Book of Malachi - Ch. 3, Vs. 14-18 (06/18/2023)

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Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there, it is a fun day for many reasons, but of course it's fun getting to be a dad on this day,

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I must admit, but it's also fun getting to celebrate others as well.

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I guess it's not all about me, I suppose. Alrighty, let's see, where are we here?

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I've got to backtrack just a little bit from where we left off last week so that it makes sense jumping into today's verses.

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We finished on verse 14 last week, alright, so go to Malachi chapter 3, and I guess we'll go ahead and start at verse 14 again, and go from there.

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So, in our previous passages, the prophet here has made a couple of things pretty clear.

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Number one was that all of the people at this particular time in Israel's history were not in a very good spiritual state.

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Their hearts weren't right with God. If they were doing anything at all, it wasn't the right stuff.

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They weren't engaging in proper worship or tithing or sacrifices, you name it, they weren't doing it right.

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So, that has been made abundantly clear up to this point, is that their hearts weren't in the right place, that they weren't right with God.

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But the second thing, and we pointed this out last week, but a really interesting point that may very well be a piece that ties this final book in the

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Old Testament canon together with what we know is to come in regard to the religious leaders of the time when

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Jesus comes on the scene, is in verse 14, you have a lot of the people complaining, and it seems that in the midst of their complaint, they make it clear that they have been engaging in some form of what we might call legalism.

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That is, they were doing stuff, but they were doing it, they were doing the works, they were doing things that they thought maybe gave them, or they felt perhaps gave them a righteous feeling and position in society or whatever it may be, but they weren't the correct works, that's for sure.

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In verse 14, we'll read just the, well, no, we'll read the whole verse.

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It says, ye have said, and this is God telling them, talking to them, it says, ye have said it is vain to serve

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God. Of course, we talked about that a lot last week, the sheer lack of fear in that statement is pretty profound.

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And they also say, what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance and that we have walked mournfully before the

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Lord of hosts? And that's the key part right there to this idea. What profit is it that we have kept his ordinances?

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We know they haven't, but they think they have, and the only way, the only reason they would think that they had kept his ordinances is if they were, in fact, doing works, doing stuff that they felt was keeping them in some sort of righteous standing.

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So this legalism, which was concentrated on performing certain activities, and I mean, maybe we can get a little bit of info on what those activities were because,

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I mean, they were rebuked in the earlier chapters for, they were doing stuff, they were sacrificing, they were bringing things to the altar.

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It's just that they were defiled, they weren't doing so in the proper fashion. So we have an idea of some of the quote -unquote works they were doing at this time.

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So this legalism that they were engaged in, that they felt was them keeping his ordinances, it was based on certain activities, in other words, works.

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And also, and it's important to point this out as well, avoiding other activities, because we know there were plenty of stuff they weren't doing at all, and that's a big portion of the rebuke they were getting.

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They were doing these in an attempt to, you know, perhaps you could say exonerate themselves before God to some degree.

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In other words, they were doing whatever was needed in their eyes in order to, and this is the thing we've talked about a few times at this point, in order to rationalize their way into feeling quote -unquote holy.

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It was the exact opposite of that, of course, from God's eyes, but nonetheless, this is how they felt.

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And yet, in the process of doing that, in doing these works to feel good about themselves, again, to rationalize their way into feeling like they were in a righteous position, they were blatantly disobedient to God's actual word, which of course they had, and they were being held responsible to throughout this particular book.

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Now, because of this, their works would not be accepted by God as proper worship or proper obedience, and, you know, that was made clear as early as chapter one, but it's being kind of solidified here.

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The works that they were doing weren't going to be accepted. If they were doing anything at all, it was not going to be accepted.

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Now, this is a really important note here, because I think this is a good, you know, this could be a parallel even to us today, even though things are different for us than they were for the

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Israelites at that time in regard to what they needed to be doing to be in a good position with the

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Lord and their relationship and all that good stuff. But God does require external obedience.

