Malachi shows us what a cold heart looks like. What it looked like in his day and what it looks like today. Now I want you to ask yourself this question as I’ve been asking it of myself in preparation. Are there any signs in my heart that I might be growing cold? Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. I’m David Pick and Colin, there may be a lot of people like us listening and to be honest, many of us probably do sometimes feel as if our hearts grow a bit cold, a bit hard at times. That’s pretty common, isn’t it? Oh, absolutely. And if you are feeling discouraged today, I’m just so glad that you’re listening. We’re going to be looking at a marvellous passage of scripture that speaks to discouraged believers. And there are times, you know, when we become discouraged in serving the Lord, we might even find ourselves asking, is it really worth it? And that’s exactly the situation that believers were in back in the time of Malachi when they found that wicked people seemed to be winning and God didn’t seem to do much to stop them. And God’s people were really struggling and God didn’t seem to be doing much to help them. And maybe you feel like that. You say, well, what’s God doing to help me? What’s God doing to stop the advance of things that are against the ways of his kingdom and of his word? And you struggle and you get discouraged and you say, well, is it worth it? Well, if you’ve ever asked, is it worth it? Today, we’re going to get the answer from the book of Malachi. It is always worth serving the Lord. And I hope that your heart is really going to be encouraged as you listen to the word of God today. Well, as you’ve heard, we’re in the book of Malachi. It’s easy to find. It’s the very last book of the Old Testament. So I hope you’ll be able to join us there as we begin our message called God Hears. Here’s Colin. We’re looking at the last book of the Old Testament, the book of Malachi. So please open your Bible at Malachi chapter three and verse 16, where we read these remarkable words. Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them. Now, I realize that this may be a less familiar part of the Bible for some of us. And so I want to give you briefly a rough timeline that will help you to know where we are in the Bible story. And I think this will also help you to see how the book of Malachi speaks to us today. Now, God’s people went into exile 586 years before our Lord Jesus was born into the world. Now, some went into exile before that time, but that was the date when Jerusalem, the city of God, was destroyed and God’s people were deported to Babylon. It was about 50 years after that that the first exiles returned to rebuild the city of Jerusalem. They came back under the leadership of a man by the name of Zerubbabel. I always remember his name because Zerubbabel was the man who had to deal with the rubble. That’s what he came back to. He came back to a destroyed city and people began by building their homes. You can imagine the excitement. Here were people of faith. They were returning to rebuild the city of God. God’s people doing God’s work in God’s world. And they went at it. They rebuilt homes and established a new community. But guess what? After their homes were rebuilt, well, it seems that they pretty much got stuck. The enthusiasm of the return waned. That’s when God sent the prophet Haggai. He called on God’s people to rebuild the temple. He said, you’re living in marvelous paneled homes, but the house of God lies still ruined and needs to be rebuilt. Then God sent the prophet Zechariah who spoke about a glorious messianic age. The Lord will be king over all the earth, Zechariah said. Rejoice, Jerusalem. Your king will come to you. He’ll be riding on a donkey. Well, that got people going in the work of rebuilding the temple, and that work was completed about 20 years later. But after the rebuilding of the temple, God’s people seemed to get stuck again. The homes were built, the temple was rebuilt, but the walls around the city were still a pile of rubble. They were lying in ruins. And as often happens after a major project where God’s people had given for the rebuilding of the temple and they had worked and they had extended themselves, well, it seems there just wasn’t the energy or the will to undertake another major project. And that’s how it was for decades. About 60 years later, a second wave of God’s people returned to Jerusalem, this time under the leadership of a man by the name of Ezra. And when Ezra arrived, he found the faith of God’s people to be at a really low ebb. So he established a ministry of the word of God. He was a Bible teacher and he called people to repentance. And then about 10 years after that, a third wave of settlers came back to the city of Jerusalem, this time under the leadership of a man by the name of Nehemiah. And he was the one who saw that the walls were in ruins and God stirred up his heart to lead the people in rebuilding the walls of the city. Now, the prophecy of Malachi that we’re going to spend these next three weeks in comes from the time of Nehemiah. This is 80 years after the rebuilding of the temple. So think about it. By the time of Malachi, the rebuilding of the temple was as far behind the people of that generation as the Second World War is behind us today. By the time of Malachi, most of the people who had been involved in rebuilding the temple, those who had sacrificed and given commitment to that, they would all have been gone. Their children would be seniors. Their grandchildren would be in midlife. So we’re talking now about the third, the fourth, and the fifth generation of life in the new community. And the promised king has not appeared. And the messianic age has not begun or dawned. And there’s a mood of discouragement that has settled over the people of God. There’s a growing skepticism