Ready or Not... Here I Come!

Malachi 3:1 ESV

1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

One of the great movements that had a significant impact on Christianity in the twentieth century was the Welsh Revival, which took place in the years 1904 and 1905. Beginning in the United Kingdom, the revival eventually spread to mainland Europe and to other continents as well.

During the course of the revival, tens of thousands came to know the Lord and trusted in Christ. Churches were overflowing and prayer meetings were lasting long into the night.

In the years leading up to the revival, there were many in Wales who spoke about how they longed for the Spirit to come and for God to visit the nation; to confront sin, to work in people’s hearts that they may confess their sins, repent, and turn to the Lord in faith.

And eventually, that began to happen. Business owners who had practiced dishonesty repented of their dishonest practices. Many miners who had stolen tools from the mines confessed to doing so and returned the stolen tools by the wagonload. People were publicly confessing secret sins, broken relationships were being repaired, reputations were being surrendered, and pride was dying. It was a glorious time when the Spirit was clearly at work.

But what was so ironic about it all is that many of the loudest voices that were calling for revival were the very people who were the most shaken whenever they saw that God was at work. Before the revival, it was common to hear people say that they wanted God to move in power, but whenever the Spirit began convicting sin – specific, personal sin – some who had claimed to be seeking the Lord had suddenly withdrawn.

Many who had prayed for God to come and revive their land discovered that they weren’t ready for the holy fire that they had asked for. While many who prayed for revival had responded with great humility when it came about, others recoiled, resisted, or quietly slipped away, and all because what they really wanted was a God Who would judge others and confront them with their sin. But when they saw that God required personal repentance, they weren’t so thrilled with what was happening.

Much of the same was happening in Israel whenever Malachi prophesied. During those days, about four hundred years before Jesus came to this world, God spoke His word through Malachi; and what He spoke was a warning to the people of Israel to turn back to the Lord.

But what is ironic about this is that during the days of Malachi’s prophetic career, the people of Israel had actually been complaining to God, about God.

At the beginning of Malachi’s prophecy, the Lord told the people that He loved them, to which they responded, “How have You loved us?”. So, they doubted that God even loved them. They felt as though their experience warranted a suspicion that God had stopped loving His people.

But then also, at the very end of chapter two in Malachi’s prophecy, the people said something else, something that we are going to be looking at frequently throughout this series, when they complained “Where is the God of justice?”.

They had complained that God was not being just, that He was not immediately punishing those in the land who had committed serious sins. And because He had not immediately punished them, the people concluded that God no longer loved them and that He was either absent or He didn’t care about justice. And so, they took God’s mercy and longsuffering to be injustice.

But while they were complaining for justice to be served and pleading with God to punish wrongdoers, what they seemed to fail to realize is that they themselves were also doing wrong.

Priests were not treating the sacrifices that they were making to God seriously as they were offering blemished animals for sacrifice. The men of Israel were mistreating their wives by divorcing them for trivial reasons and then sending them away. And as we will see later on in this series of messages, the people were not tithing as they should, not as God had commanded them.

And so, they called for God to punish those who they recognized as deserving punishment, not realizing that in so doing, they were calling for their ownjudgment.

The prophecy of Malachi is the final book of the Old Testament, and as it closes, the pronouncement of God’s judgment and the promise of His restoration through the coming Messiah rings in the ears of the Israelites in Malachi’s day, and in the days to come.

And after this book closes, there is silence… four hundred years of silence as there is no more divine prophetic communication until God raises up His next prophet; John the Baptist.

And as we begin our reading for this morning, we see the proclamation of God that the next prophet whom He will send will be the very prophet who is the forerunner of the promised Messiah.

We see this as God says at the beginning of our reading for today:

Malachi 3:1a ESV

1a “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.

So, our reading for today begins with the word “Behold” which indicates that what will be said requires special attention, it is a “make sure you listen closely to what I am about to say” kind of statement.

The people had been cynically complaining against God “Where is the God of justice?!” And now, He goes forth to say, “My justice is coming, and it is coming swiftly!”.

He tells the people that the next time that He communicates with them, He will do so as He sends His “messenger” to Israel. And He says that the purpose of this messenger will be to “prepare the way before Me”.

The imagery of this declaration of the Lord draws from the practice of ancient kings, a practice that the people of ancient Israel would be familiar with.

Whenever a king ruled over a vast kingdom, he would sporadically visit the different provinces that he ruled over. But he wouldn’t come unannounced. He would send his own personal messengers ahead of him to the province that he would visit so that adequate arrangements might be made for him.

And as these messengers would make their way to the province ahead of their king, they would prepare the way for the royal procession by removing any obstacles along the way that would impede progress. And so, with the road being cleared of obstacles and the people of the province being informed before their king arrived, the king would then be able to make his state visit with all of the pomp and grandeur that accompanied such visits.

This servant, of course, was in reference to John the Baptist, who God would call four hundred years later. And of course, this preparing the way before the Lord was in reference to the ministry of John the Baptist, as his ministry consisted of calling the people to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”.

The ministry of John the Baptist consisted of calling Israelites to repentance, calling them to recognize that they were sinful and in need of God’s mercy and grace, and to do so before the Lord Jesus began His public ministry.

