Well, let us turn to God's word
in the portion of scripture that we read and turning to the last
two verses in the book of Malachi chapter 4, verses 5 and 6, the
last two verses of the Old Testament, the end of the prophets, I will send you Elijah the prophet
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord
and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and
the heart of the children to their fathers lest I come and
smite the earth with a curse. The last two verses in here in
the Old Testament Scriptures and Here of course we read of
that great day, the day of the coming of the Lord, the day of
grace, the day in which we are favoured to be living, even this
Gospel day. In words of the chapter we read,
Behold the day cometh that shall burn as an oven and All the proud,
yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble, and the day
that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that
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 ye shall go forth and grow up as calves of
the stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked,
and they shall be ashed under the soles of your feet, in the
day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts. It's interesting
to observe what we have there at the end of that first verse.
God speaks of the day that I shall do this. And we observe again
in the authorised version a word in italics, the word this. In
other words, the words that's been introduced by the translators,
it's not there, it's not a translation of a word that's found here in
the original Hebrew. And we know that the word do
could also be rendered make, and so it is pointed out that
the expression could be rendered somewhat differently in the day
that I shall make. in the day that I shall make,
saith the Lord God." The psalmy says this, is the day that the
Lord hath made and isn't this day in which we're living, this day of the Lord, this Gospel
day, what God himself has ordained and appointed and also decreed
that we should be living at such a time, and living in such a
nation that has been favoured with the Gospel of His grace. The Day of the Lord then, it
is that great Gospel dispensation, often spoken of in the Old Testament
as the latter days, or the last day, or the great day. T.V. Moore in his commentary
on Malachi makes the observation that the mission of the Lord
Jesus Christ is to be regarded as a whole from the manger of
Bethlehem to the great throne of judgment. From Christ's first
coming to Christ's second coming then. We have that which is referred
to in the Old Testament as the Day of the Lord. Now, it is of
course to us the Day of Grace and we see that quite clearly
in what is said here in the second verse. It is referenced to the
Lord Jesus Christ Himself as the Son of Righteousness, arising
with healing in His wings or in His beams. Unto you that fear
my name shall the Son of Righteousness arise with healing in his beings. But how this great day of the
Lord is to be concluded is of course dreadful, and there is
reference to it even in this same short chapter that we have
at the end of the Old Testament. We don't only read of the Day
of Grace, but also ultimately that great day of judgment. In verse 3, ye shall tread down
the wicked, they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet
in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts. Oh, the day of the Lord is great.
and very terrible, and who can survive it?" asks Joel, another
of the Old Testament prophets. Now we find it time and again
when we turn to these books, these large books of the Old
Testament, often we refer to them as the Minor Prophets, not
that they are any less, the Lord's servants and Men such as Isaiah
or Jeremiah or Ezekiel, we simply use the word minor because their
writings are much shorter than those major books that we find
in the earlier part of the Old Testament. Time and again, as
these men come to speak the word of God, they solemnly set before
us that dreadful day that is yet to come when all things are
to be wound up, when the Lord Jesus Christ is to return in
power and great glory. Amos says, Woe unto you that
desire the day of the Lord! To what end is it for you? The day of the Lord is darkness,
he says, and not light. But as we come to look at these
words that conclude the Old Testament Scriptures, I want us to consider
more particularly that great promise that we have here concerning
Christ's coming, and it concerns of course His first coming. The ushering in of the Day of
Grace, the ministry that is spoken of here, is that of him who is
the great harbinger and forerunner of the Day of the Lord. The reference
is to John the Baptist in particular. Behold, I will send you Elijah,
the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful Day
of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of
the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children
to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with the
curse. The promised end of Christ's
coming. And observing two things with
regards to this coming, there is first of all a ministry that we see to be preparatory,
preparatory to the coming of the Lord. Now all of the Old
Testament is preparatory but we see that there is one who
is in particular called to prepare the way of the Lord. When Christ
comes to the end of his own earthly ministry he certainly acknowledges
and recognizes that preparatory ministry of the Old Testament
propagates. When we read of his resurrection
and his appearances there at the end of Luke's Gospel, we
see how Christ reminds his own disciples of those things that
had been written in the Old Testament, that it now had their fulfilment
in himself. Right at the end then of Luke's
Gospel in verse 44 of the last chapter, Christ comes and appears
again amongst his disciples and says unto them, These are the
words which I spoke unto you while I was yet with you, that
all things, all things, must be fulfilled which were written
in the Lord of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms concerning
them. Then we are told how He opened
their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures.
