“'Judah has broken faith. A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god. As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord cut him off from the tents of Jacob – even though he brings offerings to the Lord Almighty.
Another thing you do: You flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, 'Why?' It is because the Lord is acting as a witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.
Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.
'I hate divorce,' says the Lord God of Israel, 'and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,' says the Lord Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.”
Malachi 2: 11-16 (Part 1)
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Two examples of unfaithfulness are addressed in these verses above. The first and most serious is unfaithfulness to God by turning to the world and from the Lord. The second is the direct unfaithfulness seen in divorce and so unfaithfulness to a wife, which can be widened to expose unfaithfulness to the family of God.

UNFAITHFULNESS TO THE LORD.

To understand this unfaithfulness to God it is important to realise the relationship which God had made with Israel. This was a relationship which exclusively, in Old Testament times, was made with Israel. For God's purpose of redemption, first declared in Genesis chapter 3, God chose Abraham in pure grace to be the father of a race of people who would enjoy a special relationship with God, whereby God promised to be faithful to Israel, and bless them, and defend them from their enemies, and for this redemptive relationship God called upon Israel to be faithful to him. At the centre of this faithfulness to God, the Israelites were called to keep themselves separate from all the heathen nations around, and keep themselves from the religious idolatry of these heathen nation, and keep themselves from the immoral practices which marked the social life of these nations. The purpose of this covenant made by God with Israel through Abraham, was for the purpose of keeping a pure people from which the Messiah, the Christ the redeemer, would come and be born. God's call for the people of Israel to keep themselves apart from the ways and practices of other nations was so that God and his holy ways may rule and be applied to the whole life of Israel.

To marry women from the heathen nations all around was an example of unfaithfulness to God. It was an example of braking faith with God. It was an action which desecrated the sanctuary of God by introducing into the life and society of the people of God, the immoral and idolatrous life of these other nations. It was an act of turning away from God and seeking satisfaction in worldly and fleshly means, which was an act of rejection of the love and grace of God.

It is perhaps hard for us in our society today to appreciate the offence this was towards God. God had graciously loved Israel, and been their protector and provider. The relationship was like the covenant of marriage. This unfaithfulness shown in marrying heathen women was action renouncing God, and despising his love, and seeking happiness and satisfaction from the world and from the flesh. It was an action of despising God, and throwing his love and faithfulness back in his face, together with introducing impurity into the family of God.

We need to appreciate this so that we may appreciate the heinousness of deliberate sin in the life of a believer in Jesus. Jesus has loved us with an everlasting love. He gave his life for us so that we may be saved from our sin and receive the gift of everlasting life. He loves us and is always working for our good in all things, and working in us by his Spirit so that we might be fit to dwell with him forever in his eternal glory. When we deliberately turn away from him in some act of deliberate wrong against his divine will, and so acting as an unfaithful believer, then we are despising his gracious saving love, and despising his great sacrifice for us. I say deliberate sin because the way the Israelites acted in divorcing their Jewish wife so that they could marry a heathen woman was such a deliberate act. There is no doubt that every believer mourns the fact that we sin continually, where the flesh and Satan overcome us, and we act in a way contrary to our new born desire, but when this happens we mourn for our sin and sinfulness, repent and come to Jesus in sorrow and repentance. Deliberate sin is different. It is acting, knowing that our action is wrong, but choosing sin and turning away from the love of Jesus.

The terribleness of this unfaithfulness in Israel was compounded because the people still expected the blessing of God, and grumbled when such blessing was withdrawn. We see this in the next verse when we read that these men who had married heathen women, still came before God with sacrifices, and expected God to honour the sacrifices and provide the forgiveness promised through such offerings. This reveals a heart which has become hard, and unable to feel the horror of sin, and presuming on the love and grace of God. This action is something like what Paul speaks about in Romans 6, where members of the church were saying that because salvation was all of grace, and God's grace in forgiveness and salvation was to show forth the wonder of God's grace, then it was alright to sin because God's grace would cover the sin, and so God's grace would be more and more poured out. The words of God in verse 12 of our passage supports Paul's cry to those who said let us sin that grace may abound. He said 'God forbid' and by this he was declaring that where true grace abounded then it made people tender about sin and cause them to guard themselves from sin.

