Pastor: We have the privilege to consider and hear the word of God. We're going to be looking at the book of Malachi, looking at the last chapter. We'll look at the last chapter in its entirety, but it is only six verses, and this will not only be the end of Malachi. This is the end of the Old Testament.
Pastor: Before I read, let's go again to the Lord in prayer.
Pastor: Our heavenly Father, we thank you that you do speak, that you've given us your Word, and that through it we might know redemption, we might know salvation, we might know Christ.
Pastor: Lord, I pray that you will allow us to be patient as we wait for His arrival. That you will help us to remember your promises, to remember who you are, to remember what you have done already for us in Christ, and that we might long for the day more and more, that we would see our Savior face to face, and be with Him in perfect communion.
Pastor: Lord, we ask that you will bless your word now. We thank you that it will not go out and return void. It will have, it will do its work. We ask for your spirit to work deep in our hearts to sanctify us, to put off the old and put on the new. That is the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, be merciful now to your people in Jesus' name. We pray, Amen.
Pastor: People of God, hear God's word for us this morning from Malachi chapter 4, beginning in verse one.
Pastor: [1] “For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
Pastor: [2] But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. [3] And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.
Pastor: the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.
Pastor: send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. [6] And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.” He who has ears, let him hear the word of God. Please be seated. So you might remember Malachi began with the words, "I have loved you. Those were the first words that God spoke to the people of Israel, but the people of Israel respond by saying how, because we do not see it. They did not believe that God loved them. They looked around the world, and they looked around their own circumstances and what they had hoped God would do and what He had actually done. And somewhere along the way, they begin to question whether serving God was actually worth it at all, and then we have watched the consequences of such unbelief in God unfold throughout this book.
Pastor: If God doesn't really love us, then why should we give Him our best in worship? And they would bring Him blemished sacrifices and three-legged lambs. If God doesn't really matter, why should we take our worship so serious? So the priests treated God's name with contempt. If God is not going to hold people accountable for what they do, why remain faithful? And so they were breaking their covenant vows in their marriages to one another. If God really isn't going to provide, why trust Him with our possessions? And so they withheld their tithes and offerings. And then last week they looked at the wicked prospering around them and said,"It is vain to serve God. What is the point of all of this?
Pastor: We've tried to follow God, and look where it's gotten us. The arrogant seem to be doing just fine, more than fine. They are the ones who are prospering, where your people are the ones who are suffering. Those who put God to the. Test. Get away with it. So tell us again, God. How do you love us?
Pastor: And now we come to the last chapter in Malachi, the conclusion of the book. And as I said, it's only six verses. And as I've also said too, this is not only the conclusion of the book; it is the conclusion of the Old Testament before hundreds of years of silence, 400 years of silence. So, what you would imagine and what you would anticipate-the final words of God before a long stretch of silence would have great significance and importance, and indeed it does. What is it that he would want us to sit with and meditate with during that time of silence? Well, the people are saying we see the arrogant prospering today, we see the faithful suffering today, but God tells his people, "Behold and look, the day is coming. The day is coming soon, when every wrong will be made right. The day is coming when evil will be trodden under your feet as if it was ash. The day is coming when the serpent's head will be crushed. The day is coming when God's people will be vindicated.
Pastor: The day is coming when God will demonstrate before the entire world that not one promise or one word that He spoke ever failed. Look to that day. Look to that day. It is the day the sun will rise. God calls us to lift our eyes from this present moment, momentary moment, and see our lives in the light of this coming day. Malachi chapter four verse one begins to describe this day. Says, "For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. Does it actually make a difference to serve God? And Malachi's conclusion is saying it absolutely does. It makes all the difference in the world, not only in the world but all in of eternity. You don't see the full difference yet, but one day you will, when the day is coming, when you will see that it was not in vain to serve God, Malachi says the the day will come burning like an oven, and we've already seen Malachi talk about a fire and a refiner's fire. Remember, the refiner's fire leaves what is is precious and good, but this is a different kind of fire. This is a consuming fire. And notice specifically who Malachi identifies who will be consumed.
