As a biblical counselor, I am most challenged by the cold, complacent counselee. Whether it is the husband “dragged” to counseling by his wife, the apathetic Christian looking for the silver bullet, or the young person pressured into counseling by his parents, this apathy is notoriously unmalleable. To counsel cold, complacent counselees, I need a fresh, biblical perspective.
That is why I have been greatly helped by Malachi’s counsel to Judah. Almost eighty years after being released from Babylonian captivity and around 50 years since the rebuilding of the temple, the Jews settled into cold indifference. The shekinah glory had not returned. Persian princes still ruled her land. Crop failure and poverty were pervasive. The circumstances seemed to say, “God doesn’t care about you. So why should you care about God?”
Questions of Complacency
Malachi divides up his counsel by confronting six questions of complacency.
1.) When assured of God’s love, Israel’s response is an incredulous, “How have You loved us?” (1:1).
2.) After confronting the priesthood on their tolerance of defiled sacrifices, Israel has the audacity to ask, “How have we despised Your name?” (1:6).
3.) When Malachi informs the priests that God does not hear their tear-filled prayers because they have dealt treacherously with the wife of their youth, they feign naivety and ask, “For what reason?” (2:14)
4.) When God calls them to return to him, they accuse God of being the deserter by saying, “How shall we return?” i.e., “We never left!” (3:7).
5.) When they steal from God by refusing to offer the prescribed tithes, God confronts them and they cry, “How have we robbed God?” (3:8)?
6.) When they charge God with injustice by asserting, “It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge…,” God rebukes them, and they retort, “What have we spoken against You” (3:13)? This is complacency with a heavy dose of victimhood!
Divine Compassion Confronts Complacency
What is Malachi’s approach? While we might expect an Old Testament prophet to “release the kraken,” instead Malachi’s first order is to boldly assert the love of God over Israel.
“I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have You loved us?” “Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” declares the Lord. “Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.” Though Edom says, “We have been beaten down, but we will return and build up the ruins;” thus says the Lord of hosts, “They may build, but I will tear down; and men will call them the wicked territory, and the people toward whom the Lord is indignant forever.” Your eyes will see this and you will say, “The Lord be magnified beyond the border of Israel!” (Malachi 1:2–5).
Here we see that a root cause of Israel’s complacency was her failure to realize God’s love for her. While some commentators reduce this love and hate language to “alliance” language, it is telling that Paul uses this text to illustrate God’s sovereign, electing love (Romans 9:9-13). Israel’s complacency, in part, stemmed from her lack of faith in God’s love for her.
Divine Compassion Seen in Preservation
To drive home this point, Malachi contrasts God’s treatment of Israel with Edom. Edom had been an enemy of Israel for over 1,000 years. Spawning from Esau, her civilization thrived alongside Israel’s. Yet, Edom developed an unquenchable, seething disdain for Israel (Amos 1:11). Her torment of Israel read like a house of horrors. Finally, Obadiah prophesied Edom’s total and complete downfall. Yet, this seemed hard to believe for a nation that had enjoyed 1,000 years of tyrannical power.
But, sure to God’s word, as Daniel began to prepare Israel for her release, Edom was in full decline. Israel would begin a trajectory of blessing, rebuilding, and repopulation, while Edom would fracture and collapse. In the days of Malachi, Israel should have easily witnessed this fulfillment, but cold complacency obstructed her vision.
What lesson should Israel have learned? They should have learned that God’s preservation of his people is a sign of his love (Isaiah 49:14-18). Israel was not to rejoice in Edom’s demise, but she was to recognize that God’s loving preservation rested on her (contra Edom), solely due to God’s sovereign grace. Israel’s circumstances were hard, yet God was preserving her. She was back in her land, the temple rebuilt, and worship restored. Edom lay in ruins. Seeing God’s loving hand of preservation should have rebuked her complacency.
Bringing Malachi into the Counseling Room
How does this translate to the counseling room? If the counselee evidences the fruit of salvation, the counselor should probe their understanding of God’s love.
- Have they developed a cynical view of life that, like a carnival mirror, distorts the love of God (Psalm 77:10; Jeremiah 20:7)?
- Is there unconfessed sin that, like a cataract, prevents a clear vision of God’s love (Psalm 66:18; Isaiah 59:2)?
- Do they believe they have reasons to doubt God’s love such as obedience with no “results” or sacrifice with no “return” (Psalm 73:13; Malachi 2:17)?
- Have they failed to train their eyes of faith to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8)?
- Applying the Edom-principle, does the counselee see all around them the tragic wreckage of ruined lives that results from people (like Edom) who reject the refuge of God’s love in Christ?
- Have they contrasted this with God’s preservation of them? (Note this contrastive exercise in the psalmist’s “but as for me” statements (Psalm 5:7; 73:28; 75:9; 119:87).
- Finally, has Christ’s love, expressed in his death and resurrection, lost its luster in their life (Romans 8:32)? How and why has it failed to be the high-octane fuel in their Christian life?
To recapture this lost gratitude, the counselor should encourage them to journal the evidence of God’s preserving love in their life. Once they list the evidence of God’s love, like Malachi, this evidence can be used to lovingly rebuke their complacency. They should see that to respond to God’s love with complacency is a silent protest against his love. It is high-handed ingratitude.
From here the counselor can show the complacent Christian how to recognize complacency, repent from it, refocus their spirit, and replace it with focused obedience. Even before his emotions catch up to his obedience, he can begin to take small, practical steps of faith in anticipation of spiritual renewal (Proverbs 3:5-8).