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In other words, God does require works of a certain kind.

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So again, it begs the question, okay, so the

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Israelites were doing works, so where's the line being drawn there? We know, and the

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Israelites should have known this as well, and we've read plenty of passages in previous lessons that they had themselves that would have made this clear, but while God does require that external obedience in, you know, certain works being performed, it has to be the effect of their heart being in the right place, or else, as we also know now in these verses we're reading, it's not going to be acceptable to God.

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So works are required, especially for this time for the

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Israelites in Malachi, but unless their heart is in the right place, unless it's coming from a point of obedience, which we talked about this last week, yes, there's all sorts of law that was laid out by God in all sorts of stipulations and conditions that they needed to keep in order to receive the blessings that He laid out for them and promised them that He would give them.

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They have to do all these things, but the root of all of those things is really simple.

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It's just obedience, because He had everything laid out for them. All they had to do was obey

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His word, and everything else would fall into place. And so the works had to stem from their heart being in the right place, and from there the works that they would be doing would be the effect of their heart being in the right place.

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Now the question is, obviously it's different. We're living in a different age right now.

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We're not living in the Old Testament times. We're not under the Mosaic covenant. We are in the age of grace.

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We're in the church age. But the question is, even with all that being considered, is it much different for us today in regard to works?

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And by works, I'm using it very broadly. For example, are we not called to, in the

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New Testament, are we not called to believe and to repent and to submit to the

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Lord and live righteously and to live holy or separated from the world? I would say we're certainly called to do those things.

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But the follow -up question to that would be, are any of those things the root cause of our regeneration?

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And the answer to that would be an easy no, right? And if we think about it, regeneration is the work of the

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Holy Spirit. It would have to be the work of the Holy Spirit by definition. And if that is true, which it is, if regeneration is the work of the

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Holy Spirit, how could our works, for example, our repentance or our belief, even our submission to the

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Lord, or how about our fulfilling of any of the imperatives that the

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Apostle Paul gave us in the Romans 15 chapter that Dad covered not that long ago, how could any of those things be the cause of our salvation?

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Well, they couldn't be because the cause of our salvation is the regeneration component.

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That's like the first domino to fall. And, of course, if we're looking at it linearly, which we sometimes have to, there's the justification, imputation, sanctification, of course, the continual process, glorification way later down the road.

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We have all these wonderful things, but it starts with the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, us being regened and becoming that child of the

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Lord for the first time. So, again, the question is, is it much different for us today than it was for the

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Israelites at the time of Malachi? They had works that were required by God, but those works had to be an effect of, as Moses put it, as we covered over the last couple of weeks, the circumcision of the heart.

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Otherwise, any works they were doing were totally void and not acceptable to God.

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The same thing is true today. We can believe all we want in any number of truths or facts about Jesus.

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We can even outwardly repent in public. We can say that we submit our lives to the

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Lord. We can do our best to live, quote -unquote, holy, like the

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Israelites at this time were doing, or, quote -unquote, righteously. But in reality, none of those things matter, nor would they be acceptable to God unless regeneration occurred first, and from that flowed all of the wonderful effects that we just listed.

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Now, let's read a little passage together. I think we'll kind of sum this up nicely for us.

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If you go to Titus 3, where is it here? I'm just going to read the first seven verses, and this, again, pretty much lays it out nice and clearly for us.

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Titus 3 says, To speak evil of no man, it's going to list some works for us here, in addition to the ones

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I listed a second ago. To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men.

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For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another.

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It doesn't sound too great if you are going to try to, if you're going to look at these individuals' lives from times past and try to get from point

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A to point B, point A being this, verse 3, malice, brawling, serving diverse lusts and pleasures, to point

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B, which is salvation. How on earth do you bridge that gap? We're going to find out in just a second. Verse 4 says,

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Which is really, really wonderful wording there. Not by works of righteousness, which we have done.

