Wednesday, February 1st, 2017 - PM - Day of Hurting; Day of Healing (Mal. 4:1-6)

Introduction:

The Day of the Lord is Coming. For you, will it be a day of hurting or a day of healing? It will be hurtful to your eternal soul should your soul boast yourself against God in sin; or it can be a day of healing if you will but fear the name of the Lord, calling upon His name for salvation, as Peter reminded us, “For there is none other name under heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved.”

Illustration: Imagine the shock of someone living it up on room service, and never considering the tab or the bill that they are racking up until it Is called to be paid. Unless money is of no consequence to them, or they have a tree that grows it in their back yard, or someone else is paying the tab, I suppose they might have quite the “sticker-shock” upon being faced with owning up to their wasteful indulgences with no thought of payday coming someday. No excuse will avail, the bill must be paid. There will be a day of reckoning.

Let us consider the context of the previous chapter. Malachi’s is a day in which the priests themselves have deigned it a wearisome toil to serve Jehovah. They have despised the Lord and considered it a vain thing to serve Him. The people of Judah too, are seemingly getting away with sacrificing to the Lord what makes Him sick. They complain about serving God, and it has become a weariness to them. Their Judaism was nothing more than shallow mechanics of religious burdens. They pretended to honor God with their lip-service, pleasing the eyes of onlookers who could but see the external appearance of false piety, but He who looks on the heart knew that theirs was far from Him. Had they actually come to believe their own deceived minds, that the day of reckoning would never arrive for them? Do not even the scoffers today still cry, “Where is the sign of His coming?”

Main Thought: There will come, as R. G. Lee used to preach, “Payday Someday.” On that day, the docket will be raised, and all the sins we have amassed to our debt will be called due. Will eternal sticker-shock worth the price of your soul be your surprise in that day?

Make no mistake, friend, all those sins charged to your account MUST BE PAID FOR SOMEHOW. You have but two options for remedy: first, realize that you are granted the option to pay for them yourself. But know of a surety that the only way to accomplish that according to God’s Word is to do so in the lake fo fire for all eternity in anguish and torment. Consider further the fact that as an intruder in hell, and furthermore as a sinner there for ever, you will ever continue to sin, thereby ever extending your pain and torment, with no hope of quenching the eternal fires of the judgment and wrath of a righteous and holy God against your iniquities. What fool would he be to reject the love of God that brings eternal life through faith in the only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth!

Friend, while we know that in His goodness, God will never force Himself upon the unrepentant, but with anguish in His own heart will uphold the decision that each makes regarding His grace, His will is clear that He in no wise desires any to perish, but that all should come to repentance (see 2 Peter 2:9).

Thank God there is another way for sin to be reckoned! Your soul need not be troubled any longer, dear sinner. Jesus Christ the Righteous has paid your sin-debt. As someone once explained, “He paid a debt He did not owe; I owed a debt I could not pay.”

Oh friend, Jesus Paid it All! Oh, do we not plead with your soul today to accept Him personally as your Savior! What hope have you to escape the coming wrath of God upon sinners but to trust in the name of the only begotten, and the firstfruits from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ! He alone is able to save your soul to the uttermost, if you will but call on His name!

Jesus, What a Friend for Sinners! Jesus, Lover of My Soul! Jesus, God’s appointed substitute, the sacrifice for sin, once-for-all. As John the Baptist affirmed, “Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world!”

But you think, “I’m not worthy for Him to take my debt!” True, none are. But Scripture also affirms that it is only by grace that we are saved, through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God, lest any man should boast, see Eph. 2:8-9.

We who are now saved serve Him because we love Him, and have known what He has done for us. Unlike those Judaizers of Malachi’s day, whose heart had been drawn far away from the Lord, and thereby their hands had grown weary in His labors; to the contrary, we count not our service to Christ weariness, but rather, it is our reasonable fulfillment to Him that loved us, and gave Himself for us. We have chosen the path of Moses of old with respect of the recompence of His reward for our faith (Heb. 11). We, like our father-in-faith Abraham, pilgrimage on, looking for that city, whose builder and maker is God. With this hope in us, we plead with you to realize for your own soul’s sake, there will come a day of reckoning. We will take up our study first considering Malachi’s Coming Day, and then Malachi’s Closing Discernment. Notice first, there is,

I. The Coming Day (Mal. 4:1-3).

Malachi 3:16 reminded God’s Remnant,

Malachi 3:16 KJV 1900

16 Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: And the Lord hearkened, and heard it, And a book of remembrance was written before him For them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.

