1 Timothy 1:3-11
English Standard Version

Warning Against False Teachers
3 As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, 4 nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. 5 The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6 Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion, 7 desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions.

8 Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, 9 understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, 10 the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, 11 in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.

Paul reminds Timothy that he needs to appoint elders to lead the local churches just like Paul had him do in Ephesus when Paul was in Macedonia.  Having a plurality of elders (I believe that's part of what is being taught here and that it's not just plural because of appointing an elder at multiple cities, but because each congregation benefits from multiple leaders for the reasons Paul will state).  First and foremost, Paul is concerned about about false teachers that the people and the elders of the people need to watch out for.  He goes through all the ways in which they can be identified as being false instead of genuine--they turn away from the true gospel, do not treat the Word of God as authoritative, they are always looking for something "new," "fresh," and trendy/flashy.  They have an appearance of godliness, but they have no real substance to their belief because they will go wherever the winds of culture take them.  They are not rooted in anything.

Now it's become an issue that these teachers are not just on the outside, but they have caught the attention and gained some audience from people who were inside the church and their false teachings are leading people astray.  The elders are needed to help put a stop to that situation and correct the errors of the false teachers by teaching the truth from Scripture.  We'll see later that these false teachers don't just have the wrong message they are delivering, but they encourage others to live lives of sin (in fact, this many times is why they want there to be another gospel, because they don't like the true gospel that call them to repent, turn away from sin, and faithfully obey everything that the Lord has commanded of us).

The Law is good in so much as it is a reflection of God's nature and as His Spirit is at work within us, we desire to do the things in alignment with God's character and nature (not our old character and nature).  However, the false teachers are lawless--living as if there is no Law (maybe even teaching others that the Law has no purpose or is something bad (it is not, it is something very good).  They teach others to be disobedient and to live lives that are unholy (live like the common, unsaved person instead of living as one of the people of God that is set apart and "uncommon.").  False teachers want people to like them, so they don't like to do the counter-cultural things that separate God's kingdom from the kingdom of this world.  This ends up leading to all kinds of immorality and and heinous sin from them and those who follow them which should help make it obvious to us that they are not the genuine article.  If somehow we got caught up flowery words and didn't see that they were preaching something different than the Word of God, their lifestyle should make it obvious to us that they are no living under the authority of God, His Word, and His commandments that we find in His Word.

We would be wise to examine those who call themselves teachers, preachers, bishops and elders in our churches today, for these false teachers have gotten into the seminaries and corrupted many from the next generation of leaders and they are at work from within, just like in Israel where those who were called to be priests, prophets, and leaders of the people were the once against the LORD and His Word and leading the people to destruction because they were focused on their own comfort and profit.  We'll see several comparisons between the false teachers of this day and those say of the time of Jeremiah.  Watch out today for false teachers and false teaching wherever you go.

1 Timothy 1:1-2
English Standard Version

Greeting
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope,

2 To Timothy, my true child in the faith:

Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

After what seems like a long time focusing on the Old Testament, we're coming back to the New Testament to finish the Pastoral Epistles and the book of Revelation (some of the last books of the Bible to be written when considering them chronologically).  Both Paul and John were prisoners as the times they wrote these letters--Paul was in a Roman prison and John was exiled to the Isle of Patmos.

I'll give you a link to the Introduction to the book of 1 Timothy from the ESV Study Bible (published by Crossway and available on The Gospel Coalition's website in partnership with Crossway):  TGC Course | Introduction to 1 Timothy.  You'll notice this is not just an introduction to the book, but also some teaching and preaching tips if you are going to be teaching this book of the Bile as a course (we are currently covering 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus in our Men's Ministry as these are Paul's instructions to His proteges, thought the instructions there are great for men and women of all ages).

So, let's look at today's verses.  Paul is not just speaking directly to Timothy, because he feels the need to introduce himself by both name and position as an apostle (he's writing this book with apostolic authority to teaching something to the Church at large).  He is not an apostle by his own making or by the making of the Church in Jerusalem or the Church in Antioch or any other body that might say they ordained or commissioned representatives of the Church, but He was chosen, appointed, and sent by Jesus Christ Himself (see the book of Acts, chapter 9 for the story for how Saul of Tarsus is converted.  It's an amazing story that gets told three different times in the book of Acts.

