Malachi's Warning

You cry out, “Why doesn’t the Lord accept my worship?” I’ll tell you why! Because the Lord witnessed the vows you and your wife made when you were young. But you have been unfaithful to her, though she remained your faithful partner, the wife of your marriage vows. Didn’t the Lord make you one with your wife? In body and spirit you are his. And what does he want? Godly children from your union. So guard your heart; remain loyal to the wife of your youth. -- Malachi 2:14-15 NLT

Malachi was sent to a restored nation of Israel, but a nation still recovering from a total lack of spirituality. The nation as a whole had gone wrong and stopped following God and were conquered. Malachi was sent by God to give the restored Israelites fair warning that they needed to be obedient to God and also to foretell of the coming of Jesus. Israel was full of selfish, insincere people. The leadership was weak and divorce was rampant. Sound familiar???

The passage I've quoted is part of a bigger piece of Malachi's warning that not only talks about the sanctity of marriage but also about marrying with Godly intent instead of marrying for ourselves. A mate isn't someone we choose but rather someone God chooses for us. We're made into a new creation together as husband and wife with a Heavenly purpose. We're given the responsibility of creating "Godly children".

Statistics show that most of the divorces filed in the United States are filed by women, by almost a 4 to 1 margin over men. They also show that the younger a woman is when she gets married, the more likely she is to divorce. Lastly, the younger a woman has children also significantly affects the outcome of her marriage. This doesn't show that divorce is a woman's fault, it's just the way they draw their statistics. But what I think it does show is that we don't really stop to consider whether we're marrying the right person at the right time. We don't look for God's hand in our decision making. We just jump in and then three years down the road with a toddler on board, we stop and look around and wonder how the heck this could have happened and why the person we married is now so different.

So we are a generation of people for whom divorce is quite common, like the Israelites. We are a generation of people who's kids have not seen us pay attention to God like we should and have grown up not knowing Him like they should, just like the Israelites. We are a nation whose spirituality overall has fallen into deep decline, again, just like the Israelites.

In recent years, God has been busy making His voice heard more and more loudly. Obedience to Him is on the rise everywhere in the world except for here in America, but here in America He speaks to us as loudly as ever. He's in our TV shows and our movies...Christian radio stations keep gaining popularity. Dave Ramsey is telling us to be Godly with our money and to quit drowning in debt. As faith in God moves further and further into the back of the nation's conscience, God speaks increasingly clearly to us and what He is saying is exactly what He said through Malachi all of those generations ago.

It's time to wake up. It's time for obedience. It's time for us to fully love God and to be bold about sharing it. We need to share it with our youth in order to raise up a righteous generation. We need to share it with our peers because many of them have never experienced it.

Jesus is coming and judgment arrives with Him.

Then those who feared the Lord spoke with each other, and the Lord listened to what they said. In his presence, a scroll of remembrance was written to record the names of those who feared him and always thought about the honor of his name. “They will be my people,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “On the day when I act in judgment, they will be my own special treasure. I will spare them as a father spares an obedient child. Then you will again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.” -- Malachi 3:16-18 NLT