Then, Malachi 4:2 shows how that for them, this day will be one of healing. There surely is a faithful remnant that will be spared from judgment (would those Jews who received Jesus like Saul the Pharisee of Pharisees be doomed to tribulation, or did he not believe himself that he would be delivered from the wrath to come, e.g. 1-2 Thess.? His testimony was the latter).

Yet, just as surely there will be others who suffer (see the Olivet Discourse of Israel’s prophetic future according to Jesus in Matthew 23-25, woe to them in that day).

Malachi 3:13-16 compared with Malachi 4:1 reveals how the “proud” shall be “stubble” through the burning oven of God’s judgment.

A. The Heat of Judgment (Mal. 4:1).

Malachi 4:1 KJV 1900

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; And all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: And the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, That it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

1. The Awful Oven of God's Consuming Wrath (v. 1a).

What a vivid image - an entire Day that will be as hot as an oven! One cannot but help be reminded of the Revelator’s description of the coming Seals, Trumpets, and finally Vials of God’s wrath to be poured out upon the sinful nations of the earth, Judah included as she endures what the Prophets knew to the “Time of Jacob’s Trouble!”

As the old song reminds us, “There’s a sad day coming; a sad day coming! There’s a sad day coming by and by. When the sinner shall hear his doom, ‘Depart I know you not.’ Are you ready for that Day to come?” Are you ready for the Judgment Day?

We do not deny that our God is a God of love. But we also are not ignorant of His justice as well. Can any bring a charge in light of the gift of His grace that God does not love sinners? I cannot understand how He does, but can only recognize that it certainly is true according to His Word. Yet also, just as assuredly as He loves the sinner is as assuredly that He will one day call each one to give an account, of this too the Scripture is vividly clear (see Revelation 20). One fateful day, the books will be opened, and every person will give an account. There is a great and terrible day coming!

2. The Abasement of Over-Confident Wicked (v. 1b).

Here we notice the further illumination of what it means to God to walk in this type of prideful haughtiness. This was no mere “mistake.” According to God it was great “wickedness!” We might excuse our sin to ourselves and justify ourselves with a meager soothing of our depravity, but there will be no fooling the God of Heaven, with whom we have to do. Make no mistake, the proud will be brought low in that day. Those that have exalted themselves will be abased.

To walk in this type of pride is to be guilty of what the Psalmist described in Psalm 1:4-6.

Psalm 1:4–6 KJV 1900

4 The ungodly are not so: But are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. 5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. 6 For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: But the way of the ungodly shall perish.

Illustration: Have you ever seen the aftermath of what a fire can do to even the largest of forests? It is a humbling sight to behold what was once a mighty forest like that of Yellowstone or Rocky Mountain National Park reduced to nothing more than stubble. How heartbreaking to consider that once mighty redwoods proudly thronged the Florissant Fossil Beds of southern Colorado, but now we can only examine hardened and petrified remnant of that once mighty American Forest! While our heart aches to consider such vast destruction bringing these mighty down to stubble, we also are reminded in hope that what God once allowed to be destroyed by fire can be regrown to its fulness, and yea, even better as the soils become even better nourished from the fertilization that occurs in the aftermath of the fires.

Application: Sometimes, as an experienced geologist once explained to me, commenting on the plight of Beetle Kill leaving nothing more than a precarious tinder-box of forest sized matches throughout the Rockies and namely there in Steamboat Springs, “God has a way of giving us a new forest, it just is sometimes not in the way we would desire.” You see, even in the aftermath of the fires of Yellowstone from decades ago can one now glimpse the regrowth of a new blanket of vegetation. So too, one day our God will burn the proud sinners from off the face of the earth, and prideful wickedness will be fully and finally judged, but it is, for those who have hope in the patience of Job, for the better in the end, because our Savior, Malachi’s Messiah, will arise with healing in His wings and we will live eternally in His “new heavens” and “new earth” shown to us by John the Seer. As Paul assured us who groan and travail even until now, all creation and even the cosmos itself will be reborn in that Blessed Hope to come (see Romans 8).

