Malachi 2:17

Ye have wearied the Lord with your words,....

Ye have wearied the Lord with your words - o “By your blasphemous words, full of unbelief and mistrust, you have in a manner wearied God. He speaks of God, after the manner of men, as a man afflicted by the ills of others. Whence also the Lord says in Isaiah Isa 1:14, “I am weary to bear them,” and Isa 43:24, “thou hast made Me to serve with thy sins; thou hast wearied Me with thine iniquities.” In like way the Apostle says Eph 4:

You were not here, I am thankful to say, last Lord's-Day evening, for it was your duty and privilege to stay away to give others an opportunity of hearing. My subject, then, [Sermon #1414, No Difference] was our heavenly Father who makes His sun to rise upon the evil and upon the good and sends rain upon the just and upon the unjust. Then I set forth the universal benevolence of God and the way in which He stays the operations of Justice to give space for forbearance and long-suffering.

You were not here, I am thankful to say, last Lord's-Day evening, for it was your duty and privilege to stay away to give others an opportunity of hearing. My subject, then, [Sermon #1414, No Difference] was our heavenly Father who makes His sun to rise upon the evil and upon the good and sends rain upon the just and upon the unjust. Then I set forth the universal benevolence of God and the way in which He stays the operations of Justice to give space for forbearance and long-suffering. Now this fact, this gracious fact, which ought to lead man to repentance, has, through the perversity of human nature, been used for quite another purpose. Men have said, "He blesses the evil as well as the good. The sun shines on all alike. The rain indiscriminately enriches the field of the tyrant and the pasture of the generous heart— where is the God of Judgment? Is there such a God? Is it not one and the same whether we fear Him or disregard Him?" Side by side with this has run another circumstance perhaps even more readily misunderstood. God is, in this life, preparing His people for a better world and part of that process is effected by trial and affliction so that it frequently happens that the godly are in adversity while the wicked are in prosperity. Having no such designs toward them as toward His people, the Lord permits the wicked to enjoy themselves while they may, so that oftentimes they are as bullocks fattened in rich pastures—but they forget that they are fattened for the slaughter! The righteous, brought very low, are often in poverty, frequently in sickness and not seldom in despondency of spirit—but all to prepare them for Glory! From the trials of the godly, which are all sent in wisdom and in love, shortsighted man has inferred that God has no regard to human character and even treats those worst who serve Him best.

Ye have wearied the Lord - He has borne with you so long, and has been provoked so often, that he will bear it no longer. It is not fit that he should. Every one that doeth evil - Ye say that it is right in the sight of the Lord to put away a wife, because she has no longer found favor in the sight of her husband. And because it has not been signally punished hitherto, ye blaspheme and cry out, “Where is the God of judgment?” Were he such as he is represented, would he not speak out? All these things show that this people were horribly corrupt. The priests were bad; the prophets were bad; the Levites were bad; and no wonder that the people were irreligious, profane, profligate, and cruel.