Overcoming Hard Thoughts Toward God

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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Well, we're continuing our study in the book of Malachi. We're in the third chapter. And if you remember, the book of Malachi is a series of six oracles or six disputations with the people of Israel after they had returned from a long stay in Babylonian captivity.

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And we find ourselves here in this third chapter in the midst of God's last and final disputation with the people.

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And so if we read and starting in verses 13 or 13 to 15 to refresh our memories of what this dispute was about.

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Your words have been hard against me, says the Lord. But you say, how have we spoken against you?

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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

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Lord of hosts? And now we call the arrogant blessed. Evil doers not only prosper, but they put

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God to the test and they escape. And the verses we're going to look at are 16 through 18.

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And we will continue on, on this theme of this dispute here. But before we have a look at this,

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I'd like to ask a question. And that is this oracle, this prophecy here, this dispute with the children of Israel.

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Who is it for? Because on the one hand, it seems obvious. We just look at the text and it says, your words have been hard against me.

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Just like all the other oracles, it was towards the nation of Israel as a whole, the unbelieving among them that God had these words.

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But though that's a correct statement, it was addressed to them. My question is not who was addressed to, but who was it written for?

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Because there's a difference. Just consider one of Ezekiel's prophecies.

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The Lord of Ezekiel came to him. And here's what he said. The word of the Lord came to me.

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Son of man, set your face towards the mountains of Israel and prophesy against them and say, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the

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Lord God. Thus says the Lord God to the mountains and to the hills, to the ravines and the valleys, behold,

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I, even I, will bring a sword upon you and I will destroy your high places. Now, it's clear there that Ezekiel was addressing the mountains and the hills.

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But clearly, it wasn't written for the sakes of the mountains and the hills. So, in like manner, when you look at the prophecy here in Malachi, I don't think it was written primarily for the sake of unbelieving

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Jews. And the Old Testament, for that matter, I don't think was written primarily for unbelieving

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Jews. Just consider what it has to say in the

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New Testament. Whatever things were written beforehand were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the

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Scriptures, might have hope. And that was Paul speaking to the saints in Rome.

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So, I say that all just to come to this point, is that when we come across this prophecy here in the book of Malachi, we should be thinking that there's a lesson for us here who are

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Christians. And when God charges them that, your words have been hard against me, we should be asking, have our hearts been hard against God?

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And it is very common and easy for that to happen. And it can happen even to the most eminent among Christians.

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Just consider the man Asaph. Asaph, if you remember, from the Old Testament, was a chief among the

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Levites. And he was selected among them to lead the congregation in praise.

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He was also a prophet, and he happened to write a number of Psalms. Well, in Psalm 73, he recorded a time when his heart was hard toward God.

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And he recorded in there some of the words that he was saying, that when you look at them are virtually indistinguishable from what these people are saying here in Malachi's prophecy.

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Here in Malachi, they were saying, and now we call the arrogant blessed. Evil doers not only prosper, but they put

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God to the test and they escape. And then back in Psalm 73,

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Asaph says, For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

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In Malachi, they were saying, It is vain to serve God. What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning before the

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Lord of hosts? Asaph's words were nearly indistinguishable.

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He says, Behold, these are the wicked. All was at ease. They increase in riches.

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All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence. For all the day long

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I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. And Asaph eventually snapped out of this hardness of heart that he had.

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And when he did so, he looked upon that time as a time when he was a brutish man.

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He says, I was like a beast before you, more brutish than any man. And then, so in Malachi here, we should be considering if our hearts have been hard.

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Is there any areas in our life where we think that God hasn't been dealing well with us?

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Some kind of hard providence maybe, or perhaps we see him as someone with demands and commands that are too high for us, too hard to keep.

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Or maybe, once we have kept his commands, that we see no labor and no fruit, and we wonder if our labor has been in vain as well.

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And then, if that happens to have struck a little bit home with any of you as we are considering this, and you find some hardness in your heart,

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I'd just like to ask, is that really what you think God is like? A hard task master?

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That somehow all your reasonings about him have somehow been true, and that this

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God does turn out to be a hard God toward you? And what else

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I would ask is, do you do well to think such low thoughts of God?

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Now, as much cause as there is in God to return evil for evil, and to bring swift rebukes on us for our hardness of heart toward him, it's often his way that he wins us over, wins his saints back to him through words of peace and grace.