The letter is addressed specifically to Timothy, Paul's spiritual son.  Timothy would go ahead of Paul to prepare the way on Paul's missionary journeys, would stay behind to pastor new churches and help appoint elders to lead those churches and would visit churches for Paul when Paul could not visit them himself (like now when he was in prison and awaiting execution).  Paul knows that the end is soon for him, so you will see verses in 1 and 2 Timothy like "I have fought the good fight, I have stayed the course, I have kept the faith."  Paul was looking forward to the day when he would be poured out like a drink offering and Jesus would say to him, "Well done My good and faithful servant."

As we mentioned, this is an open letter that was passed around to the churches, which is why we have it today.  Like most of Paul's letters, he opens by wishing his readers grace and peace which can only be found in the Lord Jesus Christ.  We can only find grace (God's unmerited favor) because Christ stood in our place and took the curse, punishment and wrath that we deserve so that we might have the blessings, grace, and mercy that only He deserved at the Son of God.  Now we can all be children of God by Adoption (more on this in the book of Romans) and be co-heirs with Jesus so that when the Father looks at us, He sees His Son and will withhold nothing from us that He would not also withhold from his only begotten Son.

Peace is peace with God because we are no longer enemies with God once we are born again and become citizens of His kingdom, and we have peace from God which surpasses all understanding which will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  However, we also have peace with each other and we become peacemakers.  As much as it is up to us, we are to be at peace with all men.  Though the world will want to be at war with us, it is our desire for them to also find peace with God and peace with their fellow men that only comes from God.  True peace is not something the world can offer.  It can only come from the Prince of Peace (that's Jesus) and we will see the true and lasting peace and rest that He will bring to His people when we study the book of Revelation in a little bit..

We'll get into the heart of the letter next time as Paul will warn Timothy and the Church in general about false teachers (a big theme).  Not everything in this book will be easy for us to hear--in fact, much of it might be very difficult for us to hear as it speaks of how the church needs to contend for the faith even more so as the Day of the LORD is approaching.  We must boldly proclaim the one and only gospel of Jesus Christ.  There is no modern or more palatable version for today.  It is the same gospel given to us by Jesus and His apostles (like Paul) and preserved in His Word for all generations.  That is why we must "Preach the Word, both in season and out of season" (another theme of the letter to Timothy as Timothy seemed to have some trouble as a young preacher and Paul encouraged him to simply preach the Word).

Malachi 4
English Standard Version

The Great Day of the LORD
4  “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.

4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. 6 And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

This is the last passage of Malachi--the last last passage of the last chapter of the last book in the Old Testament as it is arranged in the English Bible (I think I've mentioned that the order of things in the Hebrew Scriptures is a little different).

The Day of the LORD is promised as a day of fiery judgment and wrath for those who choose to remain wicked and love what is evil, but it is a day of utmost salvation for those that know the LORD as Redeemer and Savior.  "The righteous will rise up with healing in their wings."  That's a promise that the fiery judgment meant for the wicked is not meant for us.  We will be taken up (what we call the rapture) and made new and glorified and prepared for our eternal dwelling place with God in the New Jerusalem as part of the New Heavens and the New Earth.  Our glorified bodies will be free of every part of the Curse of Sin--no more infirmities, deformities, aging, disease or death.  The days of the wicked prospering will come to an end and the kingdom of this world will come to an end, and justice will be done in all places at all times by all people, and we will dwell in peace with the LORD forever.  The days of the wicked will come to an end and they will be nothing more than dust and ash--barely remembered if remembered at all.

We will live under a theocratic monarchy where everyone will know and obey the Law of the LORD because it expresses how He desires for us to be His holy people.  Before that happens though, the LORD says He is going to send Elijah back to warn the people (this passage that mentions Moses and Elijah makes people think they are possibly the two prophets in the book of Revelation that God raises up in the end time--there are other ideas as well, but Moses and Elijah are the ones I hear the most).  This prophecy was partly fulfilled by John the Baptist who came in the spirit of Elijah to prepare the way of the Lord (Jesus) and to warn people because the Day of the LORD was at hand--John did not see the depth in the timeline that was both a First Advent and a Second Advent of the Messiah and he thought everything was to be fulfilled at the same time.  He knew the identity of Jesus but was confused that Jesus did not come to set up the physical kingdom at that time.

