So we're increasing 2 babies in two weeks.
Well, God's adding to our numbers every day.
Blessed be his name, mate. We are going to continue in
Malachi and we're going to, I'm doing Malachi 210 to 16.
I find with Malachi, or what we're hearing in Malachi is, is
pretty tough. They've really gone quite
astray. We've heard from Ben when they
said at the beginning how the priests were actually just given
substantial sacrifices. They weren't given their all.
And that is a challenge that we all, can we give our all, you
know, do we try to skimp? Do we try to evade?
And Malachi 2/10/16 is no different.
And Malachi, three and four are no different as well.
I think we're in for a real sort of like heart, sort of searching
time in how we come to the Lord. Are we putting him first?
So I will pray and then with no further ado, I will go on.
Lord, your word is food to our souls.
It is it is the thing that can thirst that I can quench our
thirst, Lord, It's the thing that can keep us online.
It's the thing that connects us with you.
It's in there we find your word, the revelation of your heart and
for your your your plan for humankind.
And Lord, today is no different. So will you be upon this word?
Will you be upon our hearts as we seek to know where we should
go with this and what we should do with it and ask is in Jesus
name, Amen. So let's get straight on Malachi
2/10/16. Do we not all have fathers?
Did not one God create us? Why do we profound the the the
covenant of our ancestors by being unfaithful to one another?
Judah has been unfaithful. A detestable thing has been
committed in Israel and in Jerusalem.
Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves by
marrying women who worship foreign gods as them.
As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord
remove him from the tents of Jacob, even though he brings an
offering to the Lord Almighty. Another thing you do you flood
the Lord's altar with tears, you weep and you well, because He no
longer looks with favour on your offering, or accepts them with
pleasure from your hands. You ask why.
It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife
of your youth. You have been unfaithful to her
through though she is your partner.
The wife of your marriage covenant has not the one God
made you. You belong to Him in body, in
spirit. And what does the one God seek?
Godly offspring. So be on your guard.
Do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.
The man who hates and divorces his wife says the Lord, the God
of Israel does violence to the one sorry, there's violence to
the one he should protect, says the Lord Almighty.
So be on your guard and do not be unfaithful.
Unfaithful was mentioned five times there.
We need to understand that although we're talking more
about these men who are actually like doing their own thing,
unfaithfulness comes from a lot of areas.
We can be unfaithful to God in many ways.
See, God is the God of the covenant.
We are God's chosen covenantal people.
And a covenant is solemn vow initiated by God to guide
humanity to a righteous way of life, to rescue, to restore, to
redeem a people to Himself as a family.
It is built on a very intimate relationship of trust, of love,
of forgiveness, of sacrifice and promises.
Just name a few. With a determination that the
agreement, the relationship comes before 1's own personal
self. Both parties commit to staying
faithful to each other for a lifetime.
God is faithful to all His promises in which we proclaim
and are fulfilled in the yes and Amen in Jesus.
Agree. Yeah.
God made marriage a beautiful covenant between one man and one
woman that God initiated, blessed and witnessed.
You know the first thing, if you go back to Genesis 2, that's
when we see the first marriage. God creates the man he sees it
is not good for him to be alone. So then he creates and of his
rib. He creates woman Eve and then he
takes Eve and he picks her up as the father and also has as the
the husband and he takes her or the you know, he takes her to
Adam. What a beautiful sight that is
here. But what what's a bit weird.
I don't think Mellie, you would go to this sort of wedding, but
what God has got in his hands is 2 naked people and he's got to
say you're going to get you. 2 are together forever as 2 become
one. But the lovely thing about this
nakedness is the purity. They've got nothing to hide.
They've got no shame on them. This is before the fall.
And there's a glorious day for
us coming in this world his way. Well, we the church are going to
be the bride, the bride of Christ, and we are going to be
stood before the Father spotless in white, in our white robes of
righteousness. We are no our shame has gone,
our sin has been washed away through his blood.
So we got 2 glorious wedding pictures here, one at the
beginning that God set out in motion.
And the whole theme of marriage and being a husband goes all the
way through the Bible until the day in Revelation when we will
meet him again and we become his story's bride.
So heaven, God, in God's eyes, marriage is a sacred and holy
value. Marriage is is is a design to
reflect God's faithful love as a father and a husband to his
people. It is a stable, loving place for
children to thrive, grow and know who God is through their
parents. It's the picture of Christ's
intimate relationship with His church, His faithful,
unconditional and forgiving love for those who call on His name.
