Selected from: The Presbyter, Series One, September 1878–August 1881, ed. Rev. Arthur Paul (Australia: Synod Archives, Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia, 1995), 108–117.
“Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts? And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.”—Malachi 3:13–18
Public actions and public men have always afforded abundant material for conversation. How prime ministers govern or misgovern, how men of business make fortunes or waste them, by what means one person has succeeded and for what reason another has failed—all the characters and all the doings of everyday life are discussed more or less wisely everywhere. Men claim the right to speak about persons and things, and to criticize and pass judgment according to their own wisdom or standard. At the corners of the streets, in clubrooms and in drawing rooms, precisely the same thing goes on. Over and above what concerns all, however, each class or gathering has matters to discuss that more or less worthily and more or less frequently interest themselves. Amongst persons of refinement, when the company consists of individuals who strongly hold different opinions about things, or who are not perhaps sufficiently known to each other, etiquette imposes a certain restraint; there is an enforced reticence on some points, with an occasional stiffness and formality. But when the company consists of kindred spirits, of those who are of the same mind in political, business, or religious matters, and who have thorough confidence in each other, then there is less reserve—a free and frank intercourse goes on, conversation is unhampered and free. In such circumstances especially, the subject matter of conversation and the spirit and manner of conversation will very frequently be an index—a reliable index—to the calling and character of the speakers; telling what most concerns them, and therefore telling also, in a way, what they are. So far conversation is a key to character. In this way, men’s thoughts are revealed, and the men themselves; and if the survey were large enough, the state of society and of social life in general would be known. Were the conversation or the gossip that goes on in the street, at the clubs, in our drawing rooms, on all manner of subjects, made public, so that all might see it, then very likely some strange and astounding revelations would be made even amongst us. It would never do to proclaim on the housetops some of these things we whisper in the ear in confidence. Amongst the children of Israel, too, people talked with each other, congenial groups of men in their confidential way. In the verses under consideration, the prophet Malachi introduces us to the men and the conversation of two groups, the characters and conversation of which were a perfect contrast. We may suppose that Malachi’s own message, and all that it bears upon, are the subject of conversation everywhere amongst them. The ungodly have their way of looking at things and criticizing; the godly have their way of looking at things around them too. And so we have here—
The ungodly and the godly contrasted by their conversation. The conversation in each case is coloured by the times and circumstances; but when the thoughts of their hearts are exposed, there is a remarkable difference.
Let us look briefly at both sides.
1. The Conversation of the Ungodly.
When the ungodly meet together and talk over things freely, they speak very boldly and impertinently. Already we have seen that the Lord was tired of their words. Their way of speaking was almost past endurance. Jehovah would not be able to stand it very much longer without interfering. And again, the charge is here made:“Your words have been stout,” or bold, or violent “against me.” No remonstrance has the least effect. They give no heed to the reproofs of the Lord’s messenger. They have some way of excusing themselves; and the more they are pressed, and the more that guilt and wrongdoing or shortcoming are brought home to them, the more they defend themselves, and become bold in speaking against God. “Your words have been bold against me, saith the Lord. That charge of Jehovah is met with the bold, impertinent, lying question, “What have we said against you?”
Then we have the substance of their talk set forth—words which show the utter callousness and hardness of the men, and their determination not to repent; words which show that, if they still believe that God is, they do not believe that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him; words which are enough to overcome God’s forbearance, so that he shall attempt no more to save them, but let them fill up the measure of iniquity to the full, and then come to judgment.
The conversation of these ungodly men, whether intentionally put so by Malachi or not, is a direct reply to the proposal of God to submit to be tried. Malachi’s charge of sin, his exhortation to repentance, and his proposal of an experiment—the whole condition of things—has been talked over by them, and their conclusion is, “It is vain to serve God.” What do we gain by doing that?
It is not difficult to see how they reach that conclusion. “Malachi charges us,” they might say, “with not keeping God’s ordinances. Well, but we did keep his ordinances; we observed his commandments, and statutes, and laws; we gave obedience to the revelations and instructions of God; we have done what he says we are not doing now, and what better were we for so doing? What profit is it that we have kept his ordinances?”
“Yes,” says another, “and he bids us repent. ‘Return unto me and I will return to you,’ is God’s message to us,” he says. “But we have done that before. We have turned back to God when he complained of us. We have fasted and put on sackcloth, as he desired us, before now. We have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts. We have done all he is bidding us do now, and it did no good. What gain was it to know that we repented and walked mournfully? No, no; it is vain to serve God. The proud, who are heedless of these things, and are above serving God, are not troubled with consciences; the proud are the happy men; the workers of wickedness are the men who get on! We have but to look around, and see with our own eyes that men who serve God, and who hang their heads like bulrushes, and go lamenting about sin and shortcoming, and are scrupulous about everything, do not get on after all, but the very reverse; for we have tried it. We all agree it is utterly useless and vain to serve God.”