The book and the Old Testament close out with this promise that the LORD will use this coming prophet to turn the hearts of the people back to him so that His people will not be destroyed in the coming judgment of the wicked.  When the people repent and are born again, their family relationships and community relationships and their relationship with the Land will all improve.  God's blessings will be upon them once again and He will save them to the uttermost and He will be their God and they will be His people forever and ever.

Malachi 3:16-18
English Standard Version

The Book of Remembrance
16 Then those who feared the LORD spoke with one another. 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. 17 “They shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. 18 Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

The LORD already has a book of all those who belong to Him called The Lamb's Book of Life, but the Jewish people made their own copy of such a book that they called The Book of Remembrance where the names of all those that they knew belonged to the LORD were written in the book (not the names of all the Jewish people, because we saw at the end of the last section that there were some with hard hearts who turned away and proved they did not belong to the LORD).

This shows us that they believed in the fact that once the LORD had saved someone it was a permanent change that nothing and no one could change back.  These names were written down as a permanent record of those that they knew belonged to the LORD (you could never make such a list if you believed that someone was always at risk of loosing their salvation or if you could never be sure if someone was really saved).  The Bible teaches from Genesis to Revelation that the LORD chooses a people unto Himself and He causes those people to be holy and separate from the rest of the world in both nature and conduct and that it should be obvious to those around us that we belong to God.  That's not to say that we never mess up, and we can really mess up (like David with Bathsheba and the murderer of her husband Uriah for instance).  David needed the prophet Nathan to come to him to help him feel conviction for his sin, but then there was genuine remorse and repentance (not just for how he hurt people, but for how he hurt God).  These are both signs of genuine conversion.  The lost don't feel true conviction--they feel "sorry" that they got caught.  They don't repent--they may promise they won't do it again, but what they are really thinking is how they can do it again and be better at it so that they don't get caught.  The saved man hates the sin within himself and desires the day when the LORD completely saves him from it.  The lost man revels in sin and tries to make others celebrate his sin and tries to invent new ways to sin and teach others how to sin.  He dreads the thought of a day of judgment and usually either tries to convince himself that God doesn't exist or he makes a false god that winks and nods at his sin and would never judge him for it.  Such gods are as fake as the idols that the people of Israel and those around them used to worship.  They are unable to hear and answer prayer unable to see ones need and send aid and comfort, and impotent to do anything to save the people who worship them from themselves or their enemies (natural or spiritual).

The LORD declares that all those whose names were written in the Book of Remembrance would belong to Him.  They will be His treasured possession (many people spoken of in the singular in the same way that Israel and the Church are made of many people or members but spoken of as the singular Bride of Christ and His inheritance and He is our inheritance).   They will be treated as a man treats His beloved children.  He will not let them go on the path that leads to destruction and wrath, but He will make them to be righteous and walk in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake.  No longer will they walk in paths of the wicked or sit in the seat of scoffers, and He will make the Law of the LORD their delight (see Psalm 1 that contrasts that blessed man whom the LORD has made righteous contrasted with the man who remains in his wickedness).  There is nothing man can do to save or transform himself, but once the LORD has saved and transformed him, he has a new nature and identity and destiny and purpose.  Let who have been saved live according to that new nature and the Spirit that is at work within us and let us live on mission for God to make His Name famous throughout the earth and to bring Him much glory both now and forever more through our words and actions each and every moment of each and every day as we show and tell the world how we belong to Him and He belongs to us and how much we love Him because He first loved us and gave His life for us.

Jude 24-25
24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Malachi 3:6-15
English Standard Version

Robbing God
6 “For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. 7 From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ 8 Will man rob God? Yet you are robbing me. But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In your tithes and contributions. 9 You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me, the whole nation of you. 10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. 11 I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the LORD of hosts. 12 Then all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a land of delight, says the LORD of hosts.

13 “Your words have been hard against me, says the LORD. But you say, ‘How have we spoken against you?’ 14 You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the LORD of hosts? 15 And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evildoers not only prosper but they put God to the test and they escape.’”