They were brought to see and to acknowledge then that all
that was written of old, all that Old Testament ministry is
a preparation for His coming, preparatory to the New Testament
Scriptures, but as I said there is one who is in particular sent
to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and
that one of course is the person who is spoken of here in our
text under the name Elijah, but the reference is to is to John
the Baptist. We know that from what we read
in other parts of scripture, in other parts of the New Testament.
If you turn to Matthew, in Matthew's Gospel, there in chapter 11 of
Matthew, in verse 11 following, the Lord Jesus says, Verily I
say unto you, among them that are born of women, there hath
not risen a greater than John the Baptist. notwithstanding
he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom
of heaven suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the
law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this
is Elias which was for to come. He that hath ears to hear, let
him hear. How the Lord Jesus Christ can
hear clearly speaks of that ministry, the ministry of John the Baptist. And then again, in the same Gospel
of Matthew, in a later chapter there, in chapter 17, and verse 10, we find the disciples. asking why, asking the question
of Christ. Why then say the scribes that
Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto
them, Elias truly shall first come and restore all things. But I say unto you that Elias
is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him
whatsoever they listed. Likewise also Likewise shall
also the Son of Man suffer of them." Then the disciples understood
that he spoke unto them of John the Baptist. Clearly they had
not received what he had spoken previously in chapter 11. They
had not understood. They were asking the same question
all over again. But now they understand clearly
the ministry of John the Baptist, the one who is sent to prepare
the way for Christ. Behold, I will send you Elijah
the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day
of the Lord. And it is interesting to see
how even at the very commencement of Mark's Gospel we have reference,
specific reference to the words spoken of by Malachi. Mark's Gospel begins with that
simple statement, the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, as it is written in the Prophets. Behold, I send
my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before
thee. The reference isn't to the words
that we're considering, but the reference here is to the words
at the beginning of chapter 3 of Malachi, where we commence our
reading, as it is written in the Prophets. Behold, I send
my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before
thee, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare ye
the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." References then
to both Malachi and also to the prophecy of Isaiah. There is
this ministry that is preparatory to the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ, to the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some might
raise a query with regards to what John the Baptist himself
says concerning his ministry in the opening chapter of John's
Gospel. We have the record of John, the
record of John's ministry. There in chapter 1 of John's
Gospel and verse 19, this is the record of John, that is John
the Baptist, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem
to ask him, who art thou? And he confessed and denied not,
but confessed, I am not the Christ. And they asked him, what then?
Art thou Elias? And he said, I am not. He denies that he is Elijah. Now how are we to reconcile what
John is saying with the words that we've referred to, spoken
by the Lord Jesus Christ, where Christ acknowledges him to be
his forerunner. Well, what John is doing there
is to deny the false views of the Jews. He's not literally
Elijah. That's what the Jews expected,
that Elijah himself would come again and exercise his ministry. But John was not Elijah. John
was who he was. He was John the Baptist. However,
he comes as one who ministers in the spirit and the power of
Elijah. That's a significant expression.
He shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah. It's a similar ministry. He's
not Elijah as the Jews thought would be the case. the literal
return of that prophet. But it is one who is exercising
a ministry very similar. And John of course comes to prepare
the way. He comes preaching his baptism
of repentance. He calls the sinner to repentance. And we remember the purpose of
Christ's coming. Christ comes not to call the
righteous. Christ himself comes to call
sinners. and John's ministry is preparing.
