depend upon people. Religion is always using a gimmick system to create its environment — attractive people, stimulating things, entertainment, and so on — but pleasant environment, God tells us through this passage, comes from grace.

“adulterers” — adultery goes to a collective concept. This is an attack on the divine institutions, and this attacks the structure of the nation. So adultery simply takes the divine institution #2 as the illustration and shows how it breaks down. The principle involved here is a very simple one: these are unbelievers with this and therefore they would not appreciate the structure of the Millennium where they had divine institutions.

“false swearers” — perjury, and this is also an attack upon the divine institutions, only this is divine institution #4 where you have common law as the basic principle. Perjurers were those who distort common law through falsehood.

“those that oppress the hireling in his wages” — dishonest business practices; “the widow” — female workers; “the fatherless” — orphans.

“that turn aside the stranger from his right” — “from his right” is not there in the Hebrew. It should be translated: “that turn away the stranger [evangelist].” The stranger is the evangelist. This is the hiphil stem, they were caused to by their own volition, they went on negative signals toward Bible doctrine, i.e. the gospel. This is indifference to the gospel. That is, this is one where since there is a difference to the gospel and since the gospel is the key to getting oriented to grace and into the plan of God, indifference makes for incompatibility, and this is the reason why they are not there.

“and fear not me” — there is no occupation with Christ and the whole secret to happiness in any civilisation in any dispensation is occupation with Christ. If Christ is first whatever details you have you can enjoy; if He isn’t the details of life will make you miserable. The word “fear” is the concept of reverence or love or respect.

“and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts” — rejection of Christ. They absolutely refuse to accept Christ, therefore they can have no appreciation for the Millennium because, what is the Millennium? It is a lot of details. It is no war, it is perfect prosperity, it is everyone having perfect health, it is no death except in the execution of capital punishment, it is everything that is marvellous and perfect perpetuated for a thousand years, and yet these are details. What is the Millennium? The Millennium is Jesus Christ reigning on earth. And so rejection of Christ during the evangelisation period of the Tribulation means there would be no appreciation of Christ in the Millennium.

Verse 6 — “For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.”

Psalm 33:1-11

This is one Psalm for which we have no background. Generally within the content of a Psalm or in the superscription we have some clue as to when and under what conditions it was written. We have none of these things in this particular passage. This is an anonymous congregational hymn. It was composed as a result of deliverance in a national crisis. So we will call it the Psalm of the national crisis.

The outline is threefold:

1. The production of the written Word (or how Bible doctrine delivers a nation) — verses 1-5.

2. The production of the living Word (or how Jesus Christ delivers a nation) — verses 6-11.

3. The principle of national deliverance (or how grace delivers a nation) — verses 12-22.

It will be obvious from the outline that we are talking about three facets of the same thing: divine deliverance of national entities in time.

Verse 1 — First of all Bible doctrine produces inner happiness, and this gives stability to believers in a nation. Generally all believers find themselves in some sort of a national entity, some type of a national definition. This means that the problems and pressures of the individual believer are very complex as he faces his relationship to the Lord and at the same time his relationship to a nation. In a communist country, for example, this would be a very complex problem. In a nation such as the USA, from the standpoint of the Constitution, this is not nearly as great a problem. But all believers have to face their relationship to the national entity. And it has been true in the past that believers have even lost their lives when their nation is destroyed under the fifth cycle of discipline. So the first concept which is absolutely necessary to understand is the principle of inner happiness, even in time of national catastrophe. This is brought out in the first phrase of verse one: “Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous.”

First of all the “righteous” must be defined as believers, those who have received the righteousness of God. This is a technical definition in the Old Testament. Since the Old Testament saints did not have positional truth they had something comparable. One of the forty things we receive is God’s righteousness. We approach the cross with minus R and human good When we accept Jesus Christ as saviour God credits to our account His righteousness, and when He sees His righteousness in us — His own — He then vindicates the believer, and this is usually translated “justified.” Justification is the result of the imputation of divine righteousness and from the moment of salvation, as long as we live in phase two of the plan of God, and throughout all eternity, there is a sense in which we are righteous. We call this positional righteousness; the Old Testament saints could call it positional sanctification. So when we receive Christ as saviour, at that moment we receive God’s righteousness — doctrine of imputation. And when we do? We have +R now, God looks at +R (it’s equal to His own) and therefore He has to write every believer “vindicated.”

Vindication has two different concepts: vindication at salvation which is faith in Jesus Christ. This is the subject of Romans, justification or vindication by faith; vindication in phase two or the witness of the believer’s life, and this is called justification or vindication by works, and is the subject of the book of James.

Here in verse 1 we have the believer recognised from the standpoint of his position, from the standpoint of imputation. And immediately he is given a command, and the command as it stands in the English is, “Rejoice.” Generally in our English Bibles when we find “rejoice” it has to do with inner happiness. It is a command to inner happiness; it is given in the imperative mood. For example, Philippians 4:4: “Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice.” Generally in such verses the joy of the Lord is inner happiness, but not so here. The verb in the Hebrew is ranan, which does not mean to have inner happiness, it means to express inner happiness and it means to express it vocally, it means to celebrate. So we will translate it, “Shout for joy.” It expresses an inner mental attitude, and this inner mental attitude is love directed toward the Lord and so we start out with the production of Bible doctrine. Bible doctrine produces inner happiness expressed. “Rejoice” is in the intensive piel stem and this means there is no doubt about the fact that you have inner happiness and that this inner happiness is related to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we have, “Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous”.

“for praise” — notice that this time we have the word “praise.” Praise is a part of worship; praise is a congregational part of the worship, but praise always expresses a mental attitude, a relaxed mental attitude. A relaxed mental attitude is directed first of all toward God and secondly toward people. When you have praise in a worship service it means that you are relaxed toward God, you are responding to His love through knowledge of doctrine, but it also means that you are relaxed toward people. Praise is the principle and there are two kinds of praise and there are two directions. Praise is directed toward God; praise is directed toward people. But praise is a relaxed mental attitude toward God and a relaxed mental attitude toward people. Most praise is mental, it is your concentration on the Word of God. It is a relaxed mental attitude as you listen to the teaching of God’s Word. And it should be noticed that the principle behind this rejoicing, this overt praise: “praise is comely for the upright” .

The word “comely” is naveh, which means beautiful. As far as God is concerned you are beautiful when you have a relaxed mental attitude and are focused on the Word of God. You are relaxed toward God; you are relaxed toward people, and therefore there is no distraction with regard to listening to the teaching of the Word.

The only reason we have this particular verse is to indicate the principle of this paragraph, verses 1-5. Bible doctrine produces inner happiness, it produces a relaxed mental attitude toward God and toward people. When we have this RMA toward God and we are assembled together, and we have an RMA toward people, then the nation is in the position to be preserved. So Bible doctrine does some producing as far as national preservation is concerned. It produces inner happiness and a relaxed mental attitude and, secondly, it produces musical expression. In verses two and three we have musical instruments. If we are going to praise the Lord it might as well be done well. There is a place for good music. Bible doctrine produces musical expression.