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It's interesting. It's making, it starts by mentioning the good works that we can now do, then flowing right into all of the gross sins that we once ourselves took part in.

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And then it tells us how we were rescued from that. And it says, you were rescued from doing those things, not by the works that were previously mentioned, not by works of righteousness, which you have done, but according to His mercy,

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He saved us by the washing of the regeneration. That is the root cause of the works that we ourselves do in this present age.

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The washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our

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Savior, that being justified by His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

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So we, similarly to the Israelites at the time of Malachi, we have works that flow from our lives and from the work that the

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Holy Spirit has done in our lives. The ability to repent from sins that we do, to turn away, the ability to confess, to agree with God that what we did was terrible and evil and that we agree with Him that it was so and are sorry for it.

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Those things are great, but they are absolutely impossible to do in a way that is pleasing to God unless the root cause has already taken place, that being the regeneration.

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For the Israelites, the root cause of their proper works, their obedience would have been that circumcision of the heart, which was not happening.

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And so here we are, we get to verse 14 of Malachi chapter 3, and again, they're doing stuff, they're doing works, and yet none of it is pleasing to God because the obedience was not there, because the circumcision of the heart was not there.

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So it's not much different for us. We live in a totally different age, different circumstances. God works differently or treats

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His people differently throughout ages, even though He and His character doesn't change, of course.

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But there are a lot of parallels as to there needing to be the root cause of the

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Lord's work in our life that leads into the good works that are pleasing and that are acceptable to Him.

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It wasn't there for the Israelites at this particular time. And I think one of the ways in which we can know their fruit, so to speak, in this current age of people around us that profess the name of the

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Lord and things like that, are seeing whether or not their works are happening in a way that glorifies

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God and isn't merely for their personal gain in one way or other in their local community, their society, whatever it may be.

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If it's truly the work of the Holy Spirit, then all of those works that we listed will always glorify

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Him, always be acceptable to Him. Now, I kind of already said this, but the

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Holy Spirit, when He does work the miracle of regeneration in our lives, those things will flow. Those works, the belief, the repentance, the submission to the

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Lord, all those things I mentioned previously, those will happen in our lives, especially throughout the process of sanctification, which is just as much a part of our salvation as any of the other steps from God's viewpoint.

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Now, the Israelites at this time, going back to them for a second, were living based on a form of legalistic,

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I'll just say holiness in quotes. To them, what they were doing was setting them apart.

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It was giving them the ability to rationalize in their minds that we're doing our part. Where's our blessings?

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We talked about that a lot last week. And they were doing these things through a form of legalism to appease their own conscience without having to actually submit to God.

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So again, they needed to do something that made themselves feel good enough where they could kind of keep moving on and just wait and even expect for God to rain the blessings that they thought they were deserving of at any given point.

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Their conscience was cleared in their mind because they were doing these works. But the reason they were able to do this without being overcome with any true conviction is because, again, their hearts weren't yearning for God in the first place.

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Their hearts were not in the right place. They were not doing it out of obedience, but rather for their own personal material gain.

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They had no desire to actually obey the Lord because if they did, their works wouldn't have been legalistic.

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They would have rather been works of righteousness that would have been acceptable to God. But he has now told us in two different places, chapter 1 and chapter 3, that they in fact were not.

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They weren't keeping his ordinances, even though they made the statement themselves that they were. That is how, as we put it last week, non -self -aware they were at this time.

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We'll move on to verse 15 now, and it says, And now we call the proud happy. This is Malachi chapter 3 again.

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And now we call the proud happy. Yea, they that work wickedness are set up.

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Yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. So they have this kind of attitude toward God at this point of disappointment.

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They're saying the wicked, the heathen around us are blessed. They that tempt our

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God are blessed. The evildoers are blessed. So where are our blessings?

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What Israel is trying to do all of a sudden, which is so funny, because time and time again throughout this book, what have we been given through Malachi?