3. Their Absolute and Overwhelming Consequence (v. 1c).

This fire will be so consuming that there will be nothing but ash that remains.

Malachi 4:3 KJV 1900

3 And ye shall tread down the wicked; For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet In the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.

This will be the ultimate removal of all wickedness from the earth. Friend, that can either be a blessed thought (if you are under the shadow of the Almighty), or a dreadful thought (if you are yet in your sins without Christ)!

B. The Healing of the Just (Mal. 4:2).

Malachi 4:2 KJV 1900

But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise With healing in his wings; And ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.

In such poetic fashion, and under divine inspiration, this prophet found the comparison of the ages to describe his Jehovah, our Jesus, as the Sun! Can you see it in your minds’ eye?

Illustration: While in Jerusalem, from the rooftop of our hotel, one of my favorite photos of all time was taken as a time-lapse of the most beautiful sunrise in the clear, crispness upon the eastern horizon, as that blazing corona bathed its ever-stretching rays of brilliance, first peaking out over the Mount of Olives and then steadily reaching unstoppable over the Kidron Valley blanketing the Tombs of the Prophets themselves with warmth and heat, hastening to meet the City of David, and on toward the Temple Mount itself. As I sat in prayerful meditation through those fleeting moments, I could only scarcely but imagine the veracity of Malachi’s Words to think of our Savior Himself, visiting His Holy Temple again, just like the rays of that gorgeous sunrise over Jerusalem. Christ is Coming, He is Coming! What blessed thought! Even so, Come, Lord Jesus! He who wept over that city in His mortal flesh, will one day return to her immortal, everlastingly victorious, to take His rightful seat on the throne of David, and usher in the most blessed kingdom the world has ever known!

“Let there be light… “The sun to rule the day...” (Gen. 1)

John observed at His first coming, "That [the Word, Jesus] was the true Light...” (John 1:9)

Oh to consider John’s latter vision of His Second Coming! The Son to rule the Day of the LORD.

“And the city had no need of the sun…for…the Lamb is the light thereof.” “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.” (Rev. 21:23; 22:5).

Astronomy has intrigued mankind from ages past, in fact, God Himself invited Abraham to get involved in Astronomy when He challenged Him to “tell the stars,” or Job to consider whether he could “bind the sweet influences of Pleiades,” or “loose the bands (belt) of Orion.” How much greater should our intrigue be to investigate with rapt attention the Son of Righteousness? And to consider that His Word is magnified above all His name! What wondrous treasure we hold, the Word of God! Even better to investigate, the Word of God! Cherished, guarded, but never may we allow it to become dusty, the Bible!

Let us observe the context of who this “healing” is specifically prophesied for: the Nation of Israel. One day, Jehovah is promised to fully heal their broken nation. Even in the days of Jesus, had they not clearly been broken in pieces? Were they not scattered among all nations of the world? Only of recent history have we known Israel to have possession of its own state once more, and yet, how many Jews around the globe remain in diaspora?

The promise is that one day they will all be brought back under the banner of the LORD. Look at Israel’s “Banner” (flag) today and you will notice waving boldly the Star of David in blue and white ribbons. What is the “Star of David?” Better yet, Who should we consider to be this “Star” (is not the Sun a Star?) of David? Though we see the star and the sceptre mentioned separately in the Scriptures, there is an aspect in which they go together. While the “star” would describe Christ’s character, the “sceptre” delineates His action.

How did those Magi know how to find the Christ child? Was it not by following His “star” that they had seen from the east? What wisdom had they understood from Daniel who undoubtedly had shown them the prophecy of Balaam in Numbers 24?

1. The Condition for the Healing (v. 2a).

What is the condition for healing to come according to Malachi? Fear His name!

