Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20090201.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Malachi: Replacing Spiritual Callousness With Insightful Sensitivity
Part III: Exchanging Unfaithfulness To God And Spouse In Marriage With Faithfulness
(Malachi 2:10-16)
  1. Introduction
    1. Since God created not only the first man and woman, but He also introduced them to one another in marriage in Genesis 2:20-24, one's faithfulness to God and to his or her spouse are closely intertwined.
    2. Thus, unfaithfulness to God and to one's rightful spouse in marriage often sadly coincide, and Malachi 2:10-16 reveals our need to exchange unfaithfulness to God and our spouse in marriage with faithfulness:
  2. Exchanging Unfaithfulness To God And Spouse In Marriage With Faithfulness, Malachi 2:10-16.
    1. God called the men of Israel to exchange their calloused disregard for God in marrying pagan wives, for this sin led them to forsake following God to follow their pagan spouses' false deities, Malachi 2:10-12:
      1. Malachi noted that God was Israel's One true Father, Malachi 2:10a.
      2. Thus, he rhetorically asked why the men of Israel were profaning the covenant of the patriarchs, 2:10b.
      3. To explain, Malachi noted that many men in Israel had profaned the covenant of the patriarchs by marrying women who followed pagan gods, which union led such men to depart from following the true God to worship their pagan wives' false gods, Malachi 2:11; cf. Deuteronomy 7:3-4.
      4. God promised to destroy every man who wed a pagan even if he gave an offering to God, Mal. 2:12. [The KJV expression "the master and the scholar" in the Hebrew text reads "everyone who wakes and answers," possibly a proverbial expression to mean every person, Bible Know. Com., O. T., p. 1580.]
    2. God called the men of Israel to exchange their calloused disregard for their rightful spouses seen in their divorces of these wives, for it violated faithfulness to God in His institution of marriage, Malachi 2:13-16:
      1. Not only were men who had wed pagan wives hypocritically trying to please God by offering sacrifices on His altar, they were also bringing sacrifices to the altar and were symbolically covering it with tears, weeping and crying, Malachi 2:13. This figure pictured their own tears as the Lord was not accepting their offerings, either, and that for a different sin! (Ibid., p. 1581)
      2. When these men wondered why God had rejected their offerings, Malachi reported He was acting as a Witness against them regarding their divorcing their original Hebrew wives, Mal. 2:14, 16a. The description of these original, true unions in Malachi 2:14 reveals the close union they were before God:
        1. These men had wronged the Hebrew wives they had originally wed in their youth as their first wives, indicating God meant these unions to be lifelong, not to be broken by divorce, Mal. 2:14a.
        2. These men had wronged the Hebrew wives who had thus become their companions, showing God saw their first marriages as consisting of lasting companionship not to be broken, Malachi 2:14b.
        3. They had wronged the Hebrew wives who were bound to them by marital covenant, indicating that God held the contract or the spoken vows of marriage to be binding for life, Malachi 2:14c.
      3. Indeed, God further expounded on the deep, permanent quality of the marital union in Malachi 2:15:
        1. God had made the marital union of to be one in flesh in a physical realm, Mal. 2:15a; cf. Gen. 2:24.
        2. Yet, he also arranged for a unity of the immaterial, spirit realm of the married couple, Mal. 2:15b.
        3. The reason for this unity of both flesh and immaterial realm was to produce a lasting institution fit for producing godly offspring, something especially necessary in Israel's postexilic era, Mal. 2:15c.
      4. Thus, God warned the men to guard even their own immaterial spirits by not dealing treacherously against the spouses of their youth through staying wed to them and not divorcing them, Malachi 2:15d.
      5. After all, God said He hated divorce, for it removed the wife's protection (signified in her husband's garment, Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978 ed., ftn. to Mal. 2:16) and did violence to her spirit. God thus repeated His call that these men cease practicing the treachery of divorcing their original Hebrew wives, and from thus doing violence to the spirits of their wives and to their own spirits, Malachi 2:16!
Lesson: Unfaithfulness to God and unfaithfulness to our original spouse are both intolerable to God and treacherously damaging in the immaterial realm. We must thus be faithful in both realms!

Application: May we avoid unfaithfulness both to God and to our original marital spouse by retaining faithfulness to both that we might know blessing and avoid treacherous harm in the spirit.