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I don't know if it sounds familiar to you or not, but maybe you've been in a situation, you're going through life, kind of on cruise control, everything seems to be going well, and then something happens, zap, all of a sudden, you're back to thinking about reality.
Thinking about what's important. The other day I was riding my bicycle, and I was just off my own world, and pedaling and listening to Abner Chow talk about the minor prophets and Amos, and I was approaching Kimball's Farm over on Route 70, and saw all the people out there just standing in line for their Almond Joy ice cream, and I'm thinking about what the text is saying, I'm on my bicycle, and haven't been stung for about a year or so.
It's a modern day record. And I don't know, when I used to ride a motorcycle, a lot of bugs would fly into my mouth, and some tasted like celery, some tasted like artichoke hearts, you know, I have a discerning Nebraska palate.
And I was just riding along, just in my own world, and then zap, into my mouth goes the wasp, and it begins to sting inside of my mouth. I thought, is this a movie? I thought to myself, secondly, these poor people that spend all this money on injections into their lips, they should just get a swarm of bees, and all of a sudden I began to think about things, and just kind of brought me to my senses, of course, I couldn't think about anything else.
When you look at the book of Malachi, it is like a bee sting, a wasp sting in the mouth. It just brings you back to attention again. Let's turn our Bibles there as we wrap up Malachi chapter four today.
The thing that I never noticed before though, I always thought it was only the bee sting, it was a wasp sting in the mouth, it was to make people think, make people repent, but there's another side to Malachi, and it's the side of balm, and the side of healing, and the side that makes you think, you know what, there's judgment when God shows up, but there's also healing.
And that's the paradigm we're going to look at this morning. As you know, there are many theological paradigms that we've tried to teach you at Bethlehem Bible Church. Here's a few as you're turning to Malachi chapter four.
Law, gospel paradigm. There's the law of God, and we fall short of the law of God, and we need the good news that Jesus Christ lives the life we couldn't live, died on the cross for our sins, and was raised from the dead.
Law, gospel. There's another paradigm, maybe we could call it indicative imperative. Statements of fact, indicatives, and then imperatives based on that. Who we are in Christ, then commands. There's another paradigm, you know this one well.
Theology leads to methodology, leads to doxology. I can think of another paradigm. When you see God's revelation, you respond with praise. When you read God's revelation, you respond with praise and thanks.
But the paradigm we're going to look at today, the next in the installments of these ideas that lock our minds into Scripture is this, when Jesus shows up, when there's the day of the Lord, there's both judgment, but there's salvation.
Judgment and salvation. When the King returns, there's judgment for the unbelievers, but there's salvation and a balm for the believers. And that's what Malachi 4 is going to teach us. You could probably see in your Bible, if you have the ESV at least, the header of your ESV, Malachi 4 is the great day of the Lord.
That day is going to bring judgment on unbelievers and it's going to bring salvation to believers. Now to make sure our context is right, let's go back to chapter 3 verse 13 and let me read verses 13 through 18 because they really serve as the setting for why chapter 4 exists because you can see the first word of chapter 4 of the book of Malachi is the word for, F-O-R.
Chapter 4 begins with F-O-R. So what's the context? To what event is Malachi referring to? Why is he referring to this? And we'll see in chapter 3 verse 13, the text reads, "'Your words have been hard against me,' says the Lord.
But you say, "'How have we spoken against you? You have said it is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping His charge or of walking as in mourning before the Lord of hosts?'. And now we call the arrogant blessed.
Evildoers not only prosper, but they put God to the test and they escape. Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them. And a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed His name.
"'They shall be mine,' says the Lord of hosts, "'in the day when I make up my treasured possession and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between the one who serves God and the one who does not serve Him.'".
Notice verse 18, it's very important. Let me read it one more time. "'Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked.'". Okay, so here's what's happening. A lot of evil people are prospering back in Malachi's day.
And so the question is, you know, we've served you God, we've honored you, but look at we're suffering and they're seemingly getting all the blessings. How can the evil prosper? And so Malachi says there's gonna be a distinction.
There's gonna be a day where all the rights will be confirmed and all the wrongs will be righted. There's gonna be a distinguishing characteristic between the saved and the lost. I think sometimes even of the plagues where God shows His distinguishing differences between Egypt and the Israelites.