Why? For that ministry of the Saviour
himself. There is then a preparatory ministry
to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when the Lord Jesus
Christ comes to the sinner personally, we're not thinking now of that
historical coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, but when the Lord
comes to an individual, when the Lord is pleased to deal with
us in that very personal and particular fashion, is there
not even then a certain preparation before there is that gracious
revelation of Christ in the soul? And we see that preparation often
times in terms of the ministry of the Lord of God. The Lord
of God, as it were, prepares the way for the coming of the
Gospel. And look at the context here
in the previous verse. Verse 4, we read, Remember ye
the Lord of Moses, my servant, which I commanded unto him in
Horeb for all Israel with the statutes and judgments. Always
to remember the Lord. The Lord is preparatory for the
coming of that great day of the Lord. And that is so, I say,
with regards to the way in which God is pleased to deal with sinners. Paul, in the writing in the New
Testament, tells us, We know that what things soever the law
saith, except to them who are under the law, that every mouth
may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. There is that ministry of the
law then, that is not just to Israel, it is given to Israel,
yes, there at Mount Sinai. It was that particular people
that God took to the mount and gave the Ten Commandments to. But there is that wider ministry
of the law as Paul speaks of it in Romans chapter 3. that
all the world, he says, all the world may become guilty before
God and in that great and dreadful day of judgement at the end of
the day of Christ when the books are opened, will not the book
of the law be opened? and will not the wicked and the
sinner be judged out of those things that are written in the
book of the law? The law exposes men for what
they are. It exposes them as sinners. It shuts their mouths. They have
nothing to plead. They are transgressors. They
have broken the law. They have fallen short of the
glory of God that is revealed in the law. Whosoever committeth
sin transgresseth also the law, says John. For sin is the transgression
of the law. That is our word. Sin is defined
then, even in the New Testament Scripture. It is the breaking
of the holy law of God. And I say, God deals with his
people in terms of that law that they, the transgressors, are.
And he is preparing the way in their souls for the coming of
the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Before faith came, we
were kept under the law. Shut up, says Paul. shut up to
the faith which it after would be revealed. Oh, it's by that
Lord of God that there comes that awful knowledge of sin. It is in that sense that ministration
of condemnation to the sinner. It condemns the sinner. It only
ministers death to the sinner. There's no life in the Lord of
God. Remember ye the Lord of Moses,
my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel
with the statutes and judgments. And what does that Lord do? It
serves the sinner. And it serves the sinner, Paul
says, as that schoolmaster. The Lord is a schoolmaster to
bring us to Christ. How we have to be brought to
say that all of salvation is only in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in that sense serving the
Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel must have the priority
and the Lord is but preparatory to that gospel. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes it says or the
law at its fulfilment, its accomplishment in the Lord Jesus Christ. With
regards to what is sometimes referred to as the moral law,
the law of the Ten Commandments, Christ is that one who is made
of a woman and is made under the law. and therefore he comes
and he is in that law place of his people and for them he will
answer with regard to all that the law requires of them, he
will obey its commandments for his people, he will accomplish
righteousness by the obedience of his sinless life and he will
also of course suffer. He will suffer as the one who
is their substitute and bear in his own person the penalty
that they deserve as those who were the breakers of that law.
And so Christ is the end of the law for the believer. But then besides what some might
refer to as the moral law, there are also those ceremonial laws. And what do we read here in verse
4? We have the Lord of Moses, which God commanded unto him
in Horeb, with the statutes and judgements. Or there are other
statutes, other judgements, other laws, there is a ceremonial law.
Now it is interesting when we take account of the context.
Here is Malachi, he is minishing the word of God, and he is minishing
of course in a particular situation, He is ministering in the days
of a man like Nehemiah and we know that there were those in
the days of Nehemiah who despised the temple of the Lord. Remember
how Ezra had returned and there had been the rebuilding of the
temple of the Lord but that was as far as they had gone really.