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God has been giving us through Malachi a number of contrasts. They will do one thing, the

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Israelites will do one thing, they'll question God in one way, and he will contrast it using either an example that's representative of his relationship with them, like a physical earthly example, or by simply stating the facts directly in opposition to the way they were living or the way that they thought they should be living in the cases where they thought they actually were doing something worthwhile.

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Now all of a sudden, the Israelites are trying to make a contrast themselves. They're saying, we're doing the works, we're keeping your ordinances, and yet it's been in vain because, as it says in verse 15, the proud are happy around us.

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The wicked, those that work wickedness, are set up, and they that tempt

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God are being delivered. And so now they all of a sudden are trying to give a contrast themselves, which is just really ironic because, again,

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God himself has been doing that time and time again to try to show them how they're in the wrong. They're not seeing it.

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And now they're trying to show God how they know better than he does at this point.

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They're attempting to show that while their, again, let's say, quote, unquote, holy works are without result.

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In other words, the blessings are not flowing from the works that they are doing. They're attempting to show that while that's happening, the wicked around them are being blessed.

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And, of course, these statements are now being, are now, from their point of view, meant to kind of act as a proof, if you will, of their complaints in verse 14.

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Remember, in verse 14, it starts by them saying, It is vain to serve God. How on earth could they have gotten to such a low point in their spiritual lives?

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So as a proof of that statement, in verse 15, they're telling us, they're telling

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God that the wicked are being blessed, the proud are being set up, or actually vice versa.

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Proud are being blessed, the wicked doers are being set up, those that tempt God are being delivered.

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This is their proof. Now, what's interesting is that Malachi is actually going to address this. Now, it's not going to be in the immediately following verse, but he is going to correct this assertion in a little bit that the sinners, or the heathen, in other words, aren't going to be punished, because at the beginning of chapter 4, which we'll get to eventually, he points out that the arrogant and evildoers will be punished, and they will be punished greatly.

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And so, you know, it's incorrect for the

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Israelites to be asserting that the wicked doers, the evildoers, and those that work wickedness, the proud, just get to get away with whatever they want.

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It's a very short -minded point of view that they have at this point, totally disregarding, of course, all of the major prophecies that they have already, saying otherwise, is if that wasn't enough, which has been a common theme in this book,

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Malachi is going to clear it up for them at the beginning of chapter 4, which we'll get to at some point, and makes it very clear, no, the heathen around you that are not living according to the ordinances that you have been called to live by, and who are living in direct opposition to God, they're going to be punished severely.

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So stop focusing on them, and you need to get right yourself, or else you may find yourself in a similar situation as they will come time for judgment.

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But first, before Malachi does that, before he actually kind of addresses that assertion, before he clears it up for them, we actually get a break for a few verses here, for the remainder of chapter 3, actually.

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We get a break from the pitiful Israelites, the ones that have been complaining about everything, left and right and center, throughout the whole book, who can't seem to do anything right, and are totally in an arrogant state of rebellion against God at this time.

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And now Malachi is going to shift the focus onto a special remnant of people who do heed the warnings of the prophet here, and affirm their fear of God.

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So won't this be refreshing, given everything we've read up to this point? Verse 16 says, And that's a key word that we'll look at in a second.

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And Matt, put yourselves in that situation for a second, being totally surrounded by your kinsmen, whining about their hardships and their turmoil, and the fact that God is not raining blessings upon them, and that their works are to no avail, to the point where it's just vain to serve

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God altogether. Imagine being surrounded by that. But then you're hearing these words from the prophet Malachi, and it's reminding you of why things are the way that they are around you.

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Look what they did when they find themselves in that situation. They that fear the Lord spake often one to another.

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That's a really interesting idea. The remnant that was there, as small as it may have been, and we don't know exactly how small, but it may have been tiny.