Verse 2 — “Praise,” this time it is verb, jadah. And here is the whole objective of praise. This is a hiphil stem and it means to confess or to acknowledge in the hiphil. It also means to acknowledge benefits, and so the word “praise” means to acknowledge His benefits. In other words the objective of praise is recognition, acknowledgement of grace. And since grace is the highest concept in the human race obviously it ought to have the best music.

“with harp” — the harp is the great, great grandfather to the piano. The piano is a stringed instrument, except the strings are hidden. How are you going to acknowledge benefits from the Lord with a harp? The point is, the harp is an instrument that is capable of making some very beautiful sounds. These beautiful sounds express the grace of God. That is the concept of music in worship.

“sing unto him with a psaltery” — the word for “sing” means to sing in accompaniment with a musical instrument. The musical accompaniment is a psaltery, a ten-stringed instrument. This is a piel stem which means to sing with mental attitude. In other words, if you have mental attitude love toward God, if you have Bible doctrine in your soul, then you can play the musical instrument and sing.

Verse 3 — “Sing unto him a new song.” The word for sing this time is different from verse 2. In verse 2 we have a piel imperative of zamar, and that means to sing to the accompaniment of some musical instrument. But in verse 3 we have a qal imperative of the word shir, and the verb shir means to honour someone or to sing a song of celebration. And this is accomplished by the congregation. In other words, what is the difference between verse 2 and verse 3? In verse 2 you have the fact that professional musicians are good musicians. Good musicians are professional musicians. But in verse 3 you have all the rest of us! And we can join in, and so on. This is a bona fide system of praise and it doesn’t require any musical training.

“with a loud noise” — the objective here is to get volume. Why loud? Because the loud noise has the sense of vigour and power and dynamics.

Remember our subject in the first five verses is the production of Bible doctrine. In verse 1 it produces inner happiness and a relaxed mental attitude. In verses 2 and 3 it produces musical praise. In verse 4 it produces an absolute norm or standard for living.

Verse 4 — “For the word of the Lord [Bible doctrine] is right.” The word “right” is the key here. It is an adjective, jashar, which has this concept: it means when things are a bit messed up they are up and down, up and down, up and down. You can’t say things are best here so you must establish a norm, and jashar is to level everything off and raise it up the highest plain. Jashar is where you finally have a norm that is on top of everything, an absolute standard. So the word “right” means an absolute standard.

“and all his works [are done is not in the original] in truth.” The Word of the Lord is Bible doctrine. Bible doctrine is the absolute standard and this is the way we orient to grace. “All his works” is the sum total of grace and they are all accomplished in truth. Truth is in the concept and the framework of the Word of God.

So Bible doctrine establishes a norm, an absolute standard. People say there are no absolutes in life, everything is relative; the Word of God says, Here is the absolute norm.

Verse 5 — Bible doctrine reveals the character or the essence of God. “He loveth righteousness,” the qal active participle is always linear aktionsart. This is the qal active participle of ahab. Ahab has the concept of mental attitude love and God’s love is toward righteousness and justice. In other words, God must be consistent with His own characteristics. Notice, this is describing an inner working in the essence of God. God is love but God Himself loves His righteousness and justice and He has no intention of slighting them. The word “judgement” is justice. God loves His own righteousness; God loves His own justice; God cannot be inconsistent with His own character and, therefore, when God expresses His love toward anyone His righteousness must agree to it and His justice must agree to it. And when man fell and became a sinner then there was no way that righteousness and justice could agree to God’s love, except to provide. And so sovereignty makes provision — the cross —, and on the cross Jesus Christ was perfect righteousness, and He bore our sins and He was judged for them. Now righteousness and justice are satisfied because of propitiation which starts at the moment we believe. We pass the point of propitiation and God is free to love us forever and the love is the same from the moment of salvation throughout all eternity, including life, dying, death and eternity — love maximum, no matter whether we are carnal or spiritual, regardless of our category, our degree of success or failure or any other factor; this is the principle. Propitiation, then, reveals the character of God from the standpoint of soteriology but righteousness and justice reveal the character of God from the standpoint of His essence. And when you put it all together Bible doctrine reveals the character of God, and once you begin to understand the character of God you respond to Him in love and you also can depend upon Him to preserve the country in which you find yourself, unless there is some overriding principle that is brought out by someone like Jeremiah. In Jeremiah’s day he made it clear that they were close to the fifth cycle of discipline.

Verse 6 — the power of Jesus Christ in creation. He has the power to bring into existence and to preserve with His voice. This is the concept we have in this passage.

“By the word of the Lord [the Lord Jesus Christ — John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:10] were the heavens made” — Jesus Christ is specifically the original creator of the universe. The Father planned the universe; Jesus Christ, the Son, created the universe, and the Holy Spirit revised the earth for man’s habitation. So all three members of the Trinity are involved. But when it comes to original creation this is said to be the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The word “made” here is asah in the Hebrew. It is in the niphel stem and asah means to make something out of something, and God made the universe out of His Word. The point is simple: our national existence depends upon what Jesus says. Ultimately there is no human being who is going to preserve this nation, it is the Lord Jesus Christ, the God of the universe, who is the basis of our preservation. The niphel, of course, is passive voice: the heavens were brought into being — out of something, His Word.

“and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth” — “the host of them” refers to both angels and mankind at different times and this was accomplished by the breath of His mouth for man — Genesis 2:7, Jesus Christ breathed into man the breath of lives [plural]. He breathed into him a human spirit that had fellowship with God; He breathed into him a human soul that had fellowship with man and to dominate lower creation.

Verse 7 — the concept is continued with regard to the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ. As far as this earth is concerned “He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap.” And you will notice that the waters stay there. The sea may move but a few feet one way of the other but the waters stay where they are. The greater portion of the earth’s surface is water and everything stays in bounds. Why? Because Jesus Christ keeps them in bounds, He preserves the sea as sea.

What is this saying to you and to me? By His Word He preserves nations as nations, and by this preservation the angelic conflict continues, and by this preservation evangelism continues, and all the principles in connection with Why man on the earth? So there is a reason why this is mentioned.

In verses 8 & 9 the Lord Jesus Christ demands respect.

Verse 8 — “Let all the earth fear the Lord.” The word for “earth” here actually refers to the land, and it refers specifically of course to the land of Israel, a divine institution, divine institution #4, a national entity.

“fear the Lord” — this has to do with a concentration on Him, the same idea as occupation with Christ. And, of course, this refers especially to the believer. The believer should be more impressed with the source of nature than he is with nature itself. Frequently it is the other way around. The concept is: we should be more impressed with the source of these things. The more you study the structures of nature, the more you see the laws that operate in nature the more you should realise the source is the important thing. So here is the concept of occupation with Christ by going back to the source of all of these things.

“let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him” — the word “world” means inhabited earth. It refers to national entities, Gentile types. The word to stand in awe means to dwell as a stranger. It also means to get out of the way. The word is gur and the idea of stand in awe here means to get out of the way of grace. There is one thing that blinds mankind to God’s grace and blinds mankind to the source. There is a principle here: occupation with the source of these things. How can you do this? You can never do it as long as you think legalism, you have to think grace. So to stand in awe means to think grace.

Verse 9 — “For he spake, and it was,” not it was done. The word “done” is not found in the original. “He spake” means to utter a command. The Hebrew verb is amar, and it is a qal perfect which refers to something that occurred in the past and is now a completed action. “And it was [existed]” — it came to be.

