Malachi 3:15, commentary and pictures

Malachi 3:15 records defiant words against God charging that serving Him is vain and unprofitable, because the proud are counted happy while workers of wickedness are built up and those who put Him to the test escape unharmed. The speakers are disaffected professed believers who have turned from Him, the unconsecrated mingled with His people in every church and appearing especially when the world and the church unite against His law. Their complaint springs from spiritual blindness that judges His ways by human standards and outward appearances, revealing envy and an unsanctified heart instead of the humility and holiness wrought by the Holy Spirit. In its setting it is closely joined with withholding His tithe and offerings and using His entrusted goods for self, while still expecting blessing in His house, a course that brings curse, loss, and the hindering of His work. The seeming happiness, establishment, and deliverance of the proud and wicked will not endure, for He will make plain the difference between those who serve Him and those who do not, when the proud and evildoers become as stubble in the burning day and those who fear Him receive healing. The complaint stands immediately before its answer, when those who fear Him speak often together, He hearkens and hears, a book of remembrance is written for those who think upon His name, and they shall be His jewels whom He spares as a father spares his serving son.

Complaint and Its Setting

The verse records bold, defiant speech against God declaring that serving Him is empty and keeping His requirements and living in humble repentance before Him brings no gain, because the arrogant are counted fortunate, evildoers are established and prosper, and those who challenge God go free without harm. It is the complaint that obedience is futile since the proud seem happy, workers of wickedness appear built up, and tempters of God seem delivered from trouble. These claims stand in direct opposition to faithful stewardship of what God has entrusted and to those who reverence Him.

The speakers are professed believers who have become disaffected and turned away from God, the unconsecrated who have departed from Him and stand contrary to those who fear Him. They are found in every congregation where those who neither love truth nor honor God are mingled with God's people yet appear happy, established, and delivered. A company of the same spirit appears in the crisis when wicked men and the church unite in hostility to God's law, murmuring and complaining against Him.

Their words come from blinding by the enemy so that they cannot perceive God's ways and workings. They measure His acts by human standards and by outward appearances, concluding from the seeming prosperity of the wicked that He favors evildoers. Their spirit is unsanctified and envious rather than the humility and holiness wrought by the Holy Spirit, revealing failure to recognize His judgment and neglect of honest service and mercy.

In its setting the complaint arises from those who withhold tithes and offerings and devote God's entrusted goods to selfish use. It is the murmuring of robbers of God who still come to His house expecting blessing and wondering why they are not lifted up like others. Their adversity, loss, and calamity follow that disloyalty and hindering of His work, for misuse of what is His brings the very ruin blamed on Him, even to the permitting of the destroyer to injure crops.

The same attitude goes with dwelling on supposed advantages from worldly association and being drawn toward it. It accompanies worldly traffic within the church where sacred things are exchanged for selfish gain, so that ungodliness prevails. It expresses refusal to listen to God and determination to follow self-chosen plans, and it lives as the inward thought of many even where it is never uttered aloud.

By word and conduct such complainers dishonor God and foster evil in their own lives. They accuse Him by accusing His children, seeing no fault in themselves while finding much to condemn in others. Their disappointed outward display gives the world the false impression that the Christian life does not pay, presenting a false, dark picture of His character that discourages all who hear it.

Warning and Final Vindication

Malachi 3 stands as warning and instruction in righteousness for every soul, showing how God deals with those who disregard His requirements and still testing whether people will prove faithful servants. It calls His professed people, when turned into forbidden paths, to examine themselves and return to God, to consider His goodness and respond to His mercy, and to study and practice the third chapter through love and fear of Him by following out every specification in His Word. Loyalty is to be proved by honesty in dealings with the Lord and His work, by taking stand on His word and faithfully bringing all the tithes into His storehouse and treasury, so that His laborers are encouraged, more men give themselves to the ministry, His work is supported, and the gospel is sent throughout the world. The abundant supply in His treasury is hindered only when selfish hearts and hands use the tithe to support other lines of work.

Disregard of the plain claims of God set before men leaves them to follow their own way and reap the fruit of their doings. Appropriating to self the portion He has reserved proves unfaithful stewardship that brings His curse and sure visitation, for it leaves a person found committing robbery toward God, which cannot be afforded. Such withholding loses both what was withheld from God and what was committed as one's own, encourages self-indulgence, leaves His work undone, and forfeits His blessing and approval and the work needed to receive it. The complaint that serving God and keeping His ordinances bring no profit rises from those who withhold His tithes and offerings and use His entrusted goods selfishly, and their adversity, damaged crops, loss and calamity follow their disloyalty and hindering of His work. By contrast faithful obedience opens the windows of heaven with blessing without room to receive it.

The apparent happiness, establishment and deliverance of the proud and wicked does not last, though they are judged in the world to be greatly favored and their thoughts live in many even when the words are not spoken. God will make plain the difference between those who serve Him and those who do not, and the children of God who feared the Lord will be distinguished as those favored by God because they honored Him. The present mixture in every church, where wicked men who do not love the truth or honor God are mixed with His people and appear happy, established and delivered, requires a refining, winnowing process and transformation of character clothed with the righteousness of Christ. Soon it will be seen who are vessels unto honor, for they will receive the latter rain, while every soul continuing in sin under present light will be blinded and accept delusions from Satan. Then the righteous and the wicked, him that serves God and him that serves Him not, will be plainly discerned, when all the proud and all that do wickedly become stubble in the day that burns as an oven leaving neither root nor branch, but unto them that fear His name the Sun of Righteousness arises with healing in His wings.

The complaint stands immediately before its answer. Those who feared the Lord speak often to one another, the Lord hearkens and hears, and a book of remembrance is written for those who fear Him and think upon His name. They shall be His jewels in the day when He makes them up, He will spare them as a man spares his serving son, and then there will be return and discernment between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who serves Him not. The same chapter warns against being found robbing God in tithes and offerings while coming to His house expecting blessing and wondering why there is no exaltation, and calls for sincerity in serving Him, self-denial, and giving to advance His work.

The chapter's promises will be fulfilled. It is presented as a weighty lesson in which God weighs character and records human actions in heaven. It belongs to His lesson that true godliness is practical Christlike care for the poor and suffering as Christ cared for them, loosing wickedness, freeing the oppressed, feeding the hungry, bringing the poor into the house, clothing the naked, caring for orphans left unprovided for, and not hiding from one's own flesh, done by Christians and churches personally and not by proxy through institutions, with self-denial and self-sacrifice that shines as light in every Christian home and leads the ignorant to the source of all knowledge.