THE DAY IS COMING - Malachi 4

Of why we are gathered here today to worship. He has paid it all. He is the one that is worthy of our praise. So let's go ahead and open up God's word. If you have a copy of God's word, we're in the Old Testament minor prophet of Malachi.

It's the last book of the Old Testament. You know, over the past eight weeks, as we've been in this study, we've seen God engaging with the people of Israel through the prophet Malachi with a series of six disputations, six disputes between God and the people.

He opened up with him saying, I have loved you. And the people of Israel respond, how have you loved us? And he points to his covenant that he had made. He had loved Jacob and he had hated Esau and his faithfulness of that.

He says, you have polluted my altar. And they say, how have we polluted you? By bringing sick and lame animals for sacrifice to me, giving me your leftovers. He says, you have wearied me with your words.

And they respond once again, how have we wearied you? And he says, by saying that I find favor in evil doers and asking the question, where is the God of justice? He says, you have robbed me. And again, they say, how have we robbed you?

He says, by not bringing your tithes to the storehouse. You've not been giving back to me even a small percentage of what is already mine in the first place. And then lastly, your words have been hard against me.

And they say, how have we spoken against you? He says, by calling the arrogant blessed and saying evil doers, they not only prosper, but they put God to the test and they escape his wrath and justice.

Oh, but then, as we saw last week, there was a faithful remnant within Israel. Those who, it says, feared the Lord. And they heard his words. They heard his responses to them. And God said, they, those that fear me shall be mine.

And he says, in the day when I make up my treasured possessions, I will spare them. And then in verse 18 of chapter three, right before we get into chapter four that we're looking at today, he says, then once more, you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him.

The Day of the Lord, Wrath on the Wicked, and the Faithful Remnant

For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evil doers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

Oh, but for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like cows from the stall, and you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction, says the reading of God's perfect holy word.

These are the very last words that God had spoken before a period of time when Jesus came on the scene. And so let us bow right now once again. Let's ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate our hearts and minds to this great truth.

Lord, we come before you once again. God, we have sung of your faithfulness. We have read your word. We have prayed to you seeking your wisdom. We have sought to worship and honor you. And now as we get ready to exegete the text, to look at your words, may you give us wisdom.

May your words penetrate into our hearts, renew our minds, mold us into the people that you are calling us to be. May those that are here this morning who do not yet know you be awakened by the power of the Holy Spirit to your truth, see the beauty of Christ and run to the Savior in repentance and faith.

May those that are already yours today be sanctified, molded by your word. Give us clarity in Christ's name. We pray all of this, amen. Well, I believe that that faithful remnant that we're discussing, that they were amongst those that had said, or at least had thought, where is the God of justice?

They were guilty right alongside the rest of the nation of Israel, I believe. How are all these evildoers escaping your wrath, God? And how are they flourishing? Much like us today, often wondering why evil thrives and prevails when more often than not, it seems as though righteousness suffers, doesn't it?

And they, like us, needed a constant reminder of how God really feels about those evildoers. The psalmist in Psalm 5 declares that God hates the evildoer. We don't like to talk about that much in church, that God hates anyone, but he said he hated Jacob.

He hates all evildoers. So who are the evildoers? Who is it that God hates? Well, the people of Israel thought that it was anyone who wasn't them, the surrounding pagan nations. Yet what we've seen thus far through this prophet Malachi is that these Israelites are no more righteous than any of the other nations.

They themselves are evildoers. They may look better a little bit on the outside, but when you really start to pry into the intent and the heart, they had evil hearts, just like the rest of the world. However, as I've said, there was that faithful remnant amongst them.

Those who heard the words of the Lord and responded with faith and repentance. And God loves them. That is a tremendous, we just sang about the love of God this morning. God has a tremendous love for those who are in faith.

Just as with us today, you have the evildoers whom God hates, and you have the unworthy recipients of grace, those who have been brought into faith in Christ Jesus and received a repentant heart whom God loves.

And as God gets ready to close out his words to the people of Israel and where he will not speak to them again for roughly 400 years after this, he goes silent, no more words from God, no more speaking through the prophets, nothing.

And he leaves them here with a statement of fact. We don't like to think in terms of fact in our culture. We like where relativism has eaten us alive at its core. Who can know fact? Who can know truth?

But yet God is truth, and whatever he says is certain fact. And so he leaves them with this fact that is interwoven into the promise of his covenant. And this promise extends to you and I, the true Israel, those who are recipients of grace, who are part of the covenant of grace.

