I'm going to ask you to turn to the book of Malachi, Malachi chapter 2. I've enjoyed this tag-team effort of being able to work our way through this book. I think it's good for the other men to have an opportunity to minister to you. It's good for them to preach some from the Old Testament and kind of have a section-by-section approach to this. I must admit, as I was talking with them the other day and got into the passage we're going to examine tonight, I began to tease them a little bit because I kind of laid out the passages and then assigned the dates based upon when people were going to be here and working around schedules and all those kind of things. And then I said to them, you know, I'm not sure I was too smart what I did, because the section I'm in tonight, there's particularly one verse. that is been mentioned. In fact, I read several different writers and they said, you know, this is perhaps one of the hardest verses in the entire Old Testament. And I thought, wow, that wasn't real smart. You know, how did I get that verse? But they assured me that they were very thankful that it happened to me rather than them. So we'll see how we do with it tonight. All right. Malachi chapter two, we're going to read verses 10 through 16. Malachi chapter two, verses 10 through 16. Verse 10 says, Have we not all one Father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother by profaning the covenant of our fathers? Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord, which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange God. The Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar. out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the Lord of hosts. And this have we done again, covering the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand. Yet you say, wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously, yet is she thy companion in the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one, yet had he the residue of the Spirit, and wherefore one, that he might seek a godly seed? Therefore, take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away. For one covers violence with his garment, saith the Lord of hosts. Therefore, take heed to your spirit that you deal not treacherously. I've just entitled the message tonight, A Call to Faithfulness. In the context of the passage, there's a shift that's taking place. Brother Todd talked about the earlier part of this chapter last week. The audience of the earlier section of chapter two is primarily the priest, the leadership, if you would, that he was addressing. Now it's shifting back to the people. However, I think obviously the lack of faithfulness and obedience on the part of the priest and the leadership has certainly led to problems that the people themselves are facing in their lives. And here in this section of scripture, there are two primary issues that Malachi is going to deal with. that were taking place in the nation of Israel at this particular time that God is greatly concerned about, and he has placed that burden upon the heart of Malachi the prophet. So this burden that Malachi has, now he's seeking to communicate to the people of God. The first one is this. Malachi addresses what we're going to call the Israelites' marriages to foreign wives. Now, by foreign wives, we don't necessarily mean that they were of a different race, necessarily. That wasn't the issue or a different culture. That wasn't the issue. They were foreign in the sense that they served foreign gods. And that was the real issue that the Lord is concerned about is Malachi, the prophet, his ministry. We have to have a little bit of background to fully grasp this. I'm going to have you turn to the book of Exodus for just a moment. Exodus, Chapter 34. Exodus, Chapter 34. And I want to look at verse 11 and following Exodus 34 and verse 11 and following. Verse 11 says this, observe thou that which I command thee this day. Behold, I drive out before thee, the Amorite and the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Parasite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Take heed therefore to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee. But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves. For thou shalt worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a-whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one called thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice. And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods. In essence, what the Lord is doing in this passage is he is warning the people of the Lord as they go into the land, one of the things he does not want them to do. He does not want them to intermarry with these other people groups. because the other people groups are serving other gods and his concern and his burden is that once they intermarry, that the gods of these different groups are going to then cause his people to go into idolatry. And that was a problem all through the Old Testament. In fact, it was one of the reasons why they had gone into exile. If you remember, The book of Malachi is what we call the post-exilic book. In other words, it occurs after the exile when they've already come back into the land. And lo and behold, they have the same problem all over again. Now, if you're familiar with the history, the timeline of Malachi, you know that that is during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah days, probably a little bit after that, but during that same period of time. And if you've read the book of Ezra or read the book of Nehemiah, you know this was an issue. OK, in fact, let's