Malachi chapter four and reading
from verse one. For 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,
for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet. In the
day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts. Remember ye
the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in
Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. 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 a curse. Amen. May God be pleased to bless
us and to bless this portion of his word to our hearts and
to our thoughts. We're going to touch upon all
of these verses this evening. But in my thinking, in my preparation,
upon my own reflection, I was taken by the phrase that we encounter
in this fifth verse. There's much in all of these
verses. I trust the Lord will enable
us to dwell upon each appropriate part. But in the fifth verse
we're told, before the coming of the great
and dreadful day of the Lord. And I was taken by that little
phrase, the great and dreadful day of the Lord. Because when we think about the
coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into this world, I'm not sure
that great and dreadful would immediately be the words that
would come to mind. Indeed, we discover that when
the incarnation, when the coming of Christ, when Christ's entrance
into this physical world in a human body was revealed from heaven
to earth. It's often that emphasis of peacefulness
that is given to us, joy that is spoken of. We remember when
the angels first announced the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ
as a little babe in the manger. It was with reference to the
glory of God and to peace on earth. Goodwill towards men. And that's right. That's exactly
right. Those angels were not mistaken
in their accolades. They were not wrong. They were
not simply giving us half a story. It is right that we think about
this great and glorious work of peace and goodwill that was
revealed in the coming of the Lord Jesus. And yet, we have
to distinguish between the peace that was won for the elect at
the cross by the Prince of Peace, and the affliction that followed. The affliction of the wicked,
if you like, that followed. Because the Lord Jesus Christ
himself attested in Matthew chapter 10 and verse 34, think not that
I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but
a sword. And here perhaps we can begin
to discern something of the duality, the two aspects, the parallel
message that we have to think about in the context of the incarnation
of Christ. When we speak about that day,
that day of the coming of Christ, when we think about the day of
the coming of Christ that was spoken of by John the Baptist,
by that messenger that was sent before the Lord, who himself
is described as the messenger of the covenant, That was our
reference a little earlier to the fact that Malachi means message
or messenger. And so the messenger Malachi
gave us a message, his prophecy, about a messenger, John the Baptist,
who would bring a message of the messenger of the covenant,
who is the Lord Jesus Christ. So lots of messages and messengers
going on here. But when we think about this
message and we think about peace on earth, we need to remember
that it was a great day of the Lord for the peace that was accomplished. but it was a dreadful day of
the Lord also. This is a great and dreadful
day that we are considering this evening when we come to think
about the work and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have
to distinguish between these two. We see that there is a peace,
a peacefulness, a peaceableness, that is found in Christ because
of his work, because of his accomplishments. And that is the gospel of good
news. That is what we are commissioned
to preach. That is what we rejoice in. That
is what we share together with each other. We read last time
we were here together in chapter three, that in verse 16 of chapter
three, then they that feared the Lord speak often one to another. And what did they speak about?
They spoke about this peace, this peace that comes from the
Lord Jesus Christ, this gospel, this good news, this work of
deliverance and salvation and redemption that Jesus Christ
has accomplished. But there is judgment too. There
is judgment. There is a peace in accepting
and there is sorrow in rejecting. And the juxtaposition of the
blessing and the curse, the contrast that there is between the greatness
and the glory and the awfulness and the dreadfulness of the coming
of the Lord is part of the fullness of the message that we declare. We have to be honest when we
come before men and women. We have to speak about heaven
and we have to speak about hell. We have to acknowledge that there
is peace to be found, there is gospel good news. but that there
is a punishment and a judgment and a condemnation also. And as we set up the Lord Jesus
Christ, as we look to the Lord Jesus Christ, we cannot get away
from that. This is not simply the child
that came full of hope, full of this looking forward to a
time of blessedness. But the accomplishment of that
peace was worked out in dreadfulness and suffering and pain and anguish,
even as the Lord himself at the cross took upon himself the sins
of his people. So when we think about the coming
of the Lord, when we think about the day of the Lord, it is perhaps
appropriate that we remind ourselves that it was a great day when
the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world, but it was a dreadful
day also. And it's these things that I
hope to touch upon this evening as we come and think about this
passage. There is summed up in this description
of the day of the Lord, a work which is great and a work which
is dreadful. And we need to remember that
God's work is both awesome and awful. It's pleasing and it's
shocking. It's amazing. and it's appalling. Let us never think lightly of
God's unfolding plan of salvation. Indeed, it is true that our Deliverer
has attained a great salvation, but sin extracts a dreadful price. We have seen examples already
in our study of this book of Malachi. And in chapter three,
we had a couple of occasions to reflect upon the day of the
coming of the Lord. And there we encountered a question
when the coming of the Lord was anticipated. We were given a
question back in the early verses of chapter three, Let's just
look at verse 1 of chapter 3. And the Lord whom ye seek shall
suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant.
