God's Holy Institution

I wonder if you've ever found yourself in that situation where someone you love is making a choice or a decision that will have very serious ramifications and consequences in their life. And especially when you can see how negative those consequences would be and yet they seem completely oblivious. It's one of the most difficult and painful experiences that we have. Certainly if you are a parent, you've likely felt this with your children. Especially as they grow up, they begin to make choices for themselves that determine the trajectory of their lives. And you feel this deep desire to convey to them the seriousness of how some of these choices will influence their future and others and their relationship with the Lord. And certainly for me as a pastor, I think one of the hardest things is working and pouring yourself out and knowing someone that makes very unwise decisions, that is going through hard things and rather than turning to the Lord and trusting his word and walking in obedience, chooses sin. and thinks that indulging that sin will ease the pain that they feel, will bring them to the place that they want to be. And they think, well, I can deal with it later. But you can see, no, no, no, this is like train tracks, and it's like where there's the two paths that just slowly diverge, and yet, once the train goes on the wrong path, you can see the destination is radically different. And among those decisions in our lives, perhaps. One of the most, if not the most, is that decision, whom will you marry? Who will you unite yourself to for life? Who will you make that covenant with? And this is very much the situation that Malachi, the prophet, finds himself in as he looks out on his fellow Israelites. And he sees them struggling. This is a hard time. The nation has been exiled, and by the grace of God, people have started returning to the land. They were able to rebuild the temple and perhaps 50 or 60 years have passed. We know that Malachi is prophesying sometime around the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. So, but there was about 60 years between the rebuilding of the temple and the time Ezra comes and then Nehemiah comes to rebuild the walls. And during this time, it's hard. I mean, there are, you know, the Jews are coming back from exile. They have nothing. They're entering into a land that's full of foreign inhabitants. They're poor. These inhabitants are by and large antagonistic to them. And there is a great deal of pressure to do things like intermarry with them. They come back and they're saying, yeah, just join with us. And for the Jews to say no, we are going to obey God, We are not going to intermarry, we are gonna be holy and set apart to the Lord. You can imagine the kind of friction this creates. The kind of difficulty this would lead them in. You may remember when they were rebuilding the temple and Zerubbabel is there leading that charge and some of the people of the land came and said, hey, can we build the temple with you? And Zerubbabel and Joshua responded, no, you have no part in this. You worship and serve other gods. You may not help us build a temple to the Lord. And the people responded by immediately seeking to oppose them. And that situation has continued to this day. You know, in this time, there's guys like Sanbalat and Tobiah. You may remember them from the book of Nehemiah and how they are enemies opposing the work of the wall. And there is a serious intermarriage problem. We know from Ezra and Nehemiah that there were people of the people, of the priests, of the officers, all elements of society, people have intermarried. In fact, one of the things Ezra does is he too speaks about the evil of this and he insists on there being divorces. And there were many of these illegitimate unions were then broken off and divorce happened. And it took, there were so many, it took three months to go through the legal proceedings to separate all of the Israelites who had married foreigners. And what Malachi is saying here as we come into this text. He's burdened because of this sin, the way that the people in the midst of their hardship and their affliction, on one hand, they're bringing sacrifices to God. They're saying, yes, we're not gonna serve idols, we're gonna serve the Lord. And yet on the other hand, they're not really willing to fully trust God. And there's still areas of obvious sin in their life. You may remember in the second, last sermon on Malachi, in the second disputation, they're bringing sacrifices to God, but they're bringing blind, lame, sick animals as their sacrifices. After this, we'll read about the way that they're bringing tithes and offerings, and yet they're not bringing enough. They're not bringing the full tithe. They're short-changing, they're robbing God. And we know that their attitude toward God is they're saying, you know, God, do you really love us? How then have you loved us, oh God? Where's the evidence? And so this is the situation of lukewarm worship. And what Malachi is trying to do here is he is trying to press upon them to consider the seriousness of their sin. That it doesn't matter how widespread. The fact that everybody else is doing it too, that doesn't matter. The fact that they're poor, that doesn't matter. The fact that they have need, that doesn't matter. What matters is will they trust the Lord enough to obey him and his word? And if they will trust the Lord, the Lord will provide for them. He will be good to them. He will care for them. But if they go on pretending that they trust the Lord, but really by their action showing that no, they don't. The end of that will be destruction. And Malachi here goes through and he talks about the harm this is going to bring to others, the harm it brings to God, the harm it will bring to themselves. And that's what he's going to focus on. So as we look more closely now at Malachi chapter 2 verses 10 to 16, just a reminder, this is the third of six disputations in the book of