Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament. It is prophecy—sometimes harsh prophecy but it also looks forward to reconciliation. For the child of God who has embraced Jesus as Lord, the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord is not to be dreaded.
These links take you to the scriptures and messages that we shared as we studied the prophet's words.
Read Malachi 4
Elijah will
come before the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord.
Jesus said
that Elijah has come. We get these words of Jesus right
after he is transfigured standing between Moses and Elijah, but later in that
chapter, it is clarified that Jesus did not mean this momentary appearance but
that Elijah had come in the form of John the Baptist.
Why the
disguise?
Consider John’s purpose.
He was the forerunner.
He prepared the way for the One who was the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
Now imagine
if people knew that John was Elijah.
People flocked to John at the Jordan.
Imagine how many more would have come to Elijah. Imagine how hard it
would be to leave Elijah for Jesus.
This man by
either name knew his own purpose. He was to prepare the way. John was Elijah
2.0.
Call him
John or call him Elijah, but this man knew that he was not the focus of these
few years. Jesus was. John knew that his ministry must lessen for that of the
Messiah to increase.
The Great
and Terrible Day of the Lord is on it’s way, but John or Elijah has come to
prepare you for reconciliation. God
wants to see you raised up in righteousness so that the great and terrible day
will be a day of joy for you.
One of my
tendencies as pastor is to gravitate towards challenges. What does God want us to do? What did you do with what God gave you?
Be a light
in the world.
Be the God
seasoning of the planet. Let people
taste God’s goodness every time they cross your path.
Be known by
your love.
Those are
legitimate challenges, but I have to remind myself to include some affirmations
every once in a while.
Our
behavior, our performance, our actions are all things that we want to please
God, but we must remember that it is God alone who has made us right with him.
Our response
to that great love can be manifested in our behavior and our performance and
our actions but we must keep in mind that God did it all and he did it for us.
God did
it. I know that you might be thinking it
was Tom’s sermons that let us turn the corner to righteousness, but it was and
is all God.
God did
it. You might think that it was reading
your chapter every day without missing a day, but it was and is all God.
There will
be a Great and Terrible Day of the Lord.
When? Soon.
In that day
and on every day from now until then, know that God alone has made you right
with him.
He has
called you to obey his directives. He
has called you to be a living sacrifice.
He has called you to bring the whole tithe. He has called you to reconciliation in the
blood of Jesus.
There may be
judgment taking place all around you but because of what God has done for you,
you will have joy. You will frolic like
a young calf not concerned with the wickedness melting away all around you.
Do not lose
hope because of the wickedness around you.
On the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord, the wicked will be no
more. They will be like ashes under your
feet and we can wash each other’s feet.
Malachi
contains some tough prophecy and tough admonitions but it closes with
reconciliation. God sent his messenger
who prepared the way. He sent Jesus who
died for your sins. He will come and
claim you.
Because of
this we can live through our present suffering knowing that the glory in store for
us is overwhelming. We can look forward to the Great and Terrible Day of the
Lord.
Amen.
Read Malachi 4
Creation is
moving to some point in the future that we will call the Great and Terrible Day
of the Lord. It’s coming. We can’t mark it on our calendars or register
it in our phones, but it’s coming.
For the
wicked, it will be worse than they can imagine.
For the
righteous, it will be greater than the human mind can conceive.
For the
wise, we are to always be ready and live as if that day is upon us. We don’t wait for the two-minute warning to
start living as God has directed. We are
to be known by our love this day and every day.
We are to
live our lives in response to the love of God that we know in Christ Jesus and
do our best to follow the example of our Lord.
We know God
through his holy word—the Bible—and through his Holy Word in the Flesh—Christ
Jesus. The people of Malachi’s time knew
God through his holy word—mostly read to them by the scribes and priests—and by
their interaction with their priests.
As they
looked forward in time, they knew judgment was coming at some point, but they
did not fully comprehend a Messiah or a Savior or an Anointed One. They had an
inkling of these things but nowhere the knowledge of them that we enjoy today.
The Great
and Terrible Day of the Lord was mostly going to be terrible, especially for
those who rebelled against the Lord. We
can’t fault them for their thinking.