The only reason that Judah is not being consumed by fiery judgment right now as they deserved is that the LORD does not break His word or change His mind or change who He is.  He is the same yesterday, today and forever, His love endures forever, and heaven and earth will pass away, but His Word will never pass away.  These are all promises that we see other places that are reinforced here in today's passage.

They are really not that different than their fathers that turned aside from the LORD's statutes and did not keep them--that's every generation of Israel so far, but it's probably supposed to provoke memories of those that sinned and died wandering around in the wilderness to give Israel some idea of the justice that they deserve.  They never deserved to enter the Land or receive any of the blessings of the covenant because they never kept the covenant.  Instead of deserting them (for they have already deserted Him), the LORD calls them back through repentance and asks them to return.  He knows they don't know how to return though, so He gives them prophets to help them see their need for repentance and to guide them through the process of returning to Him--He will even send His own Son as the Prophet promised in Deuteronomy 18 to call His people to repentance and to shepherd and save His people.

The LORD once again points to the theft that the people are committing by offering substandard sacrifices as an outward sign of something going on inwardly that they need to address through repentance.  Like David they should be praying "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me."  They should also be praying along with David from Psalm 51, "Cast me not away from thy presence, O LORD" and "Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and renew a right spirit within me."  The whole nation is guilty of robbing God of the tithe that He deserves.  They are trying to trick other people into believing they are being obedient and pious while keeping much of what belongs to the LORD and His priests to themselves.  They aren't offering enough in quality or quantity for the sustained service of the priests and the Levites and God is calling out the whole nation for it.  Without their regular tithes and offerings there is also no system to take care of the poor and indigent as the Levites were responsible for taking care of the treasuries in their towns that would take care of the needs of the community.  By robbing God, they are also hurting their ministers and those who were in desperate need of what would call welfare.

All the LORD can and will do if He's not going to destroy them is adjust the flow rate of the blessings He is pouring out on them so that they take notice.  It's like a faucet with a valve that the LORD can open wider or close to reduce the flow rate (or turn it off completely if He needs to).  There is some indication that the LORD is going touch the fruit-bearing plants through various means of making them less fruitful as long as the people withhold what rightfully belongs to the LORD.  I say that because He promises that as soon as they starting bringing in the full amount of the tithe and stop trying to rob Him, He will protect the Land and its crops from all the things that would devour the fruit on the vine, cause the vine to be less than fully productive or cause the ground to be infertile.  This will certainly get the people's attention.  As a result, when they return to the LORD and are extremely blessed and favored by Him again, all the nations of the world will take notice and will glorify God because of it.  

God already knows that some of them will harden their hearts in response to the LORD's correction.  They will say things like "There is no profit in serving the LORD," because all they were in it for was the profit for themselves (this is an old version of what we would call The Prosperity Gospel today, which is a false gospel).  The people that were in it for themselves will quickly desert the LORD because they never truly had a relations with Him.  They are unwilling to have a real relationship that leads to true transformation on the inside that leads to transformation on the outside (change of nature and character that leads to a change in behavior that everyone will notice).  They look at the world (especially the Gentile nations around them) and they evaluate in the here and now that it looks pretty profitable to be wicked, so they do the risk-benefits analysis for themselves focuses only on what they can see with their physicals eyes and decide they are better off living in the kingdom of this world and they want nothing to do with the Kingdom of God.  Unfortunately, there is something that should be a part of their valuation that they cannot see with their physical eyes, and that is the Day of Judgment we were discussing in the last few passages.  In that Day, the LORD will send those who rejected Him and made themselves citizens of the kingdom of this world to the place prepared for the devil and his angels far away from the place of peace and blessing that He prepared for those He has made righteous and made a part of His family through Adoption.  There a group of people that like Esau would despise their birthright and inheritance that are eternal and trade if or a bowl of stew in the here and now.  Just like Esau, these people will be rejected and they will end up with exactly what they deserve because they will be unwilling to accept the sacrifice that was made on their behalf because it will require their total surrender and obedience to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and they will not submit themselves to anyone or change for anyone.  They like who they are, they take pride in their sin, and they demand the God that they say they don't believe in to bless them in the midst of their unrepentant rebellion.  That's not how it works.

Malachi 2:17-3:5
English Standard Version

The Messenger of the LORD
17 You have wearied the LORD with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

3 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD. 4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years.

