STEVE WEBB - 0:00  
Go ahead and try me.

INTRO S12E331 - 0:09  
Like a bad penny, I'm back! Coming to you from Riverside, California, this is the Lifespring Family Audio Bible. And podcasting since 2004, I'm your OG Godcaster, Steve Webb. This is the daily show where we're reading through the entire Bible in a year. Today's Prophecy Friday and our reading is the book of Malachi. I'm calling today's episode, “In the Valley”. Thank you so much for your patience yesterday and letting me take the day off. And I'll have an update on Kathi's condition later in the show. The show notes page for today's episode is at lifespringmedia.com/s12e331. My email address is steve@lifespringmedia.com. Let's get started.

MALACHI 1 (GNT) - 0:51  
Malachi, chapter 1. (1) This is the message that the Lord gave Malachi to tell the people of Israel.

(2) The Lord says to his people, “I have always loved you.”

But they reply, “How have you shown your love for us?”

The Lord answers, “Esau and Jacob were brothers, but I have loved Jacob and his descendants, (3) and have hated Esau and his descendants. I have devastated Esau's hill country and abandoned the land to jackals.”

(4) If Esau's descendants, the Edomites, say, “Our towns have been destroyed, but we will rebuild them,” then the Lord will reply, “Let them rebuild—I will tear them down again. People will call them ‘The evil country’ and ‘The nation with whom the Lord is angry forever.’”

(5) The people of Israel are going to see this with their own eyes, and they will say, “The Lord is mighty even outside the land of Israel!”

(6) The Lord Almighty says to the priests, “Children honor their parents, and servants honor their masters. I am your father—why don't you honor me? I am your master—why don't you respect me? You despise me, and yet you ask, ‘How have we despised you?’ (7) This is how—by offering worthless food on my altar. Then you ask, ‘How have we failed to respect you?’ I will tell you—by showing contempt for my altar. (8) When you bring a blind or sick or lame animal to sacrifice to me, do you think there's nothing wrong with that? Try giving an animal like that to the governor! Would he be pleased with you or grant you any favors?”

(9) Now, you priests, try asking God to be good to us. He will not answer your prayer, and it will be your fault. (10) The Lord Almighty says, “I wish one of you would close the Temple doors so as to prevent you from lighting useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you; I will not accept the offerings you bring me. (11) People from one end of the world to the other honor me. Everywhere they burn incense to me and offer acceptable sacrifices. All of them honor me! (12) But you dishonor me when you say that my altar is worthless and when you offer on it food that you despise. (13) You say, ‘How tired we are of all this!’ and you turn up your nose at me. As your offering to me you bring a stolen animal or one that is lame or sick. Do you think I will accept that from you? (14) A curse on the cheater who sacrifices a worthless animal to me, when he has in his flock a good animal that he promised to give me! For I am a great king, and people of all nations fear me.” 

MALACHI 2 (GNT) - 3:21  
Malachi, chapter 2. (1) The Lord Almighty says to the priests, “This command is for you: (2) You must honor me by what you do. If you will not listen to what I say, then I will bring a curse on you. I will put a curse on the things you receive for your support. In fact, I have already put a curse on them, because you do not take my command seriously. (3) I will punish your children and rub your faces in the dung of the animals you sacrifice—and you will be taken out to the dung heap. (4) Then you will know that I have given you this command, so that my covenant with the priests, the descendants of Levi, will not be broken.

(5) “In my covenant I promised them life and well-being, and this is what I gave them, so that they might respect me. In those days they did respect and fear me. (6) They taught what was right, not what was wrong. They lived in harmony with me; they not only did what was right themselves, but they also helped many others to stop doing evil. (7) It is the duty of priests to teach the true knowledge of God. People should go to them and learn my will, because they are the messengers of the Lord Almighty.

(8) “But now you priests have turned away from the right path. Your teaching has led many to do wrong. You have broken the covenant I made with you. (9) So I, in turn, will make the people of Israel despise you because you do not obey my will, and when you teach my people, you do not treat everyone alike.”