Let me give you an example in Exodus 9, but the Lord will make a distinction between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt so that nothing of all that belongs to the people of Israel shall die.
So even the plagues, sometimes the plagues had all the Egyptians suffer and the Israelites of course didn't. There's going to be a great distinction, not just on earth, but eternally. So here's the outline for this morning.
Doom, delight, and duty. Three-point outline. I have no poems, but I have three points. And I even for the Baptist in the congregation today am giving you alliteration. I normally don't alliterate, always alliterate.
No, but today I am. Doom, delight, and duty. And we're gonna see with the day of the Lord when Jesus ultimately comes back, there's doom for the unbeliever, there's delight for the believer, and then what do we do in light of Jesus' soon return?
What's our duty? So it's super simple. Doom, delight, and duty. And there's going to be a distinguishing factor between the unbelievers and the believer when the day of the Lord arrives. Number one, doom.
The destiny of every unforgiven person is doom. If you're a Christian this morning, you're covered. You have an escape. You're saved. You're delivered. You're rescued. This isn't for you. If you're an unbeliever here and you will not repent and trust Jesus, the risen Savior, this is your destiny.
To live as Christ and to die as Gain will not be your refrain. Malachi 4, verse 1. The destiny of every unforgiven person is doom. For behold, pay attention. Here comes the address. The day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all the evildoers will be stubble.
The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, or the Lord of armies, so that it will neither leave them, it will leave them neither root nor branch. You know, there's no difference between godly and ungodly.
They seem to prosper. Is there any difference on the day, the final day? There will be the difference manifest. Notice the text, the day, the day. This is what scholars call the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord.
There's a series of days, small d's, with the final capital D, Day of the Lord, when Jesus returns. The way I think about it is almost like with fireworks. You go watch fireworks on July 4th. You think, okay, it's a 15-minute show, but what's everybody waiting for in that 15-minute show?
I'm waiting for the popcorn. No, I'm not. I'm waiting for the final, the finale. What do they call the end of the fireworks display? The grand finale? Okay, technical terms. I mean, sometimes, you know, because where I grew up, it's a shopping cart, and then there's a carriage, so I didn't know if there was a finale word that I forgot.
So there's a series of times when Jesus shows up, when Yahweh shows up, it's called the Day of the Lord. It could be chasing in Babylon or chasing in Israel, but it's punctuated by the final D, the capital D, Day of the Lord, is when Jesus comes back.
If you read Obadiah, if you read Amos, if you read Joel, you'll hear a lot about the Day of the Lord. Small little judgments, but the big Day of the Lord, capital D, capital A, capital Y is coming, and that is what Malachi talks about here.
The final day, wicked will be judged. Now, I wanna say this right now so we can think through this clearly. There are some people that say everybody's gonna go to heaven. Some people say universalism, there's no such thing as hell or torment or punishment or anything else.
Everybody goes to the same place. It's the mantra you hear when you go to a funeral and a cowardly pastor gets up and basically says, the way to get to heaven is just to die. The way to get to heaven is just to have some water sprinkled on your head.
Everybody's basically going. But what does the text say? There's going to be a judgment day for all who are arrogant, and he uses all again in the ESV, and all evildoers. That day is coming. And they're gonna be set ablaze.
They're gonna be like stubble, consumed. Listen to some of the Old Testament prophets describe that day. Therefore, the Lord God of hosts will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors and under his cloud a burning will be kindled like the burning of fire.
Isaiah 10. Isaiah 30. Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with His anger and in thick rising smoke, His lips are full of fury and His tongue is like a devouring fire. Zephaniah 1. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the Lord.
In the fire of His jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed. Zephaniah 3. Therefore, wait for me, declares the Lord, for the day when I rise up to seize the prey, for my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out my indignation upon them, all my burning anger, for in the fire of my jealousy, the earth shall be consumed.
Doom. The day of the Lord vindicates God's character and purposes and ends with a judgment unlike no other. The world will be again, mark my words, destroyed with a flood. But this time, not with water, but with fire.
The world and all the evildoers will be destroyed ultimately in the final day of the Lord when Jesus returns. I mean, look at the language, the choice of God's language. Burning like an oven. It's hot, set on fire.
This is the same language of Joel the prophet in chapter 2. Before them, fire devours. Behind them, a flame blazes. You sat around the campfire last night and you just get kind of close and you think, this is blazing hot.