And he says, for behold, the day is coming. A statement of fact, it is absolute, it is guaranteed, it is unavoidable, this day will come, whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not, or whether you want it to or not, it is certain.

God had already told us that he doesn't change, and this is another promise from an unchanging God. And he says, for behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven. Why the imagery of an oven here? Malachi is not talking about your Maytag oven that you're getting ready to cook your Thanksgiving turkey in this week, hopefully.

He's speaking of more of an incinerator because you see an open flame does not signify the significance of an all-encompassing devastating power of what is being illustrated here by God. However, a oven encapsulates and magnifies the heat of that flame, incinerating every impurity within its chambers.

And he says, oh, that day is coming with the heat of an incinerator. And this is of course, anthropomorphic language, human language, the imagery symbolized here falls short of that which it points to, of course, for the heat in which is being referred to here is infinitely hotter and more destructive than any man-made furnace could ever be, no matter how large or how hot we could get it.

For it is speaking of the ever-burning, all-encompassing fire of the wrath of God. Look at the text again. He says, for behold, the day is coming. Well, it's burning like an oven, like an incinerator when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble.

You remember the accusation back in chapter three, verse 15. They're asking God, they're responding to God, and now we call the arrogant blessed. The arrogant seem blessed by you, God. Evildoers not only prosper, but they put you to the test and they seem to escape your wrath that you keep talking about.

And here God responds to this evil accusation by the people of Israel. You think they escaped? You think they're blessed? You just wait. Wait for that day. Not one, not a single one will be able to escape the fires of my wrath.

You may not be able to see that clearly now, and they certainly don't see it in their time. But I think Paul gives us some insight as to why we are in this place where we are promised of this burning wrath to come, but we've yet to see it in its fruition in Romans chapter nine.

In Romans nine, in verse 22, Paul presents this idea, this question. He says, what if God, desiring to show his wrath that unquenchable fire that is God and to make known his power has endured with much patience?

Why did the wicked prosper? As he's telling the people there in Malachi's day, you don't see what I see. You don't see what I have planned. He says he's endured them with much patience. He says, these vessels of wrath that are prepared by God for destruction.

It's heavy, isn't it? Those aren't my words. I'm just reading the Bible here, guys. Vessels of wrath that are prepared for destruction. God hates all evildoers, and he has created them for wrath. His perfect righteous wrath to be poured out upon them, and they are being prepared for that very destruction that is guaranteed to come.

Yet, in the meantime, we do not see this righteous indignation. As the Psalmist said in Psalm 73, he says, for I, I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Let's just be honest for a second.

More often than not, I feel like the Psalmist in this moment when I'm looking in life, and I see these cults out there, these churches that barely proclaim any gospel, if any gospel at all, flourishing in their big fancy buildings and their fancy events and all that goes on, and they're defaming the name of Christ in the midst of it.

When you look around and you see the evilness of this world and the brokenness of this world, sometimes you go, why do I suffer? Why am I suffering in this world when they are thriving? Yet God hates the evildoer.

It sure doesn't seem like that, does it? Forgetting completely what we were created for. But later that Psalmist in that very Psalm says, until I went into the sanctuary of God, and then I discerned their end.

I was envious of them until I was reminded of what is to come for them. This life is all they've got. This life is a blip on the radar. This life is just a drop in the ocean of eternity. And we put a lot of stock in it, don't we?

I want comfort, I want health, I want money, I want all the things, and I look around and I see the wicked, they're flourishing and all those things, it's all they got. Give them a drop in the ocean when you, if you're in faith in Christ, you get the ocean, right?

In eternity, the end, the guaranteed promise end to all the arrogant evildoers. As Malachi said in chapter three in verse five, the sorcerers, the adulterers, those who swear falsely, those who oppress the hired worker of his wages, the widow and the fatherless, those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear God.

You might read through that and go, well, I don't practice sorcery. I don't, I'm not committing adultery, at least openly, right? I don't swear falsely, oppress any of my employees or the widows or the fatherless.

I don't, I'm pretty hospitable. I don't just thrust aside the sojourner, but do you fear God? They're in that category. And these people, those who are the evildoers that God hates are only good for one thing.

You get that, right? That's a hard statement, isn't it? They're good for one thing. God says it, stubble, to become stubble. There's a similar language to Isaiah back in Isaiah chapter five in verse 24.

It says, therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness and their blossom go up like dust for they have rejected the law of the Lord of hosts and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Stubble, this is, I had to look into this as to in the Hebrew, what they're actually referring to. It's referring to what blows away after a young, immature, unwanted plant is hit by the lethal wind, like a hot wind, and it withers them.