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They were now finding unity among each other. In the words that Malachi is speaking, and warning collectively all of the

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Israelites about where they've gone wrong, and the kind of punishments that they are currently already under, and the punishments to come if they don't make it right.

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He's speaking to all of them, and you have this little remnant that is now finding unity in what is going on here.

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What do they say? They speak often one to another, and in that unification, in them talking one to another, trying to figure out maybe where they could be doing better, maybe where they have gone wrong.

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We don't know exactly what they said, but we can only imagine, again, kind of the burden that they were bearing at this time, and trying to edify each other, and trying to figure out a way to make things better.

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What does it say? They spoke often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it.

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So in that close relationship among this remnant, and through the process of them coming together to help each other out in this great time of turmoil, of rebuke, for the whole nation, not just the ones doing wrong, but the whole nation, they came together.

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They spoke to each other, and the Lord hearkened and He heard it. He was there, and He heard what they were saying to each other.

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And it says, a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name.

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Isn't that crazy? So this little remnant of people are getting really special attention from the

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Lord. And think about it for a second. From the human viewpoint, I'm kind of jumping the gun, because I'm pretty sure this is somewhere in the notes in a second, but from the human viewpoint, what was the prophet trying to do here?

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And of course, God was working, but He's working through His prophet Malachi. Malachi is a human, so he is just, he's doing what the

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Lord is telling him, but he's probably thinking like, you know, there's a point to all this. The end goal is to get this nation back in order to fix all these people.

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The Lord knew who the remnant was, and the Lord knew that the majority of Israel this time would be judged by these words, not necessarily redeemed by these words.

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But as He always does, He gives them another chance. He is telling them exactly what they're doing wrong and exactly how to fix it.

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He knows what they'll do. But think about it from Malachi's viewpoint for just a second, the prophet speaking.

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His attempt at this time is to bring the people, bring the

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Israelites to a point of repentance, but back to a point of reverence and a point of fear.

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Well, it's not happening on a national scale, sadly. But what he has been trying to do and working so hard to do, again from the human viewpoint, what

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Malachi has been working so hard to do through all these words that he's delivering to the people is to get them to turn and to see where they're at and what they need to be fixing.

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And these people, in verse 16, are doing that. And so there's some fruit that Malachi is now getting to bear from all of the work that he has put into trying to get his people to turn back to the

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Lord. Talk about a massive change in tone in terms of people.

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Okay, so we've had Malachi and we've had the priests and we've had the Israelites, total opposite ends of the spectrum.

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We have God speaking through the prophet. We have all of the people over here that are direct opposition to what's being said, questioning everything that's being said, on and on and on.

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And then you get to chapter 3, verse 16, And they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and he hearkened it.

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A book of remembrance was written before them. And they that thought upon his name, total tone shift.

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Now, let's start with the first word in the verse for a second, because I think it's indicative of something interesting.

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The word then, in verse 16, it begins, Then they feared the Lord. Well, this is the

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Hebrew word. It's weird. It's spelled like in the transliteration of it in blue letter

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Bible, AWZ. But it's when you click on the little button to have the guy pronounce it for you, it's pronounced oath.

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I don't know how that works, but it's the Hebrew word oath. And it means then or at that time.

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In other words, it's indicating something that's happening due to preceding events.

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It's an adverb, but it's emphatic in the sense that this word is indicating that the action that is described by this remnant in verse 16, the fact that they are fearing the

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Lord. Let me rephrase that. The fact that they were coming together, talking among one another, between themselves, and that they were thanking upon his name.

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This is a direct result. These actions were a direct result and a consequence of the preceding events throughout

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Malachi. All of the words being spoken by the mouth of Malachi, directed toward all of the people for living in a state of just total spiritual laziness and no care for proper worship and for obedience and for doing anything other than the bare minimum to clear their own conscience enough to complain and to say, where are our blessings, where are our promises, so on and so forth.