In verse 12 before us in our passage the seriousness of sin is made abundantly plain. The words of God through Malachi are very severe. We read 'As for the man who does this, whoever he may be, may the Lord cut him off from the tents of Jacob', which is a declaration that deliberate sin is a dreadful thing and causes God's just and holy anger to rise up in withdrawing his grace from the one sinning until they repent. The emphasis here is that God speaks in this dreadful way to bring home to the ones being unfaithful in this way how terrible their action was, so that they may be convicted of their sin, repent and turn back to God. God's threatenings in Scripture all have this gracious purpose to call people back to him, and show true repentance.

There is a further seriousness shown forth in verse 11. The action of these Israelite men in divorcing their Jewish wives so that they could marry heathen women, brought desecration to the sanctuary the Lord loves. The act of individuals does not effect only themselves, but the whole family of God's people. Such acts of sin allows Satan to infiltrate the family of God, and having gained entrance bring desecration in the whole body of the people of God. It causes a lowering of the standards of God's holiness which he requires of his people and which he desires to see in the fellowship of his people. It also causes the introduction of worldly wisdom and ideas to flood the sanctuary of God, the church, and corrupt the truth and so cause the people of God to embrace beliefs and ideas which suit the desires of the flesh, rather than faithfulness to God. This means the church becomes so corrupted that its message is not the true message of the Gospel, and so people are led astray to belief and practice which does not save the soul.

The question we need to ask ourselves is as to what this word of God to Israel through Malachi has to say to the church in our own day. The fact in Israel at the time of Malachi was that God was withdrawing his blessing from his people. God was so grieved by the unfaithfulness of his people that he declared that they deserved to be cut off from being members of his chosen people. In other words this unfaithfulness was threatening the very existence of the people of God, and threatening a withdrawal of the blessing of God from his people.

The people of God are nothing without the blessing of God. The church has no strength or power inherent in itself. On our own the people of God have no power to stand against malice and temptations of Satan. We are only able to stand in the armour of the Lord, which is the truth of the Gospel set forth in the Bible, and living in faith according to that word of God. When the people of God are unfaithful to the word of God in the Bible, then they are unable to stand, whatever claims they may make. For Israel to sin in this unfaithfulness expressed in Malachi laid them open to the world flooding into the chosen people, and corrupting them with false thoughts and ways. The problem does not just refer to this one example of unfaithfulness, for from one example of unfaithfulness other ways of unfaithfulness follow, and the leaven of unfaithfulness creeps through every fibre of God's people.

When we look out on the church today is it not evident that the church has lost its power. The church in Great Britain has been declining over many years. There has been one or two examples of blessing and growth over the last 100 years, but the general direction of the church is decline. A retired Bishop not very long ago predicted that if the church in Great Britain continued as it is, it would cease to exist as an organisation in the next 20 to 30 years.

Nobody seems to facing this decline and ask why the church is not realising the blessing of God. The organisation is self satisfied with the many initiatives and projects which are being carried out, and there seems to be tunnel vision which can't see that the church as a whole is dying. The question to ask is as to why this is so. The answer is given in this passage from Malachi. The reason for the church's decline is unfaithfulness. There has been unfaithfulness in upholding moral values, but much more there is unfaithfulness to the revealed word of God in the Bible. Because of this there has been a flood of false doctrine being promoted.

The Israelites brought into Israel the worship of foreign gods by marrying heathen women, and this turned the people away from the worship of Jehovah to the worship of these idols brought in from outside. From this worship of foreign gods came the following of the ways and practices of this heathen religion, which corrupted the life of Israel. The passage before us shows how serious this was in the eyes of God, and the danger it brought of God withdrawing his blessing. We read of this happening throughout the history of the Old Testament, and the church today seems to think it has nothing tell us today. The word of God in the Old Testament seems to be treated as ancient and irrelevant for today, but in fact it warns us of what happens when the church allows the influences of the world to enter the thinking and living of the church, and when the church departs from the truth of the Bible.