This term is often used in reference to something worthless. They are of no value. Look at our passage back in Malachi, the second part of verse one. It says, the day that is coming shall set them ablaze.

It's all of the stubble, all of the evildoer, all of the arrogant. It will set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. This worthless stubble will be gathered up and placed in the incinerator.

We see this language from John the Baptist in Matthew chapter three. Matter of fact, flip over there. It's just the next book over in the New Testament. Matthew chapter three, verses 11 and 12. I want you to see what John the Baptist refers to as what Christ is coming to do.

There in chapter three of Matthew, starting in verse 11, John the Baptist says, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he, Jesus, is who he's speaking of, who comes after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry.

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn. That's us who are in faith. He will gather us.

Oh, but the chaff, the stubble, he will burn with unquenchable fire. You say, well, I don't like the Old Testament. God, like that was like burn, like wrath and all the bad stuff. This is New Testament, guys.

This is actually referring to Jesus, the loving, gracious Jesus. This is what he's coming to do. He will gather them and burn them with unquenchable fire, the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction.

And when God speaks of this destruction, he is not referring to annihilation. We think of an incinerator, we throw the stubble in the incinerator, there's nothing left but ashes. And that is the imagery that we are given.

But this is not the reality of what that imagery is pointing to. He is speaking of an everlasting torment. As Jesus said, when referring to hell in Mark 9, 48, he said, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.

The worm is the arrogant evildoer and the fire is that of his everlasting wrath. This judgment. Hell is not the absence of God. This is sometimes we think of it that way. We think, well, God created a place and he sends all the bad people there and he just lights it and goes.

But that's not the imagery of hell that we're given. You see that fire is his everlasting hatred.

For evil.

And his perfect righteous indignation poured out upon it. And the evildoer is the kindle. It's the fuel of that fire of his hatred. And unlike the stubble, the kindle and the fire of an earthly analogy, this kindle of the evildoer never burns up, though he eternally feels the pains of that flame with mind you absolutely zero chance of redemption.

I believe that's what it means in our passage in Malachi. The last part of verse one, then he says so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. And this is all evildoers, whether they are of Israel or the pagan nations, whether they are a member of a church, whether they've been baptized or whether they've prayed a prayer and walked an aisle.

So who is safe from this great and awful day? Or it is a great and awful day. That is a scary thing. Who's safe? Look at verse two. There's good news, guys. He says, but those, the chaff, they will be burned.

My wrath will be poured out upon them for eternity with no chance. You've asked, where's the God of justice? I just told you that day is coming and justice will be enacted. Perfect justice because that sin was a sin against an eternal God.

And so it deserves eternal punishment, right? But for you who fear my name, just as those Israelites in chapter three, verse 16, those who feared the Lord, right? They had the same doubts as the rest of the nation.

They fell prey to the same sins as the rest of the nation of Israel, as those arrogant evildoers, questioning God, profaning his name, robbing him at every turn. Yet when God confronted them, they feared him and they had reverence for who he is and they responded in repentance.

This is how a true believer responds to God. You will know them by their fruit, the fruit of repentance. We have an easy believism today. We're a little bit like the nation of Israel who thought, well, as long as I'm ethnically Israel and I kind of go through the motions of all those Levitical laws, I'm good.

We have this idea that you just pray a prayer, you're good. You get your heavenly insurance card, you're good. That's not the biblical answer. That's the biblical imagery of God's people. If you do not love God's law, if you do not desire to obey him, you're a liar.

The truth isn't in you. You get that, right? You can't just go around thinking you're a Christian and not even be an active member of a church. That just doesn't work like that. You might be a Christian in rebellion in a moment, but what I can tell you is just like the people of Israel in that time, the faithful remnant is when confronted with God's word, you will repent and turn from that sin.

You cannot blatantly disobey King Jesus and his words and go on in your life and just think that you're okay. There is nowhere in scripture that will give you that idea. Mind you, you're not saved by your obedience.

That's not what I'm preaching. What I'm saying is that true faith always leads to a repentant heart, always leads to fruit of the spirit in your life, always leads because you are indwelt with the Holy Spirit himself.

We're certainly not talking about perfect people here. You come to 12 .5 for any amount of time and start spending some time with us, you'll begin to realize that we are most certainly not perfect people.

We often sin just like the evildoer. We are arrogant and haughty at times, yet we, when confronted by God's word, there is a fear and a reverence and is followed with contrition and we seek to turn away from our wicked deeds and be obedient to King Jesus who is our Lord and Savior.

