Malachi 4
“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and
every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on
fire,” says the LORD Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. 2
But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing
in His wings. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. 3
Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your
feet on the day when I act,” says the LORD Almighty. 4
“Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb
for all Israel. 5 “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before
that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. 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.”
Verse 1 - Surely the day is coming .
. . All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is
coming will set them on fire . . .
•
Chapter 3 began with refiner’s fire,
which purifies us but does not destroy us. This reminds us that God wants to
use the difficult things in our lives to make us better people, not to destroy
us.
•
Chapter 3 ends with the warning that
one day we would all reap what we have sown and the difference between the
righteous and the wicked would be made clear. We accept this as just and right.
•
Chapter 4 opens with a description of
what happens when that day of judgment finally comes.
•
Most of us do not like to think about
judgment day, but avoiding the topic will not make it go away. Judgment day
will happen eventually.
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The first time Jesus came, He came as
a baby in manger. His message was one of grace and forgiveness.
•
The next time Jesus comes, He will
come as a judge. His message will be one of judgment and justice based on how
we responded to the message He gave when He came the first time.
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For those who have followed Jesus
faithfully, judgment is nothing to be afraid of.
•
For those who have not followed Him,
fear is an appropriate response!
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Obviously people want to know when
judgment day will happen.
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Only God the Father knows exactly
when that day will come.
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Read Matthew 24:35-36 and summarize
it below:
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God is keeping the date of judgment
day a secret so that we cannot live like the Devil our entire lives and then
try to get right the day before Jesus returns.
•
Since that day is going to be a
secret, we do not need to invest countless hours trying to figure out when that
day will be.
•
Read 1 Thessalonians 5:1-2 and
summarize it below:
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Thieves come when we least expect it.
Likewise, judgment day will come as a surprise.
•
God is delaying judgment day so that
everyone in the world will have a chance to hear the Gospel and respond.
•
Read 2 Peter 3:9-11 and summarize it
below:
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Though God’s timing is not our timing,
God is also not willing that any of His chosen ones should perish. Therefore, God
is waiting for the last person who is going to believe to have the same chance
as the first person who believed. Then the end will come, and it will not be
pretty.
•
Since we do not know when the end
will be, our focus must be on living holy lives right now that what when Jesus
returns He will find is living rightly.
•
Though we do not know when the end
will come, we do know that the Gospel must be preached to every corner of the
world before the end comes.
•
Read Matthew 24:14 and summarize it
below:
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According to the “Joshua Project”
there are 6918 people groups around the world that still have no access to the
Gospel.
•
While that may sound like a lot, only
a few years ago there were more than 10,000 such groups.
•
God’s Spirit is moving quickly to
call His people to Himself
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One day very soon we will see the
fulfillment of Revelation 7:9-10. Read those verses and summarize them below:
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We also know that before judgment day
happens the Lord will come back and gather up all His followers and take us to
heaven.
•
Read 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 and
summarize it below:
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When Christ returns Christians will
be changed and all our imperfections will finally be removed in an instant.
•
Read 1 Corinthians 15:51-53 and
summarize it below:
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When Jesus returns we will all give
an account of ourselves and our relationship with Jesus.
•
Read Romans 14:10-12 and summarize it
below:
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Those who had a relationship with
Jesus will enter into the eternal reward of heaven.
•
Read Matthew 25:31-34 and summarize
it below:
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Those who did not have a relationship
with Jesus will have no place left to go but to the eternal punishment of hell.
•
Read Matthew 25:41, 46 and summarize
it below:
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Note that hell was never designed for
people. Hell was designed for the Devil and his demons. But for those who
reject Jesus, there is no other place for them to spend eternity, so they go to
hell.
Verse 2 - But for you who revere my
name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in His wings. And you
will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.
•
Jesus is the sun of righteousness
because He is the Light of the world and the only person who was ever
completely righteous.
•
Those of us who have discovered a
relationship with Jesus will not experience eternal judgment. Instead we will
finally experience healing from the sun of righteousness!
•
Verse 2 says that we will experience healing
in His wings. In those days, Jews wore an outer garment called the
Tallit. It was a shawl like garment of wool or silk with fringes at the four
corners. It was commonly referred to as a prayer shawl. The corners of the
shawl were known as “wings.”
•
As a Jew, Jesus would have worn a Tallit
regularly. Therefore, in a figurative sense, Jesus would have had “wings”
because the edges hanging down from his prayer shawl would have been called
that.
•
Take a moment to read the story of
the sick woman in Luke 8 who snuck up behind Jesus and touched Him. She had
been sick all of her life. She had spent all of her money going to doctors, but
they had not been able to help her. She had heard about the healing power of
Jesus and believed that if she could just touch the edge of His garment, she
would be healed. She wove her way through the crowd and touched Him. She
instantly experienced healing from the “wings” of the Sun of Righteousness.
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On judgment day all who follow Jesus
will finally be healed of all their physical sicknesses.
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More importantly, on that day, all
who follow Jesus will finally be healed of the sin sickness that has plagued us
since our birth!
•
That will make us free from the
burdens that have held us back and we will be like young animals running around
the fields playing and having fun.
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Hallelujah, what a Savior! We must do
all that we can to ensure that we are ready for that day!
Verse 5 – See, I will send the
prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.
•
One way to be ready for that day is
to be watching for the prophet “Elijah” who will prepare us to receive Jesus
when He comes.
•
This prophecy was fulfilled literally
430 years later when John the Baptist came and proclaimed that Jesus was the
Messiah and prepared the way for the Jews to receive Jesus.
•
Some people argue whether John the
Baptist was the fulfillment of this prophecy or not.
•
We know John the Baptist was the
fulfillment of this prophecy because the angel Gabriel said he would be in Luke
1:11-17.
•
Jesus also said John the Baptist was
the fulfillment of that prophecy in Matthew 17:10-13.
•
But in a practical sense, anytime
someone seeks to help another person discover faith in Christ, then God is
using that person as a modern day “Elijah” in someone else’s life.
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We have had many “Elijahs” help us
find faith.
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We should seek to be an Elijah to
someone else.
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These are the days of Elijah and we
should be the voice of Elijah crying out!
Conclusion:
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God is gracious and gives us many
chances, but when the end finally comes we had better be ready because all our
chances will be used up.
•
It is impossible to know when that
end will be, so we should live holy lives ready for Jesus’ return.
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When Jesus returns, it will be a
great a day of healing for those who followed Him but a terrible day of
judgment for those who rejected Him.
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We must be an “Elijah” to help others
find faith in Christ so they can be ready when Jesus returns.