Malachi promised that before this day, Elijah would come.
The people
knew of Elijah. How could they not? Think to the encounter of Elijah and the
prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel some 400 years earlier.
The kingdom
had gone astray. Elijah was a wanted man
but he confronted the king and caused all of the prophets of Baal to meet him
on Mount Carmel to settle the matter of who truly is God.
This was not
of Elijah’s own doing. God set this in
motion with the promise that he would send rain upon the drought-stricken land,
but first the wicked needed to be purged from the land.
You know the
story. Both Elijah and the many prophets
of Baal prepared a bull for a burnt offering.
There were 450 prophets of Baal plus 400 prophets of Asherah—those who
ate the Jezebel’s table.
So there are 850 prophets who had led the people astray to worship false gods, and there is
Elijah. Elijah said, let’s settle this
once and for all.
Elijah went
before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the
Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”
Here is how
we will sort this out. We each make an
altar on which to burn the sacrifice. We
each prepare our animal and place it on the altar. Make sure there is plenty of wood. So they did just that. The prophets of Baal
were up first.
No person
would like the fire. Each would call
upon their god to light the fire of the sacrifice. The prophets of Baal called out for hours
without response.
Elijah had
not yet called upon his God. He hadn’t
even repaired the altar that was in disrepair, but he was not silent. He mocked the false prophets. He taunted them.
You had
better shout louder. He can’t hear you.
Maybe your
god is busy. Did he put you on hold?
Maybe he
is in the bathroom and he isn’t getting enough fiber in his diet.
Elijah had
to be having the time of his life. False
prophets wanted real fire from a false god.
They started slashing their own bodies to draw blood. This was sometimes practiced and surely
needed now as their god seemed to be taking a long nap. Maybe he was hibernating.
When evening
came, Elijah stepped up and said, it’s my turn now. The people had
become bored with the false prophets' futile and frantic efforts to elicit fire
from their god.
Elijah addressed
the altar that had been neglected. He first surrounded it with 12 stones
representing the 12 tribes and took the stones to build an Altar to the one
true God. Then he loaded it with wood
That wasn’t
enough. It was time to taunt the false
prophets again. He dug a trench around
this altar. That wasn’t all. He had people fill 4 large jars with water
and douse the offering and altar. Once
was not enough. He would have the jars
of water poured on the altar twice more until it was soaked and the trench
around it was full.
The false
prophets were probably thinking that this was going to be a draw. It would take hours for the wood to dry
enough that it might catch fire. The
status quo could continue. Elijah could
say what he wanted and the 950 false prophets could continue spewing their
nonsense without fear of ever being held accountable.
But Elijah
would not wait for the wood to dry.
At the time
of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and
that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people
will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back
again.”
There would
be no waiting to see if God would answer.
Then the fire
of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the
soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.
It burned
the offering and the wood and even the rocks. It even burned the dirt. Have you ever been camping and said, let’s
round up some rocks and dirt and start a fire with them. Every drop of water was consumed.
When all the
people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The
Lord—he is God!”
The people
were convinced. This was crossing the Jordan
and the Red Sea on dry land convinced.
This was sweeping through the Promised Land with their enemies fleeing
convinced. This could only be the hand of
the one true God.
Elijah
seized the moment.
Then Elijah
commanded them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!” They
seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and
slaughtered there.
OBTW—the
rain came shortly thereafter.
Why do I
tell the story of Elijah and the false prophets? This Mount Carmel encounter was the image
seared on the minds of God’s Chosen People.
The wicked were exposed. They
were taunted. They were discredited and
they were killed.
When God
told his people that he would send Elijah before the Great and Terrible Day of
the Lord, they were looking for a man who took care of business the way they
would take care of business. Think about
it—850 false prophets dead in one afternoon.
The
denomination sends me an email every couple of months noting the pulpit
vacancies in our denomination. On rare
occasions, all the pulpits in our presbytery are filled. That’s a momentary celebration. Across the denomination, there are always two
dozen churches searching for a pastor.
Imagine,
having 850 vacancies to fill. Elijah
gutted the mechanism for worshiping false gods.
And yes, by
way of confession, I do look to see if there is a CP church in need of a pastor
in Honolulu.