It is a holy covenant meant meaning a God has has ordained
it to be set apart. Is a great example to all
mankind of how a relationship established in love, grace and
devotion, united and fulfilled in Christ can overcome the
toughest challenges. And marriage is not a simple
route. It is ups and downs.
But as Christians, remember what God is talking, who's talking to
here are A, to the men. So I'm talking to men more
today. And B, he's talking to those who
have actually signed a covenant or agreed to the covenant like
we are. Our covenant is through Jesus
Christ. Theirs is through the the law of
Moses, which say said as one people, we agree we will do what
the Lord asks us to do. So there's no like, oh, hiding
away. It's not a there were people
outside this room today who do not know God.
This will not apply to them because God's speaking directly
at his people here. Marriage, stable marriages are
good for establishing, I believe stable communities.
If you can actually, if you get a load of Christians in one
particular spot and they can interact with their with their
their neighbours, I am positive there will be a change.
There will be a great change. So marriage as say God is using
it as a picture, as an example and also bring glory to his name
because that's the ultimate race here. 1979 we got married and I
suppose you could say then we've got, I've got a little bit of
knowledge about marriage. And the bit of wisdom I can give
you in one sense is you don't know much as a husband because
you have to know what your your wife is thinking.
You have to know what her needs are.
You have to know when to shut up, when to when to.
You have to know that that shelf needed to be put up.
You have to know these things. But I can tell you that from
that day, we had a big wedding cake, didn't we?
I did not know that's a big wedding.
Kate. June.
Yeah. Anyway, from that day until this
day, I have not loved Julie more than I can and ever would.
She has stayed the focus of my attention.
I'm speaking love. You're supposed to be listening
to me as well. I'm giving some good compliments
here and a good marriage. The first thing we we learnt in
marriage was the oneship. And I think mine is not mine
anymore. Mine is ours.
What we do is ours. And if you start off on that
thought, yeah, I, I shouldn't be looking at my wife.
Now that's finances, our time and our friends.
Believe it or not, if if you've got sadly, when you come
together, you may not enjoy certain friends that your
partner hangs back with. Well, the thing about it is
those friends are not helping your marriage if there's a wedge
there. So sometimes you have to give up
friends which are not beneficial to you.
Sometimes you have to give up time.
Now, one thing that I've learned, I try to be considerate
most of the times, but you know, I play a little bit of golf when
I can. Now I'm retired, I can play a
bit of golf. It seems to be the, the thing to
do so, but every time I know golf, it's going to take about
5:00 to 4:00 to five hours. Well, I go to Julian and I make
sure that she's OK with it because if I if, if she, if she
says, actually, I, I thought we were going to go to AB or CI
rather give up that because she is my devotion in the sense she
is the one I want to serve properly.
So I will give that up. But it's normally she'll say,
no, I'm OK. And now I go so I can play
around the golf thinking I have not been unfaithful to my wife.
I am OK if I went down the golf line even more and said I
started to buy my golf clubs and I started to go to the, the,
the, the clubhouse and I started to just spend money and I did
not consult my wife again. I am being a bit unfaithful to
her because it's not my money, it's our money.
And we have to decide. We just moved, as you know, in
1920, some of you don't know it, but in 2020 we moved up here and
we, we, we moved into an old house that needed renovating.
And that means a lot of decisions had to be made on, you
know, what furniture we were going to do, what colour the
walls were going to be, how we furnished the house.
Julie, I always have this thing. We we get something in our
heads. She says, I like this, I say, I
like this. And, and we come to a degree.
If I said, well, I'm not sure about that.
That'll go on the the side burner.
If I say I don't like it gets down the drain.
If she says the same, stand until we come to a point where
we totally say, yeah, that's it. So none of us, we cannot hit one
another in the future and say, hey, we've got this because you
wanted it. No, we got it because we wanted
it. And we need to understand that
marriage is like that. And that's the same sometimes
our industry with God, we tend to not sort of like communicate
the way we should. Do you see, marriage is
sacrificial as well. That means you have to give up
something as Jesus gave up his life for us.
We should never take one another for granted because marriages
that do not last quite often, it doesn't happen overnight.
