A Word in Season: The Space Between (Malachi 4:4-6)

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What do you do when things seem to be silent and still? What do you do in the space between promise and fulfilment?

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In the days of Malachi, God spoke through his prophet and told his people that they would need to wait with patience and obedience until the coming of Messiah.

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He promised them that he would act again, he promised them that he would act in judgement, that he would bring down his wrath upon the wicked.

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He promised them that he would act in blessing, showering mercies upon his people as the sun of righteousness arose upon those who feared his name with healing in his wings.

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And he promised them that they would triumph, that they would trample the wicked on the day that the

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Lord acted as he would. And in the meantime, remember the law of Moses my servant, which

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I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgements. Behold, I will send you

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Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.

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And so for some four hundred years, the people of God, who were trusting in what

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God had said, waited patiently and obediently. They kept the law of the

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Lord. They walked in his ways. They looked for him who was to come. They waited for Elijah the prophet, who would come to prepare the way of the

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Lord. They waited for Messiah eagerly and expectantly. And the years ticked by, and the generations turned, and the silence in terms of new revelation, a new demonstration of God's power continued.

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In the same way, we are living in the space between the first and the second coming of our

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Lord Jesus Christ, and the promises that the Lord made through Malachi, which began to be fulfilled in measure when the

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Lord Christ came first, will be fulfilled fully and finally at his second coming, for then there will be a great and terrible judgment in which the

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Lord will burn up the proud and the wicked. Then there will be a glorious, a magnificent blessing when the

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Son of Righteousness, who has risen with healing in his wings, the Lord of glory returns to bring his people to himself.

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And then there will be triumph, for God's people will enter into the triumph that he himself has accomplished.

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And in the meantime, what ought we to do? For the years have rolled on, and the generations have come and gone since Christ and his apostles spoke the word of the

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Lord to us. We are again in a period of relative silence where we know what

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God has said, we know what God has commanded us to do, and we are waiting for the fulfillment of what

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God has yet promised to us. And like the people to whom

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Malachi spoke, our part is to wait in the space between, patiently and obediently, to live as those who fear the

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Lord, who honour him with their words and their deeds, who demonstrate that eager and expectant waiting for the fulfillment of all his glorious promises.

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Despair and impatience then need to be put far from us. Just as someone like Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel on that first occasion, so too we are awaiting our great consolation.

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We are living with an eye fixed upon eternity. We are to remember the law of the

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Lord. We are to consider the promises that God has made. Now we have that law written on our hearts.

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Now we have the promises which, being yes and amen in Christ Jesus, are going to usher in something more glorious, more majestic and most pure and wonderful, things that Malachi saw in shadow and that Christ will bring in, in fullness.

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So let us in the space between, however long it may last and however long it may seem to us, whatever the relative silence may seem to do, whatever the slurs and the scorn of the world who ask where is the promise of his coming, let us keep waiting patiently, obediently, eagerly and expectantly for the judgment, the blessing and the triumph of God.