The people
of Malachi’s day were looking for someone to come and set things right and if
wicked people had to die in the process, then so be it. Elijah would be perfect.
But God had
other plans for Elijah.
He will turn
the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to
their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”
Destruction will come for the wicked but not before there is
a chance for people to repent and truly know God.
Elijah would begin the reconciliation that would be completed
in Christ Jesus. For those who rejected
the invitation to life, there would be destruction, but God desires that none perish.
Before the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord, there will be
a chance to repent and be reconciled to God.
We live in that time now.
Elijah has come. We
preach that all must repent and receive Jesus Christ as Lord.
There is a Great and Terrible Day of the Lord on the
horizon. Our job is to bring as many as
we can to the great side of this day before it arrives.
Elijah has come.
Jesus has come.
Jesus will come again.
We are to be ready and bring as many to him as we can before he arrives!
Amen.
Read
Joel 2
The first chapter charged
those who should have
known better to wake up. Judgment
was coming. Joel continued in the second
chapter with what he would label as the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord.
Mostly, he focused on the second part.
Darkness, gloom, clouds, and blackness
headline what’s coming. Let’s add an
army like never seen before. This may be
an army of locusts that devour.
If that were not enough, there will be
fire that precedes the invasion and is still burning afterwards.
What looked like the Garden of Eden
before will be a desert wasteland afterwards.
No place will be left untouched. People will tremble in fear.
Could this be an army of locusts or is
this the battle in which the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords leads the
charge? The answer is yes.
This was prophecy for the near term in
Judah. Calamity was coming.
This is prophecy for the end of the
age. Things will get really bad before
the end.
We see the cosmic disturbance that
Jesus mentioned to his disciples in Matthew 24. That tells us that this part was still to
come.
Who can endure the Day of the Lord?
Joel’s prophecy does not answer so
much who can endure the Day of the Lord but how we can endure it.
Even now—at this late date return to
God with all of your heart.
Even now—your time is not up yet, so
do the things that signal repentance.
Even now—all is not lost. Do you know God? Tell me if this sounds
familiar.
That was from Jonah 4. Let’s
see how Joel presents God to his people.
He is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.
God desires none to
perish. His desire is
for all to come to repentance.
Joel’s prophecy called upon the people
to rend their hearts and not their garments. Return to the Lord.
Rend your heart
and not your garments.
Joel calls upon people to repent with
their hearts. Repent with your very
being.
Then the repentant people are to call
out to God and ask him to remember them as his prize possession. Don’t let them be an object of scorn for the
world.
Repent, return to God, and call upon
him to spare you.
For us today: Repent, Profess Jesus is Lord, live as his
disciple.
But how will the Lord respond?
He will send grain and wine and never
let his people be an object of scorn again.
He will drive out all who oppose his
people. It’s going to be a real
whuppin—the enemy will be driven into the sea.
The pastures will be green, the trees
will bear fruit, you will have abundant crops and plenty of wine.
Your abundance will make those days
when the locust consumed everything a distant memory. Paul would say that our
present suffering would pale
in comparison to what is in
store for us.
Then you will know that God is with
his people and they will never be shamed again.
Realize that this will take place
amidst cosmic disturbance. The world
will be in turmoil. But God will pour
out his Spirit on all people.
His Chosen People will be protected
and rewarded and never scorned again, but his Spirit will be poured out all
over the world.
Men and women, old and young, people
in high and low positions will have visions and dreams and prophesy.
Wonderous things will happen all over
the world and even in the heavens.
For some, these wonders will be
terrifying. For others they will know
them to be signs of the Lord himself and they will take comfort.
It will be the Great and Terrible Day
of the Lord, and it’s not just for show.
Remember what both Jonah and Joel said about God?
You are a gracious and compassionate
God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending
calamity.
Calamity is finally on its way but it
is not for all. God’s grace and
compassion continue to the end even when his wrath will be poured out on those
who insist on rebellion.
For everyone who calls upon the name
of the Lord will be saved.
Everyone who calls upon the name of
the Lord will be saved.
Our mission—our commission—is to call
people to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ now and know that their
eternity with God is secure, but we must know that a time will come when the
evidence of God and his love will be so overpowering, that many will repent and
believe the good news that we now enjoy in Jesus Christ.