Malachi. And so in each one of these disputations, there's this basic structure where there's this assertion made by God. Then there's questioning by Israel, then there's a response by God, and then there are implications of that. And so in the first disputation, they're skeptical of God's love. In the second disputation, the priests are offering these defiled sacrifices. And now here in this disputation, the issue is their marriage practices, both whom they are marrying and then how they're treating the one they marry. And the whole book, it's all about worship. We need to see that the first one is their worship with regard to their attitude toward God. The second disputation is their worship with regard to their religious activity and behavior. And now here, it's their worship with regard to their interpersonal relationships. And we should take note that worship involves all of those things. Our whole life is about worship. Now, This disputation, it does follow that basic structure of an assertion, questioning, response, and implication. You see the assertion in verses 10 through 13. Then there's the questioning in verse 14, where they say, why does he not, why is God not accepting our sacrifices and offerings? And then there's the response, also in verse 14, where Malachi says, because the Lord was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless. And then in verses 15 and 16, there's the implication. And yet, I don't think that's the only structure that Malachi has in mind as he lays out his argument here. You'll notice in verse 13, there's a very important transition. It says, and this second thing you do. And basically these seven verses, you could look at the first three, verses 10 through 12. And it's all about the issue of marrying the daughter of a foreign God. It's about being, you know, a follower of Yahweh and marrying someone who is an idolater, who worships a different God. Then the second half from verse 13 to 16 is about the issue of being faithless to the wife of your youth. So this would include divorce, but it's just about general faithlessness to the marriage covenant. So again, half of it is about whom you marry, the second half is about how you treat the one you're with. And the other thing I want you to notice, if you look at verse 12, it's about being cut off from the presence of the Lord and having your offerings rejected. Then if you look at verse 13, it's also about offerings being rejected and being cut off from the favor of the Lord. Then if you look at verse 11, it identifies the specific sin of marrying the daughter of a foreign God. And then if you look at verse 14, It identifies the specific sin of being faithless to the wife of your youth. And then if you look at verse 10, it's about one father and one God and faithlessness to one another regarding the covenant community. And then if you look over at verses 15 and 16, it's about being made one. And what the one God was seeking. And about God the offspring, again referring to the covenant community. And what I want you to see here is this is what's called a chiastic structure. Where what Malachi has done is basically he's laid out a sequence of ideas and then he's repeating them in reverse order. And what he's doing is he's, one, he's emphasizing his point, because he's saying everything twice. But secondly, with the first half being about the sin of marrying idolaters, and then the second half being about the sin of being faithless to your wife, he's showing that these two things are parallel. And in both cases, he's trying to show how devastating these sins are. And what he's trying to do is help us see, the better you understand the evil of one of these things, the better you're going to understand the evil of the other. So with that introduction, let's now turn to the first half. We're gonna look at verses 10 through 12, and this is the issue of whom you marry. Whom you marry, so picking up in verse 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? 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. 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. Now, as I've said already, the specific sin here that's being addressed is that Judah has married the daughter of a foreign god. And the first point we need to take from this is that faithfulness to God, when God saves us, when God calls a people to himself, he calls us to be faithful to him. And part of that faithfulness extends to the question of whom we marry. We must be faithful to the Lord in every aspect of our lives. And one of the things God has commanded his people, he commanded Israel and he commands us as Christians, is that we are free to marry, but only in the Lord. The issue is not an issue of race, it's an issue of religion. It's the issue of marrying the daughter of a foreign God. In the New Testament, we could look at verses like 2 Corinthians 6, verse 14, which says, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. And at 1 Corinthians 7, verse 39, which says, a wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives, but if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord. And so, brothers and sisters, the point is this, if you are unmarried, if you are considering marrying someone, if you are going to be faithful to God, You cannot marry someone who is not a Christian, who is not a fellow worshiper of Jesus Christ. That is sin, it is against the will of God. Now Malachi's focus here, I think he takes for granted that his audience knows that. Because this was made clear in the Old Testament law as well. And his focus is on why, why not? Why can't I marry this beautiful woman that we get along so well? We have chemistry. I know she doesn't love the Lord, but I can witness to her. And, you know, the love, my love for her just goes beyond that. Why not? What Malachi would have us consider is the harm it does to others, the harm it does to God, and the harm it does to yourself. So let's look first, the harm it does to others. Look at verse 10. Malachi