Well, this comes for the unbeliever. Judgment. Didn't John the Baptist have this very same thought from Malachi 4 when he said this? I baptize you, John the Baptist said, with water for repentance. But he who is coming after me is mightier than I whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hands. He'll clear this threshing floor, gather wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. On that day, there'll be a distinction between the righteous and the wicked.
God will intervene. Jesus will come back of the day of the Lord. And on that day, there'll be judgment. Now, the word day of the Lord, if you think kind of like if a king would show up, and when the king shows up, all the attentions for the king, and you would run around and you'd tell people, the king is here.
This is the day that the king has arrived. God comes on the scene, as one scholar says, and doesn't just saunter on the screen, but fills all the scene with His glory. This is just a metaphor. It's a metaphor of judgment.
It's a metaphor of war. It literally is going to happen, but the language is of war, is of judgment. God will be vindicated. Here's how we think about it as Christians. Here's how those readers who are godly, who feared God's name in Malachi thought about it.
I don't have to take judgment into my hands. I don't have to make sure every wrong is righted. Jesus will come back. He'll take care of it. Every wrong will be vindicated. Every bad guy will be gotten.
Every bad woman will be gotten. It'll all be taken care of. Will they prosper forever? No, the wicked will not prosper forever because judgment is coming. Scary. You can think this is almost how Malachi ends, and then the New Testament, 400 years later, starts with a blessing.
Evil people prosper, but then they die and stand before God. Eventually, evil people prosper, but Jesus returns. This language is awful language. It's supposed to scare you. Fire, burning, oven. You don't want to be judged by God.
You want to place yourself in the care of Christ Jesus. Doom is coming. But secondly, delight. Here's the part where we forget. It's almost like last week in the middle of Malachi, there's a book of remembrance.
You're my treasured possession. You'll be mine. For the unbeliever, they're going to get it. But for the believer, there's this tender side of Malachi that I never saw. I always thought Malachi was like the wasp in my mouth.
By the way, you said, what kind of wasp was it? Do you think I actually pulled it out and looked at it on the bicycle? That's a new flavor for Kimball's, you know. No, I spit that thing out. I got the Benadryl out of my saddlebag.
That's what I got. I thought Malachi was all about the sting. And you know what? Most of it is. But then there's this side. When Jesus comes back, if we're alive, you say to yourself, judgment for some, but salvation for others.
He's promised us salvation. He's not going to judge me again because he's already judged his son in my place. And God is just. There's no double jeopardy, so I am covered. If Jesus has assuaged the wrath of God, I'm clear, I'm free, I'm forgiven.
And now when this King comes back on that day where He dispenses judgment and salvation, here's the salvation for the believers. And it's a delight. It's a thrill. All that thrills my soul is Jesus' kind of delight.
If doom is so bad, if hell is so hot, then the converse must be so wonderful. It must be so good. If hell is that bad, if doom is that wicked. So now we come to the positive side found in verse 2. But, here's the balm.
But for you who fear my name, for those who give me reverence and awe and the son of righteousness, that's not capitalized in the ESV. I think the King James does capitalize son. I think the Amplified does and the Moffat translation capitalizes son.
But you who fear my name, the son of righteousness, I think that's a good capitalization, shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. Now, most every conservative commentator says this is a reference to the Messiah, Jesus.
Of course, he's talking about the Son, but then it lends you into thinking as S. Lewis Johnson says, but the Son of Righteousness is the Lord Jesus. And so we could speak of Him as the Son of Righteousness who rises with healing in its wings.
Because if you think Old Testament, you think Isaiah, many times when God visits, it's like the sun shining. A visitation from God is like the sun coming up. Okay, so just imagine, it's dark, there's no full moon.
Was that the super moon last night or not? That's tonight. I read last night that it didn't come from astronomy. I think super moon technology came from astrology. Go have fun tonight. You can study that on your own.
Okay, what am I talking about, Tom? Where am I again? It's dark out and all of a sudden, the sun comes up and everything's now light. And you feel the warmth. The rising sun, oftentimes in the Old Testament, Isaiah 60, hey, God's showing up because God affects everything.
Where does the light not go? Listen to Isaiah 60, Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, thick darkness, but the Lord will arise upon you and His glory will be seen upon you.