5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the LORD  of hosts.

The LORD is tired of the people speaking blessing over those who do evil and acting like the LORD will never execute justice ever again.  They have a little view of both God and sin, and they think much of themselves because of this.

The LORD is going to have to send a messenger to them like the prophets He sent before to correct the record and call the people to repentance, but this messenger will be spectral, because he will be the one to prepare the people for the coming of the Messiah they have been waiting for.  The Lord whom they seek (that's Jesus, the Messiah) will appear in His Holy Temple (notice how the text says the Holy Temple is His--it belongs to Him because He is God).  He will bring about a New Covenant with His people which will be their delight if they believe in it--no longer will it be a covenant of works that they feel burdened to do, but it will be a covenant of faith, grace, and mercy in which they believe in what has already been done on their behalf.  They should be glad at His appearing (many were not).

However, His coming doesn't just bring in a day of salvation for the righteous, but it also marks a day of judgment for the wicked.  He who is Savior of His people will also be the Righteous Judge whom all will stand before and give an account one day.  He will tell those on His right (the righteous) to enter into the place of goodness, peace, and rest that He has prepared for them and to those on His left (the wicked), He will tell them to depart into the Lake of Fire that was prepared for the devil and his angels.  Even the righteous will face the refiner's fire when He appears so that they will be remade into the image of God once again--temples of the Living God and reflections of His glory.  He will purify the priesthood that is so corrupt so that their offerings and sacrifices will be acceptable in His sight once again (it doesn't say how He does this, but we know He does this by making a priesthood of believers with Jesus as our Great High Priest and we no longer depend on the blood of bulls and goats for atonement because we have a better and permanent atonement by the blood of Jesus).  We who are in Christ and now part of the priesthood of believers as I mentioned yesterday, so read the correction of Levi (especially for the priests) carefully as we are now ministers of the New Covenant and are to help keep the people holy and pleasing to the LORD and teach them the LORD's Covenant (the New Covenant), who He is and what He commands them be and what they should do in response to that transformation that happens inside of them (that is the better sacrifice that is acceptable here--doing the things that cause people to glorify our Father in heaven because our works do not come from our flesh and it is a miracle that we can do them through the power of the Holy Spirit that is at work within us).

The Day of the LORD will come when Jesus will bring swift judgment against the wicked.  He will not need to ask for additional witnesses because He Himself will know all things about all people since He is God in the Flesh.  The books that record all the names of those that belong to Jesus and the those that record all the works that the unrighteous will be judged by will be there as evidence, but He will not really need them.  He knows all of His sheep and will recognize each and every one of them and He knows which ones do not belong to Him.  In that day, there will be no question as to who are the sheep of His pasture and who are the imposters (the goats or the wolves in sheep's clothing).  Their sin will find them out in that day.

Let's me take a moment here to say that all those who are in Christ were sinners in need of forgiveness.  It's not that a group of us didn't sin or even that we no longer sin, but we should no longer be happy about sinning and sin should no longer reign and rule over us.  That is, we should no longer feel like we have to sin and can't say "No" to sin.  One day, those of in Christ will be freed completely from the presence of sin and we won't be able to sin at all.  The wicked that are being described in this passage are living out their sinful lusts and taking pleasure in it or are in slavery to sin and are doing wicked things by compulsion because that's just what sinful people who haven't been saved from sin do.  They have to give into their sin.  They take advantage of the innocent and rape, steal, pillage, and murder those who cannot defend themselves from their aggressors (widows, orphans, and sojourners who would have a hard time finding justice in the legal system).  The LORD promises to avenge the crimes committed against these innocents who could not find justice in this life and that the wicked will face judgment in His court, and they will not escape justice or the day of wrath that has been prepared for them (unless they give their lives to Jesus before they die and Jesus took all the punishment for them that they deserved--justice has been satisfied even if we don't feel it fair for Jesus to pay the penalty that the one who wronged us deserved, but, that is the gospel.  He took our place and none of us deserve His grace or forgiveness--it is unmerited.)

Malachi 2:10-16
English Standard Version

Judah Profaned the Covenant
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? 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. 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!

