February 24, 2019

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Are you loving God back? The decisions you make today will impact the future. 

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• God is right beside us waiting for us to start listening and obeying, so that He can bless us as He has promised 

• Our job today is to love God back

• Make sure you are doing your part in the relationship

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• Malaki means messenger (516bc) 

• The Jews were commissioned to return to their land and rebuild the temple

• (485bc) Jews were strengthened by the arrival of Ezra

• (444bc) Nehemiah the cup bearer came and to build the walls and help the poor

• Keep the Sabbath

• (443bc) Nehemiah left and the Jews fell back to their sinful ways

• Malachi should be a warning to God's people today

• Why does God hate Esau?

  • Jacob and Esau - the twin sons of Isaac.

  • Esau  sold his birthright (God's inherent blessing) to Jacob for stew

  • Jacob stole Esau's blessing from his father

  • God changed Jacob's name to Israel

  • Esau was the father of the nation of Edom and plagued Isreal and was rightly punished for it

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Today's Scriptures:

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Malachi 1:1-5

A pronouncement:

The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.

2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord.

Yet you ask, “How have you loved us?”

“Wasn’t Esau Jacob’s brother?” This is the Lord’s declaration. “Even so, I loved Jacob, 3 but I hated Esau. I turned his mountains into a wasteland, and gave his inheritance to the desert jackals.”

4 Though Edom says: “We have been devastated, but we will rebuild the ruins,” the Lord of Armies says this: “They may build, but I will demolish. They will be called a wicked country and the people the Lord has cursed forever. 5 Your own eyes will see this, and you yourselves will say, ‘The Lord is great, even beyond the borders of Israel.’

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Ezra 7:17

Then you are to be diligent to buy with this money bulls, rams, and lambs, along with their grain and drink offerings, and offer them on the altar at the house of your God in Jerusalem.

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Nehemiah 10:31

When the surrounding peoples bring merchandise or any kind of grain to sell on the Sabbath day, we will not buy from them on the Sabbath or a holy day. We will also leave the land uncultivated in the seventh year and will cancel every debt.

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Obadiah 1

The vision of Obadiah.

This is what the Lord God has said about Edom:

We have heard a message from the Lord;
an envoy has been sent among the nations:
“Rise up, and let us go to war against her.”
2 Look, I will make you insignificant
among the nations;
you will be deeply despised.
3 Your arrogant heart has deceived you,
you who live in clefts of the rock
in your home on the heights,
who say to yourself,
“Who can bring me down to the ground?” 
4 Though you seem to soar like an eagle
and make your nest among the stars,
even from there I will bring you down.
This is the Lord’s declaration.

5 If thieves came to you,
if marauders by night—
how ravaged you would be!—
wouldn’t they steal only what they wanted?
If grape pickers came to you,
wouldn’t they leave some grapes?
6 How Esau will be pillaged,
his hidden treasures searched out!
7 Everyone who has a treaty with you
will drive you to the border;
everyone at peace with you
will deceive and conquer you.
Those who eat your bread
will set a trap for you.
He will be unaware of it.
8 In that day—
this is the Lord’s declaration—
will I not eliminate the wise ones of Edom
and those who understand
from the hill country of Esau?
9 Teman, your warriors will be terrified
so that everyone from the hill country of Esau
will be destroyed by slaughter.

Edom’s Sins against Judah

10 You will be covered with shame
and destroyed forever
because of violence done to your brother Jacob.
11 On the day you stood aloof,
on the day strangers captured his wealth,
while foreigners entered his city gate
and cast lots for Jerusalem,
you were just like one of them.
12 Do not gloat over your brother
in the day of his calamity;
do not rejoice over the people of Judah
in the day of their destruction;
do not boastfully mock
in the day of distress.
13 Do not enter my people’s city gate
in the day of their disaster.
Yes, you—do not gloat over their misery
in the day of their disaster,
and do not appropriate their possessions
in the day of their disaster.
14 Do not stand at the crossroads
to cut off their fugitives,
and do not hand over their survivors
in the day of distress.

Judgment of the Nations

15 For the day of the Lord is near,
against all the nations.
As you have done, it will be done to you;
what you deserve will return on your own head.
16 As you have drunk on my holy mountain,
so all the nations will drink continually.
They will drink and gulp down
and be as though they had never been.
17 But there will be a deliverance on Mount Zion,
and it will be holy;
the house of Jacob will dispossess
those who dispossessed them.
18 Then the house of Jacob will be a blazing fire,
and the house of Joseph, a burning flame,
but the house of Esau will be stubble;
Jacob will set them on fire and consume Edom.
Therefore no survivor will remain
of the house of Esau,
for the Lord has spoken.

Future Blessing for Israel

19 People from the Negev will possess
the hill country of Esau;
those from the Judean foothills will possess
the land of the Philistines.
They will possess
the territories of Ephraim and Samaria,
while Benjamin will possess Gilead.
20 The exiles of the Israelites who are in Halah
and who are among the Canaanites as far as Zarephath
as well as the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad
will possess the cities of the Negev.
21 Saviors will ascend Mount Zion
to rule over the hill country of Esau,
but the kingdom will be the Lord’s.