The Dark Night of the Soul (Malachi 1:1-5, 3:13-15)

I. Introduction

A. Review: Malachi comes at the end of the OT chronologically. It is a time when Israel no longer takes God seriously --> so they grow weary of covenant-keeping --> so they turn rebellious.

Last week’s big idea: “ ‘Return to me, and I will return to you,’ says the LORD Almighty” (3:7).

B. So we are unpacking this idea of returning to God. In my exposition of this idea last week and in the review just now, you probably thought to yourself, “Well, that makes sense.” And it does: it seems reasonable. In fact, if it were up to reason alone, we would probably all return to God. But it is not up to reason alone. Human beings are more complicated than that. Returning to God must involve our whole person. And this means that emotions are involved. What if we know that we ought to return to God, but we don’t feel like returning to him? We are complex beings, and oftentimes our soul might be conflicted within us.

II. The Dark Night of the Soul

(1) “How long will Our Lord stay away?” (2) “For within me everything is icy cold” (3) “The more I want Him the less I am wanted” (4) “He is destroying everything in me” (5) “No faith—no love—no zeal” (6) “I understand a little the tortures of hell—without God” (7) “I did not know that love could make one suffer so much—this is of longing—of pain human but caused by the divine” (8) “The child of your love — and now become as the most hated one” (9) “If there be no God—there can be no soul—If there is no soul then Jesus—You also are not true” (10) “I no longer pray” (11) “I am perfectly happy to be like this to the end of life” (12) “I have come to love the darkness” (source, accessed August 11, 2009).

These are the words of Mother Teresa. They are excerpts from her personal letters (released in the 2007 book Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light). In 1948 she began ministering to the poor and suffering in the slums of Calcutta. It was not long before the dark night of the soul described above set in, and it stayed with her for the rest of her life. How could a woman so famous for spreading the love of God to others experience such a deep struggle with the love and presence of God in her own life?

III. YHWH loves Jacob, but hates Esau (1:1-5)

A. “ ‘I have loved you,’ says the LORD. ‘But you ask, “How have you loved us?” ’ ” (1:2) What a way to start the book! What insolence on the part of Israel to ask this question of the loving Creator Redeemer God. What audacity.

I am learning that whenever something in the Old Testament does not make sense or causes me to do a double take, it often helps to step back and get some perspective. Perhaps a quick history lesson will shed some light on Israel’s question. How does this local narrative fit into the larger metanarrative of the Old Testament? Of the Bible?

“Even a cursory reading of the Bible reveals that when God wants to get something done He starts by selecting a dude to lead that change and works through that dude. Examples include sparing humanity (Noah), founding a nation (Abraham), liberating a nation (Moses), establishing a throne (David), building a temple (Solomon), preparing hearts (John the Baptizer), reaching Gentiles (Paul), and redeeming creation (Jesus)” (source, accessed April 13, 2008).

God uses Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to found the nation of Israel, and he makes some pretty big promises to them. God promises Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that they will always have descendents. He promises that these descendents will always have a title deed to the Promised Land (boundary markers: the Nile River and the Euphrates River), which was actually inhabited by other peoples when the covenant was cut. God even promised to bless all of the peoples of the world through the fulfillment of his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These are big promises. However, somewhere around 1876 B.C. the nation of Israel becomes enslaved in Egypt. They remain slaves for over four hundred years. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. Then, finally, God raises up a man named Moses to liberate the nation. In 1446 B.C., Moses leads the children of Israel on a climactic exodus out of Egypt. The Exodus story is the most prominent story of deliverance in the Old Testament; in fact, it is sometimes called the Cross of the Old Testament. In 1406 B.C., Israel enters into the Promised Land. Things are looking up. However, the people quickly degenerate into self-destructive patterns of sin and folly and rebellion. This sad chapter in Israel’s history is recorded for us in the book of Judges.

Up to this point, God has been Israel’s king. They are a theocratic nation in the truest sense of the word. In 1050 B.C., God begins mediating his reign over Israel through a king. The first king of Israel is King Saul. The second king of Israel is King David (reigned 1011-971 B.C.). God makes some pretty big promises to King David. He promises David that the Davidic throne and Davidic kingdom will be everlasting. However, in 586 B.C. Babylon conquers Jerusalem and lays waste to the temple. By the looks of things, the Davidic throne and Davidic kingdom have come to an end. “Why, it must often have been asked, should we serve a god who has just lost the last war? Why should we not run after Marduk, the god of Babylonia? After all, has he not conquered Yahweh, even as Yahweh himself earlier defeated the gods of Egypt and of Canaan?” (Isbell, Malachi, 13). On this note, the Jews are exiled to captivity in Babylon.

