“WHEREIN HAST THOU LOVED US? (Mal 1:2) #1
Nov 2nd, 2003
Int. As Albert Drecker left his box to close the drawbridge over the Passaic River for a train to cross, his little boy of ten, came running after him, and fell into the river. A scream from the child reached his father's ears, just as he was closing the bridge, and the train was in view dashing along. To leave the bridge would involve the loss of many lives, to stand at his post would sacrifice the life of his boy. He stood at his post, the train passed over in safety, but when he turned to look for his child he had sunk. It was his only duty, but it was bravely done. He sacrificed his son to save that train and its passengers. It was the limit of human love. The love of God is greater. He gave His Son to die for his enemies (Rom. 5:6-8)
1. GOD’S LOVE IS OFTEN MET WITH INGRATITUDE.
A. THE EVIDENCE FOR SUCH A STATEMENT IS OVERWHELMING.
1. C. H. S. said: "Man, By nature, is a lump of ingratitude."
2. God’s love is an everlasting love. (Jere 31:3)
3. God has in love spared us from disease and death on numerous occasions and yet, we question his love.
B. GOD PROVED HIS LOVE TO ISRAEL SEVERAL WAYS:
1. He graciously chose Jacob, their father, and rejected Esau, who in many ways was a much better man.
2. He judged the Edomites (Esau’s descendants) and gave to Israel the best of the lands.
3. He promised Israel a land flowing with milk and honey, but, alas, their sins polluted the land.
4. Even then, he graciously restored them to their land and delivered them from captivity.
5. Such gratuitous love on Jehovah's part called for love on their part, but the return they made was sin and dishonor to Jehovah.
C. ISRAEL WAS MORE FAVORED THAN ANY NATION ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH.
1. (Rom 9:3-5) "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh: {4} Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; {5} Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen."
D. NOTICE HOW EASY IT IS TO BECOME CRITICAL OF THE LORD.
1. On this question, (Wherein hast Thou loved us) Pulpit Commentary says: "Events had not turned out as they expected. They had, indeed, returned from captivity, and the temple was rebuilt; but none of the splendid things announced by the prophets had come to pass. They were not great and victorious; Messiah had not appeared. Therefore they repined and murmured: they were ungrateful for past favors, and questioned God’s power and providence."
II. GOD’S LOVE IS OFTEN MET WITH FORGETFUL HEARTS.
A. ISRAEL, LIKE SO MANY TODAY, HAD SHORT MEMORIES.
1. (Psa 106:9-14) "He rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness. {10} And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. {11} And the waters covered their enemies: there was not one of them left. {12} Then believed they his words; they sang his praise. {13} They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel: {14} But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert."
2. In essence, they were saying: “Wherein hast Thou loved us? Prove it.”
3. Eve doubted God’s love and ate of the forbidden tree; she thought God was holding out on her.
4. Satan wants us to feel neglected by God. “Look at your difficult circumstances,” he said to the Jewish remnant. “Where are the crops? Why doesn’t God take care of you?”
5. Israel, like us many times, becoming unaware of our absolute dependence on the unmerited mercy of God.
a. (Deu 7:7-8) "The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: {8} But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt."
6. The men most favored of Providence are often most unconscious of the favors, and they ask such a question as this.
7. As a rule, perhaps the most favored of Providence are the greatest complainers. What ingratitude is this!
8. A Dr. Dods pf England penned the following statement: "Does not our daily life speak out the ingratitude and unbelief of Israel, “Wherein hast thou loved us?”
9. And may we not pen this same question to America? We have been blessed more than any nation on earth:
a. We even deny the existence of God.
b. We have outlawed His Word in our public life.
c. We have practically made Christianity unlawful in America.
10. We make people put their hand on the Bible and take an oath and then refuse to allow a Judge to place a monument to the Ten Commandments in his Court House.
11. God’s love is often least acknowledged where it is most manifested.
III. GOD’S LOVE IS OFTEN MET WITH UNDISCERNING RESPONSE.
A. THOU THEY POSSESSED THE SCRIPTURES OF GOD; THEY DID NOT POSSESS THE GOD OF THE SCRIPTURES.
1. Pulpit Commentary on "Was not Esau Jacob’s brother? (Vr. 2-b) "God refutes their unjust charge by referring them to a palpable fact, viz. the different fate of the descendants of the twin brothers, Esau and Jacob. How miserable the destiny of the Edomites! how comparatively fortunate the condition of the Israelites! Yet I loved Jacob."
2. Mt Henry says: "Was not Esau as near akin to Abraham as you are? Was he not Jacob’s own brother, his elder brother? And therefore, if there were any right to a recompence for Abraham’s love, Esau had it, and yet I hated Esau and loved Jacob."
3. Pulpit Commentary: "In the case of the two brothers personally we note the following facts: Esau was the elder, yet not the heir of the promise. He suffered at the hands of a brother in some respects less noble than himself. He thus lost his father’s chief blessing and had to take the remnants, and to be satisfied with a poorer inheritance, while Jacob received “the glory of all lands.”