“he commanded” — now we go to the piel stem which means a little more than a command — tsawah, this means actually, not to command but to appoint, to confirm. In other words, Jesus Christ is holding the universe together right now. He handles the traffic; He holds everything together. And the same One who speaks and holds the universe together speaks and His promises [the written Word] have the same source as the power that holds the universe together. We have a common source. Notice is says that the Lord speaks. This is constantly emphasised with regard to nature, so everything that holds the universe together, everything that holds nature together, came from Jesus Christ speaking. Doctrine is also Jesus Christ speaking.

Jesus Christ to speak must think, so in His thinking He designed nature, in His thinking He designed doctrine. He designed nature for the existence of man. He designed doctrine for believers, except of course, the gospel by which we make the link from man to born again believer. Outside of the gospel all doctrine is designed to orient the believer to the plan of God but doctrine is designed to focus attention on who and what the Lord is, occupation with Christ. This is a concept in national preservation as well as a concept in the spiritual life, operation phase two.

Verse 10 — the Lord Jesus Christ personally controls history. This is what the living Word does. “The Lord [Jesus Christ] bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nothing” — “brings to nothing” is a verb, the hiphil perfect of pur, which actually means to break in pieces in the qal stem, in the hiphil it means to frustrate. He frustrates the counsel of the heathen. These are human plans inspired by Satan in order to eliminate God’s plan, God’s grace, and in order for Satan to end the angelic conflict. And throughout history God is constantly frustrating plans which would cause cosmos diabolicus to be turned over completely to Satan. Satan is only the ruler of this world, he does not control the world necessarily.

“the devices of people” — human devices, human good devices — socialism, economic panaceas, disarmament, world peace, etc. The Lord makes them of none effect or He hinders them and the word is actually nu, a hiphil perfect.

Verse 11 — He provides revelation of Himself. “The counsel of the Lord standeth forever” .The counsel of the Lord is God’s plan, operation grace, in contrast to man’s devices; it is revealed in the Word of God. The Word of God liveth and abideth forever, but even if it wasn’t in the written Word the spoken Word lives and abides forever because Jesus Christ is God, Jesus Christ is eternal, and when He promises something it is going to last, it is forever. That is why Jesus could tell people: “Whosoever believeth in me shall not perish but have everlasting life.” So the Lord Himself simply says it and that’s it, it is permanent. It stands or is stabilised. And this is stabilised forever, the Hebrew verb is amadh, which means to stand or to be stabilised, or to stand firm. And the plan of God depends on the character of God. God’s character is eternal and perfect and His plan cannot be anything less than His character. And so Jesus Christ actually reveals the plan of God through His own stability of character, by His permanence of character.

“the thoughts of his heart to all generations” — the “thoughts of His mind” have to do with Bible doctrine, and “to all generations” means that Bible doctrine will exist in all generations.

Psalm 33:12-22

Verse 12 — the basis of national prosperity, the basis of national deliverance. This relates directly to our next verse in Malachi chapter 3. “Blessed” is the plural of asher which means happiness, and it should be translated “happinesses.” There are two kinds of happinesses for the believer, inner happiness of the believer with Bible doctrine and overt prosperity of the nation with grace-oriented believers — the salt of the earth principle; “to the nation” — so we are talking about a national entity. The overt prosperity of a nation means following the divine institutions.

The word “nation", the primary expression of divine institution #4

1. National definition: 3 types — racial, geographical, linguistic.

2. We have the principle of a common law to protect the divine institutions. The purpose of law is to protect the divine institutions, not to solve man’s problems. Legislation was never designed to solve man’s problems; in fact it cannot.

3. The concept of national security. There are two concepts of national security that will be brought out in the rest of this Psalm, one is the external security and the other is the internal security. The external security of a nation generally depends upon its military and the capabilities of its military to protect the national entity. The internal security of a nation depends upon the observation of the divine institutions — e.g. the observation of true economic laws, like supply and demand, free enterprise, and so on; the means by which law is enforced, based upon a good police system and the correct use of the courts.

4. Divine security. There are three sources of divine security: a. evangelism — if you are going to have divine security in a nation there must be a constant evangelism occurring in that nation. There are basically two kinds of evangelism: mass evangelism and personal evangelism; b. Doctrine and its application. This is the function of the believer only; c. Direct intervention of God’s grace.

“whose God is the Lord” — this is Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ is the God of the nation then all four of these factors function. The national definition holds together, it stabilises. The common law fulfils the principle of the divine institution, it protects human freedom and privacy and property, and it protects marriage and the home. There is human security: true military and law enforcement on the best possible basis. And you also have divine security because you have evangelism, believers applying doctrine — the salt of the earth principle — and direct intervention from the Lord Himself. That is what is meant by “Blessed [happinesses] to the nation whose God is the Lord [Jesus Christ].”

The salt of the earth principle: Matthew 5:13

“Ye are the salt of the earth [land]” — this is a reference to the believer. Salt in the ancient world was primarily a preservative, and so the believer in a nation preserves that nation unless the believer loses his savour. The believer who loses his savour is the believer minus doctrine. Doctrine is the preservative.

Salt was used to preserve food but salt was also used in another way. Salt was used to flavour — that’s evangelism in a nation. So the believer functions as the salt of the earth in two ways: he preserves the nation and he evangelises in the nation, and these fulfil the concept of divine institution #4.

“and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance” — “he hath chosen” is qal perfect of bachar, the word which means to test, to examine, or to appoint or to select. Here it means to appoint. He appoints an inheritance. Inside a nation are pockets of believers — the salt of the earth — and they are His eternal inheritance. And to them, of course, their God is Jesus Christ, they are in the nation and their presence with doctrine preserves the nation.

verse 13 — “The Lord looketh from heaven,” He is constantly observing. This is in the hiphil stem of the verb nabat, which means He is actually keeping track. The verb nabat is in the hiphil stem and the causative concept here means to observe with pleasure or expectation. Wherever God finds believers He observes them with pleasure — this is His love — and the expectation is that they will learn doctrine and utilise it effectively in the extension of the angelic conflict; “he beholdeth all the sons of men.” The word “behold” is a qal perfect. The verb is raah which means to see the end from the beginning here; that is, when it is used of God, so this is God’s omniscience. God knew billions of years ago what it would be like in our country so He made provision for it in eternity past. That’s what it means when it says the “he beholdeth the sons of men.” God has always known the trends of any national entity.

Verse 14 — a further amplification. “From the place of his habitation,” the third heaven, “he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth.” We now have a third word for observation. It is shagach in the hiphil stem, and this means to view from a higher place so you control. To view from a control room is what it would actually mean in the hiphil stem. And it is the perfect tense which means the action is completed, and the perfect tense here means the action was completed in eternity past.

Verse 15 — “He fashioneth their hearts alike” is not correct. “He fashioneth” is a qal active participle (linear aktionsart), jatsar. This is a policy that always exists with the coming of the human race into the world, the perpetuation of the human race. He puts the spark of life into a human being at the point of birth; “he considereth all their works” — the word “consider is the hiphil participle of the verb bin, which means to discern. And the point is that God has a norm with regard to production. God’s norm is divine good which comes from God or is produced from something that God provides. Anything that is human good in the human race comes from the old sin nature and is rejected by God. Divine good is grace; human good is legalism and there is no place for it in the plan of God. Therefore God considers or discerns our production. The only thing that is acceptable to Him is divine good and no one can produce divine good until he believes in Jesus Christ, you have to pass the point of propitiation.