(10) Don't we all have the same father? Didn't the same God create us all? Then why do we break our promises to one another, and why do we despise the covenant that God made with our ancestors? (11) The people of Judah have broken their promise to God and done a horrible thing in Jerusalem and all over the country. They have defiled the Temple which the Lord loves. Men have married women who worship foreign gods. (12) May the Lord remove from the community of Israel those who did this, and never again let them participate in the offerings our nation brings to the Lord Almighty.

(13) This is another thing you do. You drown the Lord's altar with tears, weeping and wailing because he no longer accepts the offerings you bring him. (14) You ask why he no longer accepts them. It is because he knows you have broken your promise to the wife you married when you were young. She was your partner, and you have broken your promise to her, although you promised before God that you would be faithful to her. (15) Didn't God make you one body and spirit with her? What was his purpose in this? It was that you should have children who are truly God's people. So make sure that none of you breaks his promise to his wife. (16) “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel. “I hate it when one of you does such a cruel thing to his wife. Make sure that you do not break your promise to be faithful to your wife.”

(17) You have tired the Lord out with your talk. But you ask, “How have we tired him?” By saying, “The Lord Almighty thinks all evildoers are good; in fact he likes them.” Or by saying, “Where is the God who is supposed to be just?” 

MALACHI 3 (GNT) - 6:23  
Malachi, chapter 3. (1) The Lord Almighty answers, “I will send my messenger to prepare the way for me. Then the Lord you are looking for will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger you long to see will come and proclaim my covenant.”

(2) But who will be able to endure the day when he comes? Who will be able to survive when he appears? He will be like strong soap, like a fire that refines metal. (3) He will come to judge like one who refines and purifies silver. As a metalworker refines silver and gold, so the Lord's messenger will purify the priests, so that they will bring to the Lord the right kind of offerings. (4) Then the offerings which the people of Judah and Jerusalem bring to the Lord will be pleasing to him, as they used to be in the past.

(5) The Lord Almighty says, “I will appear among you to judge, and I will testify at once against those who practice magic, against adulterers, against those who give false testimony, those who cheat employees out of their wages, and those who take advantage of widows, orphans, and foreigners—against all who do not respect me.

(6) “I am the Lord, and I do not change. And so you, the descendants of Jacob, are not yet completely lost. (7) You, like your ancestors before you, have turned away from my laws and have not kept them. Turn back to me, and I will turn to you. But you ask, ‘What must we do to turn back to you?’ (8) I ask you, is it right for a person to cheat God? Of course not, yet you are cheating me. ‘How?’ you ask. In the matter of tithes and offerings. (9) A curse is on all of you because the whole nation is cheating me. (10) Bring the full amount of your tithes to the Temple, so that there will be plenty of food there. Put me to the test and you will see that I will open the windows of heaven and pour out on you in abundance all kinds of good things. (11) I will not let insects destroy your crops, and your grapevines will be loaded with grapes. (12) Then the people of all nations will call you happy, because your land will be a good place to live.

(13) “You have said terrible things about me,” says the Lord. “But you ask, ‘What have we said about you?’ (14) You have said, ‘It's useless to serve God. What's the use of doing what he says or of trying to show the Lord Almighty that we are sorry for what we have done? (15) As we see it, proud people are the ones who are happy. Evil people not only prosper, but they test God's patience with their evil deeds and get away with it.’”

(16) Then the people who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard what they said. In his presence, there was written down in a book a record of those who feared the Lord and respected him. (17) “They will be my people,” says the Lord Almighty. “On the day when I act, they will be my very own. I will be merciful to them as parents are merciful to the children who serve them. (18) Once again my people will see the difference between what happens to the righteous and to the wicked, to the person who serves me and the one who does not.” 

MALACHI 4 (GNT) - 9:19  
Malachi, chapter 4. (1) The Lord Almighty says, “The day is coming when all proud and evil people will burn like straw. On that day they will burn up, and there will be nothing left of them. (2) But for you who obey me, my saving power will rise on you like the sun and bring healing like the sun's rays. You will be as free and happy as calves let out of a stall. (3) On the day when I act, you will overcome the wicked, and they will be like dust under your feet.