Consider the thoughts of Spurgeon who once observed regarding this verse,

We should feel quite justified in applying the language of the 19th Psalm to our Lord Jesus Christ from the simple fact that he is so frequently compared to the sun; and especially in the passage which we have given you as our second text, wherein he is called “the Sun of Righteousness.” But we have a higher justification for such a reading of the passage, for it will be in your memories that, in the 10th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul, slightly altering the words of this psalm, applies them to the gospel and the preachers thereof. “Have they not heard? “said he, “Yea, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.” So that what was here spoken of the sun by David, is referred by Paul to the gospel, which is the light streaming from Jesus Christ, “the Sun of Righteousness.” We can never err if we allow the New Testament to interpret the Old: comparing spiritual things with spiritual is a good mental and spiritual exercise for us; and I feel, therefore, that we shall not be guilty of straining the text at all when we take the language of David in relation to the sun, and use it in reference to our Lord Jesus Christ.

[C. H. Spurgeon, “‘The Sun of Righteousness,’” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 17 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1871), 625.]

Did not Jesus Himself weep over Jerusalem with these words,

Luke 13:34 KJV 1900

34 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!

Who are these that will “go forth?” It says “Ye shall go forth...” Could this be a prophetic hinting towards those 144,000 that John saw in Revelation (12,000 from each tribe of Israel, see chapter 7). These will be the Lord’s witness in Tribulation, while the earth is experiencing the judgment and wrath of the Lamb, these will witness for Him, and multitudes without number will be reached by their efforts for the Lord’s kingdom! When Israel gets saved in the day of calamity, as Paul promised, “All Israel” will be saved. Their healing will be complete in that day. None will be lost. Then, once their testimony is finished along with the ministry of the two witnesses in the midst of Jerusalem (see Revelation 11), the angel of God will take the Everlasting Gospel through the earth one last time before the final day of doom is culminated.

Oh that men would fear the Lord and give Him the glory due His name now! Lest they linger too long, and find themselves at the day when Paul described that “Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!” (see Philippians 2:5-12) Bow the knee in humility and thankfulness now, or become humbled before Him in judgment then!

2. The Completeness of their Healing (v. 2b).

The completeness of this healing is seen in that they shall “grow up as calves of the stall.” How have we today become culturally disassociated with understanding what this means? When is the last time any among our more urban, or even suburban congregation watched their calves grow up? Granted, in the more rural areas, our rancher friends may need to school us city-slickers on the real grasp of Malachi’s words. But how precious they are!

Does not the idea of a calf show us the new beginnings that our God has in store for those who fear His name? When the calf is in the stall, are you left to forage the countryside in search of them? No, rather they are now close to home. Calves nurtured close to home! What a thought of how Israel is described here! No worry for predators any longer. No fear of the lions or bears to devour them. No, as another prophet promises, the children will play with the asps and the lion will lay down with the lamb. The Prince of Peace is the Promise of Israel, and of His Kingdom there shall be no end. To have a calf in the stall meant that the family is doing well, this is a nicety of the culture of the day. Consider how the promise of the preceding chapter will be fulfilled then!

Malachi 3:8–12 KJV 1900

8 Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. 9 Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, Even this whole nation. 10 Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be meat in mine house, And prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, If I will not open you the windows of heaven, And pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. 11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, And he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; Neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts. 12 And all nations shall call you blessed: For ye shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts.

There will come a day for that remnant of Judah and Israel who fear the name of the Lord, but yet presently live in fear, dejection, poverty, suffering persecution, that they will be the ones nourished under Messiah, as He rules the nations with a rod of iron. He who owns the cattle on a thousand hills promises that they will be as one of the calves of the stall! The calf in the stall is a representation of strength and wealth rather than poverty and weakness. As Solomon the wise knew,

Proverbs 14:4 KJV 1900

4 Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: But much increase is by the strength of the ox.

The wayward nation who knows not their owner, Malachi says, will return to know who’s they are,

Isaiah 1:3 KJV 1900

3 The ox knoweth his owner, And the ass his master’s crib: But Israel doth not know, My people doth not consider.

No longer like the wild ox, instead they will delight in the crib of the Lord again,

Job 39:9 KJV 1900

9 Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, Or abide by thy crib?

Note that what is translated as “unicorn” here in the AV (most likely a rhinoceros-like creature) can also be understood as literally a “wild-ox.”

How does the Chief Shepherd understand what is necessary to break those that are His? As the Lord asked Saul on the road to Damascus, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks!” (see Acts 9).