But God is faithful, even when we are not. He delivers Israel from captivity in Babylon just as he delivered them from slavery in Egypt all those years ago. How great is our God! But wait, the captivity in Babylon was quite dissimilar from the slavery in Egypt. (1) The Jews actually experienced some limited freedom in Babylon, and many of them actually enjoyed material success within the confines of their limited freedom. (2) Upon returning to Jerusalem after the Exile, the Jews found both the temple and the city walls in ruins. This was a far cry from the grandeur of Babylon. (3) The Jews were an agricultural people and they found the land very difficult to work upon their return. (4) Those who had prospered in Babylon were now using their good fortunes to take advantage of fellow Jews who were less fortunate by lending money at an exorbitant rate of interest, a practice called “usury” (Isbell, Malachi, 15-16). Under these conditions, the Jews cry out to the LORD: “How have you loved us?” This was their dark night of the soul.

B. God used Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to found a nation. Isaac, the son of Abraham, had two sons: Jacob and Esau. In vv. 2-4, God reminds Israel of how he has set himself against Esau and his descendents, the Edomites. Mustering all of the impetus and insolence of Babel, Edom says: “Though we have been crushed, we will rebuild the ruins.” But God assures Israel that he will utterly destroy Edom. By painting this stark contrast between his dealings with Jacob and his dealings with Edom, God demonstrates the incredible favor and faithfulness that he has shown to Israel (the descendents of Jacob). God says to his people: “I have loved you.”

In v. 5, God reminds Israel that it is not about them anyways. It is all about God, and making his name great among the nations.

IV. Israel speaks against YHWH’s justice (3:13-15)

A. Israel says: “It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourner before the LORD Almighty?” (v. 14)

Commentator Joyce G. Baldwin says: “Whereas most of the prophets lived and prophesied in days of change and political upheaval, Malachi and his contemporaries were living in an uneventful waiting period, when God seemed to have forgotten His people enduring poverty and foreign domination in the little province of Judah. Zerubbabel and Joshua, whom Haggai and Zechariah had indicated as God’s chosen men for the new age, had died. True the Temple had been completed, but nothing momentous had occurred to indicate that God’s presence had returned to fill it with glory, as Ezekiel had indicated would happen (Ezk. 43:4). The day of miracles had passed with Elijah and Elisha. The round of religious duties continued to be carried on, but without enthusiasm. Where was the God of their fathers? Did it really matter whether one served Him or not? Generations were dying without receiving the promises (cf. Heb. 11:13) and many were losing their faith” (Baldwin, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, 211).

Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus calls his followers to self-sacrifice. Maybe you have tried to follow Jesus. Maybe you have tried to live a good, moral life and do the whole Christian thing. Have you ever found yourself saying, what’s the point? What’s in it for me? When is this ever going to end? Where is the rest for my soul that Jesus promised? What’s the deal?

B. Israel goes so far as to speak against God’s justice: “But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper and even those who challenge God escape.” (v. 15)

Justice is “what is right.” What is right is determined by what God says (Torah). What God says is determined by who God is (just, holy, loving, triune, etc.). So the nature of God determines what justice is. God is “what is right” (source, accessed August 13, 2009).

Israel goes so far as to question God’s justice. They question whether he is right. They say, maybe he is wrong. In fact, they are sure he is wrong.

Israel has used their dark night of the soul as an occasion to turn their back on God, rather than turning to him.

V. Bringing It Home

A. Personal application: I don’t know what your dark night of the soul is. Maybe it is in your past. Maybe it is still in your future. Maybe you are in the midst of it right now.

Maybe you had to break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Maybe you lost a job. Maybe your fiancé broke off the engagement. Maybe you lost a child to miscarriage. Maybe you have had to bury a parent. Maybe you have had to bury both of your parents. Maybe your church split. Maybe the business you started has gone under. Maybe you have been trying the whole Christian thing, but you feel no connection to God. Maybe you have felt no connection to God for years. Maybe you are burnt out. Maybe you are asking, what’s the point? Maybe you are asking, “God, how have you loved me?”

I don’t know what your dark night of the soul is. But I do know you must answer this question: will you use your dark night of the soul as an occasion to turn your back on God, or will you use it as an occasion to turn to him?

B. Public illustration: Mother Teresa endured her agonizing dark night of the soul for over forty years, until the end of her life. Yet she did not use it as an occasion to turn her back on God. She used it as an occasion to turn to him and demonstrate his love to others.

VI. Conclusion

A. Excerpt from Chapter 8 of C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters: “Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy’s determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life—his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down.

“. . . Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He [the Enemy] relies on the troughs even more that on peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To use a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself—creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His.

“. . . Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon the universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

B. Regen Reflection Q’s

1. What do you think about C. S. Lewis’ commentary on troughs and peaks?

2. In your experience, what role have emotions played in wandering from God? In returning to him?

3. Do you think Jesus ever had a “dark night of the soul”? How did he respond? What does being “in Christ” mean for us in our troughs and struggles and times of emotional peril, when we find ourselves weary or rebellious?

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