Look back at verse two again. But for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. We have similar imagery over in Psalm 84, 11. The psalmist says, for the Lord God is a son and a shield.

The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. If you're reading from an ESV, which I know many of you are, the word son is not capitalized. Some of your translations will have the word son capitalized.

And I understand why the ESV translates it. And I know I understand their interpretation, but I disagree. I think it's unfortunate. I personally have little doubt that this is most certainly a reference to the son, S-O-N, Jesus Christ.

I get this from Luke chapter one. Matter of fact, if you wanna turn there, you wanna jot this passage down and you can look at it later. In Luke chapter one, we see John the Baptist's father, Zachariah, and his prophecy of his son, John the Baptist.

And in chapter one of Luke in verse 76, it says, and you, child, will be called the prophet of the most high. For you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give knowledge of salvation to his people and the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercies of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

We see this all through the New Testament, places like Matthew 4, 16, when quoting Isaiah 9, the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light. And for those dwelling in the region, the shadow of death on them, light has dawned.

This is the light. It is the light of Christ. And so when we see here in Malachi chapter two, oh, but for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. And we have further imagery like this in places like Deuteronomy 32, referring to an eagle covering its young with its wings and there's a protection there.

But with the reference to the sun here, I believe it's giving the imagery of that life that comes from the rays of the sun. You know, in ancient times, depictions drawn on stone, carved on stone, would, if they were a depiction of the sun, it would be a circle and then wing like patterns depicting the rays of that sun.

And I think that's the imagery given to us here. You've heard joy comes in the morning. This night may be long. These Israelites had been awaiting the Messiah in the darkness of night, in the midst of darkness all around them.

Yet the sun will rise. The sun will come with healing. Healing in the rays of his gradient light. Revelation 22, verses three through five, we see no longer will there be anything accursed. That night is long, but there's coming a day, the day of the Lord where there will be nothing accursed.

No more evil, no more death, no more destruction, but the throne of God and the lamb will be in it and his servants will worship him. They will see his face. Whose face? The face of our savior Christ, right?

They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads and night will be no more. There will be no more darkness. There will be no more night that we've had to bear in this current present darkness that the people of Israel had to bear in the midst of utter darkness it seemed.

They will need no light of lamp or sun for the Lord God will be their light and they will reign forever and ever. This imagery is messianic. All the way hundreds of years before Christ is even born, we see the sun represented here.

This light, the light of Christ spoken of here in Malachi is referring to total and complete healing, spiritual healing, physical healing, emotional healing. It's all encompassing. The rays of that light will reach every part of life and every part of the creation.

You and I have seen his power. We've seen, as a matter of fact, jump down to verse five of Malachi four. We see a prophecy that we know on this side of the prophecy was most certainly fulfilled. Where he says, behold, I will send you Elijah, the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

And what will he do? He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. This is speaking of John the Baptist. I was asked that a couple of weeks ago and I held that in my pocket.

I didn't wanna bring that out. But Luke chapter one verse 17 tells us this. Who's he speaking of? Is Elijah just coming back to life and he's going to be in some future time? No, this is actually referring to Elijah or John the Baptist as a type and a figure of Elijah.

In Luke chapter one, it says, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah. Speaking of John the Baptist, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. Very similar language, right?

Turn the hearts of the fathers and the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready for the Lord, a people prepared. You see Jesus' first coming was inevitable. You can't deny it.

Nobody can deny it. It is historically unchallenged, undeniable fact. Even pagan scholars and historians know that Jesus was born, lived the life he said he was gonna live, died the death he said he was gonna die, rose from the grave three days later and ascended on high.

They can't get around it. You cannot avoid this truth of fact that actually happened in history and had way too many eyewitnesses to deny. You can't get around this fact. And the prophecy that God would send this Elijah type prophet, John the Baptist to make the way for him is further evidence of God's faithfulness to fulfill this.

And you know what that means? Since that is certain fact that you cannot deny, it means his second coming is also undeniable and inevitable. If the first one happened as God had prophesied, as the prophets had prophesied and God had told, then the second coming is certain.

But we are left here in these last days and what we like to call the already and not yet. Remember I said a couple of weeks ago, we're dealing I think in chapter three, the beginning of chapter three, I talked about how in the Old Testament when you see eschatology prophecy, meaning end times prophecy, the coming of the Messiah, it's almost always intertwined with the first advent and the second advent.

It's always connecting both of them as a single action and a single event. That's what we're seeing here in Malachi. When he's speaking of Elijah, that's John the Baptist, that's the first advent. And here's why, because the first advent, Jesus coming to be born, the hypostatic union, the God man coming to represent us, when that happened and Jesus died and ascended, we were now brought into the already and not yet.