So there's those two messengers again, the messenger John the
Baptist and the messenger of the Lord Jesus Christ. He being
the messenger of the covenant, that is the one who comes and
reveals to us all of the covenant of God's grace, what we call
the covenant of peace, the everlasting covenant. and the blessings and
benefits of that covenant. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one that leads us into those covenant promises. So he is the
messenger of the covenant. So the messenger was sent to
prepare the way before the Lord, who is the messenger of the covenant,
in whom ye delight. Behold, he shall come, saith
the Lord of hosts. But, so there's good news, there's
good news. There's the great day of the
Lord, but, Who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall
stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire
and like fuller's soap. A refiner's fire, I guess we
know a little bit of what that's like. It takes out the dross,
but at what a cost. It's a melting pot. It's forceful. It's aggravating. It's fierce. And fuller soap, that's the roughest
kind of cleaning that you can get. You talk about cleansing,
that's where you get battered and battered and beaten. That's
like the pussycat in the tumble dryer. The washing machine, you
know, when they see the picture of the cat that climbs up into
the washing machine to lie down in the clothes and then they
get switched on. The fuller soap speaks of what
it is truly to be cleansed. And it can be a very hard and
difficult experience. He shall sit as a refiner and
purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and
purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the
Lord an offering in righteousness. In many respects, you could see
where anybody hearing a message like that is thinking to themselves,
what am I going to have to go through in order to obtain this
blessedness of which the covenant speaks? Who may abide the day
of his coming? From that, we may deduce that
it is a great day when the Lord cleanses our sins. But who could
stand the dreadful process it entails in that refining and
that purging? Then again in Malachi 3, verse
17, we saw another example. There the messenger Malachi,
he writes, and they shall be mine. saith the Lord of hosts,
in that day when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them
as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. My, it's a great and a wonderful
thing to be gathered into the body of Christ. It's a great
and wonderful thing to hear the gospel and to be so constrained
upon by God the Holy Spirit. Have these things laid so heavily
upon our hearts and upon our shoulders and upon our minds
that we are brought by force of power to that place of confession
of our sin and our need and our acknowledgement of the love and
grace of God towards us. I think many of us probably even
here have learned over the years a thinking which makes the idea
of coming to Christ a simple thing, an easy thing, a rather
inconsequential thing, a lifting of the hand or of coming to the
front or of some notion that it's a mere giving of one's willingness
The exercise of free will, the mere agreement or acceptance
of a proposition, a notion. It's a much harder thing to come
to Christ than that. It's a much more intense thing. You have to be put in that washing
machine. You have to know what it is that
has to be taken out of your soul. There has to be that ridding,
that purging, that refining, and it can be an extremely hard
and difficult experience. I suspect indeed that many of
us over the years have thought that we had come to Christ. only
to discover years later that it hasn't been a simple moment
in time, but a process and an experience and a hardship. There is a greatness about the
coming of the Lord, and there is a dreadfulness about the coming
of the Lord, and that, I believe, is often the experience of the
Lord's people. Yes, he made up his jewels, he
gathers his jewels. But like that master craftsman
who has to polish those stones, who has to mould that metal,
who has to create that crown, who has to forge and bring together
by the sheer effort of his power, that which he then is pleased
to hold up and proud to call his own. So the Lord's people
sometimes have to experience the grinding and the polishing
and the experience of bending until we are brought into that
knowledge of Christ as our saviour. And then there's the element
also of the drawing out of certain individuals and the leaving behind
of others. It's something that we are aware
of, but think of how dreadful that is. What would happen? What would
happen to us if we truly could understand the terribleness of
being eternally lost? If we could grasp what that entailed,
How much more would we appreciate what we have been saved to and
from? And yet, there are multitudes
around about us. The people you work with, the
people you shop with, the people you travel with, the people you
fish with, the people you share with, the people that you live
with in your own home, some of you. who yet are strangers to
grace. It's a dreadful thing to think
about what they're facing. It's a great day, and it is a
dreadful day, the day of the Lord. And now we have another