What protects a nation according to these verses? What gives a nation prosperity? The function of the divine institutions plus grace-oriented believers. The key for our country today: grace-oriented believers. Where do you find the salt of the earth or grace-oriented believers? You see you can be a believer and not preserving the nation because the salt can lose its savour, it can lose its preservative power and then it no longer preserves. When believers get into apostasy then the salt loses its preservative power and the nation has had it. And many a nation has been destroyed because believers became apostate. As goes the believers of a nation so goes the nation is the concept here under the salt of the earth. Therefore to preserve our nation it is necessary for believers to know and apply Bible doctrine.

Verse 16 — the national leadership concept. A nation functions best with good leadership. God protects the leadership of a national entity when He is blessing it. Unless the leadership is so apostate they must be removed for some principle they are following or something they harbour — or unless God wants to take the nation out under the cycles of discipline, and then He permits apostate leadership to exist as in the case of Judah before the Babylonian captivity where there were a series of kings who were terrible.

“There is no king saved by a multitude of an host” — in other words when God is going to protect a nation because of the “salt of the earth,” believers. The leadership is not going to be delivered by the military. Now you have to have military for external security and a police system for internal security but ultimately this isn’t going to save the country, it is the Lord Himself. There is a situation where God protects the leadership but not through military force. The “multitude of an host” is a military force, “a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.” A “mighty man” is literally a great man. The Hebrew word is gibor, it means hero, a man who has great ability, great genius. He isn’t delivered by his human ability. There is a type of national entity which follows the principles of divine institution #4, which has evangelism in every generation, which has a nucleus of believers who utilise doctrine, and this is the stabilising effect of that national entity, the preserving effect, even the greatness of that national entity.

Verse 17 — “An horse is a vain thing for safety” must be interpreted in the time in which it was written, when people jumped on a horse and “got out of there.” But the concept of safety of a nation here is not in something you can see. The point is, a horse is a visible source of safety. The principle: our safety does not lie is visible things, it lies in invisible things: the Lord Jesus Christ, Bible doctrine. In two words, our safety and our survival as a nation: Jesus Christ; in two words again: Bible doctrine; four words: “salt of the earth”; one word: grace. That is our heritage; that is our survival; that is our greatness; “neither shall he deliver by his great strength” — this great strength has the concept once again of the genius-type leadership. As a nation we need a national orientation to the grace of God; we are a nation because of His grace.

In verses 18,19 we have the protection of the individual believer in a nation.

Verse 18 —"Behold the eye of the Lord” is an anthropomorphism which emphasises the character of God with special emphasis on His omniscience. He knows what we need and He protects us; “is upon them that fear Him” — this is a believer with Bible doctrine, and this is the adjective jare for occupation with Christ. Occupation with Christ comes from knowing Bible doctrine; “upon them that hope in his mercy” — mercy is grace in action; “hope” is a piel participle of the verb jachal, and it means to have faith [confidence] under pressure. The stability of the nation is in the people of the nation, not in its leadership.

Verse 19 — Believers are preserved even in times of national disaster and catastrophe. There are two kinds of deliverance in this verse. In the first part of the verse we have external deliverance; in the last part we have internal deliverance. What is the basis of external security? Military. Internal? Law enforcement. In time of national disaster believers are protected from the pressures that come and there is an external deliverance, and we have that phrase: “deliver their soul from death.” The believer who is in the plan of God and God’s plan calls for him to live, he will live through military disaster. In the last part of the verse: “to keep them alive in famine” .This means in time of economic disaster; this is an internal pressure. The plan for the born again believer goes on whether the nation has prosperity or disaster. And in time of national catastrophe God preserves from both external and internal catastrophe.

The Psalm then concludes in the verses 20-22 with the “salt of the earth” concept.

Verse 20 — “our soul waiteth for the Lord.” The word for “wait” here is chakah, and it means to wait with confidence; “our soul” refers to the believer with doctrine. The piel stem here is intensive, he has great confidence for the Lord, “he is our help and our shield.” Notice again: help has to do with internal disasters; shield has to do with external disasters, it is a military word.

Verse 21 — “For our heart [frontal lobe of the believer] shall rejoice.” “Rejoice” means inner happiness — Hebrew word samach. “Because we have trusted in his holy name” — “trust” here means having been saved and are now using the faith-rest technique.

Verse 22 — “let thy mercy, O lord, be upon us” — “mercy” is grace in action; “according as we hope in thee.” Again, “hope” is jachal and means to trust under pressure.

This is the pattern of national deliverance, so turn now to Malachi 3:6 where it applies to Israel: “For I am the Lord, I change not.” Here is the secret to our deliverance, cf. Hebrews 13:8. If our security depends upon Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ never changes, then we have something greater than any nation has had before, except Judah and Israel, and they blew it by apostasy. “Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.” When He calls them the sons of Jacob, Jacob means swindler, and Jacob was his name before he was saved. But his name became Israel, Prince of God. When the Jews are called the sons of Jacob that means they are out of line, and even though they are out of line they are preserved. Why? Grace: they don’t earn it and they don’t deserve it. And that is the beauty of our relationship as a national entity with God. So, go back to Psalm 33:12 — “Blessed [happinesses to] is the nation whose God is Jesus Christ.” That means a nation has perfect security unless the Lord says He is going to take it out because of apostasy.

This also answers the question at the end of chapter two: “Where is the God of judgement?” God restrains judgement until all Jews in a national entity, such as Judah, have apostatised, until the salt has lost its savour. He restrains judgement until everyone who can be evangelised will be, and as long as there is evangelism on the part of those who are believers and as long as believers apply doctrine, then the nation is going to maintain its stability.

