In our lives there are many special days,
days like birthdays, anniversaries or holidays. When you wait for a special day to arrive do you get excited?
It’s only three weeks till we celebrate Christmas. Anyone excited?
In bible times, messengers were often sent out to proclaim special events that were coming.
When the actual day of the event arrived messengers were sent out again to give a final invitation to attend.
Messengers were replaced with postmen and many people wrote and posted personal invitations rather than send an actual messenger.
Actually, today we are more likely to receive an email or a text message for announcements and invitations.
I get around 60 emails a day and my son has a mobile that allows him to send 4000 messages a month, so perhaps the importance of a messenger may be lost on us today.
So I want us to take a little time this morning be reminded of the value of God’s messengers. Perhaps the greatest messenger in the New Testament was John the Baptist.
John’s coming and message were clearly announced by the messengers of the Old Testament, God’s prophets.
For example ISAIAH 40:3 speaks of “A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God’”
Speaking of preparing the way.
There is a story about a man who visited the Fiji islands.
This visitor was skeptical of missionaries.
He even spoke with the chief and told him that the missionaries only wanted to exploit the islanders.
The visitor said that nobody believed what the Bible had to say now.
He even went as far as to say nobody listens to the story about Jesus either.
The man concluded his comments by saying “People know better now, and I am sorry for you that you have been foolish”.
The Fijian chief shocked this visitor when he told him about their old savage ways.
The chief said, “Do you see that stone over there?
On that stone we smashed the heads of our victims to death.
Do you see that native oven over there?
In that oven we roasted human bodies for our great feasts.
If it had not been for those missionaries, the Bible and the love of Jesus Christ
which changed us from savages into God’s children, you would never leave this spot!
You have to thank God for the Gospel, otherwise you would have been killed and roasted in the oven and we would feast on your body in no time!”
This story has a wonderful point.
There were missionaries who prepared the way for other messengers until the Fijian people received God’s salvation into their souls.
In The Old Testament, there were prophets who were preceded by other prophets until their mission was accomplished.
This morning we are going to look at a passage from the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi.
This is part of the bible that points out how there will be a messenger who preceded the Lord’s coming.
Every messenger or prophet has a message to deliver and those who hear the message need to make a response.
Let me give you a quick recap of Malachi.
Nothing is known about Malachi as a person.
His Hebrew is clear and forceful and direct;
sometimes almost rhythmical.
Malachi’s message has a permanent value for us as well as an immediate value for his own time.
Nearly all biblical scholars are agreed that Malachi prophesied during the Persian period,
and after the reconstruction and dedication of the second temple in 516 B.C.
Malachi probably lived during the times of Ezra and Nehemiah.
The captivities and conquering of God’s people were over.
God returned Israel to the Promised Land.
BUT they had begun to forget and forsake God.
Serious abuses had crept into Jewish life;
the priests had become lax and degenerate, defective and inferior sacrifices were allowed to be offered upon the temple altar,
the people were neglecting their tithes,
divorce was common and God’s covenant was forgotten and ignored
His primary aim was to encourage a disheartened people who were still looking for Haggai’s and Zechariah’s predictions to be fulfilled.
God sent Malachi to remind the people to return to the Lord. How indifferent they were!
Malachi repeated: “The day of the Lord is coming!” God’s word needed to be heard.
Let’s read Malachi 3:1-6
1 “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty.
2 But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, 4 and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.
5 “So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me,” says the LORD Almighty.
6 “I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD Almighty.”
A messenger has a message to communicate to others.
A messenger receives a message from a higher authority and passes it on.
That is exactly what Malachi is doing.
He is communicating a message from God.
Malachi gets the message that he is to send on to others.
Malalchi’s message is about preparation.
The message is about preparing the way for the Lord’s coming.
The messenger has a message to proclaim.
A proclamation is an official announcement.
An official announcement is not an announcement from just anybody.
An official announcement is a message that comes from one of the highest authority figures.
The proclamation being made by Malachi comes from the highest authority of all, God, our creator. Malachi is told to proclaim the Lord’s coming and the need to prepare for it.