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This remnant has been seeing all of this and they've been hearing the rebuke and they've been hearing everything that Malachi is saying.

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And when these things are being said, then it says in verse 16, they that feared the Lord spake often one to another.

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So these events, the consequence of these events were bringing these people together and making it to where they were thinking at this point continually on the

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Lord's name, as it says at the end of verse 16 there. Now again, what they said to each other isn't necessarily known, but based on the context of the phrase, perhaps we can assume that they were sharing with each other kind of just a renewed concern of the state of Israel as a whole, as well as a new perspective of God's faithfulness toward His people, because God has reminded them time and time again,

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I have been faithful and reminds them of His covenants with them, reminds them of the blessing that they are entitled to per their obedience, and a number of things like that.

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So this remnant who do fear the Lord and who are thinking on His name at this point, they're being reminded of His faithfulness, even in times of incredible unfaithfulness on the part of His people.

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So consider again, this is where I jumped the gun a minute ago, consider what Malachi was trying to accomplish throughout this book.

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He wanted to give the people, all of the people, a renewed sense of reverence and yearning toward God, and the fear that this remnant is showing, exhibiting, that fear now kind of exemplifies what

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Malachi's desire for the whole nation was this entire time. So again, he's getting to bear some fruit here.

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It's not the whole nation, but he is restoring fear and reverence and a new sense of admiration toward God's faithfulness in this remnant here.

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Now, it mentions the Book of Remembrance in verse 16. It's interesting. I don't know if that could be a reference to the

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Book of Life, them being written in the Book of Life. A lot of commentators say that it could be a record of this specific remnant, a record specifically dedicated to this remnant's faithful and reverent response being kept in heaven is just a way of kind of a token of God showing them how much

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He loves them and cares about this remnant and how much

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He loves the fact that their hearts are in the right place. So maybe this

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Book of Remembrance is dedicated specifically to this remnant at the

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Book of Malachi at the very end of the Old Testament, again, kind of just as a token. We know that they don't need a Book of Remembrance to have assurance in their salvation or in their faith, but maybe it's some kind of gift almost, like a token that God is giving them just to show, look, in the end, when

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I deal with these individuals, when I deal with the nation on an individual basis as well as a collective basis,

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I'm not going to forget you guys. I'm not going to forget what you have done, the way you have submitted to me and all of these great things.

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Either way, whether it's the Book of Life or literally a specific special book just for these people, in the following verse here, the

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Lord makes it very clear what these individuals mean to Him, which is an amazing thing. In verse 17, it says,

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And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day. That's the key phrase here.

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In that day, when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.

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That's what this remnant means to God. Right at the end of this, what has felt like a very long discourse between God and these arrogant people that refuse to take

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His word literally or refuse to believe what

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He's actually saying, to question every statement He has made. At the end of this book, because chapter 4 is pretty short, we don't have very many verses left,

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He sees this remnant. He says, They shall be mine, and in that day, when I make up my jewels,

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I will spare them like a man spareth his own son. Those who fear the Lord, in verse 16, will be counted as His own possessions.

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As it says, In that day, when He gathers all of His treasures, which is what it literally means when it says jewels, what that's referencing to,

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His treasure. He gives us this potent comparison of sparing this remnant just as a man spares his own son.

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That is something we can resonate with really well. That's a powerful physical picture that we can get as to how

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God is thinking about this remnant. Of course, while we can understand that, He uses that as an example for good reason.

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Again, it's something we can resonate with. In reality, it's going to be far greater what He does with this remnant and with all of His people on the day of the second coming, in terms of what

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He's going to be doing. It's going to be far greater, of course, even than that physical picture of protection of a father over his kids.

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Now, that day that it talks about in verse 17, it says, In that day. That's the same day that Malachi was telling us about at the beginning of this chapter.