Malachi 3:7 — “the days of your fathers” is a reference to the Jews who have returned under Zechariah, Joshua the high priest, and Zerubbabel the political leader. That took place in 516 BC. From then until about 420 BC everything went fine but apostasy set in. First of all there was a rejection of Bible doctrine which means a decline of true evangelism, which was followed by a lack of the salt of the earth which caused the nation to malfunction as far as divine institution #4 was concerned. This malfunction led to the beginning of the cycles of discipline. “The days of your fathers” is a reference to the time when blessing came to the land through Bible doctrine; “ye are gone away” — qal perfect of the verb sur, and this particular word actually means to turn aside from. It means that there is established a norm or a standard which in this case is Bible doctrine, gospel and the other concepts. And then the unbeliever has turned away from the cross [gospel] and the believer has turned away from the basic bulk of doctrine. So we have the unbeliever failed and the believer failed; and both are guilty of sur; “mine ordinances” refer to codex #2 where we have the Christology and soteriology of Judaism portrayed to the Levitical offerings, the modus operandi of the priesthood, and so on. Remember that the Mosaic law is divided into three parts: the commandments, codex #1 [moral standard]; the ordinances, codex #2 [spiritual doctrine or theology]; and the judgements, codex #3 [how to live, believers and unbelievers under divine institutions]. So, first of all they turned aside from, and the word sur actually denotes negative volition toward Bible doctrine which creates a vacuum in the frontal lobe into which we draw legalism and/or religion, emphasis on the details of life, mental attitude sins that produce self-induced misery. When you turn aside from something, i.e. when you reject it, obviously then you no longer guard it or protect it and so “and have not kept.” The word here again is a qal perfect from shamar which means to guard the institutions, it also means to protect the doctrine for believers which makes them the salt of the land, the preservers of the national entity. And now God says: “Return” is addressed to two kinds of people: unbelievers and believers. It is an appeal in the qal imperative — shub. For the unbeliever this word “return” means to believe in Jesus Christ; “return unto me” means come to me. For the believer, he should rebound — 1 John 1:9 and get back in fellowship. But it means more than to get back in fellowship, it means to get back to doctrine. Believers had departed from doctrine, they were disoriented in every way, including nationally; “I will return unto you,” qal imperfect, which means that “I will always do it,” the action is not completed because the situation will always exist. For the unbeliever this means: “I will provide salvation,” for the believer this means “I will provide fellowship again.” This is addressed to the nation which is made up of believers and unbelievers; “But ye say” indicates that the unbelievers have rejected Christ and believers are minus Bible doctrine. The English Bible says “ye say” but “ye keep on saying” is the idea here; “Wherein shall we return?” Now you have to remember that everything must be understood by its context. The people of the land are saying, “Wherein,” which actually amounts to in the Hebrew, “How shall we return?” That seems to be closer to it in the English. When they say, “Wherein,” they are saying: “How can we manifest our return?” This is the big issue. We already know that unbelievers must believe in Jesus Christ; we know that believers must rebound. But they are saying, not how mechanically, but what manifestation of this. So actually this word “wherein” calls for an illustration, not mechanics. This is an illustration of national failure, it has nothing to do with the mechanics of evangelism and it has absolutely nothing to do with the rebound principle of 1 John 1:9. “Wherein shall we return” simply means, What manifestation shall we give that this has been accomplished? This is going to be a very strange answer from the Word of God because the answer is going to be: Pay your taxes! “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse” is, Pay your taxes. Tithing hasn’t got one thing to do with the Church; it has never been a principle connected with the Church Age and the word “tithing” should never be mentioned inside of a church. No church should ever demand tithing from its people, tithing is for the unbeliever in Israel in 420 BC. The day that people started talking about tithing in the church they brought worldliness into the church, not worldliness in the sense of a mental attitude sin but worldliness in the sense of a human modus operandi. Paying taxes is a function of divine institution #4.

Verse 8 — a principle. “Will a man rob God?” This is a qal imperfect of qaba, and it means to defraud. It doesn’t mean to rob as a criminal robs a bank, it means to defraud as a treasurer might put a little money into his own account. It means a generally law-abiding citizen defrauding; it is a very subtle word. It must be understood that this is addressed to the Jews of Judah, that Judah is a nation which is peculiar in that it is under God’s sponsorship and the custodian of the Word. Therefore, you have a very interesting factor here, a political leadership, a spiritual leadership, and sometimes there is an overlap here because the taxes collected politically also were involved in the temple functions. So this is the principle being developed. God is the one who brought the Jews back into existence after the fifth cycle of discipline. We saw this in the whole book of Zechariah — the grace of God. When the second temple was completed they sang: Grace, grace, unto it. It is God who brought the people back, it is God who provided everything for them. God set up a system under divine institution #4 for the believer and unbeliever; the system is called tax, income tax. It is a personal income tax.

“Yet you have robbed [defrauded] me,” a qal active participle, which means that this is a constant thing. “But, ye say, Wherein have we defrauded thee?” Answer: “In tithes and offerings.” The word “tithes” simply means ten per cent.” All unbelievers were to pay ten per cent; all believers were to pay ten per cent. Tithing is income tax within a divine institution; “offerings” is spiritual giving for believers only.

There are a number of passages that indicate that tithing is a system of income tax — Numbers 18:21,24, Leviticus 27:30-33; there is a ten per cent income tax for the maintenance of the tribe of Levi — Deuteronomy 14:22-24; there is an income tax to pay for the feasts and the sacrifices connected with the holy days, and every third year there was an additional income tax for the poor of the land — Deuteronomy 14:28,29. So there were three systems of income tax. Tithing is a system of taxation ordained by God for the Jewish nation. It is a part of the principle of divine institution #4, i.e. nationalism. The funds were to be used for the function of those agencies beneficial to the government, i.e. Levitical tribe, the holy days and feasts, and every third year to keep the poor of the land alive.

Offerings is spiritual giving for believers only and the percentage is never stated. When a believer is faced with the issue of giving no percentage is ever stated by the scripture. In 1 Corinthians 16:2, “Give as you have been prospered,” is the only thing that even comes close to a percentage. When it says in this passage, “Will a man defraud God?” this is addressed to the nation. The people generally have not paid their income tax, an indication of internal problems: believers are not making their offerings because they have rejected Bible doctrine.

Verse 9 — the indictment. “Ye are” — the word “are” is not found in the original. It should be: “Being cursed,” niphel participle of the verb arar — niphel stem, passive voice, participle: it happens all the time, “You are constantly being cursed.” They are being cursed because they have stepped out of the boundaries of divine institution #4, they are away from God’s laws by which He blesses a nation; “with a curse” — meebah, which means execration, a maximum curse. In other words, the nation at this time was in danger of going down altogether. This is only one illustration but something should be noticed. In Malachi the warning that the nation was falling apart had to do with internal problems only, there is no indication of a threat from the outside. Later on this occurred — the rise of the Hellenistic monarchies of which two took away the independence of the Jews and put them under the fourth cycle of discipline. The first was Egypt under the Ptolemies and the second was the great kingdom of Syria (not the modern Syria) which went all of the way to India under the Seleucids, and at one time or another each one of these monarchies invaded, controlled and enslaved the Jews. So they were under the fourth cycle of discipline for periods of time. But this military problem came later; the problem in Malachi is internal. Being cursed with a curse is the concept here: “for ye have defrauded me, even this whole nation,” a reference to Jews in the time of Nehemiah and Malachi about 420 BC, and it is a failure of believers and unbelievers alike. The solution is salvation for the unbelievers and rebound for the believers, verse 7.

Verse 10 — the solution. Once you have evangelism and once you have people getting back under divine institution #4 and the principles declared in the Old Testament, the nation will recover and have prosperity. What will be the manifestation of it? The manifestation must be taken from the illustration. “Bring ye,” a hiphil imperative of the word bo, which means to cause to come and, therefore, to bring. The hiphil is causative, there must be a cause before you will bring the tithes. Before you start paying taxes you have to be motivated and the motivation is to get back to the principles of divine institution #4. This command is in the plural and it is to all citizens of Judah. The word “tithes” is in the plural to indicate taxes, all the taxes of the nation. So, “Be motivated to bring” is the best translation; “into the storehouse” should be literally, into the house of the treasury. The house of the treasury is not the Church, the Church does not exist until the Day of Pentecost in 30 AD. We would say today to bring the taxes to the Inland Revenue Department. In Judah the tax department was built next to the temple because the temple had the greatest strongbox of the day, so all the people paid their taxes at one end of the temple. It is a reference to the national treasury; “that” introduces a purpose clause, “there may be meat.” The word for “be” here is the ordinary word hajah in the qal imperfect. The imperfect means that there will always be a need for funds to operate a national entity — “meat” should be translated “provision” .Actually the word means a green leaf, freshly plucked foliage, and provision. It is the word tereph, and the only time it is used for food it is used for animal food, but that doesn’t have any relationship here. When it is used for human beings it is used for provision — provision to run a government, provision for a government to function is the concept here — “in my house” is a reference to the second temple operated by the priests and the Levites who at this time were starving or begging rather than performing the spiritual functions of the nation.

