If you turn in your Bibles to
Malachi, I was counting them up, but Malachi
finishes with the most extraordinary number of promises of God. 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, at least 10 and probably more in the last
5 or 6 verses of Malachi. I'll start reading from verse
16 because not only does it speak about the Lord Jesus coming,
but it speaks about the great vision amongst humanity. Verse
16, chapter 3 of Malachi. Then they that feared the Lord
spoke often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard
it. And a book of remembrance was written before him for them
that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name. And they
shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, on that day when I
make up my jewels. And I will spare them, as a man
spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return and
discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that
serves God and him that serves him not. For behold, the day
cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea,
all that do wickedly shall be stubble. And the day that cometh
shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, and it shall leave
them neither root nor branch, but unto you. that fear my name
shall the son of righteousness arise with healing in his wings
and you shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall. And you shall tread down the
wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet
in the day that I shall do this, says the Lord of hosts. Remember
ye the law of Moses, my servant, which I commanded unto him in
Horeb for all Israel, with statutes and judgments. Behold, I will
send you Elijah the prophet before the great before the coming of
the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And He shall turn the
hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the
children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with
a curse." I wanted to look more closely this evening, if the
Lord allows, at verse 2 of chapter 4. We looked a little bit a few
weeks ago at the righteous judgment of our God upon all the wicked. It is a righteous thing that
He'll do, a great and dreadful day. But verse 2, in the midst
of all of that bleakness and all of that darkness, and Malachi
lived in a day just as every other day has been upon this
earth, a day when the people of God are a small remnant and
a remnant that seems feeble and seems weak and seems in a sense
pressed into corners, and a remnant when it looks around at the things
in the religion of the world is caused to be despairing. Is the Gospel going to win? Will God win? Will righteousness
reign? Will grace reign? And the answer,
of course, the answer is an absolute, emphatic, yes, it will. Our God reigns. So in verse 1, he talks of the
wicked. He talks of that day coming,
that day, and they will be like stubble, and the overriding description
of all of the wicked is in that first sentence, isn't it? All the proud. All the proud. That day shall burn them up,
says the Lord of Hosts, and shall leave them neither root nor branch,
but unto you. There is a difference There is
a difference that God in grace makes between humanity. There are ultimately just two
groups of human beings. There are the wicked and there
are these ones described here. There is a difference that God
alone makes. He says, I will make a difference.
You will see that God alone has made the difference. But unto you that fear my name. We looked at this some weeks
ago, didn't we? They feared the Lord in verse
16. They spoke often one to another. They spoke often one to another
about the Lord Jesus. And wonderfully, the Lord hears,
the Lord hearkens, and a book of remembrance is written before
him for them that thought upon his name. And then there's a
promise, isn't there? But unto you that fear my name
shall. It's wonderful, isn't it, to
think of the shalls of God and the wills of God, the absolute
promises of God. They are yes and amen. He speaks,
our God speaks, and reality is. 17. They shall be mine, says the
Lord of hosts, when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them. I will set them aside for special
use, as a man spares his own son. He's talking about his elect. The elect who are the elect in
the elect one. Isaiah 42, 1 says of the Lord
Jesus, He is mine elect. Election is God's covenant love
language. We needn't shy away from it,
brothers and sisters. Election is a precious gospel
truth. But unto you that fear my name,
and here we have this amazing description of the Lord Jesus,
the Son of Righteousness. The Son of Righteousness shall
arise with healing in his wings and you shall go forth and grow
up as calves of the stall." There are just six beautiful pictures
of our Lord Jesus and His coming out there. He arises. The Lord
Jesus arises. He arises as the rising sun arises. He shines with beams. He arises with healing in His
wings. He sets the calves of the stall
free. That word can easily be translated
as yoked or tied up ones. He sets them free and He makes
the freed calves of grace to be like leaping calves in an
open field. For those of you who had anything
to do with cattle, Graham has no doubt seen it many a time.