The messenger cannot have assumptions.
To make assumptions is to take the message and alter its meaning.
The messenger has to therefore deliver the message as it is.
He has to deliver the message in God’s own words. That is what Malachi is doing.
He is bringing God’s message to the people the way that God told him to say it.
The messenger is to proclaim God’s covenant. A covenant is a promise made by God to man.
Malachi is being sent by God to remind God’s people that He cares so much that He is coming Himself to show it.
God’s people had grown impatient.
When we get impatient, we have a tendency to feel like may be somebody has forgotten about us.
When we get impatient, we start to lose hope.
But, God keeps the hope before us with His message.
Malachi is the last of the Old Testament prophets. After him the Lord is “silent” for 400 years.
The message is clear.
The Lord is coming soon.
The prophet uses the word Suddenly, that is suddenly compared to the long wait from the promise made to Adam centuries before.
The Lord is coming because He cares.
That is the whole reason behind the message being sent.
The Lord is coming because He cares.
There is a saying that says, “They do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.” God wants us to know that His love for us is far greater than our ability to comprehend it.
God wants us to know that He cares far beyond our ability to understand just how great His love is for us.
The Lord will be preceded by a messenger.
The messenger that Malachi is speaking of is John the Baptist.
The Jews thought that Elijah had to come before the Messiah, God’s promised One.
John comes in the spirit and the power of Elijah (Luke 1:17).
Luke 3:2-6 says (New International Version)
During the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the desert. 3He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4As is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“A voice of one calling in the desert,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
5Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
6And all mankind will see God’s salvation.’ “
John came proclaiming ‘prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God’” (Isaiah 40:3).
John’s message was one of preparation.
John told the people to repent for the kingdom of God is at hand (Matthew 3:2).
John told them that the axe was at the root of the tree.
John told them that every tree that does not produce fruit will be thrown into the fire (Matthew 3:10).
John made it clear that people not only had to repent but they needed to produce fruit in keeping with repentance (Matthew 3:8).
John taught the need to stay righteous.
Get ready; the kingdom of God is near.
Get ready; the Lamb of God is here.
The gospels record the message of John.
John used physical terms with spiritual encouragements.
LUKE 3:5,6 “Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God’s salvation”.
Our Lord fills in the valleys of despair in our hearts.
It is God who is able to make molehills out of our mountains.
Jesus creates straight roads out of our crooked paths of disobedience.
Our Savior makes our rough hearts smooth with his precious blood.
John says, “Prepare”.
Thankfully, God is the one who prepares us.
It is the Holy Spirit who opens our ears to hear so that our hearts may believe.
Our eternal salvation is so important that our gracious God would not let this depend on our choice or decision.
It is by grace we have been saved not by our works, not by our desire, but by God’s grace alone.
EZEKIEL 11:19 “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh”.
Our stone-cold, hardened hearts have been graciously changed into hearts of flesh.
This can only happen by the power and miracle of God’s grace.
In our hearts our loving Lord plants the seed of his word so that it may bear abundant fruit. Listen to another Old Testament messenger.
JEREMIAH 24:7 “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart”.
By God’s grace we need to be preparing our hearts to celebrate Christmas – not just our homes.
The Lord has given us hearts to know him and to love him as his children.
Not just for a day but for eternity.
Malachi’s message about John was clear.
John’s message prepared men’s hearts for Jesus.
Jesus – the messenger of the covenant, the one they desired – would come to his temple.
Malachi describes John’s message concerning Jesus’ mission verses.
Jesus would refine and purify worship.
Remember when Jesus drove out the moneychangers, because the temple was to be his Father’s house of worship. Jesus warned the Pharisees and leaders.
Worship during Jesus’ time had become a duty, a sense of obligation and not praise.
For generations the people brought sacrifices.
They forget why and now did it as ordered.
The leaders demanded; the people obeyed.
They grew indifferent to worship’s true meaning.
Jesus taught that worship was a matter of the heart - love, not outward show or duty.
We might be tempted to point our fingers at the people during the time of Malachi.