Pastor: All the arrogant and all evildoers will be consumed by the fire of God's justice. And those two words, the evildoers and the arrogant, are significant because if you look back to chapter three, verse 15, look at what the people are saying. We call the arrogant blessed evildoers not only prosper, but but they put God to the test and they escape. You see, in their mind, they're saying that it is the arrogant and the evildoers that God actually blesses, and what God is reminding His people that no, they justice might not have fallen on them today, but a day is coming when they will be completely and utterly consumed by My fire. They might escape your judgment today, but they will not escape me. They will not escape God. There is no sin that will go unpunished before a holy, holy, holy God. Revelation chapter six verse 15 says, "Then the kings of the earth, and the great ones, and generals, and the rich, and the powerful, and everyone slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come. Who can stand? Malachi says they will be like stubble, straw before God, and that is a a picture to demonstrate to us that there is no substance. In them that will survive a consuming fire. They will be
consumed. Verse one continues: "The day, the day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, "so that it will leave neither root Nor branch.
consumed. Verse one continues: Nothing is left. Nothing is left before God. You know when when you garden and you go and you get weeds out of your garden.
consumed. Verse one continues: Sometimes you might leave a root and then it pops back up. But God is wiping out every evil before His face. There is nothing left.
consumed. Verse one continues: All the stuff in this world that often seems so impressive to us, the things often that we long in pine for, will be exposed for what they truly are as worthless before God. John tells us, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.
consumed. Verse one continues: And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. If you are here this morning and you do not know Christ, do not mistake the patience of God as God's indifference to sin. The fact that judgment has not yet fallen upon you does not mean that judgment will never come. For indeed, it will come. The day is coming, and you have all been warned of this day. Now, there is no excuse when you stand before God. It is not. Do I look like a Christian? Do I do Christian things? But do I possess the Lord Jesus Christ by faith? Do I rest upon Him for my salvation and Him alone? The scene changes there in verse two. So we have fire coming. We have judgment that is coming.
consumed. Verse one continues: But look at the sweet, sweet words of verse two. But for you.
consumed. Verse one continues: But for you, who fear my name, for those who fear God's name, the coming of the Lord and His arrival is not of one of a foe or enemy. It is the arrival of the one whom you long for and have waited for. And these are the same days described here. It is the same day. It'll be a day of one for some of terror. It'll be a day of furnace and burning and destruction. But for you, who fear the Lord and who by faith rest in the Lord Jesus Christ, it is a day of glory. It is a day of healing. It is a day of life. The sun rises after a long cold night, not to consume you, but to warm you, to comfort you, to heal you. Wait for the morning. We are told, because the sun will indeed rise, and when he does, everything will be different. The son of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings. The son of righteousness will rise not to consume you who believe in Christ, but to heal you, to bless you, to comfort you. On that day, you shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And this is a beautiful picture. Imagine a calf who has been shut in a barn all winter long, and finally the spring has come, and the doors are burst open of the barn. And the calf does not slowly shuffle outside; it bursts and gallops and leaps by still waters and green pastures. It bursts out running and laughing and leaping, and it's freedom. That is the picture for you who are in Christ on that day when He arrives, of a little calf leaping with much joy and gladness. It's not mere relief on that day; it is joy. It is not mere survival on that day.
consumed. Verse one continues: It is freedom. It is not merely getting through judgment. It is victory in Christ. Verse three continues on in that theme of victory, and you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts. Everything and every one that opposes Christ and His people will finally be gone and defeated.
consumed. Verse one continues: Every sin you have fought for years and wondered, will I ever be free from this? Gone. The sickness that has weakened your body and given you pain, never more. The death that has taken people you love is dead itself.
consumed. Verse one continues: Satan, who accuses you and tempts you, is crushed. The people of God share in the victory of their Lord Jesus Christ. That is what the day means for those who fear the Lord. The day is coming. The sun will soon rise. But how should we now live, as we wait for that day? Because this is where God's people find themselves.