turn just for a moment in Ezra chapter nine for a moment. Ezra chapter nine, because Ezra comes in contact with this when he's involved in returning into the land and he's quite concerned about it. And Ezra chapter nine, and I want to begin reading, if I can, in the first verse. Now, when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, doing according to their abominations, even to the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those land, yea, the land of the princes and the rulers have been chief in this trespass." In other words, the leadership had been involved in this. Notice how Ezra responds, and you'll see a contrast in a moment with Nehemiah's response. Ezra does this, and when I heard this thing, I rent or tore my garment and my mantle and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard and sat down astonished. I mean, he's just shocked by this. He begins to pour out his heart into the Lord. And he's so burdened, he says that, look, I blush even to lift up, you know, to lift up to you to pray. And at the end of this particular chapter, notice verse 13, it says, and after all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and for our great trespass, seeing that thou art our God has punished us less than our iniquities deserve and have given us such deliverance as this. In other words, after all that we've gone through with the exile and the judgment of God upon us, and then he says, should we again break thy commandments and join in affinity with the people of these abominations? Wouldest thou not be angry with us, so thou hast consumed us, so that thou should be no remnant nor escaping? He's basically saying, Lord, it seems almost impossible that we would get back into the very thing that caused you to bring judgment upon us in the first place. And he's just completely shocked by this, kind of blown away by all of this, and he's crying out unto the Lord that the Lord would bring deliverance. Now, kind of a parallel passage, turn to the book of Nehemiah for a moment, and we'll just look at one section, Nehemiah chapter 13. If you remember with Nehemiah, Nehemiah had come, he had helped rebuild the wall, and then there was a period of time where he went back to Babylon again. And what was happening is then he comes back again. When he comes back, he finds out the people got right back into this again. Nehemiah chapter 13 and notice verse 23 and following. It says, And in those days also I saw the Jews that had married wives of Ashdod and of Ammon and of Moab, and their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod and could not speak the Jews language. They had lost the language. But according to the language of each people, and I contended with them and cursed them and spoke certain of them by curse them. He means pronouncing curses upon them and plucked off their hair and made them swear by God saying, you shall not give your daughters into their sons nor take their daughters into your sons or for yourselves. So Nehemiah plucks his hair out, plucks his beard out, he's so burdened about all this. I mean, Ezra does that. Nehemiah is the opposite. He plucks out their hair. I mean, you get a sense of personality here, one probably more introverted and introspective. Nehemiah was kind of a more an extrovert and he goes after them. And so, you know, these are two men of God that are greatly burdened about what the people of the Lord have gotten into. Now, back to Malachi, because in spite of all of this, they're right back at it again. Now, lest we be too hard upon the people of the Lord in Malachi's day, do we not do the same thing ourselves? We have some besetting sin, some issues, some problem in our own lives. We know better. We have clear written revelation about what God says. Thus saith the word of the Lord. And yet we tend to get into certain things. And even though we know what God is warned about and the fact that judgment will come upon us if we do not obey him, we still have those same tendencies, same propensities. We're prone to wonder as the songwriter sets. And that's exactly what's happened here. Now, A, first of all, he calls the Israelites to consider their covenant relationship with God and her brother. Chapter 2, verses 10 and 11 say this, have we not all one father? By one father, I think he's talking about God, the father. There's some speculation here where some see this as referring to Abraham. But I think in its context, it's much better interpreted as have we not all one father, that is, God is our father and have not one God created us. God is both the creator and the father of Israel. And then he asked the question, why do we deal treacherously? In other words, why have we been unfaithful? The word treacherous is the idea that we've abandoned things, we've forsaken things, we've not been faithful in what the Lord wants us to do. Why do we deal treacherously, every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers? A little history here. When God came to Israel, he made a covenant with Israel. Israel was his chosen people. There was a special relationship that God had with Israel that he did not have with any other nation upon the face of the earth. And that covenant relationship not only was a covenant that bound them to God and God to them with certain obligations on both sides, but it also put them in a special group where as a group of people, they were bound together. And he's really making appeal in this passage of Scripture where they have violated that covenant relationship that they had with God and also that covenant relationship that they had with each