4. Jacob and Esau born when Isaac was age 60.... (Gen. 25:26)
5. Pulpit Commentary: "The two nations, Israel and Edom, were separated like two rivers issuing from the same fountain, the one destined to be a highway of commerce and a source of fertility, the other to be lost in the sands of the desert. Israel, blessed with a priesthood, a succession of prophets, and a covenant “ordered in all things and sure,” in spite of many apostasies;
“Edom was allowed to drift into idolatry and crime till it became known as “the border of wickedness,” etc. (ver. 4).
6. “Such gifts and calling of God cannot be annulled any more than his sentences of judgment can be reversed. (ver. 4)."
7. There was an exceedingly bitter feeling between Israel and Edom, dating from the time when Edom insultingly refused to allow the passage of Israel through her territory, and so compelled God’s people to take the weary and perilous way up by Hor.”
8. (Num 20:17-22) "Let us pass, I pray thee, through thy country: we will not pass through the fields, or through the vineyards, neither will we drink of the water of the wells: we will go by the king's high way, we will not turn to the right hand nor to the left, until we have passed thy borders. {18} And Edom said unto him, Thou shalt not pass by me, lest I come out against thee with the sword. {19} And the children of Israel said unto him, We will go by the high way: and if I and my cattle drink of thy water, then I will pay for it: I will only, without doing any thing else, go through on my feet. {20} And he said, Thou shalt not go through. And Edom came out against him with much people, and with a strong hand. {21} Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border: wherefore Israel turned away from him. {22} And the children of Israel, even the whole congregation, journeyed from Kadesh, and came unto mount Hor."
B. THEIR FATHERS HAD BEEN CHOSEN BY GOD.
1. When it says God “loved” Jacob, you could read it as saying God “chose” Jacob. The Hebrew word translated here as love, has more of an emphasis on choice or election than on emotion, although emotion is involved.
2. The salvation of individuals is no less the result of sovereign love, inasmuch as the very beginnings of spiritual life are of God, and are “according to his own purpose and grace,” etc. (2 Tim. 1:9).
3. Election is not “an order of merit,” but a cord of love.
4. John Gill says: "Not only by giving Jacob the temporal birthright and blessing, and the advantages arising from thence; but by choosing him to everlasting life, bestowing his grace upon him, revealing Christ unto him, and making him a partaker of eternal happiness; and also his posterity.”
a. (Rom 9:13) “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”
b. "Paul’s use of the antithesis in the passage in which he clenches it by a quotation from Malachi: “as it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”
c. “ In these words the doctrine of the Divine election of individuals appears to be expressed as absolutely as possible."
5. "Jacob have I loved" Past Tense--- Calvin’s Institutes says: "If foreknowledge had anything to do with this distinction of the brothers, the mention of time would have been out of place."
6. Lest some “free-willer” poke up his ugly head, let us remember:
a. When did God choose Jacob? The choice took place in the womb, so Jacob certainly couldn’t have done anything to have deserved it. In fact, as you study the life of Jacob, he epitomizes the independent man trying to control his own destiny and live life without God. God worked on Jacob for many years before Jacob finally turned to God.”
C. NOTICE HOW GOD JUDGED ESAU’S POSTERITY ...(Vr. 3)
1. Pulpit Commentary: "Laid his mountains… waste." (Vr.3) "While the Israelites were repeopling and cultivating their land, and their cities were rising from their ruins, and the temple and the capital were rebuilt, Edom, which had suffered at the hand of the same enemies, had never recovered from the blow, and still lay a scene of desolation and ruin."
2. “FOR THE DRAGONS OF THE WILDERNESS”. (Vr. 3-b)
a. (Micah 1:8) "Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, (or jackals) and mourning as the owls."
IV. GOD’S LOVE IS OFTEN MET WITH UNRELENTING OPPOSITION.
A. EDOM (Esau’s descendents) WOULD BUILD WITH OR WITHOUT GOD. (Vr. 4-a)
1. Mt Henry on (Vr. 4) "We will return and build" whether God will or no; nay, we will do it in defiance of God’s curse, and that sentence pronounced upon Edom (#Isa 34:10), From generation to generation it shall lie waste."
2. (Isa 34:10) "It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever."
3. They would build presumptuously, as Hiel built Jericho in direct contradiction to the word of God (1Kings 16:34)
a. (Josh 6:26) “And Joshua adjured them at that time, saying, Cursed be the man before the LORD, that riseth up and buildeth this city”
b. (1 Ki 16:34) "In his days did Hiel the Bethelite build Jericho: he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his firstborn, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest son Segub, according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by Joshua the son of Nun."
4. Mt Henry on this phrase: "I will throw down" in (Vr. 4), says: "
a. When the Jews had rejected Christ and his gospel they became Edomites, and this word was fulfilled in them; for when, in the time of the emperor Adrian, they attempted to rebuild Jerusalem, God by earthquakes and eruptions of fire threw down what they built, so that they were forced to quit the enterprise.
b. “Secondly, They shall be looked upon by all as abandoned to utter ruin.
5. “All that see them shall call them the border of wickedness, a sinful nation, incurably so, and therefore the people against whom the Lord has indignation for ever.
6. “Since their wickedness is such as will never be reformed, their desolations shall be such as are never to be repaired.
7. “Against Israel God was a little displeased (Zec 1:15),
8. “But against Edom he has indignation, and will have for ever, for they are the people of his curse, (Isa 34:5).
a. (Isa 34:5) "For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment."
CONCLUSION: It is a fearful thing to trifle with the love and mercy of God.