13 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. 14 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. 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. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth. 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. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

It did not take long for Judah to return to her old ways after coming back into the Land after the Exile.  They may have done away with the idols, but they were acting a lot like the pagan nations that the LORD delivered them from.  Who can be surprised by that when the priesthood was corrupt and not teaching the Law to the people and helping to keep them and the Land holy? Should we be surprised that the people no longer love one another with the love of God and have become faithless and profaned the LORD's covenant? Apparently they profaned the sanctuary of the LORD (the Temple), and while it is the duty of the priests to keep it holy, all the people of Judah are held responsible because all of them went along with it by bringing the sub-standard offerings that were offered on the altar (we are talking about the same issue here as we were talking about in the previous section, only the prophecy has now widened to not just talk to the priests who offered the sacrifices on the LORD's Altar, but to the people of Judah who thought they could get away with offering sub-standard sacrifices to the LORD and have therefore made it so that neither the sanctuary or the people were atoned for--sin still remains on the priests, the house of the God, and the people of God).

Then, they come to the Altar weeping because they are not blessed because the LORD did not accept their diseased, deformed, or otherwise sub-standard offering.  The LORD had no regard for it because they have shown they clearly have no regard for Him.  Their hope was to pull the wool over His eyes and give Him something they didn't want anyways and keep the best for themselves instead of giving Him their best and trusting Him to give them even better in return.  The people are still being as faithless with their relationship with the LORD as a man who commits adultery against his wife that he has been married to since the days of their youth--a wife who has always been faithful to him.  (In our relationship with the LORD, He is typically portrayed as the Husband and us as the Bride, but the LORD is speaking to the men who are spiritual leaders here about their spiritual adultery, which is idolatry, that they are still committing, even if they don't bow down to idols anymore).  The have imagined for themselves another kind of god (even if they call him the LORD) that will wink at their sin and accept their substandard sacrifices and bless them because they go through performative motions and rituals that their heart is not in.  They may even be tempted to redefine good and evil so that they believe that the LORD will have to bless their sin and punish those who do what is right.  This was the same sin they committed with the Golden Calf, and it is the same sin many of us commit today when we say things like "The God that I believe in....." and then start to describe a god that is nothing like the God of the Bible.

The LORD wants His people to be united by His Spirit (that happens ultimately at Pentecost and the other times following Pentecost where the Spirit came upon groups of people when the gospel went to new groups of people and new areas).  See the book of Ephesians that talks much about the Spirit who makes us one with each other and with the Lord and Jesus' High Priestly Prayer in the Garden in John 17 where He prays for all of us to be one as He and the Father are one and that He knows that one day we will be one with Him in the same way that He is one with His Father.  That is a kind of unity and intimacy that we are not going to get outside of the miraculous work of the gospel that is at work within us and among us.

The LORD seeks godly offspring (children made in His image and likeness, which is what the Spirit does for us once we are regenerated).

Romans 8:29-30
English Standard Version
29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

Hebrews 2:10-13
English Standard Version
10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying,

“I will tell of your name to my brothers;
    in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”

13 And again,

“I will put my trust in him.”

And again,

“Behold, I and the children God has given me.”

1 John 3:1
English Standard Version
3 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

These are but a few places where we see the gospel at work in making us children of God by Adoption (you can find more about that in the book of Romans).  Then the LORD addresses the same issue that is working itself out among their horizontal relationships--those who are unfaithful in their covenant relationship with Him are also being unfaithful in their covenant relationships with their spouses.  They are seeking no-fault divorce and this is leading to all kinds of violence against spouses, against other men when someone wants to take their spouse from them, against women that men want to take advantage of without marrying them, and all the rest.  The culture has slipped back into all the sexual perversion of the pagan cultures without the idols of gold, silver, stone, and wood because the issue was always within the hearts of the people--it was never really about the thing that they bowed down to so much as they formed another god for themselves in their hearts and minds that they decided they would rather worship because it would let them get away with sin and would still bless them instead of them living under the blessings and curses of the covenant where the LORD promised blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience.  The LORD took Exile off the table and the people took it a license to sin, but the LORD is going to have many other ways to get their attention and prepare them for when the Messiah comes to them "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (is among you)." (I mention this because our very next passage is going to speak of the harbinger/messenger that the LORD is going to send in advance of His Anointed to prepare the way for Him, and this is exactly how the New Testament opens, fulfilling this very promise).