Everyone who calls upon the name of
the Lord will be saved.
The world will be as evil as it has
ever been, but God’s compassion and forgiveness are offered to the very
end. He will send his Spirit and his
word will be everywhere.
So what are we to do?
Go into the world. Preach repent and believe the good news. Live out your commission every day. Be known as a follower of Jesus by your love.
Be salt and light and goodness in a
world that does not know God, knowing that while the world gets worse and
worse, God will give signs and miracles and pour out his Spirit so that many
will be saved.
Do your best to share the good news,
but the pressure is off.
Don’t lose hope when things get really
bad. Such things must happen and they
might just be that nudge that opens the eyes of those blinded by the god of
this age.
Know that God is a God of grace and
compassion. He is slow to anger. He is abounding in love and he desires none
to perish.
Visualize Jesus standing before the
world one last time before judgment and wrath come. See him with his arms wide open calling upon
all to take his yoke and learn from him.
We have our part, but Jesus calls
people to come home and if the earthly
shepherd will leave the
99 to find the 1, how much more will the Lord of Lords do to meet the desire of
his Father’s heart?
How much more?
There will be great and terrible signs
and God will pour out his very own Spirit upon this world to give all one more
chance to repent and come to him.
See the things that must come as one
last effort to bring the lost home, to call all to repentance, and to give
everyone a chance to call upon the name of the Lord and be saved.
Amen.
Read Joel
2
The first
chapter charged
those who should have known better to wake
up! Judgment was coming. Joel continued in the second chapter with
what he would label as the Great and Terrible Day of the Lord.
Mostly, he
focused on the second part.
Darkness,
gloom, clouds, and blackness headline what’s coming. Let’s add an army like never seen
before. This may be an army of locusts
that devour.
If that were
not enough, there will be fire that precedes the invasion and is still burning
afterward.
What looked
like the Garden of Eden before will be a desert wasteland afterward.
No place will
be left untouched. People will tremble
in fear.
Could this
be an army of locusts or is this the battle in which the King of Kings and the
Lord of Lords leads the charge? The
answer is yes.
This was
prophecy for the near term in Judah.
Calamity was coming.
This is
prophecy for the end of the age. Things
will get really bad before the end.
We see the
cosmic disturbance that Jesus mentioned to his disciples in Matthew
24. That tells us that this part was still to come.
Who can
endure the Day of the Lord?
Joel’s
prophecy does not answer so much who can endure the Day of the Lord but how we
can endure it.
Even now—at
this late date return to God with all of your heart.
Even
now—your time is not up yet, so do the things that signal repentance.
Even now—all
is not lost. Do you know God? Tell me if
this sounds familiar.
You are a
gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents
from sending calamity.
That was
from Jonah
4. Let’s see how Joel presents God
to his people.
He is
gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger
and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.
God desires none
to perish. His desire is for all to come to repentance.
Joel’s
prophecy called upon the people to rend their hearts and not their garments.
Return to the Lord.
Rend your
heart
and not your garments.
Return to the
Lord your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger
and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.
Who knows? He
may turn and relent
and leave behind a blessing—
grain
offerings and drink offerings
for the Lord your God.
Do you
remember what the King of Nineveh said in Jonah
3?
“By the
decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let
people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or
drink. But let people and animals be
covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up
their evil ways and their violence. Who
knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so
that we will not perish.”
The king of
Nineveh made sure that his people—and even the livestock—at least had the
outward signs of repentance.
Joel calls
upon people to repent with their hearts.
Repent with your very being.
Then they
are to call out to God and ask him to remember them as his prize
possession. Don’t let them be an object
of scorn for the world.
Repent,
return to God, and call upon him to spare you.
For us
today: Repent, Profess Jesus is Lord,
live as his disciple.
Amen.
Read Joel 1
We are
beginning Joel, but I will start with Matthew 24 as we consider chapter 1.
“But about
that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but
only the Father. As it was in the days
of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were
eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah
entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood
came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of
Man. Two men will be in the field; one
will be taken and the other left. Two
women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.
“Therefore
keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.