Remember Zechariah? Jesus is going to be born. Luke 1, Because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high. They weren't saying, we just can't wait until it's tomorrow morning.
This is wonderful figurative language. It's a literary device to say, as the sun comes up, affects everything. Jesus said, I am the light of the world, didn't He, in John chapter 8? I can just imagine Jesus on the temple ground, probably with a big menorah in the background.
And Jesus says, that lights up the courtyard, but I am the light of the world. That's the idea here. The sun of righteousness, S-U-N, S-O-N, same idea. Jesus, the righteous one, coming back. Jeremiah 23 talks about Jesus who will return, the son of David, the righteous branch, named, the Lord is our righteousness.
From Justin onward in Church Fathers, the son of righteousness has been understood as Christ Jesus. Luther said, under the law, there is weakness and condemnation, but under the wings of Christ, under the Gospel, there is strength and salvation, alluding to the very fact.
Now, don't you love the language here? Unbelievers are going to get doomed, but believers, they're going to be rewarded, and here comes the Messiah back. And what's the language? You who fear His name, He'll rise with healings in its wings, and you shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.
Just think about that for a second. How many people were in 4-H with any kind of animals at all? I was in 4-H. Anybody here 4-H? Some, okay, the elect, like that. And we would go to the Nebraska State Fair, and I happened to enter dogs into AKC obedience and show competition, and then I would watch all the cow competition, and I think they even have some of that at the Sterling Fair, don't they?
I think they do. And even if I have my dog, for instance, in a little cart, in a little carrier, in a little kennel, in a little cage, and I put her on the airplane to fly her to California, and when she gets out of that thing, is she happy?
I mean, she is happy. She's jumping. She's running around. Well, maybe first she's really thirsty, then we give her some water, but she gets out of that thing, and she is high as a kite. I used to be all pinned up, and now I'm free, and you can almost see her put her two back paws up for the double mint kick as they used to do those kicks 20 years ago on the commercials.
Just so happy. I'm free. I'm jumping. I'm alive. I often fly my dog to California, but she can't go with me because JetBlue doesn't take animals, and so one time I flew her on United, and I land in San Jose, and I get an answer machine message, and it said, Mike Ebenroth, we're sorry your dog did not make her connection in Houston.
She'll be arriving tomorrow morning at 9 a .m. I told her, you don't go have Starbucks first and then shop around. You find your terminal. You get all set. It says San Jose. Then you relax. So we got her the next day, and she was so excited to get out of that crate and to jump around, and the calf finally gets out.
He gets to run, or she gets to run around in the field. Joy! Inexpressible. It's a delight. And as bad as doom is for the believer, when our Lord comes back, it's delight. He's just trying to use... What kind of language would you have?
The King finally returns. That's why it's bittersweet. We don't want our unbelieving friends to die and go to hell because Jesus is coming back, but we want Him to come back. Where's Jesus? And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the sun's up and everything's light.
Out of nowhere, the sun returns. Psalm 84, for the Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. Isaiah, the sun shall be no more, your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light, but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and God will be your glory.
The Lord will be your everlasting light. So often and regularly, God is called light. God is called sun as we hear this kind of language. And look at the text again, I am the Lord who heals you. It's a day of healing.
It shall rise with healing in its wings. Permanent healing. Death swallowed up forever. All based on, all because of the sacrificial death of Christ. Pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.
Upon Him was a chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. Verse 3, interestingly, it says there's a lot of skipping going on in chapter 4, verse 2, but some of that skipping involves trampling.
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. I wonder if evil people will always prosper. I wonder if there's a difference between the wicked and the good.
I wonder if it's vain to serve God. On judgment day, on the return of Christ day, on that day, we'll all answer the question, it was worth serving the Lord. It was worth bowing to Him with faith and repentance and trust.
It was worth it. On that day, there'll be a great distinguishing. And it won't just be Egypt was all dark and the Israelites in Goshen were light. No, this is eternal destruction and eternal rewards. And on one side, the evil just get trampled down.
You've seen the language of this trampling elsewhere, haven't you? Used of God, like with grapes and stomping on the grapes so much that you get the grape juice up on your robe. How does that happen? If you were going to kind of smash grapes, what would you do?
You'd be very careful and you would get on grapes with your bare feet and you wouldn't stomp up and down very hard because you don't want to smash the seeds. And I've been told you don't want the grape seeds to be smashed because it makes for bad wine.
