Daily Devotional
"Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts."
Malachi 3:5
The refining in verse 3 begins with the sons of Levi, the priests. That is not an accident. God’s rebuke through Malachi started with the priests back in chapter 1, and now his purifying starts there too. The logic is straightforward: the priests were the mediators between God and the people, so if the mediators are compromised, everything downstream is compromised. Purify them, and the offering of Judah and Jerusalem becomes pleasing again.
Anyone tempted to think this only lands on the leadership should read verse 5 slowly. The sins listed there were not selected at random from the catalog of human wickedness. They were the specific sins the whole community was committing. Sorcery. Adultery. Perjury. Withholding a laborer’s wages. Oppressing the widow and the fatherless. Pushing aside the immigrant. And underneath all of it, not fearing God. Notice how many of those are economic and social. God takes practical injustice against vulnerable people personally, and he says he will be a swift witness, meaning he does not need an investigation. He was there.
Peter puts it in New Testament terms: it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God (1 Peter 4:17)? John Benton captures the pastoral logic well when he writes that God’s first concern is always the state of the church, and that when God moves in refining he always begins there, because what he is after is a church alive with truth and in love with him.
This is the sting of the whole passage. We asked God to deal with the injustice out there. He answered by drawing near for judgment and starting in here. Verse 5 was designed to soften hearts before the fire arrived, so that when the heat came, God’s people would be ready for it rather than resentful of it.
Today's Challenge
Take one item from the list in Malachi 3:5, honesty in your speech, fairness in what you pay and what you owe, your treatment of the vulnerable and the outsider, and examine yourself against it honestly. What surfaces? Are you more eager for God to judge the injustice around you than the injustice in you? What does that eagerness reveal?
Prayer
Holy Father, I want you to deal with everyone else's sin and I want you to be patient with mine. That is not righteousness; it is self-interest wearing righteousness as a costume. You are a swift witness and you have seen everything. Start with me. Search me and show me where I have been careless with the truth, careless with money, careless with people who could not do anything for me. I do not want to be spared the fire. I want to be clean. Amen.