How could they become so indifferent?
We might point to the leaders and worshippers of Jesus’ day. Why did they become so indifferent?
They sinned.
We sin.
We might also take our faith for granted from time to time.
It can be so easy to be caught up in the commercialism of our society rather than the true spirit of worshipping the Christ-child.
We daily fall short of the glory of God. DANIEL 11:35 says “Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time”.
Our gracious God uses his law to refine and purify us. After recognizing our sinfulness the gospel of Jesus Christ makes us spotless.
Jesus’ death and resurrection purifies sinners.
We see our sins. We confess our sins.
We trust in God’s mercy. Our sins are forgiven.
All is right with the world. Or is it?
Our world is still infected with sin.
This means that on this side of heaven there is not one thing in life that is perfect.
We face difficulties, heartaches, sorrows, and troubles every day.
All of these things are not meant to overcome us.
Instead God uses everything every day in our lives to purify us – make our faith stronger.
JAMES 1:2,3 says “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance”.
When we are weak God is our strength.
When we are sad God is our comfort.
In our sinfulness God is forgiving.
Purify has the implication of refining.
Facing the events in our lives refines our faith. Purify also means to make clean or holy.
On our own we are lost and condemned.
On our own we are unclean and unholy.
Again, through faith by God’s grace all that has been changed for us. 1 JOHN 1:7 reminds us “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin”. God’s Son, Jesus – our Savior, purifies us from ALL sin!
In conclusion, there is great excitement and expectation as we prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birth and, but we also need to celebrate that Jesus will come again, not as a baby but as our redeemer ad Lord at His second coming on the Last Day.
We often say love came down at Christmas.
Jesus’ coming is God’s way of telling us how much He loves us.
In Malachi’s day there were many people who ignored the truth, Malachi 2:17 even records people who said then what some say now that
“All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord and he is pleased with them”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
God’s love came down at Christmas.
God does not delight in seeing the wicked go by unpunished. Nor, does God like to see the innocent condemned (Proverbs 17:13 NIV paraphrased). Therefore, we can hope.
That is why Love came down at Christmas.
This time of year is a special season, a season when we should open our hearts and our minds for our Savior to dwell in our hearts and lives.
Keep looking ahead and keep looking up.
God has sent His Messengers and God continues to send His messengers to prepare the way.
John the Baptist prepared the way.
Jesus, our Savior, purifies sinners.
As sinners made holy by the blood of Christ we are now supposed to be the ones preparing the way for Jesus return.
The Lord is coming (Malachi 3:1).
The world was obviously not ready when Jesus came the first time.
There was no room for Jesus in the inn.
Jesus is a king. Kings are supposed to be treated as royalty and with respect.
He had no crib for a bed.
Certainly, a king deserves the finest bed around.
A king deserves the best.
Jesus was placed in a manger … a feeding trough … a place where animals eat.
That is no place for a baby.
It is no place for a king.
It certainly is no place for baby Jesus!
The world was not ready when Jesus came the first time.
You would think that the inn keeper would have at least asked for someone to give up their room for this woman who was pregnant with child.
At least a room would have had four walls and a roof.
Was this the best that the world could do for a king? Was this the best the world could do to welcome the Lord?
The star in the sky should have been a clue that baby Jesus was no ordinary baby.
No one was looking up toward God.
At least the wise men were not too blind to look up.
This star was God’s birth announcement to the world that the Savior had been born.
How do we respond today to God’s love coming down to us at Christmas through Jesus?
God wants us to respond by returning to Him.
God knows that we cannot come to Him without His help.
That is why love came down at Christmas through Jesus.
The manger of Bethlehem cradles a king ….
A Savior. He is God with us our Emmanuel.
The Lord has come to save us from our sins.
Jesus has come saying return to Him in righteousness … the righteousness that He Himself provides for us by shedding His blood on the cross ….
By rising from the grave and defeating death.
There probably has been no greater need than in our present time for those who have Christ in their hearts and lives to share that blessing with those still in darkness. Use this time wisely for His glory.