example, I think, in these verses before us of the great and dreadful
day of the Lord. Before I mention that, I just
want to draw your attention to the opening couple of words of
chapter four. We see that word behold, we've
encountered it as well a few times in this little book. And that, I think I mentioned
it before, the word behold is a word of explanation. And it is also a word of exclamation. It's saying to the reader, look,
but it's also saying, look out. And so somewhere between look
and look out, we find this word behold. Look out, the day cometh. that shall burn as an oven. Here is a warning indeed. A day that shall burn up the
wicked as if they were stubble, as if they were the waste of
the field, the choppings off that no one wants, that have
no value. They're good for nothing but
to be burned. and they will be consumed in
a righteousness of wrath and judgment. The imagery here that
is being conjured up, that is being set before us, is truly
fearsome. An oven. An oven. We know what it's like
to feel a burn. Somebody got burned in an iron
recently and it's left a scar on their wrist and others know
what it is to be burned. And a burn is a terrible, painful
thing. This is talking about an oven
and the burning up by the vengefulness of an offended holy God of those
who are wicked, the stubble of the field. A day of reckoning,
a dreadful day indeed. A day of giving account. A day when all covering will
be stripped away. Everything will just be instantly
consumed to where there is a bareness, a nakedness before a holy God. And that wicked soul will have
to stand in the presence of the fearsome, ferocious God, the
angry God, the offended God. It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of a holy God, says the writer to the Hebrews. A dreadful day in the coming
of the Lord. All excuses will be exposed. Every wretchedness and wickedness
will be laid bare. Every time the gospel was heard
and ignored will be brought to the memory of those who have
no hope anymore. We're told that there will be
neither root nor branch remaining. I wonder what that means. I thought about Genesis chapter
three and verse eight when Adam and Eve were in the garden. We're
told there that Adam and his wife hid themselves from the
presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. They used the branches and the
roots of those trees to hide themselves from the presence
of God. In that day which will be like
an oven, there will be no branches and there will be no roots. There
will just be the exposure of a guilty soul before the enduring
eternal wrath of God. Nothing to hide behind. Nothing to conceal our sin. or our shame. And yet, here in
the midst of this dreadful judgment that is explained to us in these
opening verses, there is a caveat, there is a but. The dreadful
judgment falls, but a great deliverance is effected. There's a promise
in here. There's gospel in the midst of
foreboding judgment. To those who fear the Lord, there
is a promise given. Now we've met these people before.
This isn't the first time we've been introduced to them in the
book of Malachi, those who fear the Lord. We saw them also in
verse 16. Then they that feared the Lord
spake 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 so here in verse two of chapter
four, but unto you that fear my name. So that's the same people
we're talking about. When that day that will come
as a burning oven, there is a promise given. The son of righteousness
shall arise with healing in his wings and ye shall go forth and
grow up as calves of the stall. This fear, those that fear the
Lord, isn't the guilty fear of a condemned man. It's not the
fear of a prisoner incarcerated without any hope of deliverance. Rather, this is a fear that speaks
of respect, a fear that speaks of understanding, of knowledge
and awareness, both of need and of the source of our help. It's the honour of our God by
those who have been made his sons and daughters. A fear in
the sense of reverence, a fear in the sense of admiration, a
fear in the sense of knowledge and worship for what he has done. And what a promise is set before
us here in verse two. The son of righteousness shall
rise with healing in his wings. There's a phrase to meditate
upon. There's a phrase to remember and to consider and to think
on day by day. It's the dawn of a great and
blessed day. The sunrise, the sun of righteousness
will rise. Of course, that's speaking about
the Lord Jesus Christ. A lovely little pun there on
sun. The sun rises in the morning,
but who is it speaking of? The Son of God. And so it's a
picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. in glorious type, in glorious
symbol, in the loveliness of the imagery. We've been confronted
here with a burning oven and stubble to be destroyed, but
here is healing, healing, ointment, balm. Here is healing in the
wings of the sun that rises on the dawn of a new day. At sunrise, the darkness fades
away. The darkness disappears. When
that sun starts to come over the horizon, you see the glow
in the sky and you know that day is about to break. And we think about day, we think
about a new start, we think about a new beginning. The darkness
has fled away. What does darkness do for us?