This was unheard of to the people in Israel, because as far as they were concerned, they were God’s chosen people and thus had no reason to repent of anything. As far as they were concerned, the problem didn’t lie in them at all, but it lay completely with the Gentiles! But God said that He would send John the Baptist to Israel to call Israel to repent! That was unheard of to the Israelite understanding!

You know, it’s a lot like how the church will pray and plead with the Lord to bring revival, to pray that the Holy Spirit would work powerfully in men’s hearts and call them to repentance because legitimate revival starts with legitimate repentance. But with whose repentance does it start? It doesn’t start with the repentance of those who are worldly and clearly ungodly, no, it begins with the repentance of the church.

And we may think “What?! My repentance?! It is the ungodly who needs to repent!” But often we fail to see that we ourselves can be awful ungodly. There is ever plenty of repentance to be had for there is ever plenty of sin that we partake in. And when repentance begins in the church — when we as Christians own our weakness and long for renewal — it spreads beyond our walls and into the world that has openly embraced its ungodliness.

And so, returning to what the Lord had been speaking to the Israelites through Malachi, He next tells them that after the forerunner has prepared the way for the Lord, then “the Lord Whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple”.

So, as has already been said, at the very end of the second chapter of this prophecy, these had cynically asked, “Where is the God of justice?” and here, as the Lord speaks of “the Lord Whom you seek”, He speaks of “the God of justice” Who these Israelites were cynically inquiring of. And specifically, He speaks of the Messiah Who was to come.

And so, the Lord says that He will send His messenger, John the Baptist before Himself to prepare the way for Himself, to prepare Israel for the coming of Jesus. And He says that after the way is prepared, then the Lord, Jesus Himself will come on the scene and be manifested as the Christ, as the One Whom they believed would bring about justice.

But the people in Malachi’s day failed to realize something, they failed to realize what the people in Jesus’ day failed to realize, alas! they failed to realize what I, with great sorrow declare that even many within the visible church fail to realize. And that is that they were not prepared for the coming of the Lord.

But ready or not, the Lord told His people through Malachi that He would indeed come to His temple. He would come in a time, and in a manner that no one expected. But He would indeed come!

He is, the Lord says, “the Messenger of the covenant in whom you delight”. He is described as the Messenger of the covenant because He proclaims the covenant, He declares the gospel that salvation is found only in Him.

But as salvation is found only in Him, He is not only the Messenger of the covenant, but He is also the object of the covenant. The covenant that God establishes with His elect is salvation by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. Thus, the covenant consists in two parts; the grace of God, manifested in His loving election and the justice of God, satisfied through the suretyship of the Lord Jesus Christ.

These people claimed to long for justice, they said that they wanted God to come and clean house, they said that they would delight in this, that is why the Lord says that when He comes, it will be He Who they claim to delight in… but the people didn’t know what they were asking for.

They said that they longed for the day of the Lord’s visitation, and indeed, the Lord came. But when He came, He came meek and lowly; a Servant. And what did they do with Him? They rejected Him and crucified Him!

And thus, to Israelites from an even older generation, the Lord spoke through His prophet Amos:

Amos 5:18-20 ESV

18 Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, and not light, 19 as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him. 20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, and not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?

They said that they wanted Messiah to come. To come and straighten things out because things were bad. But what they didn’t realize is that because they weren’t right with the Lord, the coming of the Messiah would confirm them in the judgment their unbelief deserved. It would be like, the Lord says, a man running away from a lion only to be mauled by a bear; to find shelter in a house, only to be bitten by a serpent as he leans against the wall thinking that all is now safe.

The Lord says to Israel in the days of Malachi, “Yes, I am indeed coming. Ready or not, I am coming. So, humble yourselves, repent, and be ready”. And to us today, He says, “Yes, I am indeed coming. Ready or not, I am coming again. So, humble yourselves, repent, and be ready”.

You might hear that and think, “Yeah, this is a message that the worldly and the ungodly need to hear! Why are you saying this to us church-going Christians?”.

And yes, the worldly, the ungodly, those who are clearly not saved need to hear this, but let me ask you here this morning, if the Lord returned today, would He find you ready?

Not merely attending church, or agreeing with doctrine, and merely longing for Him to “fix the world”, but ready? Would He find you repentant, humbled, submitted, cleansed, walking in the fruit of the Spirit, welcoming, not resisting His refining work?

The good news is that the same God Who will come as Judge has already come as the Messenger. Today, He has spoken to you through His Word, His Spirit is preparing you even now. Christ has already borne the fiery judgment for all who trust Him, and He stands ready to cleanse, to forgive, to refine, and to restore.

And so, as we close this morning, I challenge you, my beloved brethren. I challenge you to not be like Israel in the days of Malachi; asking for God to come in judgment while refusing and shying away from personal repentance for personal sin.

Today, let every heart here say: “Lord, make me ready! Search me. Cleanse me. Prepare me for Yourself!”

Amen?

And where do we see both the justice and the mercy of God most clearly? At the Table. Here we see the Messenger of the covenant — not coming to judge us, but having borne judgment for us. Here we do not cry, “Where is the God of justice?” We behold the God of justice.

*Communion