It's a slow fade. Suddenly you realise that you've
not, you're not talk to one another, you've not asked one
another how you are, you've not felt, you've not been intimate
with one another. It can all just simply fade
gradually until you get to a point where you say there's I've
got nothing to say. A lot of people put their if
they do not make the wife or the husband your priority, and I
mean behind Jesus Christ up here and your your your wife or your
husband, your children come here.
If you have children and your parents come down below them.
That's the healthy order of things.
You are to leave your mother and father.
They are not to have an input. You honour them and you stay
close to them, but they should not be dominating your marriage
life. Your marriage life has to be
worked out between the man and the woman, not anything else.
Your children come along, they're a blessing, but as soon
as you can get them out the door, please do.
Out they go, all right, but then they start their life.
You can support them, but they are you're then you're left on
your home own again. This is why I'm trying to get to
the point is you get back to the point there.
Now it's just you and your wife. You've had your children, you've
you've moved away from your parents, you've had your
children, they've grown up. If you do not keep your
relationship alive through those years, you will end up with what
they call empty nest syndrome. And you don't want an empty nest
syndrome. So Julie and I, we talk, we
laugh together. We have to say sorry to one
another more often than I would like.
It is lovely to say to tell her I love her without any.
I want something right. It's just nice to say it.
Men, say this to your wife. You love them.
Do little things that they don't ask you to do.
You don't put your dish as I would probably do.
You don't put your dish in the sink.
You can put it in the dishwasher if it's by the sink, it's a, you
just go open and put it in. So there's little things, but
little things you say. It's those little things that
creep in to any relationship. And there's those little things
that creep into our relationship with Jesus.
The same things we let things slip, we ignore him, we don't
talk to him. And suddenly we realise I'm,
I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, where's God in my life anymore?
So just one more little picture, I thought.
Now if you can read it, Falling in love.
Falling in love is easy, but staying in love is something
very special. And love does.
No, I can't remember that. Love does not count.
Consist of gazing you got back at each other, but in looking
towards outwards together in the same direction.
Yeah, I just thought. But anyway, move on, move on
waffling bit yes. So in this passage is no wonder
God is not happy. They have desecrated the
sanctuary the Lord loves and that is marriage.
Their actions show contempt towards the name of the Lord, a
willful disobedience and open disrespect to the covenant made
between God and Israel. A holy covenant of marriage was
being abused and dishonoured. God's families were being
weakened, destroyed and torn apart by divorce actions taken
by many unfaithful husbands in Jerusalem and Judea.
And God sees these actions and He calls it out as it is.
You notice in the middle bit of what I was reading, they came to
God in tears and weeped. They were weeping.
They weren't repenting, they weren't giving up these wives
that God says do not take. No, they were weeping that God
was not answering their prayers. So there's consequences
sometimes when we do something that is not in line with what
God wants us to do. So we can't cry to God.
We have to sort that out. We have to sort it out.
And then we have to come to God and say, Lord, I am sorry.
And we have such a graceful God that there is nothing that he
cannot do or will not forgive if we just bring it to him.
What a glorious God. So God sees, So what?
What were they doing? They were marrying women who
worship the foreign God. They were divorcing wives of
their youth and they were denying what God is seeking from
the marriage godly offspring. It's quite interesting if most
there's a lot of people here with children grown up, there
are a lot of them right there and the world's going to be a
battle for anybody with youngsters now because if
there's a passage that says do not marry a non believer, if
there's a passage that says do not in Two Corinthians 614, it
says do not be unequally, unequally yoked with an
unbeliever. It is this particular passage
because when we go back to Deuteronomy, we read God's in
his laws of what he told them to do and not do.
One of the rules was they were not to because they were going
into the promised land. They were going to meet a lot of
different tribes and different countries.
But God said do not intermarry with them.
Do not give your daughters their to their sons or take their
daughters for your sons for they will turn your children away
from follow me to serve other gods.
There is a it's it it it will happen.
And I know that there are many people who I've seen who have
married a non believer, their heart, and it's a good heart is
to say, yeah, but maybe I can bring them and they will, you
know, they'll get saved through me bringing them along for me
doing this. But sadly or not, the norm is
it's the other way round. The non believer will take you
away from your faith. It will weaken your faith.
So it's a tough call in a world where you may find somebody
really love you really think they're special.
I tell you, if they if they are somebody who really loves you
back and they're really special, they will think of what you like
and what you do and they will surrender to God before they ask
you to marry them. That's what I would say.