other as a nation. It goes on to say in verse 11, Judah hath dealt treacherously. This word treacherous is the idea is that they have been unfaithful and that this was an appalling thing. This was an unbelievable thing that they would get involved in these kinds of sins that God had clearly warned about. And an abomination, that's a word that speaks of the fact of something that's vile to God, something that He cannot stand, something that is putrid to Him. And the word is used throughout the Old Testament, particularly with things that are spoken of that are detestable in God's sight. It says, and an abomination is committed in Israel and Jerusalem for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the Lord which he loved and hath married the daughter of a strange God. So this relationship, that they had with these foreign wives that ultimately was a relationship of idolatry. That's what he's concerned about in this passage of Scripture. Now, by way of application tonight, I've given you a couple of New Testament passages that I think are important. And we'll turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 6 for just a moment. You're familiar with this passage, probably. 2 Corinthians chapter 6. Because I think we can, by application and by principle, find some parallels for our dispensation and for our lives in this day. 2 Corinthians 6, verses 14 and following. where Paul is making an appeal here. He says, be not unequally yoked, be not ye unequally yoked, together with unbelievers. He says believers having a relationship with unbelievers, yoking together with unbelievers, particularly like in a marital type relationship. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel, with an unbeliever? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God. As God hath said, I will dwell with them, and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing. And I will receive you, and will be a father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. I think we can be reminded, although our relationship is a little different in the sense that we are not covenanted together with God like he did with his Old Testament people, the Jews, we do have a relationship to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore, when we get involved in things that are idolatrous in nature, what we are doing, because we ourselves are the temple of God, we are binding together the temple of God with idolatry. And in doing so, we become very offensive unto God. You see, we're not our own folks, we belong to the Lord. And therefore, everything about us, when we make decisions and we and we decide things and we look at things, we have to evaluate whether our involvement in that would somehow bring a sense of disgrace unto the Lord, because we're not our own. We belong to the Lord. And just as the Old Testament people were a chosen people that were peculiar and set apart unto the Lord, as the people of God today, we're the same way. Peter talks about it. Therefore, we don't have the right to just do anything we want to do. Everything we want to do or want to be involved in has to go through that grid of, would this in some way bring dishonor or disgrace unto the Lord? Now, a second parallel passage is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, if you want to look there for just a moment. 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verses 12 to 14. This is speaking of the body of Christ. The Jewish nation, they were a nation that had been brought together by the Lord, and therefore any time an Israelite would do anything, it would not only affect his own personal life, but it would affect the nation. We even see that, for example, if you think of Achan, as they went into the land and the Lord had warned them, and basically by Achan disobeying the Lord, he brought judgment upon the whole nation. It affected others, is what I'm saying. In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, verses 12 to 14, the same kind of concept, the sense of bonding. For as the body is one and hath many members, and all members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For as by one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether by Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been made all to drink into one spirit, for the body is not one member, but many. And one of the arguments that he's talking about is that we're all brought into the body of the Lord or the body of Christ together. And what we do when one person hurts, we all ought to hurt. When there's problems with one person, it affects all of us. I think what Malachi is driving at here is the same thing that is true in our day, what's true in his day. People tend to look at their own sins and their own issues as their personal issues. Well, I just, I mean, it's just my problem. It's just my issue. Why are you worried about it? It's none of your business. Well, according to the word of God, it is your business. Because when a believer sins against God, it not only affects that relationship that he has with God, but it even affects the body of Christ. And so there's a sense that our sin is not just that we're not just an island unto ourselves that can do anything we want to do. And it's not anybody else's business what we do. No, there's a sense where God has brought us all together. We all belong to the Lord, you know, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, therefore, we've got to take seriously any time we're involved in any kind of thing that would dishonor the Lord or displease the Lord. It doesn't just affect us. It not only affects