Cattle or sheep, if you let them loose after they've been tied
up, they jump and they bound and they just delight in freedom. What pictures there are in this
of the Lord Jesus. We can't exhaust them this evening,
but they are just beautiful, aren't they? When you think of
creation, those first words that was spoken by our God, let there
be light in the garden after the fall when darkness had come.
There is that great promise, isn't it? The seed of the woman
will crush the serpent's head in the darkness of the days of
Noah. There was light, wasn't there? And Noah preached righteousness
for the best part of a hundred years or more. A preacher of
righteousness. There was life. arising in the
call of Abraham, called out of Ur of the Chaldees, called by
God his friend, called to a special relationship, called to a special
place, called to be the father of a special family, the father
of the faithful. What great light there was that
came upon those slaves in Egypt when the Lord Jesus came and
that Passover at night. But in those houses of the Israelites
there was a substitute who was light and salvation for his people. his light for his people in a
darkened world. And then there is that amazing
light, wasn't it, when he arose at his incarnation and heaven's
angels came and sang of his glories and sang of his triumph. And then in his life, in that
remarkable life, That remarkable life which is our lives, brothers
and sisters, isn't it? He walked before God and man
as light. He was the light into all of
that darkness. He arose. He arose out of nothing. He arose in the midst of the
darkness of the religion of Israel. He arose and He shone. And what
light, what light was dispelled, what darkness was revealed, what
darkness was uncovered, what dark ones were healed by Him. What remarkable things He did.
What a remarkable being He is, our Lord Jesus. They only got
the glimpse in, didn't they? The three of them had a glimpse
of Him on that Mount of Transfiguration. And He shone as the sun and His
clothes were as light. And in that dark garden, in that
dark garden, and his soul was troubled and
great drops of blood fell in that garden. And then in that
tomb, in on that cross and then in that tomb, our Saviour. Our Saviour was light, wasn't
He? He stooped to death in the tomb
because His bride had fallen under the yoke of death. She deserved the full punishment
of God's divine law. And He bore her strokes and bowed
His head. And then He arose, didn't He? He arose magnificently. He arose respendently, didn't
He? When He died, the veil was torn
in two into the Holy of Holies. And when He arose, He arose as
a priest. A victorious high priest, he
came out of that tomb with his robes of glory and with his robes
of beauty. And then his light shone remarkably
that day to those 120 people. And who did they preach? They
came out of those weeks and they came out into all of
that dark world and they preached light. They preached Him in Acts
and it's gone on through all of these days. The Son of Righteousness
has arisen. He's arisen with healing in His
wings and He's arisen in the hearts of His people throughout
all time. The same Lord Jesus that Abel
worshipped is the same Lord Jesus that arises in the hearts of
his people today. He continues to arise, doesn't
he? Remarkably and wonderfully. There are two things that people
desperately need, aren't there? One is light. and the other is
healing. They need light to see and they
need eyes to be able to see. You see, this verse presupposes
some things which are realities, aren't they? Realities in all
of this creation, but realities in all the lives of everyone
in this place, in this world, throughout time. You see, it
presupposes that there's a darkness. It presupposes that there's an
unrighteousness. It presupposes that there is
a disease, that there is a captivity, that there is a helplessness
and a despondency under it. The sign of righteousness arises
Only those who know about the darkness welcome the light. Only those who know themselves
to be sinners know the desperate need of another's righteousness.
Only the sick need a doctor. Only the prisoners need freedom. Only the weary and the heavy
laden know the value of rest and peace. And in all of these
things, it's only when the Lord Jesus arises do we see all of
those things with clarity. You see, I have on my desk something
that Jenny Bill gave me some time ago. It's Psalm 18, 28.