They won't hold you and what your desires are.
So you see that it causes a problem.
I say God was trying to say I want godly offspring.
Well, again, you come down to a situation where who will teach
the children in God's ways when one on a Sunday says I'm going
to church and the other one says I'm going to golf or I'm doing
something or I want to give my money to to the church and the
other person says, but it's our money.
So I don't want you to do that. You see that at the beginning it
may all be quite nice, but eventually a crack will appear
and eventually a chasm will appear.
So God's trying to warn us. This is how great God's word is
to all of us. It's not to say I want to take
away your joy. It's not to say I, you must do
exactly what I say. God is give us the freedom, but
he knows that certain choices that we make will end up with us
taking that real rugged Rd rather than the, the, the, the
slightly smoother Rd in the, in what he caused us to do.
I, I, I think the divorcing the wife of the youth.
That's interesting. I could go back to Julie and I
now some of you may remember you come from a family.
You just go to the larder. This is what your parents house
is. You go to the larder.
You just take through what you like.
You eat, use their electricity, you use their water or their hot
water normally. And you, you just walk away and
your money's yours to spend. You in the court in days are
just simply you and her and you go out and you just enjoy and
you spend your money and then you wait for your next wage
packet. But now you've just been
married. You've just been married.
Now the struggles come in because now you got to pay the
bills, you got to pay the electricity.
It is your food. You got to go to the shop, not
to your mother's or father's kitchen.
So getting married is tough at the early stage.
I believe what God's saying here, divorcing the wife of
youth. These men, these men had young
wives when they got married. They went through all the
struggles of getting themselves together, maybe getting to an
affluent situation. Now maybe Middle Ages come
along, maybe the children has left.
And the man in this situation is not content.
He looks around, he sees what else he can get.
And sometimes in this day and age, we were talking about
dowries. So to marry a woman you could
get money. So maybe some of them did it for
money, some of them may have done it for a younger model, who
knows what they did it for, but it was not good reasons.
There are reasons in the Bible that God says are reasons that
you can divorce, but there are many reasons that are not
applicable and we must be careful.
And in any reason, as an elder of this church, if there was a a
issue within a marriage, our first thing is to try to bring
reconciliation. But if that does not work, then
we would try to counsel in a way that they they feel that they've
not let God down. It's a tricky situation because
divorce really is messy. In fact, that's what God says.
I believe it does violence to the one he should protect.
This woman is left unprotected now and she thought she had a
covenant with a man for life and he's just give it away and the
passage ends with so be on your guard and do not be unfaithful.
We are called men. Lead the way.
Do not be unfaithful. Show grace, show mercy, but
Jesus is our faithful Lord and husband.
So let us be encouraged with some promises of our faithful
God has declared over us. And that's what I'm going to do
now. I'd really have to lift us up
and say there is a husband out there for all of us.
We are all married to the one Jesus Christ who is ever
faithful. So that we're going to Chuck
away. We're going to fight against
that, but we are going to live in the promises.
So I've just put up. I'm, I'm just put up.
Here's some promises. We're talking about them in
worship. For I am convinced that neither
death nor life, near angels or demons, neither the present nor
the future, nor any powers near height nor depth, or anything
else in all creation will be able to separate us from the
love of God, That in that is, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Do you hear that Church? Nothing can separate us from the
love of God. If you feel that you're not
loved, stop it. Know that you are loved.
The Word of God tells us we're loved.
John. John 11213 says Yet to all who
did receive him, through those who believed in his name, he
gave the right to become children of God.
Children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision
or a husband's will, but born of God.
We have been born again Church. We are children of God.
We are heirs to the King. We have a future and a hope.
It's not a hopelessness, it is a hope, a secure hope, not a fairy
hope. We are children of God.
I hope you feel loved in that way that you are protected.
Deuteronomy 31, eight says the Lord himself goes before you and
will be with you. He will never leave you nor
forsake you. Do not be afraid.
Do not be discouraged. Stick your chest.
Thanks. Stick your chin out.
Do not be discouraged whatever you're facing.
We are supposed to be joyful because we have a joyful God.
We have the joy of the Lord in our hearts.
He is our strength. When John 189 says if we claim
to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not
in US, but if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just,
then we'll forgive us our sins and purify us from all
unrighteousness. This is what I mean about God.
