The Audacity of Unbelief Text: Malachi 2:17
Introduction: The Sin of Talking Back
We come now to the fourth great dispute between God and His people in the book of Malachi. The prophet has already confronted them for their polluted sacrifices and their treacherous dealings in marriage. Now he comes to the sin of their words, the high-handed sin of their theology. And we must see that this is not an ancient problem. The spirit of our age is one of cynical, sophisticated chatter, a constant murmuring against the Almighty that masquerades as intellectual honesty. Men today believe they can put God in the dock. They think they can cross-examine Him, critique His management of the world, and give Him a poor performance review. And when God, through His Word, calls them on it, they feign ignorance. They play dumb. "We said what? Who, us?"
This is precisely what is happening here. God brings a charge: "You have wearied Yahweh with your words." And the people respond with a shrug and a sanctimonious question: "How have we wearied Him?" This is not a sincere request for information. This is insolence. It is the verbal equivalent of a teenager rolling his eyes at his father. It is a refusal to see, a determined blindness. They are not asking because they want to know; they are asking because they want to deny. They are like a man caught with his hand in the cookie jar who looks up and says, "What cookie jar?"
The sin here is a profound one. It is the attempt to redefine reality with words. It is the attempt to lecture God on the nature of good and evil, and to call His justice into question. This is the very essence of the Fall. The serpent came to Eve and questioned God's words, questioned God's goodness, and questioned God's justice. And modern man, just like post-exilic Israel, has swallowed the same lie. He looks at the world, a world groaning under the weight of his own sin, and has the audacity to blame the management. This passage is a divine diagnosis of a sick and cynical culture, a culture that has talked so much nonsense for so long that it has exhausted the patience of Heaven. And it is a warning to us, lest we do the same.
The Text
You have wearied Yahweh with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied Him?” In that you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of Yahweh, and He delights in them,” or, “Where is the God of justice?”
(Malachi 2:17 LSB)
The Divine Exhaustion and the Human Insolence
The verse begins with a staggering statement:
"You have wearied Yahweh with your words. But you say, 'How have we wearied Him?'" (Malachi 2:17a)
Now, we must be careful here. When the Bible speaks of God being "wearied," it is using the language of accommodation. It is an anthropomorphism. God, in His essence, does not get tired. He is not worn out. "The everlasting God, Yahweh, the Creator of the ends of the earth, does not faint or grow weary" (Isaiah 40:28). This is not about a limitation in God's being, but rather a description of the covenantal strain. It is the language of a father who is utterly exhausted by the persistent, willful rebellion of his son. It speaks of a patience that has been tried to its absolute limit. Their words, their constant, grating, unbelieving words, have become an offense, a burden.
What kind of words weary the Lord? It is not honest doubt. It is not the cry of the psalmist in his confusion. It is the cynical, persistent, God-belittling talk of a people who refuse to believe what He has plainly revealed. It is the chatter of unbelief. It is the endless drone of rebellion that fills the airwaves, the classrooms, and sadly, even the pulpits of our day.
And their response is the tell-tale sign of a hardened heart. "How have we wearied Him?" This is not the question of a tender conscience, desperate to repent. It is the question of a guilty party, feigning innocence. It is a challenge. They are demanding that God produce the evidence, as though He were the one on trial. This is what happens when men lose the fear of God. They forget who is the Potter and who is the clay. They begin to think they have the right to talk back, to demand an explanation from the God who holds their every breath in His hand. This is the posture of pride, and it is a posture that God will not tolerate for long.
The Moral Inversion
God does not leave them guessing. He presents the first piece of evidence for the prosecution.
"In that you say, 'Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of Yahweh, and He delights in them...'" (Malachi 2:17b)
This is the first way they wearied God: by a complete and total inversion of His moral law. They looked at the wicked, they saw their apparent prosperity, and they drew a blasphemous conclusion. They did not simply say, "The wicked seem to be getting away with it." They went much further. They said, "This must be what God wants. The evil are actually the good. God must delight in them."