consumed. Verse one continues: Even here at the end of the book of Malachi, the day is coming, but it isn't here yet. The sun will rise, but the night has not completely passed away. What do we do now? What do we do in the meantime? Now, as we wait for that day, well, verse four tells
us: Remember, remember, remember, remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I've commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Remember, this is God's repeated command to His to His people. Remember what I have done. Remember where you have come from. Remember you were slaves in Egypt. Remember how I brought you out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Remember my covenant.
us: Remember my commandments. Do not forget. This is one of the greatest spiritual dangers of God's people-it is not lack of biblical knowledge and ignorance. It is a forgetfulness of God. They knew who God was.
us: They knew what God had done for them. They knew what God had, what He commanded them. But over time, the things that they knew stopped shaping the way that they actually lived, and when you forget who God is, and when you forget what God has done for you, eventually you begin to treat God and His commands like burdens rather than blessings, and you begin to ask, why take worship so serious? It's one day. What does it matter whether what I bring to God? Why should I be generous? Why should I obey even when obedience costs me?
us: Because they have forgotten who God is. They have forgotten who He is and what He has done for them. And God tells them,"Remember anew. Remember anew.
us: Remember anew. Remember how God has redeemed you. Remember how God has purchased you. Remember who you are. Remember how He has called you to live. You know, and every single Lord's Day here at Bay Haven, you have heard this command. Every single Lord's Day, there is not a single Lord's Day that has gone by where we have met for a service, and you have not heard the command to remember, because Jesus takes the bread and says,"Do this in remembrance of me.
us: Remember Jesus. Remember His body given for you. Remember His blood poured out for you.
us: Remember the judgment that he endured for you; that he was consumed by the judgment of God, that you might not be consumed, and not only not be consumed, but you might now be blessed.
us: Remember the curse he bore.
us: Remember the tomb that he has conquered. Remember the grace that he has brought you out of bondage from the kingdom of darkness and has brought you into the kingdom of his marvelous light. Remember you are. Not slaves, but you are sons. Remember, he is coming again, and wait for that day.
us: Malachi does not only tell Israel and us to remember and look backward, but he now tells us to behold, as verse five says, "Behold, and look forward to something else. Look forward to what God is still yet to do.
Verse five: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. God had just told His people, "Remember Moses. He tells them now to wait for Elijah, Moses, and Elijah are the the two representatives of the entire Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets, and God says, "Behold, I'm going to send you Elijah. Silence. 400 years.
Verse five: Silence. No more Malachi. No more Isaiah. Or Jeremiah.
Verse five: There's no new prophet for hundreds of years, not a single word to Israel. Silence, quiet.
Verse five: Year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation. But a father teaches his children. Remember, God's sending Elijah. We should be looking for Elijah. Those children grow old. They teach their children. Remember, God said He's going to send Elijah.
Verse five: Another generation passes, and another, and another, and God's people wait 400 years. Perhaps some even begin to wonder: Did God forget? Did He forget about us? Maybe Malachi was wrong. Is anyone actually coming, or not?
Verse five: And then one day, out in the wilderness of Judea, a voice begins to cry out, "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.
Verse five: And the man preaching-he doesn't look like the the religious establishment in Jerusalem. He wears camel's hair. He has a leather bell around his waist.
Verse five: He lives in the wilderness, but he preaches with fire and boldness, as one of the ancient prophets of old. His name was John, John the Baptist, and before John was even born, the angel told his father Zechariah exactly who this child would be.
Verse five: In Luke chapter one, it says he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready for the Lord a people prepared and you see what the angel has done. He has taken the exact language of the end of Malachi about turning children's hearts to their father, and it says John is the Elijah to come.
Verse five: The silence is over. The Elijah Malachi promised has come, not Elijah reincarnated, but John who comes in the spirit and the power of Elijah, he comes with Elijah's mission, which is repentance and faith, return, remember, and Jesus confirms this about John himself, Matthew chapter 11. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. God had not forgotten.
Verse five: God had kept His promise, even though when many over a long period of silence doubted, "Is anything going to happen? God had not forgotten. At precisely the right moment, John appeared, but John appeared as a forerunner, announcing the arrival of the of another. John would be the last motorcade a motorcycle in the motorcade before the arrival of the king.