Here we have the fact that everything in the life of Israel depends upon its spiritual function and at this time the priests were simply not functioning, they were out either working or begging; “and prove me.” The word is bachan, and it means to test. It was used for an assayer testing ore to see if it had anything valuable in it or not. Bachan as far as God is concerned is to see what His essence is really like. In other words, it is a grace action. When unbelievers give taxes and the believers offerings, since they are under divine sponsorship and protection, they test to see what kind of a character God has, and He always demonstrates His grace. He demonstrates His grace to the unbeliever by the preservation and prosperity of the nation; He demonstrates His grace to the believer, both through national and spiritual blessings; salt of the earth principle. So God says to function under His laws for the nation and test Him. They did, by the way, and they had another 100 years of prosperity; “to see if I will not open.” This means to open the door to a treasury’ “the windows of heaven, and pour you out,” hiphil stem, cause to be poured out. The hiphil stem indicates that there are certain divine laws in the operation of a nation which are necessary for prosperity. The hiphil is a causative stem and it means that God Himself will not just touch and say, “Blessing,” but He has certain laws which are in operation with regard to divine institution #4, and when these are observed the blessing is there. This is the principle of an agricultural economy, agricultural prosperity in a national economy. At the time in which the Jews lived they understood prosperity on the basis of agriculture, so the next two verses actually give the results, they amplify. Where are these blessings on which “there is not room enough to receive it” ?In other words, “As I keep pouring them in there isn’t enough room enough for them” .These blessings are twofold. In verse 11, national protection; verse 12, national prosperity.

Verse 11 — “And I will rebuke [restrain],” here is the solution, “the devourer [invader]” — this is a qal active participle that could refer to someone from within or someone from without; “for your sakes,” reference to the believers in the land who are the salt of the earth; “and he shall not destroy [overthrow].” The word is a hiphil stem, the verb shachath; “the fruits of your ground” has to do with the economy; “neither shall your vine cast her fruit” means your vine shall not be barren.

Verse 12 — prosperity. “And all nations shall call you blessed,” or literally, pronounce you happy. The verb is ashar in the piel stem. The piel stem means for other people to make a comment on you, and to pronounce you blessed and to pronounce you happy; “for ye shall be a delightsome land” should be, “and you shall be a land of delight, saith the Lord of hosts.”

Verses 11 and 12 can only occur under certain conditions, conditions which have to do with Bible doctrine. The real key to any national entity, whether it is Judah in 420 BC or our country today, is the Word of God.

The issue that is found in this passage begins with a nation in the years 516-420 BC. During that period they had Bible doctrine, they had prosperity, they had a maximum number of people who accepted Christ as saviour. But a generation came along that skimmed off of the top the prosperity, the details of life, and they forgot that the source of everything that is blessed and wonderful, that everything that could be interpreted in terms of human happiness, inner happiness, mental happiness or divine happiness must be related to Bible doctrine and orientation to the grace of God. In 420 BC we have an apostate nation, we have believers who have neglected the Word of God and who have ignored it and the nation is now in danger of getting into the fourth and fifth cycles of discipline. In the midst of this difficulty God raised up a prophet whose name is unknown — Malachi is a pseudonym — to challenge the people to get back to doctrine. This man did exactly the same thing as Hosea did: challenge the people to get with the Word of God as the only source of their hope.

Verse 13 — Here is the indictment against Israel. “Your words” — words express thoughts. The Jews were talking, they were telling what they were thinking. They were thinking in terms of religion, so he says: “Your words have been stout.” The word in the Hebrew is chataq, and in the qal stem this means to be strong against or to be negative against. We have a picture then of negative volition toward Bible doctrine and the vacuum which is created in the frontal lobe. Into this vacuum is drawn religion, and that means legalism , there is an emphasis on the details of life, and the mental attitude sins which produce self-induced misery. So the believers are negative on doctrine and the unbelievers have rejected the gospel. The result is a tremendous amount of religion in the land, a sign of their rejection. There is an emphasis on the things of life as a source of happiness and these people are very miserable and they make their own misery.

“Yet ye say, What have we spoken against thee?” In other words, Of what are we really guilty?

The question is answered in verse 14.

Verse 14 — “Ye have said, It is vain.” The word for vain in the Hebrew means useless; “to serve God,” the word for serve here is abad, which actually means production for God, representing God, thinking in terms of relationship to God. These people have said that relationship with God doesn’t mean anything; they are saying that isn’t happiness. Abad means they are not going to serve God any longer because they cannot find happiness in any way connected with God. And so there is a disorientation to the plan of God designed in eternity past, and not only so, but God Himself is definitely not loved; “and what profit” — profit emphasises the details of life. The word “profit” here means happiness, money, success, pleasure, social life, friends, loved ones, health, sex, materialistic things and status symbols of life. These people have gone on negative volition, they are minus Bible doctrine. They have self-induced misery based on mental attitude sins, therefore they are not thinking any more in terms of God, they have no relationship with God that counts; “that we have kept his ordinance and we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts.” Notice what they have done, they have kept His ordinance. This means the ritual of codex #2 of the Mosaic law, but they have failed to see that the animal represents the cross; “we have walked mournfully,” i.e. they walked around in sackcloth, they wept and they wailed and they took vows, etc., and it is as phony as a lead nickel.

Verse 15 — “And now we call the proud happy.” The “proud” is the person who has the details of life, a person who is minus Bible doctrine, having mental attitude sins, etc., but they have details like success, money, pleasure, etc. False evaluation. Negative volition toward doctrine destroys capacity to love God. Once a person goes on negative volition he accepts substitutes — pseudo- spirituality substitutes, pseudo love and all of the phoney facade of religiosity. They say: “the proud” — the people who possess details of life “are happy” — “they that work wickedness” — the verb is asah, which means to make something out of something. Out of the details of life they work wickedness; “they tempt God and are delivered [safe]” — this is all human viewpoint. This is a description of what happens to a believer when he goes on negative signals toward Bible doctrine.