During the Millennial Reign, it will be a thousand years for us, but from the Lord’s perspective, but a day (see 2 Peter 3:8).

C. The Heaps of the Judged (Mal. 4:3).

Malachi 4:3 KJV 1900

And ye shall tread down the wicked; For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet In the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.

1. The Threshing-floor of the Righteous (v. 3a).

These that raise themselves up in pride will be dealt with by the Lord. Led by their Captain, the King of kings, who will destroy His (Israel’s) enemies with the sword of His mouth (see Rev. 19) will lead against the foe, onward to final and consummate victory!

Isaiah 41:15 KJV 1900

15 Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: Thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, And shalt make the hills as chaff.

Jeremiah 51:33 KJV 1900

33 For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; The daughter of Babylon is like a threshingfloor, It is time to thresh her: Yet a little while, and the time of her harvest shall come.

Micah 4:13 KJV 1900

13 Arise and thresh, O daughter of Zion: For I will make thine horn iron, and I will make thy hoofs brass: And thou shalt beat in pieces many people: And I will consecrate their gain unto the Lord, And their substance unto the Lord of the whole earth.

Habakkuk 3:12 KJV 1900

12 Thou didst march through the land in indignation, Thou didst thresh the heathen in anger.

2. The Timing of Israel's Reception(v. 3b).

Let us consider the timing: Did the things mentioned above occur in history prior to Jesus Christ’s birth in Bethlehem? Did the events described by Malachi find full fruition in the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus? Were they completely finalized prior to AD 70 when Titus leveled Jerusalem? Have they been accomplished in the two-thousand plus years of church history since the earliest days of the Apostles? Since, unless you know something of human history that I do not, we must affirm the negative, then it stands to reason, does it not, that these be yet future promises that will one day find ultimate consummation at the Second Advent of our Savior?

Yet, will we miss our Commission here and now, gazing into the heavens pondering with the disciples what Jesus assured belongs only to the Father to know?

Acts 1:6–11 KJV 1900

6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? 7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. 8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. 9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. 10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; 11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

Of greater import is to pay close attention to the WHO that performs the work, as Malachi says, “I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.” Of His work, the Lord will leave nothing undone, and will, as He did by Himself purge the heavens (see Hebrews 9), finish purging the earth of sinners once for all. In this day, the valley of Trouble (Achor, Megiddo) will be given to Israel for a Door of Hope (see Joshua 7 compared with Hosea 2:15). In that day, John the Revelator said that the blood would flow from the nations up to the horses’ bridle (see Revelation 14:20). As Israel endures the Time of Jacob’s Trouble, it will not last forever. The Valley of Trouble for them shall be turned to their Door of Hope.

Is our Door of Hope today not the same One who preached, “I am the door?” The Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep. Enter the hope of heaven through the Door and go in and out through Him, and find good pasturage.

Transition: Having considered the Coming Day, let us now hear Malachi’s,

II. Closing Discernment (Mal. 4:4-6).

A. Remembering Horeb & Moses (Mal. 4:4).

Malachi 4:4 KJV 1900

Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, Which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, With the statutes and judgments.

1. Moses, Servant of Jehovah (v. 4a).

When Israel began as a nation, God called them from the bondage of Egypt, not because they were great, but simply because He chose to select them, despite their punily weakness. They were nothing. He was all in all. They were miserable, He was majestic. The only thing that made them anything was that Jehovah had chosen them, to set His name upon them, and to reveal His glory through them unto all the earth.

As we did at the founding of our great American nation, they too had laid down for them the law of the land which they had been given by the promise of God. This law was not something that they were left to make up for themselves as they went. Rather, it was, unlike any other before or after, given them directly from Jehovah Himself, through the hand of His faithful servant, Moses. The location where their constitution and by-laws would be settled was none other than the Mountain of God, Horeb, Sinai. Attended by the lightenings and thunderings of the holiness of El Shaddai, the Almighty called them to witness that day, and they attested with one consent to do all the LORD God had commanded.

And yet, before the nation was even off the ground, they had miserable failed to keep their commitment (see Ex. 32).

Nevertheless, they were to be a government of Theocracy. God was to be their King. Yet it would only be mere generations until they would pine for a different master and pout for “a king like all the other nations” (see 1 Samuel 8).

