Yahweh loved the Israelites, and chose them alone, of all the peoples on earth, to be His children. Yet they sure disproved the myth that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, because they were nothing at all like their Heavenly Father. By the time of Malachi, they were idolators and whiners, whose worship of their God was apathetic, meaningless ritual just for show. Their obedience to God was merely lip service- they no longer took God’s laws to heart. In short, they were doubting God’s covenant love, and no longer trusting in His word and His justice.

When God’s people returned to Israel with Ezra after their captivity in Babylon, they had found their former land of milk and honey a mess. Many of them did not WANT to return to Israel at all: they had assimilated well into the Babylonian culture; they had homes, businesses, and even positions in the Babylonian society. Surely, when they saw the mess their homeland had become, they had to wonder “Why on earth did we leave Babylon? We were happy there, we were doing well there. Why did we come back to THIS?” There were several factors that undoubtedly contributed to the discouragement of the Jews and led to their falling away from their religion:

The land that God had promised them remained a small, backwater province, governed by their enemies; The glorious future they had been promised had never materialized; Yahweh had not (yet) fulfilled His promise to exalt His kingdom in the sight of all the nations.

God's people were blaming God for their economic and social problems, and considered that He had failed to keep His covenant promises to them. In turn, since they felt God had been unfaithful to them, they became increasingly unfaithful to God, and to each other. They were faithless to their wives, even divorcing them and marrying pagan women, which God had expressly forbidden.

The people were also guilty of neglecting their tithes and offerings. Malachi called for them to repent from their apathy and unfaithfulness, turn back to their Lord with true worship, keep their covenants, especially their marriage vows, and honor God with their tithes and offerings. In everything else they are to trust Him blindly, in faith, but in the matter of tithing, God promised rich blessings for their obedience. Trusting God by being obedient with their money was the one thing God ever told the Israelites to test Him in.

The Israelites assumed, because God did not accept and reward their lackadaisical forms of religion, that there was no reason to be faithful to Him with their worship or their tithes. Their words implied that they felt like it did no good for them to serve God, because the wicked – those who didn’t serve God - seemed to get by with their wickedness, and even prosper, while they did not!

As always, this was not an attitude unique to Malachi’s generation only. They were guilty of something that we are often guilty of ourselves: they were comparing themselves to others. Comparison thinking always gets us in trouble. It either makes us feel, as the Israelties of Malachi’s day, that God has somehow failed us, or it leads us to be proud and arrogant.

These Israelites had gotten to such a point that they questioned God’s fairness, His mercy, and even His love. They spoke against His very nature when they said He allows the wicked to prosper, so what good did it do for THEM to follow His laws? He answered their complaint with the promise of punishment for all the proud and unrepentent, and reward for the obedience of the faithful.

Yes, the people of Malachi's time were spirtually bankrupt. However, this was not just because of their own failures and disobedience; it was also because their appointed spiritual leaders had totally failed in their duties. The temple priests were specifically assigned to manage God’s temple, His earthly dwelling place, and to be the spiritual leaders of Israel. Instead of being the spirtual leaders, the priests were just as bad as the people, if not worse. They were worldly, selfish, corrupt, and completely disrespectful of God, and shamefully neglectful about their God-given duties and responsibilities.

It is incredibly important for us to choose our spiritual leaders wisely. An apathetic or worldly leader can lead a whole nation astray. Our pastors are called to teach us God's word, faithfully and with truthful interpretation, and to hold us accountable, as the prophets of old did the people of Israel. We don't need preachers that tickle our ears with only things we want to hear. We don't need a false gospel of wealth and prosperity for the faithful. We don't need leaders who pervert the truths of God's word to accomodate society's declining morals. We need Godly leaders who will still teach that sin, wickedness, idolatry, and disobedience to God's laws are wrong and will lead to destruction.

We have a tendency to look at the characters in the Bible and think that we are so different from them, better than them somehow. However, whether we like to think so or not, we aren’t much different – and certainly not much more faithful – than the Israelites of Malachi’s time. We’re too often stubborn, disobedient, lethargic or ritualistic in our worship. We often question God and even argue with Him. We are all prone to the very same things, the same sins, doubts, failures and shortcomings that the Israelites were.