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And it says, By mercy and truth, iniquity is purged, and by the fear of the

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Lord, men depart from evil. And John Newton said it similarly, when he said,

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It was grace that taught my heart to fear. And there's something about the nature of God, of being treated with loving kindness and mercy, that melts the heart and pricks the conscience more than a way that an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth could ever do.

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And I think all of us, even though at times we may be overcome with hardness of heart, I think that all of us, to some degree, have a measure of hardness of heart towards God.

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I think all of us do. I don't think any of us truly esteem him as we ought to, and our thoughts of him are too low.

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But when we hear the heartbeat of God and see in his word what he's really like, it snaps us back to reality and brings our hearts back to him.

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Just consider what God is like, what his heartbeat is like. Just listen to this short passage from Hosea.

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When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

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The more they were called, the more they went away. They kept sacrificing to the Baals and bringing offerings to idols.

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Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them.

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I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws.

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And I bent down to them and fed them. So that's the approach

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God is going to take here in Hosea, a message Hosea gave, addressed to the unbelieving and wicked in heart of Israel, but written for his saints.

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And he's going to come to us in mercy and love, and with grace poured upon his lips, he's going to bring three powerful arguments for us to consider, that we would know that God is not a hard task master, but that he is a loving and gracious God, worthy to be served with all of our hearts.

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So that's what we're going to look at right now. Argument number one.

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You will remember every good work. Read with me in verse 16.

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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

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Lord and esteemed his name. A book of remembrance. So a good question to ask here is, what is this book of remembrance?

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And we can start by thinking about what it isn't, because I don't think it's a physical book that's recorded in heaven, just as I don't think that God keeps our physical tears in bottles for him to remember.

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God doesn't need such things, he's all -knowing. He doesn't learn like us where you learn by contemplation and observation, and nor does he forget.

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So I don't think it's a physical book written in heaven. But I do think it is a figure of speech aimed toward us to convey two important ideas.

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And those ideas, I think, are very real and important. So the first thing that we should think about when we think of a book of remembrance, when it says remembrance, is that it's a book of recompense.

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When God says, I'll remember something, it's not as if he takes this book and takes it off the dusty shelf to open it up and look at what is recorded there like we might with an old photo album, just to reminisce.

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But when God says, I will remember, what he is saying to us is, I will recompense.

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I will repay. If you remember the time that David was fleeing from his son

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Absalom, and he was crossing the river, and a man named Shimei came out to meet him.

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And he began to curse David and cast stones at him, and then David carried on his way and let him be for the time being.

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But afterwards, when Absalom was dead and David was returning, Shimei came out to meet him again, and he said,

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Let not my lord hold me guilty or remember how your servant did wrong on the day my lord the king left

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Jerusalem. Now what was Shimei asking? Don't remember, don't remember my wickedness.

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Was he saying, don't recall it to mind? Well, that would be pretty foolish if that's what he meant, because if David had forgotten, well,

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Shimei had just remembered, reminded him, didn't he? No, but what he was asking when he said, don't remember is, don't repay me according to my wickedness.

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And so this idea of remembrance as recompense is found in other parts of the scripture as well.

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Listen to this text from Hosea. They have deeply corrupted themselves as in the days of Gibeah.

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He will remember their iniquity. He will punish their sins. Here's another one also from Hosea.

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As for my sacrificial offerings, they sacrifice meat and eat it, but the Lord does not accept them.

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Now he will remember their iniquity and punish their sins. They shall return to Egypt. Or here's another one from Isaiah, a passage that would be familiar to many of us.

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I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.

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Now is he saying there that he won't remember as in I will put away my omniscience?

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No, that's not what he's saying. He's saying I will not repay your sins. So that's the first idea of this book of remembrance, the recompense.

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But the other thing that I think it's meant to convey to us is the idea of delay. It's not like these other passages that we just read of where God says now

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I will recompense and now I will repay. But all we have here is seeing that it is written in a book that God will remember.

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And this was Israel's faulty thinking when they were complaining against God. They weren't looking at the end of things, but they were just looking at the present circumstances.

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Their horizon was too short, and then they were blaming God for it.

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And that happened to be Asaph's problem as well. He snapped out of his delusion when he considered the end of the wicked.

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And I think that can be often our problem as well when we look on difficult circumstances or times in our life when it seems that all that God does is just note it down in a book and move on.

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And that's a warning to us Christians because we can often think like that. It's not to blame

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God for those times in our life where that's all God seems to do. Don't think of him as a hard task master because of that.