“Malachi, too, charges us with robbery for keeping back tithes—robbery of God; and he proposes that we prove God by being honest in that! I wonder if that prophet takes us for fools. Prove God that way! Not at all. He can be proved another way, if he wants to appear the righteous God of judgment. Wicked men are doing wickedly, and they are not hurt at all; they get on the better rather. We hold that is experiment enough. These men are tempting God, and trying God, and proving God, and they escape. There can be no doubt about it, and we have made up our minds about it. It is vain to serve God.”
Such are the thoughts and the words of the ungodly, as presented to us in substance. Bold enough words they are, sufficient to overcome God, so that he might let them alone till the judgment comes; for nothing more can be said after that, except to announce, “Behold, the day cometh!”
Now, the prosperity of the wicked, to which these men refer, is a matter often referred to in Scripture, and often observed still. It has always puzzled, or seemed to puzzle, a good many; and if it is making sceptics or infidels amongst the Israelites, that is nothing singular either. Unthinking, unconverted men have often made and still make that a reason for scepticism and infidelity, avowed or practical; for infidels must have some plausible excuse for being so. To be an infidel is not a natural thing, any more than to be a Christian. To be a Christian, a man needs to be converted. To be an infidel, a man needs to abide unconverted, and resist all tendencies to conversion, and find one or other of many excuses, plausible but unreasonable, for indifference, scorn, and infidelity; he needs to shut his eyes to facts, and to build his no-faith on fictions.
This matter of the prosperity of the wicked, which is sometimes (not always, and that is important, only sometimes) seen, we are not to discuss at present, nor yet the false reasoning which abounds in the bold talk of the ungodly. Let us simply notice one mistake on which the whole proceeds. It is this—religion, or the fear of God, is reckoned simply as a piece of ordinary trade or business speculation. When they say they walked mournfully and kept God’s ordinances, that is the whole idea they have of it. Religion helped or hindered their money-making power—that was all they thought of it. Does it pay? What profit is it? What gain does it fetch? Malachi found fault with their offerings as stolen or inferior, religion itself as cheap as possible. But even if the offerings had been all right, it was still as a paying concern the whole was gone about. If they thought it would pay them, these men would serve God, they say, they think it is better to ignore God, so far as getting on is concerned. Hence they say, “It is vain, unprofitable, to serve God.”
It never seems to have struck these men—or it suited them to overlook the fact—that they were not religious at all in so pretending to serve God. Althought Isaiah and others had denounced all such trafficking in religion as useless, and although the book of Job is a long protest that that is the devil’s estimate of religion, and the estimate of unthinking, ungodly men, but not the estimate of God and the godly—although they might have known all that, they argue as if the Father’s house were a house of merchandise, and religion simply a means of gain. “Does Job serve God for nothing?” says Satan. “We at least shall not serve God for nothing,” is what these Israelites here virtually say. We know better than that. Utterly irreligious unbelievers they! Their whole ideas of religion or serving God are money—of religion, real service of God, notwithstanding all their talk about it, as yet they know nothing.
Many are irreligious today because they can go on as well without it sometimes, and because men honour those whom God does not honour; and many more are religious because it profits. Are any of us religious because we get on better with it? Then all our religion is hateful in God’s sight. These others and we are alike unprincipled; and we as well as they are ungodly men.
2. The Conversation of the Godly.
“They that feared the Lord spake often one to another”
Malachi 3:16
This is the first time that Malachi introduces to our notice the godly remnant in Israel. It is a faithful few amongst the faithless mass; a faithful minority, not, perhaps, much accounted of amongst the unfaithful majority.
The state of the community, the reproofs of the prophet, the bold indifference of the ungodly, and their sceptical infidel talk—all these things must have pained the godly few. They met together and conversed about things also. They met by themselves, separate from the others, and conversed by themselves. They saw the prosperity of the wicked and the adversity of the righteous, just as well as these others, but they had a very different way of speaking regarding them. Maybe they had their difficulties, but they would listen to the word of the prophet, and lay to heart the teachings of God. Very profitable and very edifying must the converse of these men have been—all the more so if Malachi were one of their number. He knew the little godly band. He and they stood together. They helped each other in their thoughts of happiness, and prosperity, and religion. Their conversation, though not recorded, we may be sure, would be contradictory of the statements of the ungodly. They feared the Lord; they believed God’s word; they meditated in his law. They looked to the end, and understood something of the prosperity of the wicked and the adversity of the righteous, other than those mercenary religionists. Religion was no mere speculation for profit with them. Whatever might happen, they cleaved to the Lord and feared his name.
Possibly these God-fearing few did as Paul bids the godly men of his time do—spake to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. And so it has been well suggested that some of those very psalms which give the lie to the bold words of the godless, were the subject of their study and conversation. “Blessed is everyone that feareth the Lord, that walketh in his ways.”