Verse five: John was not the one Israel ultimately was waiting for. John was not the light. John was not the sun that would rise. John was simply announcing that morning was breaking, the sun of righteousness has come, and John himself said, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.
Verse five: I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. And one day John looks up and he sees Jesus walking to him, and he says,"Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The dawn had broken, the sun had arrived with healing in his wings. And why does John say the Lamb? Because something has to be done about our guilt.
Verse five: Something has to be done about the curse. What's interesting is the last word in Malachi says,"Lest I come and strike the land with the decree of utter destruction. It's essentially saying the last word in the Old Testament is curse, curse, curse, and that's how the Old Testament ends. Which is interesting because if you look at how the Old Testament begins, it starts with blessing.
Verse five: Everything is good, but then sin comes in and brings curse, and the Old Testament leaves us with curse. What's going to happen to the curse? Who will end the curse? How do we escape God's curse? And John says, "Behold the Lamb, who takes away the sins of the world. He takes Away the curse. Verse six, and he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. This is not simply talking about fathers becoming better fathers and children being better and obedient children. Certainly, Christ, when he changes hearts, it does change our our parenting and our children, but Malachi is talking about something else. He's talking about something deeper.
Verse five: Malachi has been speaking about the covenant of the fathers.
Verse five: That is, Israel had had wandered from the faith of their fathers.
Verse five: Israel had wandered from the faith of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. They have wandered from God as their Father. Your worship has wandered, your marriages have wandered, your giving has wandered, your words have wandered, your hearts have wandered from Me. But Malachi is directing us to the one, actually the Good Shepherd, who will come to rescue wandering sheep, in the fullness of time the Word became flesh and would dwell among His people, and He would die for His sheep, and He would rise with healing in His wings. Now, as we conclude here, Malachi's book. One of the reasons I wanted to do Malachi is because I think there's a lot of similarities between the people Malachi is talking to and us.
Verse five: We are very similar to the people that Malachi is addressing because we we discover that we are awaiting people too, and maybe you have felt like that period of time waiting. It's been a long time.
Verse five: It's been longer than 400 years.
Verse five: Is anything going to happen? Did God forget? But we do not simply live between the darkness and light, like Malachi's people did, we live between the dawn and the daylight. Morning has already broken for us, but there are still shadows on the ground.
Verse five: We are still having to bury those we love. We're still having to battle our sin. We're still suffering. We're still weeping. We're we're still waiting, but we do not wait wondering whether God's going to keep His promise or not. We wait knowing that every promise God has ever made will be proven true. There is one more promise yet to be fulfilled, and Jesus
says it Himself: "Surely I am coming soon. The sun has risen, but one day His glory will fill the whole earth, and every dark shadow will disappear. The day will come when every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The day will come when every enemy is placed underneath His foot.
says it Himself: The day will come. Satan will finally be cast out. The day will come when death itself dies. The day will come when every tear will be wiped away.
says it Himself: The day will come. John tells us in Revelation, night will be no more. Malachi promised the sun would rise, but John tells us that the sun will never set. The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The Lamb is light; He is coming, and when we see Him, we will never ask, "Lord, did You really love me? We will behold Him face to face in all of His glory and see the One who loved us before the foundation of the world, who gave himself upon the cross for us, and who has come to bring us home? So, brothers and sisters, let us lift our eyes from this day and look to the day yet to come. Let us not measure God's love by the darkness of today, but measure it by the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. The night is far gone, the day is at hand, says Paul. The sun will rise in His fullness, and He will bring healing in His wings. We long for that day. Let's pray, Our heavenly Father. We thank you for your promises. We thank you that you never forget. We thank you that in the right time you sent our Lord Jesus Christ, who broke into this world, and the light of His kingdom and the light of His gospel is already shining throughout the entire world, and already also in our hearts. But Lord, we wait for the full sun to appear, when there will be no more darkness, no more shadows, no more death.
says it Himself: O Lord Jesus, come soon, come quickly, strengthen our faith as we wait, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.