our immediate family, but it affects our church family. And ultimately, and most importantly, it affects God himself. So it becomes a very serious, important thing for us to consider as we think about what we allow in our lives, what we accept into our lives or what we reject from our lives. So he calls the Israelites to consider her covenant relationship with God and her brethren. And secondly, he calls the Israelites to consider God's forthcoming judgment. If you look back in the book of Malachi, chapter 2 and verse 12, he says this, the Lord will cut off the man that doeth this. This little phrase, the master and the scholars, kind of difficult to translate. But I think what he's talking about is basically A to Z. In other words, anybody. He will cut off the man that doeth this, basically any and everybody out of the tabernacles of Jacob and him that offer an offering unto the Lord of hosts. In other words, God is not going to countenance this. I mean, he's not going to accept this. He's going to bring judgment. There's going to be a purifying effect. You know, sometimes what happens is we are not really connecting the dots, folks. We don't think about the fact that whenever we get involved in things that the Lord doesn't want us to be involved in, there are always consequences. And God doesn't just kind of brush it aside and hope it's going to disappear and kind of overlook it. No, he's very earnest about his people being a pure people. And he's driving that home in this passage of Scripture that he wants us to be sincere and genuine and transparent and truly have a walk with him, because everything about us affects him. Everything about us affects each other. Now, you would think, if you think about the logic of what they're doing, OK, They were sent into exile because of this kind of sin, because of idolatry. They come back from exile having been purged, having been cleansed. The sooner than they get back, they get involved in it again. Ezra preaches against it. There's a cleansing that takes place. There's a putting away that takes place. Nehemiah comes along. He preaches against it. Now Malachi is having to deal with it all over again. I think some of it speaks to the fact that it's very easy as a human being to think that we can dabble in this. and get involved in a little bit of that and do a little bit of this. And it's not really going to affect us, not really going to hurt us. God knows better. That's why he was warning to begin with. So I thought about this, the idea or the concept of what we would call one of the wisest men of the entire world that has ever lived is, in my way of thinking, a perfect example of what I'm talking about. Remember Solomon? I don't have time to develop it all. I've got all the verses, but I'll just kind of run through it for you. Okay. Chapter three, he kind of praise Lord, you know, I'm like a little child. I don't know how to go out. I don't know how to come in. And so he asked God to give him wisdom because he asked for wisdom and not for riches and not for power. God gave him wisdom so that he would be wiser than anybody else. But he also gave him the power and he also gave him the riches. If you move on a little bit in chapter four, you find he's involved in building the temple. And it takes some 13 years for what he's doing to be involved in and setting up this temple. He eventually is involved in bringing the ark into the temple. And then in chapter eight, there's a dedication of this temple, tremendous section of scripture, great jubilance, great joy, great blessing, the abundance of God's blessings upon Israel and upon this King Solomon. He's able to do things that even his father, King David, was not able to do. Chapter nine, God renews the covenant with Solomon and basically says, look, if you will obey me, I will bless you like I bless David and your kingdom will be a kingdom will reign forever. When you get to chapter 10, this is all kind of building and building and building and building the Queen of Sheba comes. She had heard about this man, Solomon, but she couldn't believe what she heard. And she came basically with the purpose of saying to Solomon and disproving Solomon, nobody could be that great. Nobody could be that wise. And yet, when she got there, she said, look, the half has not even been told. The happier are those that serve in your household. What I've seen, it's unbelievable. She gives him tremendous gifts. Now, turn to 1 Kings chapter 11 for just a moment. Now, think about this. Here's a guy who was blessed beyond what you could even believe. He has wisdom beyond what any man has ever had wisdom. He is just absolutely blessed of God and being able to do things that no one else has been able to do. But when you get to first Kings chapter 11, he steps off the smart train onto the dumb one. OK, he goes from being the wisest man in the world to being an absolute fool. Because the first Kings chapter 11 and verse one, it says, But King Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians and Hittites. I don't know all these people groups, but I do know for the Hittites, they were a very warlike people. And I used to wonder, and I've shared this from time to time, I used to wonder why the Lord prohibited what we call bestiology, that is, having a physical relationship with an animal. He prohibited that. When you begin studying certain people groups, like the Hittites, you would find that the Hittites participated in that, but they actually regulated which animal it was okay with and which animal it was not okay with. That's how vile they were. And so as they accept these