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Because he does promise there will be a recompense, but often it's just that it is not yet.

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Let's consider more about this book of Remembrance what it is and consider what it is that is recorded there.

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And thanks be to God, it's not our evil works that are recorded in that book. Just like we read or heard just previously in Isaiah, your sins and your iniquities

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I will remember no more. But what is recorded in there is our good deeds that we've done through faith in his name.

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And it's not only our good deeds there that I'd like us to notice here, but it is every good deed.

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When we look at our text here in Malachi, what is it that pricked

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God's ears to take notice of them, that caused him to lift up, to write it down in a book, and make this great proclamation that he does in our text?

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Did he look and see Billy Graham preaching to a multitude for their conversion or some missionary pouring out their lives in a foreign land, or a

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Bible translator, or someone to set up a bunch of orphanages or set up hospitals?

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Was it the kind of thing that God took notice of, of what we like to look of and take notice of and write down in biographies?

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What does the text say? Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another.

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The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him. They spoke to one another.

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And what that tells me is that God chooses to remember not just those things that we might consider great feats of faith, but every little thing that has seemed insignificant and minute in our eyes that is done for God's name through faith.

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They spoke to one another. That means that your service to God is not in vain, but it will be repaid, every little work that you have done.

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If you happen to run the soundboard or greet saints at the door, or clean the church, or hand out a tract, or pray for a brother or sister, or even if you just say praise the

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Lord to someone and let the world know that God is precious to you, God will remember that.

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If you so much as give a cup of cold water to a saint in the name of a disciple, you will by no means lose your reward.

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And it's not only that, that God chooses all these little things to remember and reward, but his memory is better than ours.

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So that means when you think about all the things we've done as Christians, or will ever do, things that after years gone by, we don't even recall ourselves, those are still recorded there in that book.

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And I think we'll be quite surprised and shocked when it comes time, this day of recompense, when

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God brings up all these things that we have done and he rewards us.

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And there'll be much praise. Well, I'll go further than that, because the

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Bible goes further than that. It's not just that God takes every little good work and rewards it, but he takes these little things of ours, these little things like these saints here talking to each other, a small little thing with a seed of faith, and God takes it and magnifies it like it were a big deal.

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He's like the proud father, or proud mother, who looks on a child who is doing some new thing for the very first time, and then they might say a first word, or something like that, and then the parent's reaction is, look at that.

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Would you look at that? Isn't that amazing? And then they rejoice in that. And that little thing they magnify.

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And that's like what God does towards us, even the little works. And you can see that dispersed throughout the

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Bible. I have a few examples here just for us to get a hold of this idea and see what our God is like. One of my favorite ones is

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Gideon. Gideon, if you remember, in that day was in an

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Israel who was beset by the Midianites round about them.

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They were the enemy of the day and Gideon was timid and fearful of them. And so, if you remember, he thrashed his grain at night so that he wouldn't be found out.

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And then God came to him and he said, go in the strength of yours and save Israel. And Gideon questioned

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God at that point and asked for a sign. And then God said to him, let's see if I have it.

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Well, he said to him, go and tear down the altar of Baal that your father has and tear down the

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Asherah that is there. And Gideon, if you remember, he did hearken to it but not without a little bit of a fight first.

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And again, he questioned God a little bit and he went out and he did it at night, it says, because he was afraid.

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And then there's the incidence of the fleece where Gideon asked not once but twice for a sign from heaven. And in all this timidness of Gideon that we see would characterize the man.

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I think back on that and I look at the way that God addressed Gideon. And he said to him, the

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Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor. And so the

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Lord put upon Gideon a kind of a title and a badge that day. And so you remember when they went out to battle what the cry was?

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The sword of the Lord and of Gideon. And that's just one of the kind of ways that God looks on his children, sees a little bit of a mustard seed of faith and magnifies that and glories in it.

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Or we could take the example of Sarah, Abraham and Sarah at the Oak of Mamre. When the

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Lord appeared to them and he said to Abraham that he will come again and that Sarah will have a son.

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And then if you remember that one, Sarah overheard when she was in the tent, the door of the tent. Actually, let's read this one.

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I'll read it to you here. So the

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Lord appeared to him and it was the angels, the three men that were with him bringing this message. They said to him, they said to Abraham, where is

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Sarah your wife? And he said, surely, or she is in a tent. The Lord said,

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I will surely return to you about this next time, about this time next year and Sarah your wife shall have a son.