Though they departed from the very One who had delivered them, and had suffered judgment and been taken captive for a season, and though that season had passed and they had been allowed to return to their homeland and rebuild their lives to seek anew the Jehovah they had formerly forsaken, and though they would continue as a people dispersed to the ends of the earth, the promise was that one day they would be gathered from the four winds of heaven, and the Son of David would again rule from the Throne in Jerusalem.

What God began with Israel through Moses, He intends to finish through Jesus Christ. And behold, a greater than Moses is here. What suppose you would have been the conversation that Jesus had with Moses and Elijah upon the mount of Transfiguration (see Mal. 4:4-5 compared with Matthew 17)? Some things we were not privileged to know, but what has been revealed to us has been for our own edification and growth in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. We remain ever mindful too that we are also privy to things related to our salvation that even the angels themselves desire to look into.

2. The Law, Schoolmaster for Jesus (v. 4b).

By this juncture in Israel’s history under Malachi’s prophecy, the Law has demonstrated beyond any shadow of doubt that man can NEVER attain righteousness before God’s eyes by the keeping of the Law. For by the Law shall NO FLESH be justified (see Galatians 3, the whole argument, but esp. Gal. 3:24-25).

3. The Nation, Sinners in Need of Justification (v. 4c).

There is no answer of hope for them apart from looking forward in faith to the Messenger of the Covenant promised to come, to believe on the work that (from their vantage point) would ultimately be consummated by the Sun of Righteousness to bring healing in His wings, the One who would be sent after Elijah (John the Baptist, see below) had appeared, the One born of a virgin (Is. 7:14). Apart from faith in Jesus Christ, God’s Messiah, there can be no soul justified (see Romans 3 [“none righteous”], Romans 4 [Abraham “believed God” = imputed righteousness], and Romans 5 [“justified by faith” = peace with God]).

Application: Remember. Is this not the best place to begin when a person has become helplessly lost? When they have fallen from grace? Should we not venture in our minds and hearts back to the place where it all began with the Lord? Has their been a place of beginning for you with the Lord? If not, then make today that day. If so, then if you are concerned about your fellowship and your walk with God, then will you not, as Peter admonishes us, “Remember from whence thou art fallen?” Let us go together back to the place where your walk with God began. Let us seek afresh and anew to endeavor to walk again in humility with the God of Second Chances. Do you fear you may have exhausted His mercy? Never fear, for “His mercy endureth for ever” and is “new every morning.” Is it not only of the Lord’s mercies that you are not already consumed? If you have breath of life in your mortal body, I tell you there is hope at the feet of Jesus! Draw nigh to Him, and He will draw nigh to you!

B. Recognizing the Herald of Messiah (Mal. 4:5).

Malachi 4:5 KJV 1900

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:

1. Messiah's Messenger, John the Baptist Is Elijah (v. 5a).

Do you remember when John the Baptist was interrogated (see John 1) by the religious elite as to whether or not he in fact was “Elijah?” If so, you may recall as well that his answer to them remained emphatically negative. John’s humble estimation of himself was not yet the same, however, of that of Christ’s.

Matthew 11:7–15 KJV 1900

7 And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind? 8 But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. 9 But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet. 10 For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. 11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. 13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. 14 And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. 15 He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Will you receive it today? Do you have “ears to hear?” Or are you yet in your sins, blinded by Satan from the light of the glorious gospel of Christ which now shines in your heart?

Luke 1:17 KJV 1900

17 And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

2. His Messenger's Ministry, Before the Day of Jehovah's Wrath (v. 5b).

Many, taking consideration of Malachi’s words here regarding Moses and Elijah, along with encountering their names again on top of Mount Transfiguration have argued for the same being those Two Witness that will be sent by the Lord in Revelation 11. To this, we would not argue, though when it comes to pass, we will allow God to be God, and reveal to us in His own time precisely who the identity of these two will be. The Holy Spirit chose to focus more on their ministry than their identity, and we should look well to what is fulfilled by them, more so than surmising who they “might” be.

Nonetheless, no king of Rome, no king among men, no king at all worthy of the title itself, ever arrived with banners unfurled apart from first the ministry of his lowly herald going before to preach (gk. kerusso - “herald”) his imminent arrival.