people groups and as they intermarry within these people groups, it says of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, you shall not go into them, neither shall they come into you. For surely they will turn away your heart after their gods. And it says that Solomon clave unto these in love. I won't take the time to read the rest of the passage, but if you just kind of skip over. A little bit to verse six says in Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord and went not fully after the Lord as David his father. Then did Solomon build a house, a high place for a chemosh. That was a foreign god. The abomination of Moab. If you study this, you would find that they were involved in infant sacrifices. They would offer up little babies under their god Chemosh to appease the god Chemosh. And it says in the hill that is before Jerusalem and for Moloch, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise, did he for all his strange wives, which burn incense and sacrifice them to their gods. Now, I ask you the question, a simple question. If the wisest man that had ever lived, that had been blessed by God in an immeasurable way, I mean, you couldn't even get your hands around it in terms of the kingdom of Solomon. was susceptible to being disobedient and getting involved in things that God had clearly prohibited. There was no question about what it being right or wrong. And yet he was able, his own heart was able to deceive itself that he could dabble in that which God had prohibited. And yet he did it in spite of all of that. What makes any of the one of us tonight think that somehow we're we're beyond that? May I remind you what Jeremiah said that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. No man is able to know it. And therefore, we should be on our knees on a regular basis, crying out to God that God would allow us to be sensitive to the work of his spirit, to be obedient to the word of God, lest we find ourselves becoming the fool like Solomon did, although he had been the wisest man that had ever lived. And so God is addressing these foreign wives that led them to idolatry. Secondly, and lastly, Malachi not only addresses the marriage to foreign wives, but he addresses the Israelites divorcing of their Jewish spouses. You see, in this day, it was not uncommon for a man to have more than one wife. We see it even in Abraham's life. Technically, the one was the wife and the others were the concubines. It's not God's design. It wasn't necessarily it wasn't the will of God that this be, but it was kind of the culture that had been accepted. So these men could have married these foreign wives, but had kept their Israelite spouses. But apparently they had chosen not to do that. I read several different writers, they speculated as to why most of them landed upon the idea that their their wives that had been taken at a young age. They married young in those days. Apparently had lost a little bit of their attractiveness. It's very likely as they would intermarry with these other nations, there was somewhat of remuneration involved in that there was a covenant and an alliance and likely some dowries and some funds that would come along with those marriages. As well as the prestige of the relationships and all of that. And they had chosen, in spite of the fact that it was not necessary, even in this culture, to divorce their Israeli wives in order that they would take these strange wives that serve strange gods that would cause them to go into idolatry. In fact, one Puritan writer said it this way. She whom you thus wronged was the companion of those earlier and brighter days, when in the bloom of her young beauty she left her father's house and shared your early struggles. and rejoiced in your later success, who walked arm in arm with you along the pilgrimage of life, cheering you in its trials by her gentle ministry. And now, when the bloom of her youth hath faded and her friends of her youth hath gone, when her father and mother, whom she left for you, is in the grave, then you cruelly cast her off as a worn-out, worthless thing, and insult her holiest affections by putting an idolater and a heathen in her place. This was sort of the offense of all offenses. We've all seen some man who had whatever you want to call it, midlife crisis or anything else, who as began to age, he decided he no longer wanted to love the woman that he had married many years ago and decided to cast her off and married some young girl who was half his age. In this case, it would have been someone who wasn't even saved and didn't want anything to do with the Lord, was an idolater and a pagan. And so there's a sense of a woundedness that is being called up before the Lord here that God is addressing. Now, a couple of things that will be done. First of all, he calls Israelites to put aside their hypocritical pagan worship. In spite of all of this, they were still worshiping God. Notice verse 13. Chapter 2, And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the Lord with your tears, and with weeping, and with crying out, and as much as he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth with good will at your hands. Some writers see this crying out as being the wives or the ones that are crying out to the Lord. I think in context, it's probably better to take it that they were crying out to God and weeping before the Lord and pleading before the Lord, but the Lord wasn't hearing them. You remember the passage in 1 Kings? When Elijah was on Mount Carmel with the prophets of Baal and how he had them build an altar and as they were crying out, they