It engenders fear. It generates ignorance. When people are kept in the dark,
they're kept away from the light, from the light of understanding,
from knowledge. And we discover that there is
a purposefulness sometimes in keeping people in the dark. You
keep them in the dark, you can manipulate them. You keep them
in the dark, you can use them for your own purposes. You can
have them serve you. But what does Christ do? He brings
light. He brings understanding. He brings knowledge of divine,
heavenly, holy things. The Lord Jesus Christ brings
wisdom, spiritual wisdom to bear. So as the sun rises, So we become
wise, we become enlightened in the spiritual things of that
covenant of whom he is the messenger. The sun of righteousness rises. What else does sunrise do for
us? Well, it warms us up. The cold withdraws. The cold of the night dissipates. And we discover that there is
warmth to be had in the rising of the sun. And what is more comforting,
what is warmer than the embrace of a lover? than the embrace
and the comfort of one who cares for our souls. This is the warmth
that we desire in the midst of a cold and barren world to know
the Lord Jesus Christ's comfort. The sunrise occurs and the long
hours of night time departs. Have you ever had a pain in the
night. You know pain during the night
is sorer than pain during the day. Have you ever waited for
the morning to come when you've got a pain? It's the worst thing. But the son of righteousness
rises with healing in his wings. And the Lord Jesus Christ comes
to us in our pain. He comes to us in our heart. He comes to us in our grief. He comes to us in our longing.
And he satisfies our needs. What a saviour we have. What
a blessed picture we have of the healing in the wings of the
rising sun. The sun's healing power brings
life It brings growth, it brings fruitfulness, it brings blessing. And all of these things we discover
in the person of Jesus Christ. And the sunrise beckons a new
day, a fresh beginning, a new start. It's a beautiful metaphor,
the sun rise, the sun of righteousness rising, a beautiful metaphor
of new life that is found in Christ, of conversion and change
and alteration, a newness that comes to the Lord's people. You know, When you think about
those who have no concern for their soul, no thought of forgiveness,
no time for God, after you've seen something of the rising
of the Son of Righteousness, it's almost too hard to understand
why people would have such an attitude. Isn't it wonderful
to think about what the Lord has spoken of here? Isn't it encouraging for our
souls? Isn't it a source of joy and
happiness, blessedness, to think that we have a God who is ready
and willing and able to bestow such blessings as these upon
us? This is wonderful. Man, if you
could package this and market this, who wouldn't pay for it? And yet it's free, and it's disregarded,
thoughtlessly passed by. Is it nothing to you, all ye
that pass by? Ye shall go forth, says the Lord. Ye shall go forth, and grow up
as calves of the stall. Again, it's a lovely picture. To go forth is to go out. It is to enjoy freedom. It is
to be at liberty. Out of the darkness into the
light. That's the picture that we have
here before us. And the growing up of the calves,
the growing up, it speaks of maturity, of growing in truth
and growing in knowledge and growing in grace, growing in
our understanding of the righteousness of God at work in our lives. And I'm not saying that that
experience is always easy. We know that maturing and growing
can sometimes be a difficult time, a time of hardship, but
it's the promise of God. And it's wherever life is, there
will be growth. Calves of the stall. There's
another lovely image set before us. What does that speak about?
Maybe the farmers could tell me a little bit better, but I
guess it means that here is a prized possession. Here is a calf that
you don't just send out into the field. You make sure that
calf is fed on the alfalfa. It gets to eat the good stuff.
It gets fed at the stall. And that's the picture that the
Lord has for us here. Apprised possession. You know,
I think I've mentioned this to you before, but throughout scripture
there are numerous occasions when this little phrase is used.