So too, as Zechariah noted, “Thy King cometh,” but at the first, He came lowly, riding upon a donkey. This would certainly not be how any Second Temple Period Judaizer would have expected Messiah to enter Jerusalem, and yet it was so. And just as so, who then was that humble (clothed in camel’s hair, locust & wild-honey-eating) herald of the Lord Jesus, the King of Glory (see Psalm 22-24)? Was this ministry not fulfilled in the one who from the wilderness of Judea (like Elijah coming back to Israel from his eastward moving whirlwind) preached, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand?”

Application: The herald who dares adapt any imperial message to his own devices does so at the price of his own head. So too, like John the Baptist faithfully heralded the message of Jesus Christ, do we not today, by the Great Commission of the same (see Mark 16:15 (unless you believe the Text Critic, then see Matt. 28)) have the charge, as Paul instructed Timothy, to “Preach the Word?” Let us then take care not only to herald the Gospel message of our King, but to do so with utmost sobriety that we keep His message pure as His own, knowing that we will certainly pay for any alterations thereto with our own heads should we be found guilty of tampering with such purified Words. See Revelation 22:19.

B. Repentant Hearts & Mended Homes (Mal. 4:6).

Malachi 4:6 KJV 1900

And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, And the heart of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

1. Messiah's Ministry, Beloved Son of the Heavenly Father (v. 6a).

We now hasten to close by briefly touching the highlights of the closing verses of the entire Old Testament.

How should we reckon this with the very words of our Savior who said,

Matthew 10:32–39 KJV 1900

32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. 33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. 34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. 35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. 36 And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. 37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. 39 He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

When Jesus came at His First Advent, He did not come to fulfill the consummate promises of the Millennial Kingdom. He came to solve a greater problem of humanity than merely the restoration of the kingdom to the nation of Israel. He came to seek and save that which was lost (Luke 19:10). Therefore, because He came to a world that would hate Him, yet be overcome by Him, it was not the time then to usher in a reign of peace and righteousness, save in the hearts of those who come to His saving knowledge by faith in His finished work at Calvary. Here, the prophetic vision of Malachi reaches beyond even John the Baptist and Jesus’ sinless life, death for our sins according to the Scriptures, burial and resurrection on the third day according to the Scriptures, post-resurrection appearances, and mysterious ascension, past the mystery of the church, and on to the day when the times of the Gentiles would be fulfilled. Yet, the program and plan of the Sovereign God of the universe marches forward, without ever skipping a single beat.

Things that are different are not the same. The difference here is the difference between the Two Advents of Jesus Christ. He came at the First Advent to be the Savior of the World; He will likewise return at His Second Advent to be its Judge and Ruler. Even so, Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.

2. Messiah's Millennium, All Thy Children Shall be Taught of the LORD (v. 6b).

Should we have time, we might consider how this is complimented by the Words of both Isaiah and Jesus in John 6 during His discourse about His being the Bread of Life. In the Millennium, Isaiah assured Israel, “all thy children shall be taught of the LORD.”

Isaiah 54:13 KJV 1900

13 And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; And great shall be the peace of thy children.

Can you picture the children, gathered around Jehovah’s feet (sitting at the feet of Jesus in all His glory), teaching them and helping them understand things that we cannot even fathom? He who invites us today, as little children to come unto Him and learn of Him for He is meek and lowly in heart! (see Matt. 11:28ff).

Luke 1:16 KJV 1900

16 And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God.

Application: What was the very first social organization that God had in place for mankind? was it not the family unit (disclaimer: as He ordained it to originally be, see 1 Cor. 11:3)? Where should governance then be the most godly? Is it not in the home? Should we have strong communities, it will be from strong churches, and should we have strong churches, it should be that we have strong families. This would go far to help make our nation great again. Think we not as well that the Devil also knows this? What might he attempt to keep you from bringing your own children, or other children that you might reach, to the feet of Jesus? Are they in Sunday School? do they have a Christian Education? More importantly even, do they receive the instruction of the Bible at home they way that it would please the Lord? Has the Lord failed in showing us parents how to bring them up in His nurture and admonition, or rather have we failed to heed His calling to do so?