Verse 16 — “They that feared the Lord” — there is an adjective here translated like a verb. The adjective is jare, which doesn’t mean to be afraid at all. Jare is the true capacity to love, resulting in concentration, resulting in occupation. And they that feared the Lord are believers with Bible doctrine who are capable of responding to the perfect love of God. When believers who have capacity to respond to God’s love are in the presence of each other a rapport is established which has nothing to do with human rapport. A believer’s love response to God depends upon knowledge of Bible doctrine. The phrase could be translated: “They that were occupied with Christ” — “spake often one to another.” Why could they? Here is a word which means to take them into detail and therefore to enjoy them. The only way you can enjoy the details of life is when doctrine is first; “the Lord hearkened” — qarab, which means He drew near. This is the hiphil imperfect and the hiphil stem of qarab means the Lord is caused to draw near. When He sees Himself being put first through Bible doctrine then God is always caused to draw near; “and heard it,” as a result God is said to be listening. In other words, God is in on the picture, He listens, He is there; “and a book of remembrance” — He puts it in His scrapbook, as it were. Question: Are you going to be in God’s book of remembrance? It isn’t every believer who gets in His scrapbook, it is only the believer learning doctrine consistently. So a book of remembrance “was written.” The niphel means it received writing; “before him for them that feared the Lord” — occupation with Christ, the capacity to return His love; “and that thought” — the word for thinking is chashab, which means to think categorically, and it refers to thinking doctrine. It is a qal active participle which is linear aktionsart, and for the person who persists and keeps on thinking doctrine, doctrine, doctrine, day by day by day, God says: “I am going to do something for that person. The happiness that belonged to me in eternity past is perpetuated through the life of that believer who learns Bible doctrine.”

Verse 17 — “And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day,” referring to the Millennium and is talking to the Jews, but it has application to us as believers; “when I make up my jewels,” which is literally, my own peculiar treasury; “I will spare them” — it doesn’t say to spare at all. The word here is chamal and chamal means to have compassion. It is a qal perfect, it is past tense and it means, I have had compassion. And so in the day when He gathers together His jewels, operation phase three, He can say about believers down here: “I had compassion.” Compassion is grace in action. And they know something of His grace in phase two, and why? Because they learned Bible doctrine. You are in His scrapbook now; you will be a jewel some day. Jewel: resurrection body. Won’t it be wonderful to look back and see that there is a scrapbook for time: the universe has been destroyed, there is a new universe replacing it. All of that has gone but there is still something there — that scrapbook which has the names of those who had the capacity to respond to God’s love in time. So we should consider our attitude. It all depends upon our attitude toward Bible doctrine: “Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Chapter 3:13-17

There is no chapter four in the original. Chapter four verse one is verse 19 of chapter three, and so on. There is no sense in a chapter division here.

Review: Verse 13 — the second indictment against Israel has to do with the expression of negative volition toward Bible doctrine. When a nation goes negative on doctrine they have had it. Unless there is a salt of the earth, unless there is a remnant they are in very serious trouble. Notice again: “your words,” words, content of speech, expresses thought, “have been stout against me” — chazaq, used here for the expression of negative volition. It means to be hard, to be obstinate, to be ignorant of doctrine and therefore disoriented to grace and disoriented to the plan of God. Once you develop this thought pattern then you begin to express it. And we have in this passage the fact that these people have become antagonistic toward Bible doctrine and now they are expressing it. This is really an indictment against the remnant of believers. At this particular point we are discussing those who have accepted Jesus Christ as saviour but they are definitely not interested in Bible doctrine. And because of their lack of interest they are going to suffer personally and the nation in 420 BC was suffering as a collective organisation. “Yet ye say, What have we spoken?” We have two different words here: “ye say” is amar, which is used here really to talk back, the pretend or feign innocence by what you say. In other words, to deny the indictment; “what have we spoken” — the word to speak here is not only a word to speak but it means to have fellowship. It is dabar, pronounced davair, which means to have a conversation with someone and enjoy it. With amar you can be talking against someone, criticising someone, and running someone down; but with dabar it means you are having a conversation with someone and enjoying it. The point is: words as well as deeds constitute overt manifestations of love. Conversation is an expression of love, it tells what the soul is thinking. Conversation is a very important part of relationship. These people are anti-doctrine as believers and are therefore coming up with excuses to God — “When have we spoken against thee?”

The question is now answered, verse 14: “Ye have said, It is useless to serve God.” And the rest of this chapter is talking about service. These believers are saying that service toward God is useless; “vain” means useless.

The application is important in this review. In the Old Testament dispensations the Lord Jesus Christ was the target in the angelic conflict. From the fall of man the saviour was promised as the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 and from that time on when there was any indication as to the line of Christ and how He would come, that person was a target. Once Christ came in the flesh — He came in an Old Testament dispensation — then the attack centred on Him from the time of His birth to the time of the cross. This means that the ordinary believer in a sense is sort of out of it; he didn’t have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, he didn’t have a priesthood. There was a specialised ministry of the Spirit, there was a specialised priesthood, and all the great believers in the Old Testament were great because of the faith-rest technique; yet, the faith-rest technique had limited objects, although enough to have great victory — doctrine as revealed in the Word as the Word was developed, and doctrine as revealed directly from God. Promises in the Word; promises directly from God. Once Christ dies on the cross, is resurrected, ascends and is seated at the right hand of the Father, then the angelic conflict shifts gears. We are now in the concentrated area of the angelic conflict and the most subtle part of that concentrated period is the Church Age — in the life of every believer in the Church Age is the target. So we are provided with extra things: the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the priesthood, the faith-rest technique with unlimited objectives, the indwelling of Christ, and many other things. The overt part of this intensified part of the conflict is the Tribulation, the worst period in history — but not for you. The worst period in history is the Church Age when you are personally Satan’s target, but once the body of Christ is removed then it goes back to Christ and the Jews; they are the target. And that is only seven years in history but the Church Age is at least 1900 years now of intensified conflict. Then there is the second advent which terminates operation footstool and terminates the intensification of the angelic conflict.

We are talking about 420 BC by way of interpretation, and the Jews are about to go under. The reason they are about to go under is because believers are neglecting doctrine and they are expressing their neglect of doctrine. Neglect of doctrine leads to disorientation to the grace of God. Since they are not oriented with regard to grace they are in very serious trouble. The first thing that they say that is wrong: “It is useless to serve God.” They are a part of the angelic conflict; they are the Jewish people. Some of them are in the line of Christ but they say it is useless to serve God even though they are related to God and in the plan of God. There is a second thing bothering these people. When a person goes on negative volition toward Bible doctrine as a believer it opens up a vacuum in his frontal lobe, and that vacuum sucks in religion, legalism, emphasis on the details of life, and mental attitude sins that produce self-induced misery. The first thing that say — useless to serve God — indicates they have become legalistic and religious. We know they are legalistic is because the only reason they serve God is to get rich and they are not getting rich by serving God. They serve God to be successful and they are not becoming successful. We know in the second place that they are emphasising the details of life because they say, “What profit?” And as soon as you have a word like “profit” you are talking about believers minus the details of life and they are very unhappy. This is the way they look: they are minus doctrine, they have mental attitude sins which produce self-induced misery. So they do not have money and that makes them miserable because they are miserable inside. They do not have success and that makes them miserable, their pleasures are not making them happy, their social life is not making them happy, their friends are not making them happy, their loved ones are not making them happy, etc. None of these things make them happy because they are not happy inside. So they are saying: “What good does it do to have a relationship with God?”

The other side of the picture: believers who would have doctrine. They have inner happiness and occupation with Christ, so whatever details they have they would enjoy them — details with happiness. And if they are minus these details it doesn’t make any difference, they still have inner happiness based on doctrine, they still have occupation with Christ, they have the capacity to love God.