We may have been here for about 2000 years, but a day is 1000 years to God, it doesn't matter, right? He's gathering his people in that time. And we must remember that, but these two things are unmistakably interwoven.

When the first one, the second one is guaranteed and they're connected. And when we have seen the evidence of his healing power, his healing relationships, families, broken lives, we've all experienced it, we've seen God work in his power.

And most importantly, the miraculous work of redeeming a people to himself, we were the evildoers, right? We were wicked, we were just like the world, but yet we were miraculously awakened to the truth and brought and gifted faith and repentance.

However, we still don't see it all in its fruition, just like the people of Israel. But on that day of a certain return, our rejoicing will be uncontainable. I'm looking forward to it. Look at verse two again.

Oh, but for those who fear my name, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings. Christ will come and the rays of his radiant light will penetrate and heal every single thing in its path.

And when that happens, you shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. What does he, he's comparing us to calves, right? You know, my daughter, my oldest daughter just recently got a puppy, okay?

Oogie Boogie is its name.

We call him Oogie.

And whenever she's away, Oogie gets put away in the trailer and Oogie has to bear the loneliness of all of that time where he thinks he's gonna die. But when any of us come to that trailer and set him free, that puppy's joy is inexpressible.

I wish I could be that happy about anything. I will be that happy when Christ returns. But that dog, that little puppy gets to wiggling and its tail goes crazy and it can't control and it gets the zoomies and goes everywhere.

I think this is the imagery that God is giving us of what it will be like when he finally comes back, right? And to make all things new, that's what we long for. But not only excited joy, look at verse three.

And you shall tread down the wicked for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act as the Lord of hosts. You and I, if we are in Christ, we will join King Jesus in his victory march.

He already owns all of this. It's his. He's already defeated every power to be. He defeated them at the cross. He said, it is finished. I now have conquered. I am the reigning king. Over all of creation, period.

All of creation will either bow its knee to me, kiss the sun or I will burn it to ashes in my wrath. And in the meantime, I'm gathering all of my children, all of my people, all of those that I died for.

And when the last one is found, then I will return and I will do a victory march. And you will be in that parade with me as I march into the defeated kingdom that I now reign over. There will be no more sorrow for the wicked.

You see, we will see Christ in his glory for who he truly is. We will finally see with utmost clarity what a disgusting and vile treason towards the king that even the smallest of sins are. And we will trample over the ashes of our unbelieving loved ones and neighbors joyously.

That's heavy, isn't it? I can't see that right now, can you? I can't comprehend that right now, can you? I can't get my brain wrapped around knowing that I have someone that I care for very deeply who has rejected Christ and that I will joyously trample over their ashes.

I can't fathom that. I don't have the capacity of that. You know why? Because I don't yet see sin for what it is and I don't yet see Christ for who he is, but I will. And that contrast will awaken me to the reality of just how evil the evildoer truly is.

Rest assured, Saint, that day is coming. Rest assured, unbeliever who's sitting under this preaching thinking this man is a lunatic, that day is coming. Whether you like it or not, it's certain. What I'm saying here is the only truth that you will hear in this world.

So what do we do? What do we do until that day? Christ hasn't returned yet. He could return at any moment, but he hasn't returned yet. Well, firstly, we have no idea who God has created as vessels for wrath, do we?

I have no idea. I love how Charles Spurgeon put it. He said, man, if God's elect had yellow stripes down their back, I'd be running through the streets of London lifting shirttails, but they don't. So I spread the gospel to all liberally.

We're to share the good news of Christ with all who will hear, calling them, repent and believe before it's too late. And I say that to all of you this morning who have maybe gone down the aisle and prayed a prayer because you didn't want to go to hell to get your heavenly insurance card, but you have not been living for the Lord.

You have not been serving the Lord. You are not an active participating member in his body. Then I would call you to now repent and believe before it's too late. Call upon the name of the Lord and you shall be saved.

Secondly, look at verse four of our passage. Remember the law of my servant, Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Now this is of course, speaking of the laws that were given to the nation of Israel.

And we, however, are not under those laws. They have been done away with in Christ. We no longer make animal sacrifices. We no longer have to follow any of those judicial laws and ceremonial laws. Yet there is another category of law that most certainly stands and is eternal.

It is the moral law and it does apply. It only applies to believers. It applies to all and all will be judged according to that law. And Jesus said in Matthew 28, go and make disciples, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.