How to kick-start your faith
Part 4
4:1-2 Rest in His Righteousness.
INTRODUCTION
One of the greatest dilemmas in the Christian faith is to accept that God loves us yet still sends some people to hell. It’s a problem that can paralyse our faith, if we don’t it get sorted out early in our journey. People often overcome this problem in one of three ways. In the first instance some believe that God will neither love us nor act justly toward us. People who take this line say that it is a waste of time placing our hope for the future in God and that it’s unnecessary for us to fear God’s judgement. This was the state of mind in which the Israelites were in at the time of Malachi. Its the line of the skeptic.
In our generation we find people - even Christians - who are prepared to accept that God is loving, so they place their hope in him for the future. Yet they cannot envisage a God who would leave his only Son to die on a cross nor condemn people to hell. Their faith is paralysed, because love without justice is less than perfect love. These people will never experience God’s perfect love - and so their faith is powerless.
The third way people overcome this problem is the exact reverse of that. This position holds that God is so angry with the world that he may just condemn us all to hell. What motivates people with this view towards God is their fear of hell. Again, people who hold to this extreme have a paralysed faith. Their faith is impotent because justice without love and mercy is not true justice.
None of these extremes will reward us with a complete experience of God. Needless to say none of them are biblical either. So if we want to kick-start our faith we need to accept the hard truth that God loves yet still sends people to hell.
A time will come when God will clearly discern between those who accept him and those who reject him. What we need to understand is that God will make this distinction by the horrifying judgements he will inflict upon the one and the unspeakable benefits he will award to the other. If we want to kick-start our faith we need to trust that God will act lovingly and justly toward his creation. We need to rest in his righteousness.
This is the concept that is made so clear for us here in Malachi. The great day described here, will have a two fold effect. Toward the wicked it will be a day of burning and of destruction and justice will be done. To them the Lord issues a warning. Toward the righteous it will be a day of healing and salvation and God’s love will be expressed in its purest form. To these the Lord issues a promise.
I. A WARNING TO THE WICKED (4:1)
a. The day of judgement is certain to come.
One remark I used to hear a lot from my mum as I was growing up was, “Just wait until your father gets home.” I learnt from that experience that the fear of delayed chastisement is a very effective form of motivation. When I heard that I almost always became humble and repentant. Perhaps you’ve shared my experience and know how having to wait for punishment is often worse than the punishment itself. I don’t know about you but one thing that I could count on was that my mother would never forget my misdemeanours and sure enough, when my father got home I would cop it. Once I had been caught, my fate was secure.
And this is the message of the Lord here in Malachi 4:1. He announces that this day of judgment is certain to arrive.
MAL 4:1 "Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire," says the LORD Almighty.
There is no question about its coming. The message is that the disobedient have been caught out and now they will have to wait for the Father to get home and serve up the punishment.
The certainty with which he announces this day is striking. You see, God can make these kind of absolute statements because he is not making history up as he goes along. The fate of the wicked (and the righteous for that matter), has been prearranged and is guaranteed. God’s punishment is not like that of a lenient parent who will let a child off believing they are acting in love by doing so. More likely they’re simply afraid to discipline. Nor is God’s punishment like that of an out of control parent who believes that a good hiding for even the slightest misdemeanour is appropriate. Sometimes an angry parent will lash out in frustration - God’s justice is not like that.
Illustration: Man and woman telling me to control my dog - and it wasn’t even my dog! They lashed out in frustration. God’s judgment is not like that. It is predictable, righteous and certain to come.
Like the, “wait until your father comes home” type of punishment, God’s judgement is certain. It may be delayed - but it is sure to come.
b. It will be final, effective and swift.
Another element to God’s judgment is the way in which it will be dispensed. We read that that day,
….will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire," says the LORD Almighty. "Not a root or a branch will be left to them
In essence, God’s judgment will be final, effective and swift.
On that day that burns like a furnace the righteous will have been harvested leaving only the stubble, which is burned in order to kill it. “Neither root nor branch will be left.” There will be no hope of new life for the wicked; no possibility of sprouting to life again.
Have you ever cut a tree down and not wanted it to grow back? I remember helping to clear some land for a campsite once and seeing tree stumps blown out of the ground with explosives. There was no way they were going to grow back. (This was before the greenies had a strong political voice).If there was anything left of the stump after that we burned it. This is the kind of destiny that awaits those who do not know Christ.
There will be no hope for the unsaved. Does that sound like the decree of a loving God? You better believe it.
If we want to kick-start our faith we need to embrace a God who will judge and will send the unrepentant to hell. Why? Because unless we do we will never experience the full love of God. Our experience of God will be inadequate.
Becky Pippert, the author of “Out of the Salt-shaker,” wrote about this. She said, “Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we act with benign tolerance? Far from it.” Our real reaction is to begin to hate that thing that has hurt the one we love so much. Pippert goes on to quote EH Gifford, who says, “Human love here offers a true analogy: the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, the traitor.”