It stares at me every day. It says, for thou will light
my candle. The Lord my God will enlighten
my darkness. Personally, salvation is a sun
rising. Salvation is light, isn't it? We often quote 2 Timothy 1-12. It's amazing how often in the
original the word light is involved here. For God has not given us
the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So be thou, be not thou therefore
ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor me as your prisoner,
but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God, who has saved us. and called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world
began, but is now made manifest, now brought to light by the appearing
of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and has
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Whereunto I am appointed a preacher,
and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles, for the which
cause I also suffer these things. Nevertheless I am not ashamed,
for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able
to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. Paul was a man who lived in great
darkness. He lived in the worst kind of
darkness that you could ever have, isn't it? A darkness where
he thought it was light. He thought that it was really
light that he had. As the Lord Jesus says in Matthew
6, He says, If the light that's in you How deep is that darkness? How dark is the darkness? Ignorance and pride, enmity against
God, but blindness entered the world. So dark is the darkness
that people have no idea that it's dark. I love the story I
heard from someone in America, of an American Indian who went
out each morning at the sunrise and he walked out of this hovel
in his rags and he pointed to the rising sun as it was about
to rise and he said it will rise there and he directed the sun
to go across the sky and to set in this place. Such is the depth of the darkness
of humanity. What a shocking darkness it is. What a shocking darkness sin
and Satan has brought to this world. What a remarkable thing
that the Lord Jesus is the Son of Righteousness. He arises Isn't
it wonderful? The sun is the centre of our
solar system. It borrows nothing from anyone. It has all fullness. It just
rises, doesn't it? It rises by its own power, in
its own way. God, our Lord Jesus, is the centre
of our solar system, isn't he, for Christians. He's the centre
of all God's decrees. He's the centre of God's word.
He's the centre of all church. He's the centre of worship. He
is the centre. He is the hub, isn't he? He is
what holds this whole solar system together. remarkably captivated
by him as it turns and turns around. He's not only the centre, He
is what brings light to all of it. None of it has light in itself. All of the light of all of the
rest of the solar system is light that comes from one source. He brings light where there is
darkness. He brings knowledge and He brings
meaning out of this world. that is just so blind, that is
like that Indian, is as ignorant and blind. You see, ignorance
and pride go hand in hand, don't they? Pride is just ignorance
of who we are and what we are. Pride is just ignorance of who
God is and what this creation is really about. It's a terrible blind darkness
that Satan brought us under. And only the Lord Jesus, arising
with healing in his wings, brings understanding. The sun shall
no more be thy light by day, for the brightness shall the
moon give light unto thee, but the Lord shall be unto thee an
everlasting light, thy God and thy glory. Without the Lord Jesus,
we cannot see. Without God's sovereign sending
of Him, as the sun rises without the effort of man, the Lord Jesus
arises in the hearts of His people. For God, who commanded light
to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. Without Him, we cannot see. What a remarkable promise this
Old Testament finishes with. That He will come. He will be
warmth. He will be light. He will arise. He'll bring warmth to dead, dark
hearts. He'll bring, it says so wonderfully,
He'll bring life. The sun brings life. The sun
brings fruitfulness. The sun allows for direction,
isn't it? His word is a light unto our
path and a lamp unto our feet. to light unto our path to see
the way ahead, to lamp unto our feet so we can see where we are,
what we are and whose we are. But I love the way the sun is
pictured with its beams of righteousness, streams of mercy never ceasing. The beams of the sun A multitude
can bask in the beams of the sun, and there's still an infinite
amount left, isn't there? Beams of righteousness. None
but the Lord Jesus is righteousness. For what has God made him unto
his people? He has made him. He has made
him to his elect. but of Him you are in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption." Everything the sinner needs is
in the Lord Jesus. He's righteous. Judgment will
I lay to the line and righteousness to the plummet. God is saying