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And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him. Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years.

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The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself saying, after I am worn out and my

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Lord is old, shall I have pleasure? The Lord said to Abraham, why did

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Sarah laugh and say, shall I indeed bear a child now that I am old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time,

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I will return to you about this time next year and Sarah shall have a son. But Sarah denied it saying,

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I did not laugh, for she was afraid. And he said, no, but you did laugh.

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And here's where it gets interesting. The Lord didn't just pass by Sarah's fault.

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He noted it. He didn't gloss over it. But he reproved her for it. But that's not the thing that he chose to dwell on here with Sarah.

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That's not what he focused on and magnified. Now consider all the ways that Sarah could have been remembered given this account of her.

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Do you remember how God chose to remember her? You can read about her in Hebrews chapter 11 where he says, by faith

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Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed because she judged him faithful who had promised.

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And so the way God chose to remember her was that she would go down in history in the great hall of faith.

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I do have one more example I want to get to. And I trust you don't mind me laboring this point because these are the kind of things that we should glory in.

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We should glory in the loving kindness and goodness of our God. The thief on the cross, a man who had lived immorally without God and without hope.

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His whole life, according to his own pleasure, wasted his entire life. And as he was on his cross there in his final hour, in his very final breath, he did two things.

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First, he reproved the other sinner that was there being crucified with him. And the other thing he did was to say to Jesus one short sentence,

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Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And what was the response of our

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Lord when he heard that? You know it well. Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.

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Does that not melt your heart, prick your conscience for any hard thoughts you might be having toward God?

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But this is what God is like. This is what scripture testifies of him. Well, if that hasn't convinced you that God is not this hard taskmaster, let's move on to his second argument.

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That is, he will own us as his treasure. Verse 17.

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They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession. Now what

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I want us to see here is that this, what is said for these people, is a unique and special promise for them.

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It wasn't given to the nation of Israel as a whole, to which Malachi was reproving at this point.

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But for these ones here, those who feared the Lord and those who esteemed his name.

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Now, a question that you might be thinking or that might be brought up at this point is, if these ones were here, were called a treasure of God, what about the nation of a whole?

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Because it wasn't, weren't they called God's treasure? And there is some truth to that.

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And let's look at that. The closest thing we have to that, we have a statement in Deuteronomy 7 .6.

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Deuteronomy 7 .6 says this, And when we look at that verse, what

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I would suggest is that indeed it's true that Israel as a nation was chosen to be

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God's special treasure. But I don't believe they have actually, to this day, fulfilled that purpose of being a treasure in God's sight.

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I believe they will someday. But as long as they were under the old covenant, this statement of them being a treasure was always conditional.

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If you want to see that, that can be found in Exodus 19. And look at the conditional nature of this when

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God says in Exodus 19 verse 5, And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

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These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel. So has

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Israel ever become a kingdom of priests to God? Well, they have not.

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But who has attained that? It's the church, right? And the

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New Testament talks of, New Testament talks about the saints being a treasure, a kingdom of priests unto

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God. So then, it is a unique promise then that is given here to these ones, these faithful ones in Malachi, to be

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God's treasure in a way that Israel has never yet attained. And when we think about the nature of what it is to be a treasure, just contemplating what it is, what does a statement mean then to be

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God's treasure? Because when you think of it, a treasure is something that is valued in one's sight.

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It's something that is esteemed, something loved. So another way of saying that we are

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God's treasure might be to say that we are loved by God, as a treasure is loved, which is a true statement.

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But again, there's a question because if this is a unique promise to these faithful ones here in Malachi, what of the nation of Israel?

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Weren't they loved by God? And when you think back to the opening in Malachi, that's indeed what

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God told them. I have loved you, he says. So I conclude then that this promise, which seems to be taken specifically and uniquely for these faithful ones here in Israel, that they are a treasure in God's sight, not like Israel is a treasure, but that they were loved as a treasure, not like Israel was loved.

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Both were loved, but not in the same manner. Now, I want to share with you something

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I learned from Jonathan Edwards about this, who talked about the nature of love. It was very helpful for me, and so I'll share it with you.

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He observed that there's two basic kinds of love. The one he called a love of benevolence, and the other he called a love of complacence.

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And the terminology he used isn't really that important. No one seems to speak that way anymore.

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Anyhow, with the concepts I want to share with you, that we would understand them. The love of benevolence, he described, is a delight in the well -being of another, to paraphrase him.