(4) “Remember the teachings of my servant Moses, the laws and commands which I gave him at Mount Sinai for all the people of Israel to obey.

(5) “But before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes, I will send you the prophet Elijah. (6) He will bring fathers and children together again; otherwise I would have to come and destroy your country.”

COMMENTS - 10:11  
Malachi is another Old Testament prophet about whom we know very little. Here's what we do know. His name means “my angel”, and that's about it. Judaic tradition holds that Malachi was from the tribe of Zebulun, and that he did not live a very long life.

The message of the book of Malachi contains God’s charges against the people for the neglect of the rebuilt temple. You'll remember that the prophets Haggai and Zechariah brought reproof for the neglecting to build a temple and in Malachi's time the temple had been rebuilt, but now it's neglected.

Also, in this book, God charges them with profaning the temple by their behavior while they were there.

Now, there was a period of 400 years between Malachi and the birth of Jesus. And before beginning this period of silence, God used Malachi to speak more about the coming Messiah. And he told the people that his coming was close. Four hundred years might sound like a long time, but really in the scheme of things it's not, is it?

Now the second chapter of Malachi ends with this verse. (17) “You have tired the Lord out with your talk. But you ask, ‘How have we tired him?’ By saying, ‘The Lord Almighty thinks all evildoers are good; in fact he likes them.’ Or by asking, ‘Where is the God who is supposed to be just?’”

God's answers to these questions is in the first verse of chapter 3. Here's what it says: “The Lord Almighty answers, ‘I will send my messenger to prepare the way for me. Then the Lord you are looking for will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger you long to see will come and proclaim my covenant.’”

Who was the messenger of the Lord Almighty sent to prepare the way? You got it. John the Baptist. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all quoted this passage in pointing out that John's coming was prophesied, and that it was to prepare the way for Jesus the Messiah.

And notice again, the words of the verse “I will send my messenger to prepare the way *for me*.” Who was speaking? The Lord Almighty. I will send my messenger to prepare the way for *me*, not another prophet. God Himself would come to the temple, fulfilling the Old Covenant and establishing a New Covenant. A *New* Covenant. That covenant was what we call the Good News.

And then right after that, verses 2 through 5 speaks of the second messenger, judging and refining. This is referring to the Second Coming of Jesus. You see, most of the Old Testament prophets didn't see the separation of the two Advents, or Comings of Jesus. I've used this analogy before. In looking at a mountain range from a distance, you can't see the valleys between the peaks, the peaks are easy to see. And from a distance, they look as if they're the same distance away from you. You can't see the difference between them. Oftentimes, usually, as a matter of fact, there are miles between peaks with a valley separating them. And this is how the ancient prophets saw the coming of the Messiah. They just looked at the whole picture and didn't see that there was a separation between His first coming and his second coming. We, Beloved, we live in the valley. The first peek, that of Jesus’ First Coming is behind us. And his Second Coming is still ahead.

Also, in chapter 3 is a very unique verse. God tells the people that they're guilty of cheating or robbing from him. That's in verse 8. And then in the second part of verse 8, God says, (8b) “‘How?’ you ask. In the matter of tithes and offerings. (9) A curse is on all of you because the whole nation is cheating me. (10) Bring the full amount of your tithes to the Temple, so that there will be plenty of food there. Put me to the test and you will see that I will open the windows of heaven and pour out on you in abundance all kinds of good things. (11) I will not let insects destroy your crops, and your grapevines will be loaded with grapes.”

So what was unique about that? God said, “Put me to the test.” And not only that, the way he said it, it was a command. He said, “Test me. Bring your ties to the temple. Give as I command, and I will pour out my blessings in abundance. Go ahead and try me.” Beloved, there is no other place in Scripture that compares to this.

Now moving on to chapter 4. Finally, in this chapter, the people are reminded to keep the Mosaic law as they watch for the Messiah.