says, 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? Now it's very interesting that he starts here. He doesn't begin with why are you being faithless to God, which he will talk about and they are, but he begins with why then are we faithless to one another? And he's talking about the covenant community. He is talking about the people of Israel whom God had redeemed from Egypt. When he says, have we not all one father, he means all of us Jews who were adopted by God at the Exodus when he called us out of slavery to serve him. And he said, Israel is my son, my firstborn. And when he says, has not one God created us, he means the nation of Israel. Did not God create us to be his own special possession, his own treasured possession? Remember from the deadness of Sarah's womb, from the loins of Abraham, how he gave them this promised offspring and then raised up this nation, this seed for himself. And he has called us into covenant with himself, that we might live before him and be blameless and bring him glory in all the earth. And Malachi says, why then are we faithless to one another? And here's what he's getting at. You see, when we sin. And we break the covenant. That sin hurts the whole covenant community. It doesn't just hurt you, and it's not just against God, it is harmful. It is destructive to the whole people of God. Think about Achan, right? When they conquered Jericho and they weren't supposed to touch the accursed things and Achan takes the Babylonian garment and the wedge of gold. A lot of lives were lost because of what he did. Think about the specific sin of intermarriage and the way that if you look at the history of Israel, that sin has wrecked havoc again and again. Think back to the book of Numbers when Israel is on the verge of entering into the promised land in the days of Balak and Balaam. And they begin intermarrying with the Moabite women. And because of their sin against God, this plague breaks out and thousands of lives are lost. And it's not stopped until Phineas comes and drives two people through with a spear. Remember the days of the judges, how again and again God would deliver his people, and then they would begin intermarrying with the people of the land, and then they would turn to idols, and then God would give them into slavery. Remember King Solomon, and the way that he, though he loved the Lord, though he was the wisest man in all the earth, yet even he, because of his love for foreign women, intermarried with them, and they drew his heart away from the Lord, and he began sacrificing and worshiping idols. And the effect of that was not just for Solomon. It affected the whole nation. The nation was divided. From that point forward, there was one case of idolatry after another, until finally the whole nation is cast into exile, banished from the promised land. And then, by the mercy and the grace of God, they're brought back in, and here they are, Malachi looks around, and they're turning right back to the same sin of marrying the daughters of a foreign god. Not considering the way that this has destroyed so many in their history. That when they do this, they are being faithless to one another. By intermarriage, yes, they're getting in with the Sanballats and the Tobiases, right? They're joining with the people of the lands. They're uniting and allying themselves with the enemies of God, having no regard for what their sin will do to their own family, to their own people. You see, it's the spiritual equivalent of being an American intelligence officer and marrying a Russian spy. It's faithlessness to your own people. And so what does this mean for us? Well, it means this. If you're a Christian and you marry a non-Christian, it will harm the church. You're being faithless, you're breaking faith with all of us. You're not keeping the membership covenant to follow Christ. But even more than that, think about your witness and your example to other brothers and sisters. Are you saying, Christ is everything to me, I want to know the Lord, I want to follow the Lord, I want to bring Him glory? Or are you saying, when I want something that goes against what God's Word says, I do what I want? You see, you're witness to others, rather than spurring them on to know and to love Christ, rather than spurring them on to watch and pray. and to await the hope of heaven. Your witness is like a sleeping pill, just putting people at rest, causing us to slumber and to indulge in sin. So consider the harm that marrying the daughter of a foreign God will do to others. Well, also consider the harm it does to God. Let's look at verse 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. You see, what this is saying is that if you're one of God's people and you marry someone who's not. you're committing spiritual adultery against God. Think about the kind of relationship that God called his people into with himself. This relationship of covenant and a relationship of intimacy. It mentions the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves. The sanctuary represents God's presence. God had come down and had opened himself to these people to say, you can draw near to me. I will be your God. You will be my people. We will be united together under covenant. And in the same way that when you enter into marriage with another person. And there is a covenant and there is this sacred union and intimacy. And then there's adultery. And you think about the sense of violation. You know, we use the term the marriage bed has been defiled. That's parallel to what God is saying here. Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord. That holy meeting place has been profaned by their idolatry. And the point for us is this. If you are a, if God has called you into fellowship with himself through Christ, and yet we turn and join ourselves in marriage to someone who worships a different God, to someone who is not a follower of Christ, we're committing adultery against the Lord. And we can't say, oh, well, I'll still follow Christ. It doesn't matter. I'm gonna join with them. No, no. Think about your heart. That's what they're saying. They're still saying we're gonna bring offerings to the Lord, but God sees our hearts. Idolatry is not just a matter of what we do on the outside. It's a matter of our heart. Do we really love the Lord first? And think about it. How is it I mean, it's one thing, yes, you can see a non-Christian, they may be very physically attractive. They may have many charming characteristics. But if they are not a follower of Christ, deep down, they are opposed to God. Jesus made very clear, you're either for me or against me. That person is not for Christ. And they are destitute of Christ-likeness. So if we love Christ with all our heart, how can we love another person enough to want to marry them who has no Christ-likeness? Unless in our hearts there is something very wrong, and we love not the Lord first. We love something else more than him. Third, so we've seen the harm it does to others, the harm it does to God. Third, consider the harm that marrying an idolater does to yourself, verse 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. This is a way of Malachi saying, choose you this day whom you will serve. Don't think, well, I'll marry this non-Christian woman, but I'll still bring offerings to the Lord. He's saying no. Whether you want to bring offerings or not, may the Lord cut you off. God does not want our offerings. He wants our hearts. He wants obedience. And when we choose to persist in unrepentant sin, we are turning our back on God. Malachi is also saying here, count the cost. Consider, if you marry that non-Christian, consider what it will do to your children. Consider the environment they will grow up in. The confusion of having two parents that are not pointing them in the same direction. But even more, consider the peril and the jeopardy into which you're placing your own soul. For an Israelite, if you were to ask them, what does it mean to be blessed? The first thing they're thinking of is their heritage, their descendants, their lineage. And Malachi is saying here, may the Lord cut that heritage off. It's a way of saying, if you turn your back on the Lord and you chase after the daughters of a foreign God, may you be cursed. You see, our eternal salvation ultimately rests on whether we are gonna trust the Lord and obey Him and walk in obedience to Him, or whether we will turn and say, no, I am going to stop fighting sin, I'm gonna give in and follow it unto destruction. So count the cost. Is it really worth it? That person you see that you love and you think is so charming is gratifying that temporary desire really worth the everlasting ramifications if you continue down that path. Now, before we move on to the second half, I want to address one very important question. What if you are presently married to a non-Christian? You know, everything I've said so far, I'm addressing those of you who are not married, who are considering whom you're gonna marry. But what if you're here and you are married to someone who's not a Christian? What does this mean for you? I mean, what if you married someone and then you became a Christian after you were married and they didn't? What if, you know, you married someone you thought was a Christian and now they've turned their back on the faith? What if in sin, and folly, you knowingly married someone who wasn't a Christian, and now you may feel repentant, but you're already in that situation. What does this mean for you? I mean, does this mean that you should be divorced? Does this mean that there is no hope for you? That you have sinned too much and it's hopeless? Well, by the grace of God, he has given us very clear instructions in the New Testament. And I wanna read from 1 Corinthians 7, where God gives us clear answers to this question. So 1 Corinthians 7, verses 13 to 16. If any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they're holy. But if the unbelieving partner separates, let it be so. In such cases, the brother or sister is not enslaved. God has called you to peace. Now, I think there are three things I just wanna point out very quickly here. Number one, if you find yourself and you're in a situation, you're a Christian and your spouse is not, you're in a particularly difficult situation, it will be hard. You're yoked together with someone who is going in a different direction than you. It will be difficult. And yet what God says very clearly, do not divorce him. Don't seek divorce. That's not the answer. Now, it's one thing if they choose to divorce you, if they leave you, so be it. But your responsibility is to be faithful to them, to love them, to strive to win them to Christ. And thirdly, I think implicit here, there is a promise that God will give special grace. That yes, you're in a difficult situation, and yet God's grace is sufficient. Sometimes obedience to the Lord is extremely difficult, and yet God gives us all the grace that we need to walk in obedience to him. And so whatever situation you find yourself in, the answer is trust and obey. And God's grace will be enough to rely on him. All right, well, let's turn now to the second half, verses 13 to 16, which is how you should treat your spouse. How to treat your spouse if you are married. Follow along with me as I read. Malachi writes, 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. 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. 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. 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. Now friends, the point here is that faithfulness to God means being faithful to one another, especially in the marriage covenant. And Malachi's addressing a specific sin of faithlessness to the wife of your youth. I think this would apply more generally to faithlessness to your marriage vows, right? Any failure to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, till death do us part. But more specifically, Malachi is especially concerned about the sin of aversion-based divorce. So in verse 16 he says, the man who does not love his wife, but divorces her. Now this is not just a universal condemnation of divorce in all situations. We have every reason to assume Malachi would have agreed with Ezra. in that situation where divorce happened. But what he is talking about is aversion-based divorce. He's talking about divorce when you want to get divorced just because you don't love your spouse the way you used to. You don't like them. You guys don't get along. Or maybe someone else comes along that you would rather be married to. That is the sin. The sin of making this covenant, this promise to a person that you are going to be with them till death do you part and then out of your own faithlessness, breaking that promise, breaking that covenant. And once again, Malachi is gonna discuss the damage this does to others, to God, and to yourself. But he's gonna do it in the reverse order. And we're gonna see that these things are parallel. So let's consider the harm that marital unfaithfulness does to yourself. Verses 13 and 14. 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, 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. Now, He says that they're bringing offerings, they're weeping, they're passionately desiring something from God, and God is rejecting them. Now, the first question that comes to my mind is, well, how did the people know that their offerings were being rejected? I mean, there were a couple points where someone put an offering and fire came down from heaven, but I don't get the sense that that was the regular expectation. So how did they know? Well, presumably, because God wasn't answering their prayers. I mean, these are people with real needs. And out of desperation, they are going to the temple, they're bringing offerings, and they're weeping. And they're pleading with God, help us. And they're not getting help. And they're devastated saying, why will God not help us? Why is nothing happening? And just as a side point, I think this should challenge us with our prayers. Do we really expect God to answer our prayers? I mean, certainly it's for our own good God does not always answer our prayer, but we should expect that God really does answer prayer. And I hope if God stopped answering all of our prayers, we would notice. But here, what God is saying to these people is, yes, you're coming with passion. Yes, you're bringing all these things. And yet, all these things are odious to me. It is contemptible in my sight. I want your tears off my altar. Stay away. Why? Because I am witness between you and the wife of your youth to whom you've been faithless. In other words, if you do not repent of your sin toward your spouse, if you don't settle things with them, Things are not right between you and me either. That's the point. And we see a very similar thing in the New Testament, of course. Think of 1 Peter 3, verse 7, where Peter writes, likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered. When we mistreat our spouse, our prayers, will be hindered. Or think of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter five, verse 23, where he says, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift. And friends, we need to take heed. God is witness between us and our spouse. He's witness between us and every other person. If we are not right in our interpersonal relationships, We're not right with God either. We must make things right and then come before the Lord. So that's the harm it does to ourself. Now consider the harm that marital unfaithfulness does to God. Verse 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. Now, this is a verse where there are lots of textual issues. So if you were to compare 10 different English translations, you would probably get nine or 10 different renderings of how to best translate this verse. However, one thing that I think is very clear is that part of God's purpose in marriage is the raising up of godly offspring. And what Malachi is saying is that when you are unfaithful to your spouse, you interfere and undermine that purpose of God. Now, I think it's obvious to all of us that divorce, adultery, failing to love your spouse is harmful to the kids. We know that intuitively, but what Malachi I think is pressing is that it is also Contrary to the purpose of God. You see, God has intended, he has designed marriage in such a way that that husband and that wife would come together in the kind of union that would provide a living picture of the relationship of God and his people. And the relationship of Christ and his church. And in the wisdom of God for this purpose of raising up godly offspring, he has intended for every child to grow up with a father who loves his wife the way Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her. That with the washing of the water of his word, he might sanctify and cleanse her to be a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. And God has intended that child to grow up with a mother who is a wife toward her husband, who respects and submits to the leadership of her husband in a manner consistent with the way the church submits and respects Christ. And when there is unfaithfulness, when there's not that kind of commitment and love, God's good purpose of raising up godly offspring is undermined. So we've seen the harm that marital unfaithfulness does to ourselves, the harm it does to God and his glory and his purposes. Consider finally the harm it does to others, specifically your spouse, verse 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. Now this phrase, covers his garment with violence, I think it's parallel to an expression we often say, stains his hands with blood. It's a way of speaking about guilt and the fact that that guilt cannot just be washed away, that it is stained, that it's there for all to see. And I think the question we can ask is, well, whose blood? Who is this violence against? And I think chiefly, it is the blood of the