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That's like the kind of love that we are commanded to love our enemies with. On the

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Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told us to love our enemies. He described what it would look like to those who are evil to you, you repay with kindness.

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Pray for them who persecute you, even as your Father is merciful to the kind and to the evil. And that's the kind of love also that God had for the children of Israel.

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When Malachi said, I loved you, and they said, how have you loved us? He went on to describe what that love looks like, what kind of love that is.

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And then so he compared it with the way he treated Israel, with the way he treated Esau.

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And what we see is that God had a desire for the well -being of Israel. He loved them with a love of benevolence.

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But there's another kind of love, quite separate from that, that Jonathan Edwards called the love of complacence.

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He said this is a love, not for the well -being of another, but a delight in the beholding of the beauty of another.

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So my enemies, for example, I may love them with a love of benevolence, but I don't behold the beauty of my enemies.

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I don't esteem them as my treasure, whereas my wife, on the other hand,

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I do esteem as a treasure. I love her not only with a love of benevolence, but with a love of complacence.

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Now, it's an important idea for us to understand this love of complacence, because I believe if we don't understand it or acknowledge it correctly, we will find that we at times put up a barrier between ourselves and God and put some distance between us.

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And it will be like what happened to Peter. If you remember that time that Peter was out on a boat with Jesus and the disciples, and then

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Jesus had a great display of his divinity that he showed in the multiplying of the fish.

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And then Peter saw that and he saw the holiness of the Lord. And though he understood

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Jesus' love of benevolence for him, he had no need to doubt that.

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He knew that God was caring for his well -being, that God was treating him well.

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But yet, nevertheless, his response when he saw that was to say, Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man.

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And Jesus didn't, Peter didn't see himself as a treasure in God's sight.

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And so he put some distance between him and the Lord, a wall of defense between him and his

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Savior. Now when I talk about this, saying that he didn't see himself as a treasure,

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I don't want you to think of me as speaking like the world might think, that you just need to have some self -esteem and love yourself because you're worth it.

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That's not the point I'm getting at here. What I am saying is that we need to understand this so that we don't unnecessarily put up these walls of barrier between us and our

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Lord. If you happen to be in a room crowded with people and you stink and you're sitting there and you're putting off a pretty awful aroma, it doesn't really help much or comfort you very much that the people around you care about your well -being, that they love you with a love of benevolence.

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It doesn't help you so much for them to say, that's okay, that's okay, we love you anyway. But what you want to do is put some distance between you and them, isn't it?

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You want to withdraw and you want to get out of there a little bit. I think that's kind of what

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Peter felt when he was there on the boat with Jesus because he was not seeing himself as a treasure or a treasure in God's eyes.

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And this is something that I think Christians can take a good long while to get a good grasp of.

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And Peter himself, even later on when Jesus was with them, even to the very end in the upper room,

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Peter was there again with Jesus and then the

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Lord did something pretty remarkable at that point. When he stooped down and he had a basin of water and he began to wash the disciples' feet and then to wipe their feet with a towel that was around him.

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Well, Peter was there again and just as before in the boat, he was seeing here that there was a kind of a parable that Jesus was teaching, not about washing of your physical feet but about moral cleansing.

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And when Peter saw it and he caught on, he said to our Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head because he felt his pollution next to his

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Lord who is stooping in front of him, comparing himself to the

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Lord. He saw himself as a man of filth that needed to be cleaned. But what did

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Jesus say then at that point? Did he say to Peter, yes, I know it

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Peter, you are filthy but I love you anyway? No, but he said, he that is washed doesn't need except to wash his feet but he is completely clean.

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Now, I know what some of you maybe are thinking at this point. You're thinking, right, he was clean because he had the imputed righteousness of Christ.

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He was spotless before Jesus because the righteousness of Christ was his and so God could look on that and see him as clean.

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But what I want to suggest to you is that this is not at all what was going on in the heart of Peter or in the heart of Jesus when all this was happening.

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Because like before on the boat, Peter knew that he had peace with Jesus.

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Jesus had chosen him to be an apostle and to be with him. Jesus was treating him with the greatest of love even in this very moment.

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Now justification, the imputation of Christ's righteousness to sinners that we may be accounted right in his sight, is not what was on Peter's mind here.

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He was not coming into, he was not thinking of being made in a right state with God but he was thinking about his own heart and his own corruption.

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He wasn't thinking about the righteousness that comes by justification and being made right before God.

