2:10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? 11 Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. 12 May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob any descendant of the man who does this, who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts!
13 And this second thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. 14 But you say, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.“ 16 “For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”
17 You have wearied the Lord your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking,“Where is the God of justice?”
3:1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.”
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Being faithful is something we expect from the people around us. When someone says they will do something, we expect them to do it. When they make a promise, we expect them to keep it. It’s that simple. This is conventional wisdom: “If you say it, do it. If you’re not going to do it, don’t say it.”
Malachi is charging Israel with unfaithfulness. They promised to worship God, but they thought it would be ok to worship other gods along with Him. They made promises in personal relationships, but they thought it would be ok to break them if they changed their minds. They promised to follow God’s directions about how to live, but they decided that none of it really mattered because God would accept them no matter what they did.
Even though Israel was terribly unfaithful, Malachi’s message was that God would restore them. Though they were seriously mistaken in their beliefs and practices, God would send His messenger to them.
As humans, we would expect God to send a messenger to wipe out this unfaithful people. And He did use the armies of Assyria and Babylon to punish them for their sins by removing them from their land.
But, in the verses that follow Malachi 3:1, the prophet explains that the coming messenger would prepare the way for God Himself to come—not simply to judge and punish, but to refine and restore. That’s why Jesus came–to refine us by removing our sins and to restore us to right relationship with God. Praise God!