were cutting themselves and lashing themselves and all of that. And Elijah began to have a little fun. They said, cry a little louder. Maybe he's gone on a hunting trip. Maybe he's out somewhere. And the pagans thought that by crying loudly and by offering offerings, that they would appease their gods and he would accept them because they believed that the gods needed to eat. He would accept their offerings no matter what they had done. But that was not true of the Lord. May I just simply say it to you this way, there are things tonight that are in your life that God has been dealing with, that God has been trying to address in your life, and you have been pushing them aside and ignoring them. I don't care how much you cry. I don't care how much you plead. I don't care how much you beg. God's not going to hear you. And the worship that you're offering, as far as God's concerned, is no better than the worship of pagan people who have no understanding of the things of God. Because God's wanting a righteous people and a holy people. He's not going to hear the prayers of people that are not willing to get right with him and be genuine with him. And so he pushes it all aside. Secondly, He not only caused them to put aside their hypocritical pagan worship, but he caused Israelites to put aside their treacherous behavior. In other words, this idea of forsaking their spouses. And he does three things here, and I'm done. Verse 14, he first of all reminds them of God's witness of their covenant vows. Verse 14, yet you say, wherefore or why? He says, because the Lord hath been a witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously. She is thy companion and the wife of thy covenant. Sometimes at a wedding, you've heard this. We call God as a witness, God in heaven as a witness. And the idea was whenever they came into a covenant relationship within the marriage, God functioned as a witness to observe those marriage vows. And his intent was to be the one who would hold them to those vows. So to forsake the vows was much more serious than just a human relationship. It involved the witness of God. You were casting off the witness of God. And you didn't value that as being important. And Malachi here is reminding them that God was a witness to the vows that he had made in their youth, to the wife of their youth, and he was going to hold them accountable. Secondly, it reminds them of God's original creation and marital intent. This is the verse 15. In fact, I thought it was interesting. As I was reading different writers, there's one that's kind of a little more scholarly. And he came to this verse. And I kid you not, this is a quote. This is exactly what he said about verse 15. I would advise the reader that since nobody really understands what point verse 15 is making, the worst thing that could be done would be to assume that it can be understood. I'm thinking, you know, God wrote his word, we can't even understand what it means. In other words, he's saying this is such a complex verse and the Hebrew is so complicated, nobody can understand. So don't even try. Another writer said this, this is one of the most difficult passages of the whole Old Testament. It is a difficult passage, but I'm going to try to venture out a little bit tonight, OK, and then I'm almost done here. Verse 15. And did not he make one? I think he is speaking to God and the idea of making one. He's talking about creation. Adam and he created Eve and those two were, he created one wife, they were brought into that one flesh relationship. That was the way God intended it from the beginning. Secondly, he moves on, this is a tough part, and yet had he the residue of the Spirit. The idea there, I think, is he had the power, if you would, in the creative power that he could have made more than one wife. But he chose to make one for them to have a one flash relationship. Why? He tells us in verse 15 that he might seek a godly seed. Now, it's not that godly seed cannot come from a difficult marriage or a divorced home or all the other kind of things, but the likelihood of that happening is not real high. Let's hope tonight, as you think about your family, that one of the things you value the most is that marital relationship with the blessing of God upon it, where you are able by the grace of God to raise up a godly seed. That is a very important thing to God. And he's reminding them of what God originally intended and this marital intent of what he wanted to do. Therefore, he says, take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. Lastly, he reminds them of God's detesting of divorce, verse 16. For the Lord, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away. This is speaking of divorce. For one covereth violence with his garment, saith the Lord of hosts. Therefore, take heed to your spirit that you deal not treacherously. What's he talking about? Well, he's basically saying, look, God detests divorce. I know we live in a day when divorce is pretty rampant. And I know we live in a day when there's a lot of individualism and a lot of acceptance of things. And I've shared this with you before. But when I was a kid, it was a rare thing for people to be divorced. In fact, I can remember as a kid, as a little kid, we would be kind of talking and somebody would say, see that couple over there? They're divorced. You'd whisper about it. It was a rare thing. Now it's pretty common. And according to this passage, It's basically saying God detests or hates divorce. And so he's warning them accordingly. And then there's one last picture here I want you to see for one covers