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But he was thinking about that righteousness of the heart, Jesus was, that comes through the washing of regeneration.

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It's by justification that we're made right and attain a right standing before God. But it's through regeneration that we are made a treasure in God's sight.

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And Peter didn't understand it yet and I think that many of us don't quite fully understand it yet either, that as Christians we have become a new creation, born from God, created in righteousness and true holiness.

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Now do we continue to have sin in our lives? Well Peter did.

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It wasn't long after this that Peter would go right out, that very night in fact, and deny our

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Lord three times. And Jesus knew it. He told them, you have to wash your feet.

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Nevertheless, he told them that they were clean, that they were a treasure.

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And so Christian, you too are a treasure in God's sight. Because he loves you not only for your well -being and to see good done to you, but because he sees beauty and he beholds a treasure when he sees you.

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Now if we can get a hold of this and understand that we are, become treasure in God's sight, then we can start to see how

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God rejoices as he does when he sees the little, tiny act of faith in the weakest believer.

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And he can say to Gideon, you are a mighty man of valor.

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Or can esteem Sarah the way that he did. Or that he can look upon these ones here in the book of Malachi, who are talking to each other.

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And God takes notice, marks it down, writes it in the book, and glories in that.

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Because what he is seeing when he is beholding these things is the work of his own hands.

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Now does God delight in the work of his own hands, I ask you? Well he sure does.

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He glories in it. And he magnifies it. That should make us want to serve him more.

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Not only because of the good that we can do to others through righteous living.

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Not only to the good that we can do to ourselves. But because of the joy that we can bring to our father.

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And I'll also add this. At any of those times in your Christian life when you have had joy in the

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Lord, consider that God has had more. When you pray to God and you have had some time of sweet communion, you enjoy that.

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But God looks on that and he enjoys it more. Every little temptation you escape.

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Every little step of sanctification. Every little act of faith.

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And there is rejoicing in heaven. Are those the kind of actions of a hard task master?

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Of a hard God who doesn't treat you well? Well if you are still not convinced, there is one final argument that our

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Lord brings. And this argument really should put the nail in the coffin of our unbelief forever.

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And that is, he says, he will spare us. Verse 17.

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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.

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Now a good question to ask at this point is, well being spared from what? And if we will carry on the train of thought here in Malachi, moves right on into chapter 4, verse 1, where a day is coming, it says, a day burning like an oven when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble.

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The day that is coming that shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

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They will be spared in this day. Verse 5 goes on to put a name on it, calling it the day of the

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Lord. Behold, I will send you, Elijah the prophet, before the great and awesome day of the Lord of hosts. Now, what is the day of the

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Lord? It's spoken of many points in the Bible, in the Old Testament especially. But it's also talked about in the

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New Testament because this day is still future. It hasn't come yet. It is referred to as the day of the appearing of Jesus Christ.

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It's referred to as the day when the Lord Jesus Christ will come in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not

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God and who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, speaking to you as a classical premillennialist,

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I believe this day of the Lord to be a temporal judgment on those who are living at that time when

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God comes and begins to smite them and rule the nations with a rod of iron. But without getting into the details of how the end times will unfold, if that scheme is correct and there is one issue that has to be addressed here, because if these people in Malachi's day were promised a promise of being spared from this great and awesome day of the

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Lord, and that day hasn't happened yet and they have long since passed away, then doesn't that sound like a bit of an empty promise?

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You know, if someone came to me and said, Good news. Here's a lottery ticket. But there's a catch.

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You have to claim the ticket in the year 4075. And then, well, what was once good news to me,

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I can just take that ticket and throw it on the ground because I'm not going to be living anymore. Even if I eat well and exercise, 4075 is a long way off.

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So these ones here in Malachi, if they were promised to be spared from this day, then how is this promise not an empty promise?

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Well, I don't believe it's an empty promise, because I believe this prophecy here, this promise, was one of those ones that are often found in the

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Old Testament that have a double fulfillment. That is, they have a partial fulfillment in some time in the future, but beyond that, in addition to that, there's a fuller and more complete fulfillment.

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I'm trying not to get too much into Chapter 4, because that will be for next week, but down there at the end there when he talks about Elijah the prophet coming, that would be one such example, a near and a far fulfillment.

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So this promise here to the Israelites when he says, I will spare you, I don't think it's meant to be taken as an empty promise, because though I think it has this immediate application in the day of the

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Lord at his return, I believe the final and the ultimate fulfillment that this is pointing to is a day that they will be spared from, and that we will be spared from.

