When you were a child did you ever question your parents’ love for you? Maybe When you were disciplined? Or, when you wanted something and didn’t get it? Or, you wanted to go somewhere and didn’t get to go? Or, when you didn’t get your way? But, when you grew up and matured, you saw how silly you were, right? Malachi is going to deal with some very immature people who who have decided to question the great love that God has for them. Satan wants people, especially those of us who are saved, to question God’s love, and it is entirely possible that at one time or another we might be tempted to do so. Maybe because of difficulties we may face, or failing to get our way, or failing to receive the things for which we may pray. Malachi lived in a day much like ours. It was at the end of an age. (For 400 years after Malachi spoke there would be no word from Heaven, now word from God.) It was a time when God’s people were indifferent, insensitive, and insolent toward Him. About one hundred years had passed between the return of the exiles from Babylon and the prophecy of Malachi. The people had gotten “settled down” in the land. Their apathy caused the prophet Haggai to say (Haggai 1:2-4): “Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. (3) Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, (4) Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste? (5) Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.” They were saying, “We’re too busy to worry about God’s house. We need to work on our own houses.” Have you ever noticed how the fervor and excitement of something new can fade? A church gets a new pastor, but the excitement of it eventually wears off after he has been there a while. People look back to the “good old days” when the building was filled, and people were being brought to the Lord and wonder, “Why can’t we have services like that today?” God has not changed! (We’re going to see that in the book of Malachi.) God’s Word has not changed! The Holy Spirit has not gone into retirement or gone out of business. What is left? God’s people have changed! We often no longer have the zeal that our forefathers had. Like the church at Ephesus (Revelation 2), we have “left our first love,” lost our fervor and excitement for Christ. These even came to the point that they questioned God’s love for them. In vs. 2 God says, “I have loved you.” But they replied, “Oh really? Wherein have You loved us?” They were actually saying, “If You really loved us we would not have all this trouble?” This is the first of 7 sarcastic questions the people of God ask Him in Malachi. So God answers them with 4 statements about His mighty love. We need to hear these statements because it is possible that we might today, especially if we’re not getting our way, do like these and question God’s love for us.

I. GOD SAYS HE LOVES WITH A SOVEREIGN LOVE -- VV. 2-3.

II. GOD LOVES WITH A STRONG LOVE -- VS. 3.

III. GOD LOVES WITH A STEADFAST LOVE -- VS. 4.

IV. GOD LOVES WITH A SEEKING LOVE -- VS. 5.