Malachi 2:17-3:6
Author: Steve Amato
Description: Bible Study Guide

Malachi Bible Study Guides
Mal | 1 | 2 | 3a | 3b | 4

# Malachi 2:17-3:6 (kjv)

## Where is the God of Justice?

17 You have wearied the LORD with your words.
"How have we wearied him?" you ask.

By saying, "All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD,
and he is pleased with them" or
"Where is the God of justice?"

1 "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. (Matt 11:10)
Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple;
the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come," says the LORD Almighty.

2 But who can endure the day of his coming? (Matt 21:12-16)
Who can stand when he appears?

For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap.
3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver;
he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.

Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness,
4 and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD,
as in days gone by, as in former years.

5 "So I will come near to you for judgment.
I will be quick to testify against

- sorcerers, (Acts 13:5-12)
- adulterers and
- perjurers, against (Ps 24:4)
- those who defraud laborers of their wages
- who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and
- deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me," says the LORD Almighty.

6 "I the LORD do not change.
So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.

# Discussion Questions

Why might good things happen to bad people?
vs 1 Jesus indicates in Matt 11:10 that John the Baptist was the messenger.
How did he prepare the way of the Lord?
vs 2 How might these verses be related to Jesus' entry into the temple in Matt 21:12-16?
How does the sense of the judgment to come affect your behavior?
vs 5 What are some modern-day examples of these people?
If people do not have the fear of God,
what types of ideas motivate them to live a "good" life?
vs 6 Why do some have the impression that God as revealed in the Old Testament
has changed as He is revealed in the New Testament?
How might this verse be related to Malachi 1:1-5?

# Cross References

vs1 Matt 11:10 This is the one about whom it is written: "'I will send my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.'

vs2 Matt 21:12-16 Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. "It is written," he said to them, "'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of robbers.'" The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple area, "Hosanna to the Son of David," they were indignant. "Do you hear what these children are saying?" they asked him. "Yes," replied Jesus, "have you never read, "'From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise'?"

vs3 1Pet 1:6-7 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith-- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-- may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

vs 5 Rev 21:8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars-- their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."

vs 6 Jas 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

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