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And this is a time that was described by the Apostle John that he saw in a vision when he was on the

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Isle of Patmos. I'd like us to turn there, that's in Revelation Chapter 20, so we can see this and so we can read this.

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And as we're turning there, just please pay attention and wake up and listen to these words, because there's things in this passage here that are holy, and the things that deserve our entire attention.

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Listen to Revelation Chapter 20, verse 11. Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it.

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From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.

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And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.

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Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done.

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And the sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.

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Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.

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And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

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And when God says, dear Christian to the saint, I will spare you, it is not an empty promise.

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I'd like to also clear up maybe, perhaps, some kind of misconceptions we might have about the judgment in that day.

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I remember a time, it was a number of years back, it was out at Cardiff in the house there, my mom's house, and Ethan, you were there, but I don't think you remember that because you were pretty young at that point.

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But there was a pretty spectacular lightning storm going on. And then the door,

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I remember it clearly because as the door to the porch was open, it was

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Ethan, I can't remember who was with you, Ethan, someone was walking into the porch and at that moment a crack of lightning came down, the kind where you see a flash, an instant bang.

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And I remember so distinctly that one thunderbolt because that one stands out as the, that was the loudest shock of thunder

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I've ever heard in my life. And it was a bit scary to have that kind of thing crash down so close.

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I don't know where it was, but it could have been the kind of thing that was even right in the yard, I don't know. But given that scenario, if I looked in that and say how

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I came through that unscathed, would I say that I was spared that day from the bolt of lightning?

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That doesn't seem to fit, does it? It doesn't seem to see it quite right to say I was spared because I wasn't really in any danger.

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I was inside the house. Or consider Ethan, just on the porch of the house.

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He was not quite in the house. Maybe the danger was a little greater, but would I say he was spared? Well, I don't think so either because I think he was still probably pretty safe.

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But if we change that scenario a little bit, let's run this one through our minds. So what if Ethan and I were out there in the yard, not knowing where that lightning bolt would hit.

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And then it crashed down and we got a bit scared, but we came into the house and we were okay.

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Would I say that we were spared that day from the lightning? Oh, maybe it's coming a little bit more close to the truth.

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But I don't know really how much danger we would have been in in that case either. But let's try another scenario.

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This time you're not out in the yard with the coverage of trees and houses beside you, but you're out in an open field, nothing to hide from the lightning that is coming toward you.

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And not only are you standing there, but you have a lightning rod tied to your back and you can't move because you're fastened to it.

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And for every sin that you have ever committed in your life, you take another 10 -foot rod and attach it to that first rod.

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And so when it's all done, you are standing there in an open field with a tower that reaches the heavens and you can't move.

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And the sky is darkening and the thunder is closing in. And when that thunder comes, it'll find your tower and it won't need to strike twice.

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Now if that's your condition and God puts

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His hand over you and says, not that one, that one's mine,

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I will spare him. Is that an empty thing anymore?

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Well, you would be thrilled. And that's what

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God does to us, what He will do for us when He says, I will spare you. God never did spare the angels who sinned.

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They have never experienced this salvation. Have you ever thought to yourself that we ought to be outdoing the angels in praises?

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Think of how they see God and night and day bow down before Him. Holy, holy, holy.

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Well, I think the day is coming when the saints being spared will, in fact, outdo the angels in praise.

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And can you imagine the chorus of the saints that'll ring forth?

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I think that'll be deafening. I'd like us to consider something else here, else here about being saved, about being spared.

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Because we will find in our text that it says, not just I will spare you, but I will spare you as sons.

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Now, why that extra part? Why does He say as sons? What does that add to the argument?

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Isn't it enough just to be spared? Well, remember our context.

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God is addressing those in order that we might not think of our Father as a hard taskmaster who bears down upon us.

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He will spare us as sons. Because I can think of someone thinking to themselves how

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God is this hard taskmaster, that even though He will spare them, a hard taskmaster could do that too.

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I could see how a man even hard and bearing and demanding much could even find in his heart to spare somebody.

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And so you might think of someone like King David. King David, you could say, was a bit of a hard taskmaster to those people who he conquered.

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There's an account of when David conquered some people. Listen how he was toward them in 2

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Samuel 8 chapter 2. And he defeated Moab and he measured them with a line making them lie down on the ground.

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Two lines he measured to be put to death and one full line to be spared.