Jesus told
us that we can’t know the day or the hour but Joel tells us that we should see
the signs of the times.
Had we kept
on reading in Matthew, Jesus also told his followers to note the signs of the
times. He directed us to be ready at all
times.
God’s Chosen
People were sitting around fat, dumb, and happy not aware of what was coming in
the way of calamity. Actually, they
might have been getting skinny and grumpy, but their attitude was same
stuff, different day—life goes on.
Calamity was
coming both in the near term and in what would be the Great and Terrible Day of
the Lord.
The
Babylonians would take care of the first part.
The conclusion of this age will involve the entire planet.
Joel’s
message was Wake Up!
Your crops
won’t grow. Your priests are helpless to
aid you. The locusts invade like an army
that doesn’t take prisoners.
Wake Up!
Those people
should have known better. They were
God’s Chosen People—were they not paying attention? I’m glad that we are not like them. Right?
Because we
wake up every morning saying this is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. I will work at everything I do as if I am working for the Lord.
Throw
whatever problems you have at me. I will trust in the Lord over my own understanding. I will acknowledge the Lord throughout the
day. The Lord himself will keep me on
his path for me.
No weapon formed against me shall prevail!
Or do we get
up thinking are we out of coffee? I have
to stop and get gas. Who left their
clothes all over the house. Does the
trash run today?
Do we ever
begin the gift of a new day thinking, same stuff—different day?
Do we fall
into malaise? Do we pay homage to the
twin gods of apathy and ambivalence?
Joel was
telling his people to get out of their daily funk and get their God game
on. Can’t you see what is heading our
way?
Hello 2021.
I don’t know
if the election for president was legitimate or not. I don’t know, but I have never seen anything
like this before.
I don’t know
why rioting suddenly became acceptable and enforcing the law is inherently
evil. I don’t know, but I have never
seen anything like this before.
I don’t know
why the color of my skin which was given to me by the God who knew me in the
womb is suddenly something that makes me unworthy of being a person. I don’t know, but I have never seen anything
like this before.
I don’t know
why people celebrate killing a baby but abhor a police officer shooting an
armed criminal. I don’t know, but I have
never seen anything like this before.
I don’t know
how one contagion can shut down most of the world but all other illnesses and diseases
seem to have disappeared in the process.
I don’t know, but I have never seen anything like this before.
I don’t know
why censorship only applies to patriotic posts and statements of faith in
God. I don’t know but I have never lived
through this before. I have studied this
in history and know of it in other countries, but never lived through it.
The mores of
society have abandoned the morals of God.
I am not going to give you a political platform here, but challenge you
to Wake Up!
Calamity is
coming upon this world. I can’t say if
it will be this year or ten years or a hundred years from now but the signs of
the times tell us to Wake Up!
I have told
the age-old story of the frog that you put into a pot of boiling water. It will jump out and you will never see it
again. Its skin is scalded but it is alive and plans to stay that way.
But put
another frog into room temperature water and turn up the heat a degree every
few minutes and in a couple of hours you have boiled frog. It never knew what happened.
You remember
the message in the Parable of the Ten Virgins.
It is to be ready. All ten fell
asleep but when they awakened, only five were ready to receive the bridegroom.
Joel
prophesied to a people who knew only the law.
They did not know Jesus, but the stakes were high. They are likewise high for us too.
Some today
are like Jonah. Intellectually, they
know what to do but their hearts rebel against God. How can you profess Jesus is Lord with a
rebellious heart?
The message
of Joel to today’s world is Wake Up!
Too many have given lip service to this profession that Jesus is
Lord. It’s time to Wake Up!
There is a
term that has gained momentum over the past couple years. It is Woke America. It’s fairly accurate but not in the way those
who embrace it think.
So many have
awakened to the evil around us and have embraced it. So many have awakened to see the gods of
Apathy and Ambivalence as easy to serve.
They require nothing that runs against how you feel.
For those
who hold firm to the word of God and do so to the end, we may not be able to do
anything about the course the world is on.
I pray that we can but all that we might be able to do is Wake Up!
We are not
helpless. Our hope is in the Lord.
There is one
thing that can help awaken this depraved world in the last days. Read chapter 2 this week and see if you can find
it.
Amen.