violence with his garment. Remember in the book of Ruth, when Ruth went into Boaz that night at the threshing floor and she basically was asking him to be her kinsman redeemer. He took his garment. Remember, he spread it over Ruth. which was a sign of protection, that he was going to be willing to marry her and basically bring her in under his protection. And here's the same kind of concept. He says, instead though, when you put your wife away, he's saying, for one covereth violence. with his garment. There's all kinds of violence. It's not a garment of protection. It's a garment of violence. And you can almost picture a bloodstained garment that is bringing great wounds and great problems. And I know, you know, OK, I have great empathy for people. I deal with a lot of people. A lot of people that really kind of get their backs up. And they have issues and it's hard to work through those issues. And it's all kinds of emotion and all kinds of things that are going on in the lives and hearts of people. But I'm telling you, if you've ever known anybody, there's never a good divorce. The couple, the husband is affected, the wife is affected, the kids are affected, the grandkids are affected. I mean, it just goes financially, it destroys you. Emotionally, it just completely disrupts your life and then turns it upside down. There's nothing good about divorce. And I would urge you, and here's the problem, what happens is most people let a lot of stuff go for a lot of years, and then all of a sudden it erupts. And they wind up getting a divorce. But the truth is there's been problems for years and they should have sought counsel many, many years ago. And sometimes by the time they come to the pastor or somebody else, it just I mean, it's ready to erupt if it hasn't already erupted. But in the process, it's a little bit like just absolutely yanking kids out by the roots. and pulling lives apart that had been meshed together. And it brings all kinds of destruction. And most importantly, it's something that God detests because he understands how brittle and how violated those relationships become when we choose to put each other away. OK, let me wrap this up. He's providing a call here to faithfulness. And probably there's no more bedrock of an area to be faithful than in our marital relationships. I've never met a couple in all of my years of ministry that all of a sudden one day they get up and say, you know, I'm tired of you. I think I'm going to divorce you. What happens is they gradually begin to grow apart. He dabbles a little bit here and she dabbles a little bit there. They put their interest in other areas, sometimes upon the kids, because that's the only thing they really care about. They just kind of invest their lives in the kids. Kids kind of grow up and they go away. And they're growing apart the whole time. There comes a time in their lives where they kind of got to decide, you know, they really don't have much in common and all the rest of that. And I've even had grown friends of mine whose parents have divorced long after they've been out of the home. And you wouldn't think it would have had an impact upon them, but it does. Because it's kind of like if mom and dad are not stable, what in the world is stable? If you can't count on mom and dad being together, what in the world can you count on? Much less the offense to God. So as we think about our relationships tonight, here's what I want to challenge you with as I end. Look at your marriage. Look at some issues. Hey, we all have issues. I'll be the first to tell you our marriage is not a perfect marriage. Once in a while we get in a good fight. I usually lose, but we get in a good fight. But I know one thing I'm committed to staying together. And I'm committed to making it work. That's not always easy to say, I should say, sometimes you can say it's not always easy to do. Because the ramifications are huge. And what God is looking for tonight from the people of the Lord is a purposing that you are going to be faithful to the relationships that God has called you to, not only for the sake of the body of Christ and all the ramifications that it has to that, but also and most importantly, for the sake of your relationship with the Lord and all the ramifications that it has there. And if the core of the core of the core of your heart tonight is that you are not going to be a faithful child of God who's committed to being obedient to doing what God wants you to do, my friend, you're headed for a dead end street. And you're going to have problems and lots of problems, because what God is doing tonight, He's calling you to faithfulness. And I know it's not easy. I know there are challenges. But that's what the Lord wants from us as we as we think about this passage in the book of Malachi. All right, let's pray together. Our Father, there's so much more that could be said. But I pray that, Lord, what has been said would be used by you in the hearts of your people. Help us to realize tonight that it does matter. It matters what we do, that what we do does affect other people, and ultimately, Lord, does affect your kingdom. your reputation, your name, your testimony. And so I pray tonight that as we just give contemplation to the importance of being faithful to what you have called us to do, to being obedient to what you want us to do, Lord, that we would be willing to make a choice to hear and to answer the call to faithfulness that Malachi has extended to us, your people, the people of God. Lord, use this message to work in our hearts. challenge us in our relationships, I pray in Jesus name, Amen.