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And the Moabites became David's servants and brought tribute. And you say, see, even

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David spared them. Couldn't have our God spared us like that. He didn't kill them all.

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He found in his heart to keep a third of them alive to be his servants. Nobody says, not that he spared him like the king might to the people he subjects to himself, but he will spare us as sons.

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But perhaps there might be some who are holding out to the very end toward God, still not letting go of those hard thoughts you have toward him.

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And you're thinking that, well, yes, maybe he will spare me. Maybe he will even spare me as a son, but I know how

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I have wronged him and I think after all that that maybe he doesn't really care if I perish or not.

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Maybe he will spare me, but maybe it's the kind of sparing that comes with the twisting of his arm.

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And so maybe you think of someone like King Saul. King Saul, if you remember when he was at war with the

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Philistines, in that strange kind of zeal he had, he made a rash oath and he said, cursed be the man that eats of anything before I am avenged of my enemies.

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And if you remember, Jonathan, his son, didn't hear when the command came out. And so when he found a little bit of honey, he took some and he ate some.

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And then later on, King Saul, when the Lord wouldn't answer him anymore through the priest, he perceived that some wickedness had been done in the camp and so they cast lots.

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And he said, though it be in Jonathan, my son, he shall surely die. And so the lot fell and it got narrowed down.

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The lot fell on Jonathan, his son. And then Saul said to him, you shall surely die,

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Jonathan. But then the people came to his defense that day and saved him out of the hand so that Jonathan wasn't killed by his father.

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And you think of God as maybe like King Saul. Maybe he will spare me, though I am his son, with a twisting of the arm, not really because he wants to or that he desires to, but that he's compelled to.

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Now is that what is meant when God says, I will spare them as sons? No, I don't think that's it.

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When God says, I will spare them as sons, what he is saying is,

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I don't need to be compelled to save you. He's saying,

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I would do anything it takes to see that you don't perish. You know, we hear songs written of what people would do for love about scaling the mountain or crossing the sea, but no one has ever went to the extent that our father did when he gave his son for us.

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So if you think of God like that, somehow God the father in a hard kind of way, and perhaps

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Jesus maybe a little more compassionate, when you see

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Jesus there on the cross bleeding for your sins, don't look at his sacrifice only, but look on what the father gave up for you.

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It was said to Mary that a sword would pierce her heart, and that happened to come to pass when she saw her son on the cross there dying before her very eyes.

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But do you not think that that sword also pierced the heart of our father?

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And don't make the mistake, Christian, of thinking that when God put the sins of the world on the son's back, that when he was pouring out his wrath on him, that somehow the father felt anger towards his son.

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The wrath of God that was poured out on his son was not an emotional thing. It's like when we're told to submit to the governing authorities lest we incur their wrath.

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The reason isn't that we would incur their displeasure or thoughts of anger toward us.

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It's because they bear not the sword in vain. They are the ministers of God to execute wrath upon those who do evil.

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So this wrath that was poured out on the father, by the father on the son, was judicial toward his son.

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There was no less love that the father had for his son during those three hours of darkness than there was when

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Jesus was before when he was in glory in the bosom of his father. And so when

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Jesus was on the cross there, and his blood was being shed, think not only of the blood of Jesus, but think of the tears that were being shed by our father in heaven.

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And he did that for you, and he did that for me. You know, our thoughts are too low toward God.

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We don't esteem him like we ought to. Can't we get a hold of the fact that he's not against you,

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Christian, anymore, but he is for you. He's all for you, all in, without reserve.

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Nothing will hold him back from his pursuit of you. He sent his son to live and die for you, and like one man said, now he will live and die with you.

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That is the heart of our God toward us. So when we consider all these things, how

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God will reward every little work and magnify it, and how he will count us as treasure, make us up as his treasure in that day, and how he will spare us as a man spares his own son who serves him, let us put down our arms, put down that hardness of heart.

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If after all that God has done, all he has done for you, you can still look on his dealings and shake your fist toward God and say,

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I don't think you're dealing right with me. Perish the thought.

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I'm almost ashamed even to suggest such a thought, but let's take this truth that God has given us, the sword of truth, and fight those slanders of the devil.

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Let's fight a valiant fight for our God. Let's play the man before him. Let's give him some joy.

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Let's pray together. Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church.

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If you would like to keep up with us, you can find us at Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church, or our

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Instagram at gracechurchyeg, all one word. Finally, you can visit us at our website, graceedmonton .ca.