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Do you guys remember what that day is? Verse 2, it says, But who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when

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He appeareth? So it's interesting because at the beginning of this chapter, Malachi is using the day of the

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Lord as a form of warning to try to get these people scared of something, to turn back to the

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Lord and come out of their wicked ways. He prophesies of the second coming, the great day of the

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Lord, to get them to realize we have to get our act together and make things right with the

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Lord, because He's going to come. He's going to show up. And unless we're right with Him, it's not going to be good.

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So the first time Malachi refers to this day, it's in a form of warning, within the context of rebuking all the people for all their sins.

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The second time he references this day, in verse 17 of the same chapter, it's the wonderful side of that day.

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It's not the aspect of judgment. It's the aspect of Him coming to gather His treasure, to gather

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His possessions, of which this remnant will be a part of. So that day, it's the same day of the

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Lord that Malachi spoke of at the beginning of the chapter, as we know it will be a day of judgment on the wicked, which was the context of chapter 3, verse 2, and of deliverance for the righteous, which is the context of chapter 3, verse 17.

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Same event, totally different results for two different groups of people. And as we know, the large majority of the human race, it will be the worst, most devastating day in all of history.

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But for that remnant, not just this remnant, but the remnant of God's people throughout all of time, it will be the greatest day in all of human history.

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And then the final verse of this chapter says, 18, Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth

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God and him that serveth Him not. Now, this isn't the first time that Israel has seen

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God intervene in judgment and deliverance before. I mean, whether you're talking about the

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Exodus, like the original deliverance story from their ancient history, or even the return from the

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Babylonian exile, which was a part of their immediate history at this time, and it only happened like 70 years prior to the events in Malachi.

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Regardless of the story you're looking at, the Israelites have seen these examples of God delivering and separating the righteous from the wicked.

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Those events, like others, are examples of God separating the righteous from the wicked, just as it will be during the great day of the

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Lord. And this remnant that God is talking to here will get to be a part of this separation as the righteous ones.

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So they'll get to be on the wonderful side of that separation that takes place. Now, this future day of the

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Lord, after the judgment has been handed to the wicked, it will not only bring physical deliverance, but also bodily resurrection for this remnant.

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A part of this day when it comes, when this prophecy is fulfilled, when this promise is fulfilled, this very remnant will get to experience bodily resurrection upon His second coming, and will get to take part in Jesus' return full of glory.

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They get to take part in that. It's not just physical deliverance in the context of where they were in Malachi at that point in history, but also bodily resurrection at the actual time in history when

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Jesus returns. And they will get to be His, quote -unquote, treasured possession in His kingdom, which will be a fulfillment of God's original promises to Israel.

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This remnant, as well as each remnant of righteous ones from past generations, will fill the millennial kingdom as the direct descendants of Abraham, which is just a wonderful thought.

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The culmination of every single solitary promise that God has ever made toward His people throughout the

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Old Testament, throughout time, will be fulfilled all in that single event. And He is telling them, this remnant, at the end of chapter 3 of Malachi, that this is what you'll get to take part in because of your faithfulness to Me, because of your fear, and because of your submission to Me.

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So let me read one more verse, and then I'll dismiss this because I think

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I'm right at the finishing time here. Psalm 135 verse 4 says,

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Psalm 135 verse 4 says, That same word is the word that's used in verse 16 when

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He says, You are My jewels. When I come to collect My jewels, you will be there.

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You will be one of them. They are a part of His peculiar treasure that He set aside for Himself when

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He chose Jacob. So it'll be a fulfillment of that promise as well, and we will end it there.

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For today, we technically finished the chapter. There's one cool side note that I'll save for next time before we move into the final chapter.

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But yeah, we were able to finish it up, so I'm happy for that, although it did take every bit of time we had, not leaving hardly any time for comments.

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I don't know if you all do have anything you'd like to throw out there really quick before we dismiss. All righty, guys.

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Well, we will go ahead and dismiss. Pop Pop, would you mind praying for us and dismissing us? Amen. Glad to have