Peter uses it in the New Testament and it's used several times in
the books of Moses as well. The picture of a peculiar people. Now we use the word peculiar
as being odd. If someone is peculiar, they're
a little bit odd. You just need to watch your step
with them. But that's not the meaning of
peculiar. Peculiar has got a much better
meaning than that. Peculiar comes from a word which
speaks of peccas. and a pecus was a cow or a large
animal. Not only a large animal, but
a large prized animal. And so when you speak about a
peculiar people, you're talking about the gems and the day that
I make up my jewels. That's peculiar. They're valued,
they're prized. Listen to what Moses says. This
is what he writes in Deuteronomy 14. Thou art an holy people unto
the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar
people unto himself. A peculiar people unto himself,
above all the nations that are upon the earth. Same book, chapter
26, Deuteronomy 26, 18. And the Lord hath avouched thee
this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and
that thou shouldst keep all his commandments. A peculiar people,
that's us, a prized possession. How can we keep all his commandments? How does this peculiar people
keep all his commandments? How can we be that holy people
that are here avouched or vouchsafed? There's another way of saying
that. Ascertained. How can we be this
holy people? And how does the rising of the
sun of righteousness meet those needs? How does this great and
dreadful day which is being spoken of here apply to us? Malachi 4 verse 4 says, Remember
ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in
Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Malachi
is reminding us here what holiness is really about. He's reminding
us here that there was a law given that spoke of the holiness
of God, that spoke of the perfection of the standard that God requires,
and thereby measured with a measuring rod the extent to which men and
women failed to come up to its standard. Never intended to make
you holy, only intended to expose how unholy you really are. But then he tells the people,
and these are beautiful verses, here at the end of this little
chapter here, look at verse five. Then he tells us, the Lord Jesus
Christ, this son of righteousness, will turn the hearts of his people. And that's what gospel preachers
do. That's what John the Baptist did. That's what the messengers
of the messenger of the covenant are about. That's their business.
Turning the hearts of the fathers and the children. If your heart
gets turned, it's turned away from the things that you used
to follow after, the places where your passions used to lead you,
to something else. It's a conversion, it's a change,
it's an alteration. And this is the work of grace,
this is the work of the gospel. And it's a beautiful work. It's
the work of healing that the son of righteousness accomplishes
in the hearts of his people. Turn with me to Luke chapter
1. I want to just take the time and read a couple of verses there
for you. I know we're watching the clock
a little bit here, but Luke chapter 1, look at verse 76, because
this is speaking of of John the Baptist, and it tells us here
of the work of John the Baptist. This is the commission of John
the Baptist, as it were, by the Holy Spirit. Verse 76 of Luke
chapter 1, And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the
highest. For thou shalt go before the
face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation
unto his people by the remission of their sins. Isn't that amazing? See, most people would tell you
that they become his people after they have knowledge of salvation.
But when John the Baptist, when gospel preachers bring the gospel
of good news, they give the knowledge of salvation to those who are
already his people in the covenant of grace. To give knowledge of
salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins through
the tender mercy of our God, whereby the day spring from on
high hath visited us. What's the day spring? Why, it's
the son of righteousness that is risen with healing in his
wings. The day spring from on high hath
visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and
in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. And the child grew, and waxed
strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his
showing unto Israel. What day is this that we have
before us? What day is this, this great
and dreadful day of the Lord that we're speaking about here?
Well, you know, I think it's a collection of days. I've been
a little bit unspecific, you've maybe noticed that, about talking
about this day of the Lord. What day actually is it? I say again, I think it's a collection
of days. I think it's these last days
in which we are in. These last days are spoken of
in the New Testament as the days from the coming of Christ the
first time in the incarnation to the second coming of Christ. These are the last days. People
say we're living in the last days, and yeah, we are, and we
have been for a while. These are the last days, rightly
so. And it is this day of salvation
in which we live that we are speaking about here. What is
this great and dreadful day of the Lord? Why, it's this day
of salvation. when the day spring from on high
has arisen, when the son of righteousness with healing in his wings is
evident to be seen. What is this day? What is this
great and dreadful day of the Lord? It is the day when Christ,
the long promised Messiah, came into this world. The day when
the angel sang to God's glory. The day when the covenant plan
was revealed by the messenger of the covenant. It was the day
when Jesus Christ himself, when God stooped to earth. But there was a price to be paid.