But if you don't care about the seeds and you don't care about what happens and you're just going to be having righteous anger and it is just stomping, stomping, stomping because it's not to make wine, it's to judge.
And here it's this treading down under the soles of people's feet on the day when the Lord returns. Turn if you would with me to 2 Thessalonians, a New Testament perspective of the exact same thing. When Jesus returns, there is judgment for unbeliever and there's blessing and reward for believer.
And 2 Thessalonians says the exact same thing. The paradigm is when Jesus shows up, when the day happens, there's judgment and salvation. That's just the way it works. It even happened when Jesus came the first time.
Many He would judge like the Pharisees and many He would bless like Zacchaeus. When God shows up, He bestows judgment and salvation. And here in 2 Thessalonians, for this ultimate day, capital D, Day of the Lord, we see that.
This is the evidence, 2 Thessalonians 1, verse 5, this is the evidence of the righteous judgment of God. That you Thessalonians could be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are also suffering.
God's giving them grace to endure. That's why we know they're enduring. It's a sign of His goodness and grace that they would be sustained through this sanctifying process. He's just. He's going to vindicate them one day.
Hang in there. The day's coming. Same with Malachi. How do we encourage people that are getting trodden down by the evil in a wicked world? Since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you.
And to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels. In Malachi's day, in the Thessalonians' day, and today, the world is so wicked, God, won't You do something?
And you can just hear the unbelieving pagan saying, if God is real, may He strike me dead with lightning bolts. Well, there's a day that's coming. And He gives judgment to those who are unbelievers and salvation to believers.
The day when the text again says, note, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels. The power of it all. The magnificence of it all. The justice of it all. The grace of it all.
Verse 8, in flaming fire. Notice the same language. Zephaniah, Isaiah, Joel, Amos, Malachi, all judgment of fire. Inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God. If you're not a believer here today, He's coming to get you.
And you have only one hope, and that's Christ Jesus and His protection. In vengeance. Can you imagine the God of the universe who creates the world with the Word and now He's got you on His mind to inflict vengeance?
It's supposed to be terrifying. It's supposed to be frightening on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. This reminds me of Isaiah 66. The Lord will come in fire and His chariots like the whirlwind to render His anger and fury and His rebuke with flames of fire.
By fire will the Lord enter into judgment and by His sword with all flesh and those slain by the Lord shall be many. I don't believe in Jesus. I reject Jesus. I stiff-arm Jesus. I will not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I will not. I cannot. This is their end. What's their punishment? Verse 9. Where are they going to go that we don't want anybody here to go? They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction. Don't just think about chaff is burned up and then doesn't exist, annihilated.
Eternal destruction. You mark those words down. And may they haunt you if you're an unbeliever until you finally repent. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might.
Awful destruction. Eternal destruction. But on the flip side, remember with the Day of the Lord, there's judgment, but there's also salvation. There's doom, but there's also a delight. 2 Thessalonians teaches what Malachi teaches, what Joel teaches, what Isaiah teaches.
And when He comes on that day, that particular day... By the way, Luther used to say, I have two days in my calendar. Today and that day. And he was referring to this day. Two days in my calendar. Why?
Because I think about what I need to get done today as a good steward. And then I think about the day when Jesus will come back. I mean, when's the last time we thought about it? One day Jesus is going to come back.
I wonder what Jesus would say to the UN, by the way. Oh, I'm deviating. I think if you call yourself the Vicar of Christ, you ought to talk about Christ, but that's another subject. Although that's a subject I'd like to talk about right now.
I put it out on social media. If you could ask the Pope one question, what would you ask him? The best answer was, I'd ask the Pope this, do you think you're a good person? Kind of the Ray Comfort line.
Then evangelize the Pope. When you know the day's coming and you're an unbeliever, it forces you to go, I need to repent and trust Christ. I'm sorry. Forgive me. Similarly, the very same event for the believer is, Jesus is coming back.
I can think of some people who have surgery later this month. How would you like Jesus to come back today? Wouldn't it be nice today? People have cancer. I got cancer and I think Jesus coming back today would be quite nice.
How would you like to meet Him face to face today? I got a sick dad. How would you like to see Jesus today? For the unbeliever, you don't want that day. But for the believer, you long for that day. It's a delightful day.