Notice what they said in the second place. In the first place they said it was useless to serve God and that shows that they are religious. In the second place they make it very very clear that they weren’t getting anywhere. “What profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?” “We have kept” — they have guarded something. The Hebrew word is shamar. What have they guarded? Doctrine? No, they have guarded ritual. This is typical of people who are religious. They emphasise the ritual of the Levitical offerings. They have observed the first three offerings which speak of the cross; they have observed the last two offerings which speak of rebound. They have observed the ritual without the doctrine, so they keep the ritual but they do not guard the doctrine. You guard the doctrine by learning it.

Now notice what they have guarded. First of all “his ordinance,” and this is the ritual connected with Codex #2, specifically religion, and religion is a corruption of salvation here, salvation by grace. Secondly, they have “walked mournfully” — that’s legalism, which is a corruption of rebound. Receiving no pay or prosperity from God while engaging in ritual causes them to get quite upset, especially when they look around and they see unbelieving friends who have made a great deal of profit and now possess the details of life.

So God continues with His indictment in verse 15 when they say: “And now we call the proud happy.” The “proud” is simply a person who is prosperous, a person who possess the details of life. A person who possesses these things is called here “the proud,” but this is not pride as a mental attitude sin, it is simply a person who possesses the obvious symbols of prosperity. They call this person happy. In other words, a believer minus doctrine associates happiness with the details of life. What has happened to these believers? Negative volition toward doctrine. There is nothing wrong with having the details of life and no one can enjoy them better than the believer with Bible doctrine. It all depends on your emphasis. If you emphasise the details of life over doctrine then you are in trouble, and that is what these believers were doing. That is why they say it is useless to serve the Lord. The Lord did a very gracious thing for them. Since they were saying the details of life were happiness, the Lord was making sure they didn’t have any details. Eventually they are going to wake up and realise that their happiness doesn’t depend on the details of life.

Verse 15 — “they that work wickedness.” The word “work” is asah in the Hebrew, it means to make something out of something. What does this mean here? They made wickedness out of the details of life. The details of life are not wickedness, they made wickedness out of them. Making wickedness means wickedness that brings unhappiness; “are set up” is literally, are built up; “they tempt God and are delivered” — literally, escaped. They seemed to defy God in their activity with the details of life — doing things in a way which is contrary to divine principles. They seemed to be getting away with it.

Verse 16 — the other side of the fence. “Then they that feared the Lord” — there were those who were learning Bible doctrine. The adjective is jare and it occurs throughout the rest of the passage. It is a technical word for occupation with Christ; it is an adjective, not a verb. Occupation with Christ comes from Bible doctrine.

Now there is a group of people, believers, in every geographical locality, who love doctrine and who develop a capacity to love God. Notice what they did: “they spake often one to another” — dabar again, and dabar means to have a conversation as a part of an expression of a love relationship. Believers who love doctrine have the capacity to love God, therefore they have a relaxed mental attitude and the capacity to love believers. And you will notice it says here, “one to another,” and we need to ask ourselves at this point: What is our relationship with God? How is our love of God progressing? That is the big issue here. When you do you can say, Yes, on the basis of knowledge of Bible doctrine and capacity to love Him. This then overflows to others. There is no such thing as a believer truly loving God with a relaxed mental attitude who doesn’t have an overflow to someone else in his vicinity.

“the Lord hearkened [drew near]” — the Lord was caused to draw near. When you respond and love the Lord it just as if the Lord draws near to you as a special person. You have responded to His love and under grace He draws near to you, and to those with whom you fellowship. They were stimulated to converse; “and heard,” shama, which means He listened with pleasure; “and a book of remembrance.” This is the Lord’s scrapbook which has the names of those who love Him, who respond to Him, who learn Bible doctrine; “for them,” believers who fulfilled this principle; “that feared him,” which means learning doctrine, capacity to love the Lord; “and that thought upon his name.” Here is probably one of the best expressions of the capacity to love, chashab, which means to think categorically. It is a qal active participle and denotes linear aktionsart, and it means therefore to keep on thinking categorically. Here is how you develop the capacity to respond to Him.

Verse 17 — “And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts” — “they” refers to believers in the Age of Israel; “shall be mine” is literally, shall be unto me, which is an idiom of possession. “Unto me” is relationship, intimate relationship. This describes a very wonderful relationship with the Lord in phase two. Now He skips from phase two to the Millennium: “in that day,” refers to the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ; “when I make up my jewels” — literally, my own peculiar treasure. The word “jewel” is often used for believers who have a special relationship with God because they respond to His love. This is found for example in Exodus 19:5; Deuteronomy 7:6; 14:2; 26:18. The day when He makes up His jewels is operation footstool. Christ is glorified, sitting at the right hand of the Father. The angelic conflict is intensified, it shifts gears. When Christ returns to the earth there is going to be a resurrection of the Old Testament saints, at the second advent. These are literally the jewels in Malachi. They receive their resurrection bodies as a sign of the victory of the angelic conflict. The people in Malachi don’t know anything about the Church Age or the intensified stage of the angelic conflict, they are Old Testament believers, but they are taken over to the second advent when they are going to have resurrection bodies. That will be a part of their phase three, that will be the ultimate in phase three, the ultimate victory of phase three. In 420 BC when this is written they are in phase two and that is why we have this next phrase, to show that they are in phase two. Ultimately they are going to be a part of the angelic conflict, the sign of victory; “in that day when I make up my jewels,” second advent of Christ; “I will spare them” is not correct. The Hebrew word is chamal, which means to have compassion. Furthermore it is a qal perfect, it has to do with their life in phase two, their life in time. Perhaps we should translate it from where we look: “I have had compassion on them.” That is, these believers who get with doctrine in phase two, how does the Lord treat them? “I have had compassion on them as a man has compassion on his own son who is serving him.” And there we have “serving” again; “son,” in a family relationship; service — in a family concept. Corrected translation: “I have had compassion on them as a man has compassion on his own son who serves him.”

Verse 18 — “Then [second advent of Christ at the time of operation footstool] shall ye return, and discern.” The word for discern is simply the word to see — ra’a, to observe the fulfilment of doctrine and, in this case, doctrine dealing between “the righteous and the wicked,” the righteous: believers [imputed righteousness at the end of the Tribulation]; wicked: unbelievers at the end of the Tribulation. Why is it so hard in the Tribulation to tell the difference between the righteous and the wicked? Because the unbelievers are so religious. The devil is on the earth; the devil is the father of religion. The Tribulation is not only the worst time in history but it is the most concentrated period of religion in all of history. The “World Council of Churches” in the Tribulation are going to talk about how they are serving God. When Christ returns we will see who is serving and who isn’t serving. In other words, we are going to have wheat, true believers, and they go into the Millennium. We are going to have the tares, unbelievers, and they are cast off with the demons and Satan. They are part of the Satan system, they have the mark of the beast, they are religious, they are adherents to the religious system, they’ve had it. The whole issue here is to indicate one thing: your capacity to love God is based on knowledge of doctrine, but when you have knowledge of doctrine that produces the capacity to love God you have a lot of other things too, a relaxed mental attitude, etc.