It was a great day, but it was a dreadful day also. Philippians
2 verse 8 says, being found in the fashion of a man, he humbled
himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross. A great day, yes, of the coming
of Christ, a dreadful day also. A day of life, yes, but a day
of humiliation, too, for the Son of God who willingly gave
himself for his people. What day is this, this great
and dreadful day? It's the day the Lord Jesus Christ
died, when the Lord of glory went to the cross. The great
day for the salvation that he won, and a dreadful day for the
price that he paid, a day of healing and restoring, a day
of recovery of the lost, a great day for the chosen of God, and
a dreadful day for those who are outside of his purpose and
outside of his purchase, those for whom Christ did not die on
the cross. What day is this? This great
and dreadful day of the Lord? It's the day of grace. When the
gospel goes forth to gather the elect. A great day when the precious
jewels are gathered in. A dreadful day for those who
will not believe. Though Christ himself is preached
to them faithfully. What day is this, this great
and dreadful day of the Lord? It's the day of my salvation,
when the Lord Jesus Christ comes with power and enters my heart
and thrills my soul, who makes me willing in the day of his
power, who softens the hard heart that is within my breast and
makes me his. It's that day when the healing
balm is applied, when the ointment of grace pours into my soul,
like that Samaritan who poured in the oil and the wine and laid
the poor man upon his own ass and carried him home. This is
the day, the great day. It's a great day of personal
salvation. And yet it is a dreadful day,
for it is the beginning of an internal warfare that continues
with us all the days of our life. I don't believe that the men
and women of this world have any idea of the struggles that
go on in the soul of the Lord's people. A struggle between flesh
and spirit between the old man and the new man, between our
Christian testimony and witness and the desires and lusts of
our flesh. And it's a struggle that will
be part of our experience all the days of our life, because
just when we think we've got it beat, we discover that it's
crept up behind us and stabbed us between the ribs. What day is this? What is this
great and dreadful day of which we speak? It's the day of our death. The
day when the Lord Jesus comes for you and for me on the day
of our death. When the moment that we have
so long feared dissolves into the glorious fulfilment of the
promise of eternal life with Christ, the glory and the everlasting
joy and happiness that will be our portion. The flesh fears
death. I have seen the Lord's people
men and women who have known the Lord all their lives, who
have longed for that day when they would enter into the experience
of grace and yet I have seen the fear in their eyes as that
end becomes ever closer. We don't know how we're going
to react on that day and God, I believe, will give us grace
for that day. but it is a great day and a dreadful
day, the day of the Lord. What is this day? What is this
great and dreadful day? Well, it's the last day of time,
the day of judgment, the end of all things, what the old men
used to call the great assize, the day of reckoning, the great
white throne, A great day for the Church of Christ. Our wedding
day, if you like, when we will be married to our husband, the
Son of God. A day of brightness and joy,
of spotless purity, of holy garments, of revealed righteousness. The dawning of an eternal day,
never to end, never to grow old. but a dreadful day of separation,
loss, condemnation, and hell to those who are outside of Christ. These are the days of divine
purpose. These are the days of the glory
of God. These are the days of judgment
and truth, of the ingathering of the people of God, and of
the casting out of the reprobate. of eternal peace and of fiery
indignation, the great and dreadful day of the Lord. May he be merciful
to us. May he show us his mercy and
grace in these days of grace. May he bring us and gather us
to himself. It has been noted that Malachi
ends with a curse and Matthew opens with the blessing of the
gospel. Well, that's true. The last word
in Malachi is curse. And the first of the New Testament
is the gospel of Matthew. But I hope that we have seen
enough in this message of Malachi to discern that there is a blessed
gospel of Jesus Christ embedded within it also. Yes, there is
the curse, but it is a great day of the Lord, as well as a
dreadful day of the Lord, which is prefigured for us here in
these verses. Malachi's message is that the
church of God, that the Lord's people might discern and discover
the healing power that is in the wings of their risen saviour. Amen.