even about the word of God. And about the promises of God. And it’s pulling people towards a growing unbelief. But at that time, as always, there were some who remained faithful. And at the end of Malachi, after God has spoken into the discouragement and the unbelief that was growing widely in these days, God speaks some wonderful words of encouragement for faithful believers. I want us to see two things today. What faithful believers face and what faithful believers do. And I’m using the present tense because what faithful believers faced then and what faithful believers did then is exactly what faithful believers are facing today and therefore exactly what we must also do today. What believers face. Now in Malachi’s day and tragically in our day too, believers face disappointment with leaders. The first responsibility of any leader is always to be an example to the people that he or she leads. This is true in every area of leadership. It’s true of every parent. Your first responsibility as a parent is to be a godly example to your children. It’s true of every small group leader, of every elder, of every board member, of every pastor, of every ministry leader. And in Old Testament times, the priests were called to lead. And God says of them in chapter 2 and verse 7 and 8, the lips of a priest should guard knowledge and people should seek instruction from his mouth for he is a messenger from the Lord. But you, you, God says to the priests of Malachi’s day, you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts. So here are leaders who are trusted with the very word of God, but some of them have turned aside from the way. And the result of that is that many people have been caused to stumble. Now, I wish with all my heart, friends, that the application of this truth from Malachi to us today was not so obvious, but it is. Disappointment with leaders who have turned aside from the way has eroded the faith of many. What faithful believers face, we face disappointment with leaders. We face something else today that is exactly the same as was experienced in the days of Malachi, and that is the disruption of worship. I’ve been very struck by this. If you look at the book of Nehemiah, and remember Nehemiah and Malachi are from the same time, you’ll see that Nehemiah says in chapter 13, in those days, I saw in Judah people treading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in heaps of grain and loading them on donkeys and also wine and grapes and figs and all kinds of loads, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. And Nehemiah says, and I warned them. I warned them. Now, you see what is happening here, and its application is very obvious for us today. The normal routine for God’s people was that work would cease on a Friday evening, and for the next 24 hours through to the Saturday evening, they would enjoy a Sabbath to the Lord. The Sabbath was really a window in time to strengthen the grip of God’s people on the realities of eternity. And at the center of the Sabbath, of course, was the gathering of the Lord’s people for worship. But what Nehemiah is telling us is that in the time of Malachi, the Sabbath had become just another day of trading, a day just like other days. Worship continued, of course, but it had to be fitted in beside the unrelenting demands of life. And Nehemiah says, I warned them. Now, again, I wish that the application of the theme of disruption to the normal routine of worship was not so obvious, but it is. Our normal pattern of worship has been disrupted. Now, put these things together, disappointment with leaders, disruption to the normal pattern of worship, and you have the background to the main theme of the book of Malachi that’s before us today, and that is a growing coldness of heart. Now, speaking of the last days, our Lord Jesus Christ said this, the love of many will grow cold. Take that in, Jesus said it. The love of many will grow cold. And that’s exactly what was happening in Malachi’s day, and he describes what coldness of heart actually looks like. In fact, just to give you an overview of the book as a whole, it has six sections. In each of them, God speaks, and when God speaks, his people speak back and answer him, resisting what he said. It’s like an unresolved argument, and it goes on until it It’s like an unresolved argument, and it goes on until it becomes very clear that people who once professed faith are now cold and resistant towards God and are sliding into unbelief. Malachi shows us what a cold heart looks like. We’re going to pause the message there briefly. You’re listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and the message, God Hears. And don’t forget, if you ever miss the message, or if you tuned in late and missed the beginning, you can always go online to catch up or go back and listen again. Come to our website, that’s openthebible.org.uk. Back to the message now, here’s Colin. Malachi shows us what a cold heart looks like. What it looked like in his day, and what it looks like today. Let me just run through so you get a sense of the overview of the book, and I want you to ask yourself this question, as I’ve been asking it of myself in preparation. Are there any signs in my heart that I might be growing cold? What does coldness of heart look like? Well, a cold heart is distant from God. The beginning of the book, chapter 1 in verse 2, God says, I have loved you, says the Lord. What a wonderful statement that is. God says, I have loved you. But you notice the response of the people, but you say, how have you loved us? How have you loved us? Here are people who professed faith, and yet they no longer believe that God loves them. The love of God is like a blazing fire on a winter’s day, and scripture calls us to keep ourselves in the love of God. But a cold heart is a heart that has moved far from the