there's a standard of rightness. There's a standard of righteousness
which is absolutely perfectly perpendicular and points to just
one particular spot. His righteousness. That is the
standard. When He comes with healing in
His wings and those streams of righteousness flow to needy sinners,
we see that He is righteous and we know ourselves to be unrighteous. And all that we need, all that
we need to be right with God is in Him and provided by Him. He comes to make things right. When the Lord Jesus comes, He
sets things right. When He comes the second time,
it will be set right. On the Day of Judgement, it will
be right. It will be a righteous judgement. Our sin, God's righteous judgement
on sin, His love, His mercy, all of these things exalt the
glory of Him, and that glory is untarnished. Isn't it amazing
that He says in that last prayer with His disciples, He talks
about having restored to Him the glory He had with the Father
before the world began. Isn't it remarkable? Before our
sins, in his own body on the tree. He bore them and shed his
life's blood unto death. And his glory is untarnished,
brothers and sisters. His glory remains the same because
the work is finished, he's put it away His blood has satisfied,
He's justified His people freely and they have His righteousness
imputed to them. And He comes and He arises with
healing in His wings in regeneration and He creates a new creation
and He gives to that new creation His righteousness. That's the
healing that we need, brothers and sisters, isn't it? He heals,
He has healing in His wings, just as the sun just shines like
wings across the horizon. Jehovah Raphael, the Lord that
heals you, who forgiveth, Psalm 103 verse 3, who forgiveth all
thine iniquities, who heals all your diseases. when He arises
with healing in His wings, and God's children are made to see
that they are perfectly righteous in Him, that their sins have
been perfectly and completely put away, that He lives in heaven,
glorified in heaven, representing them and interceding for them,
praying for them, presenting to God those wounds of His, which
have healed us, by His stripes we are healed. And when that
Son of Righteousness shall arise on that great day, when we will
see Him as He is, because we will be like Him, God, He'll
wipe away all tears from their eyes, there shall be no more
death, nor sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more
pain, for the former things have passed away. to be healed is as the Sama said,
when I awake in your likeness I shall be satisfied. To be healed is to be satisfied. When he arises with healing in
his wings he will then set these ones that are yoked and bound
free. When the sun rises, freedom begins. Bondage is over. If the sun therefore shall make
you free, you shall be free indeed. Free from the curse of the law. Free from the bondage of the
law. The freedom that he talked about
in Isaiah 61 and mentioned in his first sermon in Luke 4 is
a freedom from religion. What a glorious freedom it is,
brothers and sisters, for you and me not to have any righteousness
that we have to create. Not any righteousness that we
have to do. What freedom? Do you remember
the freedom you felt when the Gospel came? The sun arose with
healing in his wings. Do you remember what it was like?
I can take you to the places where I was set free. Glorious
freedom. Freedom from the curse of the
Lord. Freedom from the fear of death. Freedom from fear of standing
face to face with God Almighty in all of His glorious holiness. What does he say about those
people? They are his jewels. His jewels, he makes them up,
he spares them and he spares them as a man spares his own
son. Sets them aside as precious. as this man sets aside his only
son. Freedom. And then they delight. They delight in their God wrought
grace, freely given freedom. They grow up, they leap around,
it really means they become frisky. They rejoice in their day and
they leap for joy. by Thee I have run through a troop, run
through an enemy's camp, and by my God I have leapt over a
wall. You see, we live in a world where
the sun shines. It seems as if the night is powerful,
isn't it? And then the sun rises in the
morning and it just dispels the darkness effortlessly. And then the clouds come, don't
they? Clouds of sin, clouds of doubt,
clouds of persecution, clouds of worldliness, clouds from Satan. And what happens when the darkest,
darkest clouds are upon the face of the earth? It's one of the
wonderful things about flying in aeroplanes, isn't it? What's
it like up there? The sun shines as bright as ever. The clouds will disperse. The sun of righteousness will
arrive with healing in his wings and you shall go forth and grow
up as calves of the stall. What a great promise. What a
great promise at the end of such an extraordinary book of the
sinfulness and the wickedness of man and the glory and grace
of our God. Healing. He arises with healing
in His wings and He sets the prisoners free. Let's pray.