Jerusalem was still in ruin and when Nehemiah hears of these
things there in Shushan in the king's palace he desires that
he might return to Jerusalem and attend to the rebuilding
of the walls and he rebukes, he rebukes those who were there
why is the house of the Lord forsaken here? Why have they
not completed this task that they have gone to before? Why
were they despising the temple of the Lord? And there were those
who were prophesying the Lord's messengers at that time, and
we see it here in Malachi, and Malachi will come and he will
rebuke the people in the first chapter. And there in in verse
7 he says ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar and ye say wherein
have we polluted them? in that ye say the table of the
Lord is corrupted they were not doing all that
they should have been doing there they were failing so miserably
again at verse 12 he says ye have profaned it in that ye say
the table of the Lord is polluted and the fruit thereof, even his
meat, is contemptible. The table of the Lord is referred
to the altar. And the sacrifices, they were
not bringing those proper sacrifices that have been prescribed under
the laws and the precepts and the statutes of Moses. And so
they are being rebuked by the prophets. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ has come
as that one who is not only honoured and magnified the Lord of the
Ten Commandments. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
one who is the fulfilment of all that was prefigured and all
that was typified in those sacrifices, in all those levitical laws that
they were despising. Christ is that true tabernacle
which the Lord, pitched and not man, Christ is the substance
of those things, He is the fulfilment of all that was there in type
and in shadow in the Old Testament. He foreshadows them. And in Christ
we have the substance, the body of these things. All the Old
Testament in that sense is a preparation. for the coming of the great day
of the Lord. And so, the Old Testament concludes
on this note, directing us particularly to the ministry of John who is
the greatest of all the Old Testament prophets. Behold, I will send
you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful
day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of
the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children
to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with the
curse. Let us turn in the second place
to the real fulfilment of all those things that were being
foretold and prefigured in the Old Testament, the fulfilment
that we find in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, John the Baptist's
ministry was clearly a most fruitful ministry. He is the greatest
of all the Old Testament prophets. But remember those words that
we read in Matthew chapter 11. Christ goes on to say, He that
is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater Though John's ministry
was the greatest in terms of what had gone before in the Old
Testament, Christ says here that his least in the Kingdom of Heaven
is greater than John the Baptist. Are we not to recognise it? that
the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ himself is, of course,
the greatest of all the ministries that were ever exercised here
upon the earth. And what is the great promise
that God has given to us in the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ?
Well, God has said that in this new covenant He is going to do
a gracious work in the soul of the sinner. The turning of the
heart, the turning of the heart. Remember that we have spoken
of by Ezekiel for example, back in Ezekiel chapter 36, we have the promise of the New
Covenant, And we have it there in terms of a new heart and a
new spirit. The reading also, the previous
verse, verse 25 in Ezekiel 36, then God says, will I sprinkle
clean water upon you and you shall be clean from all your
filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new
spirit also will I give you A new heart also will I give you and
a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the
stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of
flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk
in my statutes and you shall keep my judgments and do them. All of this is the promising
of the new covenant, that promise of the work that God is pleased
to do in the soul of the sinner. The turning of the heart, as
we have it here in this final verse in Malachi chapter 4, the
turning of the heart. Now, when we consider the state
of man's heart, do we not recognize that here is the great fault
in man? It is something It is the man
himself. It is all that he is. And God
says as much himself. The heart, he says, is deceitful
above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Who
can know it? We cannot know our own hearts.
We cannot know the depth of our fall and our sinnership. We have
it right at the beginning, do we not? So soon after the creation
of man, Even in Genesis chapter 6, God saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth and every imagination of the
thought of his heart was only evil continually. Every imagination
of the thought of his heart. We're told it's a Hebrew idiom
that we have there. But it indicates, it's all that
the man is. Here is man's great thought.
It's something inward. It's man himself. It's the heart
of man. And yet, what does the Lord Jesus
Christ say concerning that kingdom that he has come to establish?
It's different to all the kingdoms of the world. It's a spiritual
kingdom. He says, behold, the kingdom
of God is within you. It's within you. This is where
God does his great work of salvation. He does it in the soul of the
sinner. And it is a mighty work. The Kingdom of God, says Paul,
is not in words, but in power. And God must come and accomplish
such a glorious change in the soul of that man, that woman,
who by nature are but dead in their trespasses and in their
sins. When Paul writes to the Thessalonians,
does he not remind them of the way in which the gospel had come
to them? Under his own ministry, yes. He was an instrument, but the
work was very much the work of God. Only God could make that
word that he proclaimed to the Thessalonians effectual. Paul
couldn't do it. Our Gospel, he says, came not
unto you in word only. That was what Paul could do.
