The Refining Fire of God
Scripture: Malachi 4:1–3, especially verse 2
But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings; and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves.
Introduction: Have you ever heard of a “promise box”? They were once very popular among Christian people. They were little boxes containing rolled up verses of Scripture, and each verse contained a promise of God which you could select and think about during the day. The promise box has gone the way of much Christian trivia but the promises remain! These old promise boxes only contained positive promises of blessing. In these verses, Malachi records for us promises from God, but they are much more honest and realistic. They are promises made from God to His people.
1. The Promise to All of Us (v. 1a). Verse 1 gives the promise to everyone: “For behold, the day is coming …” Malachi speaks of “the day of the Lord” as a day that God has promised to come in judgment. The biblical view of history is not cyclical; it’s linear. It has a definite beginning with God’s creation of the universe, and is building to a final climax in which the present world is brought to its end. In this first verse of chapter 4, Malachi asserts the certainty that the Day of Judgment will come. The New Testament understands that will be the day of the return of Jesus Christ. Indeed, all our human history, mocked as it has been by war, pestilence, and famine have been pointers set in our history as a foreshadowing the great and dreadful day of the Lord (1 Thess. 5:1–3). Malachi sees the future after “the day of the Lord” when God’s people will be pure, cleansed from all iniquity.
2. The Promise That Makes Unbelievers Tremble (v. 1b). The Lord has promised that He will come to His people: “ ‘And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘That will leave them neither root nor branch’ ” (v. 1). Malachi warned that those who proudly resist God will be consumed with fire on the coming Day of Judgment. The image employed by Malachi is the consuming heat of the sun which will burn like a furnace. There is no root left to start afresh. There is no branch or shoot that can be grafted from anywhere else to make a new beginning. The nature of the judgment is that it is final and irreversible.
3. The Promise That Makes the Believer Rejoice (vv. 2–3). God has a different word to say to those who fear the Lord. For them the future holds something vastly more wonderful. Here is a prophet writing 450 years before Jesus but full of expectation that the Messiah is coming: “But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings” (v. 2). The Sun of Righteousness was rising, and He has been rising all over this world since Jesus’ First Coming (cf. Luke 1:78). One day His rise will reach its noonday brightness, and He will appear in glory. Clearly Jesus is in the mind of God as He speaks through the prophet Malachi, and Jesus is portrayed as a rising sun. The image is designed to convey to us:
A. Light. Malachi uses the imagery of the sun to indicate that Jesus would expose areas of darkness (1 Cor. 4:5). Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12). He brings sense and meaning out of absurdity.
B. Righteousness. The sun is a sun with beams of righteousness. This means that Jesus makes things right. He makes man right with God through reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18).
C. Healing. This Sun of Righteousness rises with healing in its wings. Jesus was a great healer. Although Jesus does not heal every disease in this life, He will heal every disease in the resurrection (Rev. 7:16–17).
D. Liberty. One effect of all this for those who fear the Lord will be a going forth from the stall: “And you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves” (v. 2). The coming of Jesus means freedom, not bondage, and Jesus promises to give it (John 8:36).
Conclusion: Each of these great promises of God is designed for us to take heart. We can look forward with joy to the coming of Christ and live in that hope.
Nelson’s Annual Preacher’s Sourcebook Thomas Nelson Publishers.