Don't ever fall into the lie that you think, Jesus' death wasn't great enough for all my sins. Because when Jesus comes back, I've still got some sins to pay for. Friends, there's no sin to pay for if you're a Christian because Jesus paid it all.
And on that day, verse 10, to be glorified in His saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed because our testimony to you was believed. That splendorous day. That wonderful day. That day where you think it's the opposite of doom.
If doom to hell is so awful, then the delight in heaven as your King comes back is so great. It's the true return of the King. It's amazing to me that the doomed in hell, there's almost more talk about hell.
Well, there is more talk about hell than there is heaven. It's like you can't describe the glories of heaven and they're too wonderful. But the way I think through it is if hell is that bad, on the flip side, symmetrically, heaven has to be that much greater.
Is it vain to serve God? Will it be vain to serve God on that day? That was the question of Malachi. His audience in Malachi said, there's not going to be any vanity at all. Now, let's go back to chapter 4 of Malachi.
We've got to wrap this up. For the unbeliever, the return of the Lord will be doom. We don't want you to be doomed. We want you to believe. For the believer, there's going to be delight. It's the language of just pure delight.
Healing. Skipping. You ever watch a kid skip? By the way, if you're over 50, when's the last time you skipped? I know. When you watch a kid skip, I mean, can you skip when you're sad? It's like playing the banjo when you're depressed.
You just cannot do it. And you just watch these kids skipping. Hey, the Lord is back! It is skip to the loo! Skip to the loo. Skip to the loo, my darling? Is that right? That's right, okay. You got that out of the cassette there.
He's happy skipping. I'm sure glad I've got tenure. That's all I have to say. Now, there's a skipping involved, but what should we do? If Jesus is coming back and we're set with Him, and when He said it is finished, He paid for my sins, and God confirmed that by raising Him from the dead, and I don't have to worry.
Is it just now free, easy, let's get on the roof and just kind of wait things out? Is there anything we should do in light of the world? It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine? Or, should I do something?
And for Malachi, and for us, we have been given marching orders knowing that the day of the Lord is coming, and it's soon. Well, what do you do? What do you do if you know you're a believer, and Malachi says, there's the skipping, and the joy, and the delight, but here's what I want you to remember, and here comes the imperative.
Here's the key command in all of it all, in all the end, rather. Remember the law of my servant Moses. Not just think about it, but do it. If I could say for the Christian, remember what the Bible teaches you Christian, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb, another word for Sinai, for all Israel.
Interesting, isn't it? The world's going to end soon. How should I live? Well, just what you have in the Bible. Make sure you remember what God tells you to do in light of your salvation, and just do it.
It's pretty amazing. Sounds similar to Ecclesiastes. God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. The end of all matter is there. All have been heard. Fear God and keep His commandment, for this is the whole duty of man.
Remember what God told you. The world's going to end. Be obedient. What's the world say? Here's the bumper sticker. The world's going to end, you know, look busy. Jesus is coming back, look busy. That's different.
How about this? Don't turn there, but just listen to these words. In light of the second coming, how are we to act? They will say, where's the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.
Same old, same old. They deliberately overlook this fact. The heavens existed long ago. The earth was formed out of water and through water by the Word of God. And that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
By the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. The world's going to end in fire. And Peter says, what?
What are you to do? Verse 11, since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness? The world's going to end, so be godly. Act holy in light of your position in Christ and your union with Him.
Be godly. The world's going to end. How about this? 1 Peter chapter 4, the end of all things is at hand, therefore. If you were going to write someone, the world's going to end tomorrow, what should you do?
What do we do before tomorrow? Before the blood-red moon. Therefore, be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins.
Show hospitality to one another without grumbling and then use your spiritual gifts. Malachi, same thing in our day. Jesus is coming back, He judges the unbeliever, He rewards the believer, and in light of His soon return, how do we act?
Holy lives we act with, with obedient lives. Not because we're trying to earn God's favor, but because He has favored us. And then there's a signal given as we wrap up the book. The signal given for those in Malachi's day that's already now for us as Christians in the past, but we can still learn from it and we need to see the discussion.
The doom of the unbeliever, the delight of the believer, our duty in light of His soon return, and then He gives a signal for His readers. How do we know the day of the Lord is going to happen? Is there a precursor?