“They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Sion. . . .The rod of the wicked shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous.” “Many say, who will show us good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.” “Offer the sacrifice of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord.” “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.” With these and many other such like words the godly few might encourage and comfort each other and abide. Religion with them was no mere cloak or profession. Whether it pays or profits, so far as the world counts gain, is a thing they never ask. They cleave to the Lord with full purpose of heart. However, it may befall them, they fear the Lord. In all circumstances, their thoughts are towards God; they believe and know that always “Blessed is the man that trusteth in him.”
If that be anything like a correct picture of the conversation of the little gatherings of them that feared the Lord, then it is very evident that the subject matter of their conversation, and the spirit of it, were, like themselves, a perfect contrast to those of the others. When the ungodly were talking in their wearisome and defiant and infidel way, the godly spake to each other also. And the Lord was never wearied of their words, nor offended at the spirit they displayed. To them, the Lord hearkened.
It is quite evident that those who feared God were a class by themselves, separate from the rest, and, likely enough, depised by the other. They did not very much obtrude themselves on public notice, but they were known for all that, and their very separate and different way of speaking and acting was influential. If we could parallel the classes referred to here by classes amongst us, the failings amongst them would be the same as the failings amongst ourselves. You would have a great mass of worldliness and professors on the one hand, and a little godly band of despised Christians on the other. Of course, the one class despised the other. These few were so narrow and so censorious, and always standing aloof from the gay, and the crowded, and the popular gatherings. These poor narrow fearers of God leave these so many popular things to be the talk and admiration of the great mass of a mixed multitude of well-known worldlings and formal deep religionists. Of course, the men who really fear God were despised by the ungodly, the formal religionists, in Israel. And do not let us make a mistake about it; godly men are despised by the greater half of the world today yet, and counted miserably narrow. The really godly are conspicuously different from others, different in life and conversation.
Here again too, there is a beautiful unity. Amongst the ungodly, the priests were by themselves and the people by themselves, and you have classes kept separate. Amongst us too, classes are kept separate. Scepticism is first the talk of the clubs and the societies of the great and rich; then it creeps down to the lower classes, from whom the others studiously keep separate. But real religion unifies into a band the godly. Formal religion, fashionable religion, like irreligion, lets each class stand on its dignity, and keeps others beneath at a distance. They that fear the Lord can meet, and meet as brethren. Class religion—religion that does not bring all classes into harmony together and make all feel akin—make what you like of it, is a religion not known in Scripture, and not known in heaven, and hardly worth having on earth. With so much in common to speak about, and so much in common to do, they that fear the Lord converse together—converse together in a way that attracts the ear and memory of God.
The godly few are despised of men, but the Lord esteems them. Their words are hateful to men, but the Lord listens to them. The worldly refuse to have them, but the Lord has them in everlasting remembrance. They thought on him, and he eternally thinks on them. And when the day of judgment comes—in that day which I make, or appoint, says the Lord, they shall be a possesion to me. They shall be to me then what Israel was always meant to be, my eternal possession. When others are destroyed, I will spare them. I will no more cast out or destroy them than a man would cast out or destroy his faithfully-serving son. Then they shall be mine, and none shall pluck them out of my hand for ever. Wait till that day, the day of the Lord, then you shall see what you have seen before—then again you shall see a difference between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
Such then is the contrast between the godly and the ungodly, specially as manifested by their words or conversation; and such the esteem in which God holds them. Let us refer to this one point in closing—
There is a difference between him that serves God and him that serveth Him not.
Serving God and serving him not—that takes in all of us, and indicates a decided difference. But the difference it not always very apparent. Hence we need to remember the fact that there is a difference; there is a difference now, whether it be seen or not, and there is a day coming when all will see a difference, for God shall point it out. That day, observe, is not to make the first difference so much as to let it be seen.
For whether we blot out the difference or not, the Lord always sees it. And he never changes the differentiating element. And when the day of the Lord comes, all shall see the difference; and that great mixed multitude too, as well as the despised few. We make little difference between righteous and wicked, but the Lord separates them far. We mix up servants of God with others, but the day of the Lord shall be a sifting day, and all men shall see the difference. It is a wilful mixing up here; it is a wicked mixing up here; it is a bold, God-provoking thing to make so very little difference here, as if it were all the same whether men served God or not, as if here it were vain to serve God. Then let those that serve God stand on the one side by themselves, and let fashionable, time-serving, formal professors go with the enemies of the cross of Christ. Let God’s and Christ’s gather by themselves, and have their converse well-pleasing to the mindful God; and let others defy God by themselves, and weary and provoke Him by their deeds and their words. “Come out and be separate” before it be too late, lest when the Lord comes, it turn out that you be none of His. Let all who fear God, all who are converted ones, all who serve God, take note; yea, let all men take note that there is a difference now, and there will be a fearful difference then, between those who are Christ’s and others. No more difference in the persons or numbers then than now, but the difference, unseen now, will then be exposed to the view of all.
— Abridged from the Presbyterian Monthly.