He's not your two strikes and you're out.
We can turn around and come back to Him every day.
His mercy's on you every morning.
He is a God of forgiveness and we are unfaithful people.
We are sinful people, even though we have the blood of the
lion, we still live in this world and the world contaminates
us. And how hard we try, how hard I
try to be the best husband for Julie.
I let her down day and day. Our God doesn't let Julie down
in one way. And when I muck up, I say sorry
to God, say say Gary sorry to Julie, but I need to say sorry
to God as well because I have hurt a child of his.
When I when we hurt one another, we are hurting God.
We are all in the same family as one part of the body hurts, then
the rest of the body hurts. So never forget that that don't
just keep us. Oh well, I said sorry to them.
No. Have you said sorry to God?
No.
Therefore, that the Lord your God is God.
He is faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to 1000
generations of those who have loved him and keep His
commandments. We are here today on that
promise. Thousands of generations have
gone before us, declaring the word of the Lord, taking the
gospel out, what we receive, what we heard, and what we now
speak out for the next generation.
So we need to be faithful to God in speaking out His message of
love. And Romans 5758 says, But God
demonstrates his own love for us in this why We were still
sinners. Christ died for us.
Wow, that's a tough call, isn't it?
How do you how, how do you love somebody that just doesn't want
to have anything to do with you? How do you reach out to somebody
that that's ignoring, you know, really hurt you?
He's tough, but Jesus did the people on that cross that put
him on that cross, he still looked down and said, God
forgive them. They know not what they do.
Every human being is an image bearer of God.
That means God loves them all and it's God's desire that
everyone and and nobody should perish.
And that's why we have a faithful God, because we are the
product of His faithfulness to His word that says all who
believe in Jesus Christ and puts our faith in Him.
By His grace we are saved. He is the faithful husband that
we will meet and be married to in heaven.
He is the faithful one that we follow, not the world.
The world will say it's yours. The world will say, get a new
model. The world will say, you know,
it's boring, it's dull. You say, I have a glorious God
that seized all my needs. So really in conclusion, let's
take heed of God's warning to be on your guard and do not be
unfaithful. Remember Christ and what Christ
has done maybe challenge all of us needs to challenge our
commitment and effort to become to to stay faithful to Jesus and
that means putting him first, being content in Jesus.
He's all we need. Stop chasing what the world says
or tempts us to believe you need.
He is all we need. Remember his words and promises
are trustworthy and true. Hebrews 13 five says never will
I leave you or forsake you. So even when you feel it, God's
promises are still there with you.
It's not what we feel, it's what we know.
It's what He declared over us as his children and his bride.
He is not unfaithful. And I'm just going to end here
in Revelations 19 Six. I said about it.
Now I'll read it. Then I heard what sounded like a
great multitude, like the roar of a rushing waters, and like a
loud pearls of Thunder, shouting Hallelujah, Hallelujah for our
Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and
give Him glory. For the wedding of the Lamb has
come, and His bride has made. He made herself ready.
Fine linen, bright and clean, was given to her to wear.
Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God's holy
people. We Everything we do from that
small word of kindness or the word of encouragement is an act
of righteousness which would clothe us in the royal robes of
Jesus Christ as the groom, as the bride.
It is fantastic news from the beginnings of these men who are
seeking their own way, seeking what they wanted out in life,
forgetting who God was today. My message really in this word
is do not forget who God is. Remember His faithfulness goes
through generations and generations.
Commit yourself, challenge yourself.
How can I be faithful this week to God?
How can I stay true? What can I do as an act of
righteousness in His name? You are great, yo, Lord, you are
great. You are fantastic.
We surrender to you, Lord. It's hard, but Lord, you uphold
us when it gets hard. So I, I believe you there.
I believe you, Lord, when you say that the plans that you have
for me are good plans, even though sometimes I think why my,
why do I feel rotten? Why is this happening to me
today? Lord, I have to look about, look
above it. I look to you, the King of King,
the King of glory. So Lord, will you bless us all
this week to just grab hold of who you are to to invite and sit
down with you to confess what needs to be confessed to move
forward in, in determination and commitment to making you first
and first only in the in our lives.
Lord, Lord, will you help us? Will you send your Holy Spirit
today throughout the week? Will you continue to fill us in?
You? Lord, I submit this message to
you. Work on us, work on our hearts,
work on our lives, in Jesus name, Amen.