He could speak the words, he could proclaim the message. But
the Gospel came to the Thessalonians, he says, not in word only, but
in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. God must do this work in the
heart of the sinner. And so I say that the gospel
is really a powerful ministry. What is this day of grace? It is the great day of the Lord. And it is marked, you know, in
a sense, by the ministry of God the Holy Ghost. This is the day
of the Holy Spirit in that sense. We have His glorious coming in
Acts chapter 2. Previous to that, back in John
chapter 7, where we see Christ ministering in the temple, and
He makes reference there to the ministry of the Spirit, but what
did John say? He says the Spirit was not yet
given because Jesus was not yet glorified. There's a connection between
the coming of Christ and Christ accomplishing his great work
of redemption here upon the earth and how ultimately the cross
leads to the crown. He who was so humbled upon the
cross who humbled himself and gave himself that great sin-atoning
sacrifice, is he not now glorified, exalted, and ascended and seated
at God's right hand, and there in the heavens he is the one
who reigns, God has committed all authority into the hands
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is the one who sheds abroad
the Holy Ghost, as Peter says in the course of his preaching
there. Him being exalted by the right
hand of God, the Father hath shed forth this which ye now
see and hear, saith Peter. This gospel day, this day of
the Lord, this day that the Lord hath made, it is the day of the
Holy Ghost. And what does the Spirit do?
He comes to reveal Christ. He comes to make Christ known.
When the Lord Jesus Christ In John's Gospel speaks of that
ministry, those chapters 14 and 15 and 16 where he has so much
to say concerning the comforter whom he will send from the Father. What is the ministry of the comforter?
Christ speaks of him as that one who will come to testify
of murder. He doesn't speak of himself.
He takes of the things of Christ and he makes those things of
Christ known unto the sinner. And he must work, you see, in
the sinner's heart. This is where the spirit works.
Deploying the message of salvation. He shall turn the heart of the
fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to
their fathers. Lest I come and smite the earth with a curse,
says the prophet as God's mouth puts it. It is a great blessing,
is it not, to have a real heart religion. to know that ministry
of the Spirit. For God the Holy Ghost to work
effectually in the heart. And what does he do? He convinces
the sinner of his sin. He makes the sinner remember
that law of Moses. And there that law is a spirit
of condemnation. How the sinner is made to see
just what he is, or the conviction of his sin, but it doesn't finish
there. He is only making way for the coming of Christ. That is the great thing, ultimately.
That's what we must not, of course, come short of. It's one thing
to know that we're sinners, and I trust that we all know that,
we're all aware of that. And that's part of the reason
why we feel we must come into a service such as this and hear
the word of God, we know we're sinners. But it's not enough
simply to know we're sinners, we must know that there is one
who is the saviour of sinners. And what we should desire surely
above everything is that Christ himself might come even into
our hearts. And that all this preparatory
work by the Holy Spirit might ultimately
lead to such a powerful revelation of Christ. Paul had to come to
that, he was under conviction of sin. Doubtless he was under
some very real soul concern at the martyrdom of Stephen. But
he is kicking against the pricks. How his conscience goes But ultimately
there must come that powerful revealing of Christ. As we see
in Acts chapter 9 there at Damascus, the very gate of the city, there
is that powerful revealing. And when he writes to the Galatians
he speaks of how he pleads God, he says, to reveal his Son in
all God rather we might know such a revelation. that we might understand not
only the historical significance of the words that we have here
at the end of the Old Testament, this ministry that was preparatory
to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, but also that we might
understand something of the spiritual significance in our own experiences. Behold, says the Prophet, God's
mouthpiece, I will send you Elijah the Prophet, before the coming
of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn
the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the
children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with
a curse. Amen.