F. B. Meyer wrote the following couple of paragraphs in his commentary on Malachi. “In verse two it said, The ‘Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings’. At the end of the Old Testament, it is appropriate that the sun should break out. The morning that broke on Paradise was clear enough. It was without clouds. But the sky soon became dark, and at last veiled, with only here and there a chink of blue sky left. All through the dark succeeding centuries there have been gleams of sunshine to let men know that the sun was shining still. Every precious promise, every solemn type [or foreshadowing], every holy life, that was bathed in supernatural beauty, was like a shining forth of the sun through the bars of human darkness and sin. But evidently more was in store than the Old Testament saints had dreamed; and the time was coming when the reign of type, symbol, and parable would be succeeded by the clear vision of the face of God.

“We live in the days of open vision. Let us go forth and exalt. We are to rejoice in every good thing He gives us. As the young calves of the early spring manifest their exuberant life in their caperings and gambols in the pastures, so let us give expression to our joy. Exult because of the clear shining of God’s love: exult because the darkness is past, and the true light now shines: exult because He is coming again, as surely as he came once. Wake up, my soul, take psaltry and harp and sing. The Bridegroom is at hand. Hark! Are those his chariot wheels reverberating through the air? Even so! Lord Jesus, come quickly!”

So, yes, in Malachi, God gave a vision of the coming Messiah. In his first coming, he established the good news. And he's given all these years between then and he is Second Coming to bring all the people into the Kingdom who will come.

What do you think? Do you have a comment? Let me know go to lifespringmedia.com/s12e331. Tomorrow is gospel Saturday we'll read Acts 19 through 20.

Boost.

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER SHOUT-OUT - 17:12  
Kirsty is our Associate Producer today she came in with her monthly $20 donation. Kirsty, thank you. God bless you.

ON THIS DATE IN CHURCH HISTORY - 17:30  
On this date in church history, July 29, 1912, Clarence Jordan, the founder of Koinonia Farms in Americus, Georgia, was born. His Cotton Patch Gospel, published in four volumes from 1968 to '73 paraphrases the New Testament except for the Book of Revelation, in the Southern vernacular and setting. It really is quite unique.

PRAYER REQUESTS AND UPDATE - 18:02  
All right, prayer requests and an update. Here's the latest on Kathi. She is resting comfortably at Loma Linda University Medical Center, as I record this on Thursday evening. The bleeding that she had, and that caused the rush to the ER was in her esophagus. As of right now, they're not sure what caused it, but it might be from acid reflux. Obviously, because of her cancer, she takes a lot of different medications and she can't eat much. So that might be it. There's not a lot of food in her stomach to kind of help absorb the medicine. Today, she was given two units of blood, and at last word, her red blood cell count was up. So that's a good thing. It might even be possible for her to go home tomorrow. If not tomorrow, probably the next day. Now because she missed her first appointment to start the new cancer meds, they will probably need to do several retests before they can schedule a new start date. So thank you very much for your prayers and please keep them coming.

CLOSING PRAYER – 19:01
Let's pray. Our heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for causing us to be born when we were, in the valley between the two comings of Jesus, to look back at the cross and know that it happened, and to look forward to the Second Coming when you come back to right all the wrongs and to reign on Earth for a thousand years, well, Lord that gives us an assurance and an anticipation of that day. Lord, I thank you for the doctors who helped Kathi with the latest episode and I ask again for her healing. Help her to regain her strength before she starts the new medications. I pray, Lord, that You would bless Kathi and Del and, also, - their daughters have been so helpful in everything and I just pray that You would bless them and their husbands.

And Lord, I thank you for the Lifespring family. I pray that You would bless them. Keep them healthy, Lord, and keep them strong and hold them close to you. I pray this in Jesus name, amen.

If you have a prayer request or a praise go to prayer.lifespringmedia.com I'll pray for you in my private prayer time and we'll pray together on the show.

OUTRO S12E331 - 20:12  
Comment on the show at lifespringmedia.com/s12e331. Send an email to me at steve@lifespringmedia.com. Thanks to the team Kirsty, Sean of San Pedro and Denise. And another thanks to Kirsty for her donation today. I thank you, Beloved, for having me in your life today.

And until tomorrow, may God bless you richly. My name is Steve Webb.

Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai