Malachi 1:1-5
1. A Messenger is a sign of mercy.
-The progress of prophecy is a sign of salvation history.
-Salvation history’s fulness arrives when the Great Prophet arrives.
2. God loves you.
What has worn away their proper sense of Yahweh’s true love?
-The up-and-down progress of a plan they know only by prophecy
-The failures and “low tide” of human love (2:13-16).
3. God answers you.
The comparison of the brothers, Jacob and Esau, shows two things about God’s free salvation.
4a. Nothing inside you made you “better to save.”
(Rom. 9:6-16; Deut. 32:4; 2Chr. 19:7; Psa. 92:15)
4b. We are loved forever—simply from the heart of God.
5. We will feel loved when judgment vindicates us.
Every story of every people and every person ends with a demonstration of total judgment or total substitution.
God is glorified in our salvation through judgment.
