Speaking Well of the Lord in the Meantime

Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another, and the Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name.

Malachi’s prophecy was directed to a people who were at a particularly low ebb. They saw the service of the Lord as pointless. It had done them little if any good. It was merely a burden on them.

These sentiments were baseless. (The people had long ago decided that tithing was unnecessary, that it wasn’t a problem for them to abandon their wives, that diseased and stolen animals would suffice for the Lord’s offerings, etc.) But at some level the people’s sentiment was understandable. It could even have been justifiable in individual cases. David uttered very similar words in one of his Psalms.

While God is no man’s debtor, he settles accounts with people in his own time. As a result, there isn’t always a straightforward relationship between godliness and prosperity in life. And so it can feel like it’s not doing us any good to keep the Lord’s commands, and that we may as well not bother.

‘Those who feared the Lord’ in the book of Malachi no doubt felt like this from time to time, living as they did among a godless generation.

Nevertheless, they spoke well of their Lord.

And the Lord is said to have heard their words.

This statement marks a significant departure from what’s happened previously in the book of Malachi. We’re not told what the aforementioned God-fearers said, which we are in the case of previous speakers. (What mattered to God was the tenor of their words.) And while in previous chapters the Lord was ‘wearied’ by his people’s words, on this occasion he paid attention to them. He even chose to record them in a book of remembrance.

That the Lord chose to record his people’s words in a book is an unusual idea, both in Scripture and in principle. Its significance, however, is hinted at in the book of Esther.

The Jews were in serious trouble in Esther’s day. They were about to be wiped out—and with the king’s blessing. By a stroke of luck, however, the king had a sleepless night before the slaughter was due to begin. He therefore asked for ‘a book of remembrance’ to be read to him, which reminded him of the good deeds of a Jew named Mordecai. Mordecai had done the king a good turn, and hadn’t been rewarded for it. And when the king ‘remembered’ this, things started to change for the better in the book of Esther.

The faithful Judaeans in Malachi’s day must have felt a lot like Mordecai had. They were godly men and women, who feared their Lord and spoke well of him despite difficult circumstances. And yet it seemed like their godliness had been forgotten about and would ultimately go unrewarded.

By means of Malachi’s prophecy, God reminded his people that this wouldn’t be the case. It couldn’t be the case. God is no man’s debtor.

‘In the future’, God declared, ‘you will once again see a distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and one who doesn’t’.

There were times in the past when the Judaeans had seen God act powerfully in history, punishing the wicked and rewarding the righteous. And there’d soon come a time when he’d do that again.

In the meantime, the Judaeans simply needed to keep the faith—to keep meeting together, keep speaking about the Lord together, keep fearing the Lord together. Indeed, there are times in life when we can’t manage a lot more than this.

But the Lord knows our feeble frame, and hears our words, even and especially when others don’t.

Those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run, and not be weary. They will walk, and not faint.