SPECIAL DAY: Second Sunday in Advent

December 7, 1997 - LESSON: Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 3:1-6, NRSV

SERMON TITLE: Soap

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INTRODUCTION:

  1. I will never forget Sam.
    1. He was a tall spare man with great dignity.
    2. He had little formal education, but a great deal of native intelligence.
    3. He was a genuine Christian.
      1. Conscientious and dedicated to his church.
      2. Doing all that he could.
        1. He did not have much money, he gave what he could.
        2. He was in worship every week.
        3. He attended the Wednesday evening Bible study.
        4. He helped to reach out to the community.
    4. He was a compassionate person, having a great love for people.
    5. He was friendly and would stop and take time to talk with all who passed his way.
    6. All that Sam needed was a bath.
      1. For you see he lived at the town dump.
        1. It was a well, something that we might call a shack.
        2. It had no indoor plumbing.
        3. It had no running water.
      2. Sam acquired an offensive oder
        1. His clothes stank
        2. It seemed that his very body took on the order of burning garbage and trash.

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    7. He still came to church.
    8. He still wanted to help.
    9. It was necessary for someone to alert him to his condition and the need for change.
    10. I was the person on whom that responsibility fell.
      1. How do you do that.
      2. I went to him and as tactfully as I could told him that, until he got cleaned up, he was no longer welcome in a group
      3. He did not want to be isolated.
        1. He tried.
        2. It was not enough.
        3. He needed a change not only in his personal life, but also in the place where he lived.
        4. He could not get rid of the odor where he was.
      4. He finally allowed for the thought and action which followed.
    11. So I was able to get Sam a place in the local county home.
      1. He didn't like it one bit.
      2. You couldn't have expected him to.
      3. But at least, he was washed.
        1. His hair was washed.
        2. His body was washed.
        3. His clothes were washed.
        4. He was washed and clean.

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    12. He refused to stay in the home
      1. He became a backslider.
        1. Have you ever heard of that term to describe an individual?
        2. Peter describes it well.
          1. (2 Peter 2:15-22 NRSV) [15] They have left the straight road and have gone astray, following the road of Balaam son of Bosor, who loved the wages of doing wrong, [16] but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet's madness. [17] These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm; for them the deepest darkness has been reserved. [18] For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error. [19] They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people are slaves to whatever masters them.
          2. [20] For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overpowered, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
          3. [21] For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was passed on to them.
          4. [22] It has happened to them according to the true proverb, "The dog turns back to its own vomit," and, "The sow is washed only to wallow in the mud."
        3. They are the great unwashed.
      2. Sam went back to living at the dump.
    13. Does Sam's condition, need and solution describe Israel's condition, need and solution?
    14. Is it similar to our own condition, need and solution?

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MAIN BODY:

  1. Israel's condition and need are described in Malachi 2:17-
    1. Malachi is an argument between God and his people.
    2. God is speaking:
      1. 17 You have wearied the LORD with your words.
    3. The people respond:
      1. Yet you say, "How have we wearied him?" By saying, "All who do evil are good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them." Or by asking, "Where is the God of justice?"
    4. There is a remedy, it is not of the people but from God.
      1. 3:1 See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple.
      2. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight--indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.
  2. The messenger is to prepare the way for the Lord.
    1. The messenger is not a heavenly messenger.
    2. The messenger is not a spiritual being.
    3. The messenger is not an angel of God who is mentioned
    4. The messenger is an earthly one and who is called in Malachi 4:5 the prophet Elijah.
    5. The messenger is a concrete person who is being sent to the nation immediately before the coming of the LORD.
    6. This is John the Baptist.
      1. (Luke 3:1-6 NRSV) In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, [2] during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. [3] He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, [4] as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. [5] Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; [6] and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"
      2. He cried out to "Prepare the way of the Lord."
      3. He proclaims a baptism of repentance.

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      4. Baptism is a washing away of sin.
        1. Paul blinded by his vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus, is comforted by Ananias who said to him.
        2. (Acts 22:13-16 NRSV) came to me; and standing beside me, he said, 'Brother Saul, regain your sight!' In that very hour I regained my sight and saw him. [14] Then he said, 'The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear his own voice; [15] for you will be his witness to all the world of what you have seen and heard. [16] And now why do you delay? Get up, be baptized, and have your sins washed away, calling on his name.'
  3. The Lord is the Messiah, the Savior.
      1. 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;
        1. The Lord comes.
          1. Refiner's fire.
            1. Burn off the dross.
              1. I have not seen first hand an ore smelter.
              2. I have operated one on a very small scale.
            2. You put a chemical agent into the metal.
              1. The dross, the non-metal elements come to the surface.
              2. They can be skimmed off and thrown away.
          2. Fuller's soap.
            1. The people in Malachi's day had no soap as we understand soap.
            2. Fels Naptha doesn't come close.
            3. A vegetable alkali made burning certain plants and using it to wash your clothes.

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    1. The LORD will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and gold.
      1. 3 he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness.
      2. The refining process goes on in the acceptance of the offering that the LORD makes on behalf of the people.
      3. Those who accept can, in a sense, become pure silver or gold.
    2. The Lord will provide the means by which one can be washed.
      1. Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 writes, Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, [10] thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers--none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. [11] And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
      2. In Ephesians 5:23-26 he uses the illustration of the ideal marriage to describe the church, and the people in it.
        1. "...Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. [24] Just as the church is subject to Christ...[25] Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, [26] in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word,
      3. In Hebrews 10:21-22 he concludes:
        1. and since we have a great priest over the house of God, [22] let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

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    3. The soap which the LORD provides is his word.
      1. It is first of all the Word, Jesus Christ.
      2. It is secondly, the Word of Christ Teachings.
        1. The word acts like soap to cleanse the thoughts.
        2. The word acts like soap to cleanse the motives.
        3. The word acts like soap to cleanse the actions.
        4. Truly love is the soap which helps to purify the soul, the mind, the spirit, the body.

CONCLUSION:

  1. Sam went back to the dump and returned to what he had been.
    1. It was necessary to patiently woo him back to the home.
    2. He went back once more.
    3. The next time he was convinced to stay in the home.
  2. Now he fit the condition described in Malachi 3:4
    1. 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.
    2. He continues to wash and to stay clean
    3. And all his wonderful attributes were useful to him in his life and work for God.
  3. There is a great reward in seriously taking the word of the LORD to heart.
    1. In Revelation 22:14 the LORD speaks
      1. (Revelation 22:12-14 NRSV) "See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone's work. [13] I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." [14] Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.
      2. Blessed are those who have washed their robes.
        1. You notice that it says those who have washed their robes, their lives.
        2. The LORD provides the soap.
        3. We choose to use it or not.
  4. When I was a child, I was not allowed to eat dinner until I had washed my hands.
    1. Not to my satisfaction,
    2. but to the satisfaction of my mother.
  5. We will not allowed to enter the Kingdom of God until we have been washed.
    1. Not to our own satisfaction,
    2. but to the satisfaction of God.

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