warming fire of God’s love. And then a cold heart is formal in worship. Describing worship in chapter 1 in verse 13, God tells us this, that he says, you say, what a weariness this is. Now think about it. Here are people who profess faith, and they come to worship, but it has all become a matter of duty. They say, well, now what a weariness this is. Do we have to do this? They’d be doing it for years, and they’re tired of it. Worship had become a matter of routine, and their hearts were no longer in it. Thirdly, Malachi makes clear that when the heart grows cold, there is increasing carelessness in marriage. Chapter 2 in verse 15, guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. See, if your heart becomes cold towards God, other people will feel the chill. And the people who will feel it first and most are those who God has placed the closest to you. And then another sign of a cold heart is that a cold heart is persistent in complaint. Chapter 2 in verse 17, you have wearied the Lord with your words. With your words. A cold heart is a complaining heart, and God says, I’m tired of it. I’m tired of hearing people who profess to believe doing nothing but complaining about what I say and what I do. You have wearied the Lord with your words. And then a cold heart is one that is reluctant in prayer and in giving. If you look at chapter 3, that’s the main theme of the whole of that section. And in the middle of it, God says, return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, how shall we return? What an amazing invitation this is, that Almighty God should say, return to me. But here are people who, though they had professed to believe, show no interest whatsoever in drawing near to the living God. And then sixthly, a cold heart is disinterested in service. Chapter 3 and verse 13, your words, God says, have been hard against me. But you say, how have we spoken against you? You have said, it is vain to serve the Lord. Again, here are people who had professed faith. They’re sliding gradually into unbelief. And one of the marks of this is that they have come to conclude that the cost of commitment is no longer really worth it. I mean, if God’s people get sick and get bereaved the same as everyone else, if God’s people lose their jobs the same as everyone else, if God seems to prosper the wicked like he prospers the righteous, what exactly is the point? Now, friends, put all this together, and I think that you have a precise description of the challenge facing believers today. Believers have endured disappointment from leaders who were called to be examples to the flock, but whose lives turned out to be inconsistent with what they professed. Our normal rhythm of worship has been disrupted. We live in a cold climate in which the chilling winds of skepticism and unbelief are blowing all around us. And in Malachi’s day, that led to a massive falling away from faith. Friends, I am no prophet, but I believe that many will face precisely the same challenges as were faced in the days of Malachi. That disappointment with leaders and the disruption of worship will lead to the hearts of many growing cold, and perhaps the greatest danger that you will face in this year is that your heart will grow cold. This part of the Bible speaks directly to us, but here’s the question. When there’s disappointment in leaders, when there’s disruption to worship, and when there are chilling winds of unbelief that are blowing all around us, what do faithful believers do? We’ve got to pause the message there, but we’ll come back to it next time. The message is called God Hears, and it’s part of our series Encouragement for Faithful Believers. Don’t forget if you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or if you want to go back and listen again, you can do that by going to our website. Come to openthebible.org.uk, or if it’s more convenient to you, you can find it as a podcast. Go to your favorite podcast site, search for Open the Bible UK, and subscribe to receive regular updates. Open the Bible is supported by our listeners. That’s people just like you. And this month, if you’re able to begin supporting us with a new donation in the amount of £5 per month or more, we’d love to send you a free gift. It’s an Advent devotional, and it’s called The Coming of the King by J.C. Ryle. Colin, what makes this book so special? Oh, two things. The first would be its theme. It’s all about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, or rather, I should say, the comings of the Lord Jesus Christ, because it is both about his first coming that we celebrate at Christmas and about his second coming that we anticipate with hope and with joy. So a book that just focuses us on the coming of Jesus is going to be a blessing. And the second reason that it is a marvellous book is its author, Bishop J.C. Ryle. He was a bishop in the Church of England in the 19th century. He is one of my favourite authors, all-time favorite authors, and especially in regards to the Gospels. He has some marvellous books on the four Gospels. And this little book, The Twenty-Five Readings for Advent, The Coming of the King, is selected from Ryle’s writings on the Gospels. They’re simple, they’re clear, they’re beautiful, they shine the light on the Lord Jesus Christ, they’re faith-building, they’re refreshing, and you will enjoy reading this little book during Advent. Well, we’d like to send you this book as our way of saying thank you for your financial support this month in setting up a new monthly donation for £5 per month or more. Full details on our website, that’s openthebible.org.uk. For Open the Bible and Pastor Colin Smith, I’m David Pick, and I very much hope you’ll join us again soon. There are six signs in the book of Malachi that a person’s heart is growing cold. Find out what they are next time on Open the Bible. you