Is there something ahead of time? Can you give us a heads up? Behold, I will send to you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 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.
Now many times, and I think we rightfully say, Malachi ends, the Old Testament in the English canon ends with the word of what? What's the last word of the Old Testament before we hear from Matthew 1 .1?
Destruction. And that sits poorly with some people. Some of the Jewish folks said, no, you know what? That's not really there. When it comes to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, they rearranged the ending so it ended with a positive statement and not the curse.
It does have a curse there, but the curse is in the middle of a blessing. I mean, what does the text say? I'm giving you a heads up before that awesome day, and here's this wonderful thing that God is going to do, lest I come and strike the land.
Who was that Elijah? His name was John the Baptist, and God kept his word. Jesus said, 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.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear. John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say he has a demon. The son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.
Here's the point. In Malachi's day, this awful day is going to come. This wonderful day is going to come. The day is the exact same day, and by the way, there's going to be a signal that the day is going to come soon when Elijah begins to preach, and his name was John the Baptist.
So we're not waiting for Elijah today. We're not waiting for John the Baptist, the fulfillment of Elijah today. That's already happened. We're waiting for the Lord to return. The LXX said, the Septuagint, behold, I will send you Elias before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes, who shall turn again the heart of the father to the son and the heart of a man to his neighbor, lest I come and smite the earth grievously.
Remember the law of Moses, my servant, according as I have commanded him in all Israel, even commandments and ordinances. We don't want to put the judgment at the end, but friends, I don't think this ultimately ends in a judging tone.
So here was the book of Malachi. Those that said, you know, let's just do things externally, rotely, going through the motions, we need to have a little wake up call. I guess this is an okay illustration.
When my dog becomes very fixated on something, like the cat next door, she just begins to stare and look and nothing will get her away from that. I mean, it's a fixation. And rightly so, the cat deserves it and all that, you know.
But she needs to be kind of waking out of that, woken out of that. And I either do it verbally, I go, and she's like, oh yeah, wait. Or, nicely, I don't want to get reported to the vet or anything, I just kind of take my heel and kind of give her a little rib shot right there.
And then she's like, oh yeah. I was so fixated, I couldn't think of anything else. And then now it's like, oh yeah, there's my master, I'm supposed to kind of do what he says. Malachi is one of these books.
We've got our head down, I've got to pay bills, I've got to work, somebody's sick in my family, there's an issue, there's a crisis, there's a trial, and you can almost imagine your head getting lower and lower and lower.
It's like when you go see bullfighting that I saw in Mexico. What they do is they cut all these neck muscles up here with the bull because the bull can't get its head up to gore you that way, it's got to have its head looking down all the time.
And for Malachi, and for us, and I know for me as well. If I walk around like this with my head down and forgetting, you know what, from those very clouds, Jesus who said, I ascended into those clouds, the very same way I ascended, I'm coming back.
That reality needs to be reminded in my brain today, put in my brain today, riveted in my brain. I've got two days, today and that day, and maybe that day is today. This is what we call ethical eschatology.
Jesus is coming back, I should live a holy life. And Malachi shakes us, so we stop looking down and then we see everything in light of, Jesus is coming back. Doom and delight. Let's pray. I thank you Father for the book of Malachi.
We all here as Christians, those that are saved, realize you would have been coming back for us in the day that's burning like an oven. We were arrogant, we were evildoers. And then you intercepted all that.
You sent your son who was our great advocate. He not only was the priest, but he was the sacrifice for all our sins. And Father, some here have spouses who aren't saved. They don't want the doom to come to them.
Children, parents, maybe there's people even sitting here today. Father, would you grant them salvation? How you grant salvation through the preaching of sinful, frail men or a man is amazing, but it's your word that's powerful.
I pray that people would be afraid of death, afraid of judgment, so they would run from their sins to you through the Savior. And today, Father, for us as Christians, we can plan and that's fine. But Father, we need to be reminded, your son is coming back soon.
And we don't have to be worried. We want to be honoring, we want to be ready, we want to be faithful to what the Bible says. And what the Bible commands us to do in the meantime. But he's coming back for us, not against us.
He's coming back to reward us, to gather us. Father, remind us of these very things. Seal the words of Malachi into our hearts. My messenger, Malachi. The message is true. It has been proven true. And one day it will be ultimately true on that day.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.