This is the sin Isaiah warned about: "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness" (Isaiah 5:20). It is a deliberate act of ethical sabotage. Why would they say such a thing? For two reasons. First, it justified their own compromises. If the lines between good and evil are blurred, then their own sin doesn't look so bad. If God is "delighted" with the openly wicked, then surely He is fine with their half-hearted, corner-cutting religion. It is a way of grading on a curve, a curve that they have drawn themselves.
Second, it is a slander against the character of God. To say that God delights in evil is to remake God in the image of the devil. God's holiness is His defining attribute. He is of purer eyes than to look on evil and cannot tolerate wrong (Habakkuk 1:13). To say that He delights in evil is not just a theological mistake; it is cosmic treason. It is to accuse the judge of all the earth of being a corrupt and wicked judge. This is the kind of talk that wearies God because it strikes at the very foundation of His nature and His government of the world. Our own generation is drowning in this very sin. We are told that deviancy is brave, that self-mutilation is health, that the murder of the unborn is a right. And the architects of this new morality insist that God is on their side, that He is a God of "love" who would never condemn anyone. This is not new; it is the ancient, wearying lie of Malachi's day, dressed up in modern clothes.
The Cynical Challenge
The second piece of evidence is a direct challenge to God's justice.
"...or, 'Where is the God of justice?'" (Malachi 2:17c)
This question is the bitter fruit of the first statement. If God really does delight in evil, then it follows that there is no true justice. The question drips with sarcasm and contempt. It is the cry of the impatient, unbelieving heart. They look around, they see injustice, they see the wicked prospering, and instead of examining their own sin as the root cause of the nation's decay, they cast the blame upward. "If there is a God of justice, He is certainly not doing His job. He is either absent, or impotent, or indifferent."
This is the classic problem of evil, but it is not posed here as an honest philosophical dilemma. It is a taunt. It is a dare. It is the fool saying in his heart, "There is no God," or what amounts to the same thing, "There is no God who acts." They are demanding that God perform for them, that He act according to their timetable and according to their definition of justice. They have forgotten that God's timetable is not ours. They have forgotten that the Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness (2 Peter 3:9). They have forgotten that the apparent delay of justice is not a sign of God's absence, but often a sign of His mercy, giving men time to repent.
But they do not want mercy; they want a spectacle. And in their pride, they have no idea what they are asking for. The rest of the book of Malachi is God's answer to this very question. "Where is the God of justice?" He is coming. "Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple... But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire" (Malachi 3:1-2). They were demanding the God of justice, and God promises to give them exactly what they asked for. They thought it would mean the judgment of their enemies, but they were about to find out that judgment begins at the house of God.
Conclusion: Stop Talking and Listen
The message for us is stark and simple. God is not deaf. He hears our words. And the cynical, faithless, complaining words of His people weary Him. When we look at the state of our nation, when we see evil exalted and righteousness mocked, the temptation is to join the chorus of Malachi's day. The temptation is to throw up our hands and ask, "Where is the God of justice?"
But that is the wrong question. The question is not "Where is God?" The question is "Where are we?" Are we standing in faith, or are we grumbling in unbelief? Are we calling evil good by our silence, by our compromise, by our cowardice? Are we slandering the character of God by suggesting that He is indifferent to sin?
The proper response to the apparent triumph of evil is not to question God's justice, but to appeal to it. It is to pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." It is to repent of our own complicity with the world's rebellion. It is to trust His promises, even when we cannot see their fulfillment. God's justice is not missing; it is on its way. It came in the person of John the Baptist, who prepared the way. It came in the person of Jesus Christ, who took the full fire of God's justice upon Himself at the cross for all who would believe. And it is coming again, when He will return to judge the living and the dead.
Therefore, let us stop wearying the Lord with our faithless words. Let us stop talking back. Let us be a people who are quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger. Let us be a people whose words are seasoned with the salt of grace, not the bitterness of unbelief. For the God of justice is not far off. He is near. And when He comes, we want to be found not among the mockers, but among those who have faithfully waited for His salvation.