spouse. The violence is against the spouse. Malachi's saying when you are unfaithful in marriage, you harm your spouse and the guilt of that violence is on your hands. And just think about, I mean, think about in Malachi's day, when a man divorces his wife, think about the vulnerable position that woman is now in. And that's not the society where she can just go out and get her own job. I mean, this literally endangered her life, her livelihood. But even in her own day, think about the emotional pain this puts someone through when you are unfaithful in marriage. Think about the way this tempts your spouse to sin, that in a spiritual sense you have done them violence. I think of the words of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5.32, whoever divorces his wife causes her to commit adultery. There seems to be some sense in which unfaithfulness causes sin for the other person. It tempts them to sin, and we will be accountable for that. So the very opposite of loving your spouse and building them up and helping them to trust God and love God and serve God, unfaithfulness tears them down and does great spiritual harm. So let's strive for faithfulness in marriage for the honor of Christ. Now, thus far, we have considered the whom we marry, and how we treat the one we're with, and we have gone through and heard just about the devastation of sin. I mean, it's been perhaps painful. It is certainly a great burden on our hearts and minds to think about this. We say, yes, this is right, this is true, but we fall short. And so the third and final point I want us to consider, how to be faithful. Rather than being faithless, how can we be faithful? What do we do in response to this? Well, look at Malachi's final charge to his people. He says at the end of verse 16, so or therefore, guard yourselves in your spirit and do not be faithless. So certainly part of this means we need to have resolve. It takes effort. It's going to take vigilance. It's going to take fortitude. We need to be people who watch out for danger, who guard our hearts, who have boundaries, who seek accountability. We need to be people who meditate on the destructive ramifications of sin so that we don't start going down that wrong train track. And yet, friends, all of that's not going to be enough because we need Christ. And friends, this sermon, if we don't have Christ, is nothing but just crushing. Because the reality is all of us have fallen short. Every one of us has failed to be truly faithful. Every one of us will be tempted beyond what we in and of ourselves are able to bear. But the thing that makes all of this so different is the fact that God has sent his son, that Christ has come. You see, we've all committed spiritual adultery against God. We are all, we all were idolaters. And yet Christ is the one who is so gloriously opposite that man who marries the daughter of a foreign God. Christ is the one who comes down with zeal for the Father. And he looks upon us, an idolatrous people, and he comes to redeem us and purify us and call us out of that idolatry into true worship of God. That we might be his holy and spotless bride. And brothers and sisters, if you hear this word, think about the reality. If you're in Christ, you're forgiven. Your sin is washed away. In the sight of God, you are holy and beloved. You don't have to strive to say, how do I make up for past failures? How do I fix all the things I've done wrong? No, what you have to do is simply trust in Christ and know that he has washed that bloody stain of guilt off of your clothes, off of your hands, that in Christ, you're forgiven and you're free. You have full acceptance in the sight of God. And friend, if you're here and you're not a Christian, that applies to you. Right now, you can believe in the Lord and be saved. And whatever mess you've gotten yourself into by past sin, the grace of God is sufficient. Trust and obey. Live in obedience now. And more than that, know this, as a Christian, Christ offers us that transforming grace we need. What we have to do to be faithful, we have to continue to rely on Him. You see, Jesus is also gloriously opposite the unfaithful spouse. You know, so unlike the person who makes these promises and enters into this marriage and says, I will love you forever, and then divorces them. Christ is the bridegroom who loves his bride with an everlasting love. that no matter what sin we have fallen into, Christ is the one who came into the world to die on the cross to save us from our sins. And now he lives, he ever lives to intercede for us before the throne of God. He is our advocate, he is our helper, he is the one who stands in heaven ready to give mercy and grace to help us in our time of need. Brothers and sisters, if you're in a marriage that is hard, There is grace in Christ. If you are feeling tempted to chase after someone who is not a father of Christ, there is grace in Christ. There is victory. You can guard yourself in your spirit. Think of Ephesians chapter six, right, where he says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand in the evil day. That you can stand against the temptations of the flesh and stand against the wiles of the devil. Put on the breastplate of righteousness. put on the belt of truth, and take up the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. We can guard ourselves in our spirit and not be faithless only because of the great grace that is ours in Christ. So let's rely on him. Go to him for forgiveness and rely on him for grace to walk in newness of life. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. And we thank you for your son, that he is the true and the perfect bridegroom. Lord Jesus, we ask your forgiveness for how we have sinned and fallen short. And we ask for your grace to empower us, to strengthen us, to walk in newness of life, to be faithful to one another, to be faithful to you, to turn from all sin and to trust you in all things. And we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.