3. Messiah's Message, Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven Is At Hand (v. 6c).

How striking the way that the Holy Spirit has closed the Old Testament! “Or else...” May we not consider ourselves duly warned?

What was the first message that Jesus Christ publicly gave? None other than the very same that John himself resounded.

Matthew 4:16–17 KJV 1900

16 The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. 17 From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Something that is “at hand” is something that is “near.” How could God’s kingdom have come any nearer to humanity, any nearer to Israel than in the person of the God-man, Jesus Christ?

Let us remind ourselves however, of the long look that the Bible has. Did not Malachi say that Elijah should be the one who would turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and vice versa? (Should there be doubt, simply verify again the antecedent of the pronouns in these immediate verses). Jesus acknowledged that He had not come to do that in His first coming and earthly ministry. If that had yet to occur, then surely it would also bolster the argument for Elijah at least being one of those Two Witnesses of Revelation 11, which according then to Malachi’s timeline, would happen before the time of Great Tribulation, if we understand the rest of prophecy correctly in relation to what he says here.

Commenting on this, F. B. Meyer once said, “Notice how the Old Testament ends with the word curse, while Christ’s proclamation opens with Blessed.”

[F. B. Meyer, Through the Bible Day by Day: A Devotional Commentary, vol. 4 (Philadelphia: American Sunday-School Union, 1914–1918), 224.]

While to a lost, backslidden, dying nation of Israel, our Savior pleaded, “Repent.” And yet, with sublime sweetness, His loving words to those who would follow Him in faith were, “Blessed....”

What are we to make of this progression from Old Covenant to New? Should we not recognize that the narrow path away from the curses of God upon disobedient sinners is through repentance at the nearness of God to us through Jesus Christ, in whom reside all the blessings of the Heavenly Father?

Application: Would to God our Jewish friends and loved ones might realize their shortcomings each time they keep that empty chair every precious Seder observance, the very chair that the promise of God fulfilled by the coming of John! Should they ever fully understand who he truly was, they perhaps would also understand Who it was that followed him that was even greater!

Oh that they could but receive Jesus as the Christ that He most surely is! What joy would fill their heart to know the grief of that empty chair is no more! How wonderfully would they love Jehovah even better should they fully realize what they must do to be saved!

May their hearts become pure, that they may see God. May their spirits become poor that they may have His blessed Kingdom in them. May their mourning be turned to comfort because of their faith in Jesus Christ. May the earth be theirs by their meekness to receive Him, the Son of David, the merciful and compassionate Savior of the soul! The only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth!

Conclusion:

While this Book of Malachi might appear to end on a rather doleful note, it is better considered as an exhortation to hope. Thank God that He as not given up on us. He extends His promises yet today, but always with an exhortation to mind His Words.

We have set out to challenge you with the thought that there will come, as R. G. Lee used to famously preach, Payday Someday. On that day, the docket will be raised, and all the sins we have amassed to our debt will be called due. Have you feared the coming day that Malachi foresaw? Does your soul now rest under the wings of Jesus Christ the righteous? Do you know the sweet peace of the healing for your own soul that His wings afford the repentant sinner? Find solace today in Christ!

We may not discern the day nor the hour in which the Father has set the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel in His own power, but friend, do you discern the closing call of Malachi? Has God not been faithful to His promises to send John the Baptist? Then He too has sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to make the way for you to leave here right with God today! Will you bow the knee before Christ now? Oh, friend, do not delay. For the day of God’s wrath will surely come, and culminate in the day when every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father! Come now, tarry no longer, to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling!

“The poet said:”

“Lo! He comes, with clouds descending,

Once for favored sinners slain;

Thousand thousand saints attending

Swell the triumph of His train:

Hallelujah!

God appears on earth to reign.

“Every eye shall now behold Him,

Robed in dreadful majesty!

Those who set at naught and sold Him,

Pierced, and nailed Him to the Tree,

Deeply wailing,

Shall the true Messiah see.

“Now the Saviour, long expected

See, in solemn pomp appear;

All His saints, by man rejected,

Now shall meet Him in the air;

Hallelujah!

See the day of God appear.”

[William Bell Riley, The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist, Old Testament, Genesis, vol. 1, The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist (Union Gospel Press, 1926), Mal 4:1–6.]