If we can feel this kind of anger and pain over someone’s condition, how much more will a morally perfect God feel it? Pippert concludes, “God’s wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer of sin which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.”
God is a God of love. But love without justice is not love at all, it’s sentimentality, and that kind of cheap and imperfect love and can never lead us to a more vital and intimate relationship with God. Only the perfect love of a just God can kick-start our faith.
II. A PROMISE TO THE OBEDIENT (4:2)
You know, I discovered that there was only one way to avoid that, “just wait till your father gets home” kind of punishment. The key is new information - that is, information which could save my hide. Let me borrow an illustration from our parenting course (which, by the way, begins Tuesday the 23rd if your interested), and I will try to explain what I mean.
A child is instructed not to get out of bed. Late in the evening mum hears a disturbance in the room and goes to investigate only to find the child out of the bed. This is clearly an act of disobedience and may well deserve some kind of punishment. That is unless the child can provide some new information which justifies their being out of the bed. Such as a brother or a sister who has fallen out of their bed or if a fire has broken out in the room. In this case the new information justifies the child being out of the bed and thus prevents any punishment being necessary.
Well this illustrates the promise that God gives here in 4:2.
2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.
You see, if we want to kick-start our faith we need to embrace a God who loves us and rescues people from hell. Why? Because unless we do we will never experience the full love of God. Our experience of God will be inadequate. The fact that God rescues people from hell may seem basic. However, it is possible to suffer a paralysed faith if all we want to see is God’s justice done. If we find ourselves questioning wether God can really love the unlovable, then we need to remember first that he loves us and secondly that without love and mercy, justice is incomplete.
a. Because of Jesus Christ salvation is now yours.
God’s justice was made complete because he provided a way to be free from his judgement. If it wasn’t for Jesus Christ and the way to freedom that he provides, then God could be accused of being unjust and merciless.
However, the truth is that a new age has dawned; the “sun of righteousness” has risen and opened a way for all to experience God’s love and mercy. God is just only because he has lovingly provided a way to avoid his judgment. What we actually deserve is described in v1 - to be burnt up etc.
In 1829 a man named George Wilson robbed the US mail, killing someone in the process. Wilson was arrested, brought to trial, found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Some friends intervened on his behalf and were finally able to obtain a pardon for him from the President Andrew Jackson. But, when he was informed of this he refused to accept the pardon!
The sheriff was unwilling to enact the sentence - how could he hang a pardoned man? An appeal was sent to President Jackson who turned to the United States Supreme Court to decide the case. Chief justice Marshall ruled that a pardon was a piece of paper, the value of which depends upon its acceptance. He ruled that the pardon would only be a pardon if it were accepted. So George Wilson was executed although he could have accepted the pardon.
In the eyes of George Wilson he didn’t deserve to live. He knew his crime and was prepared to accept the punishment. Often we’re like that. The weight of our sinfulness before God is so heavy that we feel unlovable. We sometimes feel like God’s love is not sufficient enough to save us from his fury.
If we want to kick-start our faith we must see that God’s love is big enough to overcome our sin. Take a look at 3:17.
MAL 3:17 "They will be mine," says the LORD Almighty, "in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him.
These are not the words of a God who wants to wipe out his people. These are the words of a God who loves his people so much that they have become his most important possession.
b. Because of Jesus Christ renewal and healing are now available to you (Whereas before it wasn’t).
More that that. They are the words of a God who has a glorious future planned for his people. A place were we will dance like the calves set free from the stalls, or like the Aussies who whipped the Poms in the one day cricket. Not only is this place a place of victory but also of healing and renewal (OHP).
If we want to kick-start our faith we need to start taking seriously the glorious promises held out to those who believe. There is hope for the obedient. This great day of the Lord will be one of healing, renewal and salvation set in the future.
Henry Morrison served 40 years in the African mission field. He made his way home by boat. On the same boat rode Theodore Roosevelt. Morrison was quite dejected when, on entering New York harbour, President Roosevelt received a great fanfare as he arrived home. Morrison thought he should get some recognition for forty years in the Lord’s service. Then a small voice came to him and said - “Henry, you’re not home yet.”
CONCLUSION
The book of Malachi ends on a note of hope. The day of the Lord lies in the future. The warning has been given. The call to repentance and conversion has been issued and the promise for the faithful has been declared.
If we want to kick-start our faith we need to rest in the righteousness of the Lord. Because he is righteous he will judge the wicked and his justice will be final, effective and swift. If we want to kick-start our faith we need to accept that God is just and will send people to hell if they continue to disobey him.
If we want to kick-start our faith we also need to embrace the fact that God’s justice is tempered by his love; that his love and mercy provide a way to avoid his judgment. Why? Because the person who insists that God is a God of justice and therefore cannot love us will continue to experience an inadequate faith.
God wants us to know him intimately. He wants us to have a full and lively relationship with him. The message of Malachi has been to explain how that relationship can be maintained.
