1.
In the name of our crucified and risen Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen. As
the sun sets on another church year, our readings today point to the dawning of
an eternal day—a day that will be ushered in by God’s judgment. We sinners need
this sobering reminder because the sinful nature in each of us delights in
God’s delay. There’s an arrogant side to all of us that wants to believe that
the judge is never coming and that even if he should choose to return some day,
his judgment will be no more than a warning ticket, giving us a second chance
to get our spiritual house in order. The clear message of God’s law in our text
rejects any such foolish notions. The
message from Malachi tells us that when the Day of the Lord comes it will be a
day when the arrogant will burn like stubble (v. 1), but the righteous will
shine like the Son (v. 2). The message
is entitled, “Surely the Day Is Coming!”
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
The prophet warns us that the judgment is coming and that it will
be final! Malachi 4:1 says, 1 “For behold, the day is coming, burning like
an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that
is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord
of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” What’s truly amazing is that this
message, which is such a threat to our sinful nature, is at the same time the
sweetest message of comfort to every Christian.
That’s why the Prophet Malachi says in Malachi 4:2, 2But
for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in
its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.” We can make sense of this law
& gospel paradox only by fixing our eyes on Jesus. The law destroys every
hope of finding comfort in the thought that God’s judgment won’t come or that
it won’t be severe. With these myths dispelled, it’s the gospel alone that
offers hope to us sinners. The gospel promises that Jesus is our sun of
righteousness. With his perfect life he has provided the holiness we need to
enter the home of our holy God. The gospel also promises that Jesus has already
faced God’s terrible judgment for us. He’s paid all of sin’s penalty through
his death on the cross for us and has removed all threat of further punishment.
When our judge comes, it won’t be to destroy us but, rather, to welcome us into
heaven’s perfection.
3.
Malachi reminds us that the Lord hasn’t forgotten us. At times it
may appear that the proud and arrogant of this world have a better life, but
this is only a sinful delusion. We have the best in life because we have the
sure promises of our God. He’s delayed his return for no other reason than to
give us time to share what we know and what we have in Christ with everyone.
4.
The Bible tells us that the Lord is patient in his return to judge
the world, this is why the prophet Malachi wanted people to see things as
they really were. It had been a while since the Lord had sent the prophets
Haggai and Zechariah, and people in Judea were growing more and more jaded and
arrogant toward the Lord. They brought miserable and half-hearted sacrifices to
God, then they had the nerve to ask why he wasn’t glad to get them. While
wearying God with their words, they questioned his Word. They had been
faithless toward the One who always remained so faithful to them. They even
began wondering out loud whether it actually made any difference for them to be
his people.
5.
Can’t we see a lot of ourselves in them? Times and
circumstances have changed, of course. But the basic problems identified by
Malachi regularly occur among sinners, even those who have faith in the Lord.
We may not regard these things as the headlines of our hearts, but in many ways
they tell the real story. Actually, the Lord tells it by proclaiming his Law as
he did through his prophet. He said an uncompromising “no” to arrogance and
faithlessness at Malachi’s time. He says “no” to yours and mine too.
6.
That’s why the Prophet Malachi says in Malachi
4:4-6, 4“Remember the law of
my servant Moses, the statutes and just decrees that I commanded him at Horeb
for all Israel. 5“Behold, I
will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6And he will turn
the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their
fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”
Notice how verse 4 mentions the law. This is the word torah. It comes from the verb meaning
“to teach” or “to instruct.” Here it doesn’t mean just the laws with dos and do
nots but also, and especially, the words of promise and instruction, the
complete revelation of God to his people. We are saved by the Word and through
the Word that points us to our Savior Jesus Christ, the lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world. What a
treasure we have in the Word of God. We can search through the will of God as a
lawyer ruffles through a dossier or a student looks through a notebook. God
gave his people his plan for life. How happy the devil is when we neglect the
Word of God. But, how sad the devil is when we as God’s people make faithful
use of God’s Word.
7.
The prophet Elijah was promised to the Old Testament people. Jesus
commented on this in Matthew 17:11–13: “ ‘To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you,
Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him
everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at
their hands.’ Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about
John the Baptist.” And what Luke wrote in chapter 1:17 draws us even closer
to these last words of Malachi: “He
[John] will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn
the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom
of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” These are
the very words Malachi wrote in verse 6.
8.
The Word also speaks to us in other places about how, as the world
nears its end, children will turn against their parents and parents will turn
against their children. Our world is full of examples that this happens and is
happening. Parents commit the ultimate in child abuse—they neglect their
children’s souls. They don’t care where their children will spend eternity.
They spend money for their children’s bodies and for their education, but they
neglect to tell the children the commands and laws of God, to talk about them
on the way, to write them in their homes and on their hearts.
9.
But there is also the fact that as the day grows closer and
closer, fathers and children will be talking to each other and turning to each
other. There will be good families. God will see to it! In our day when we
sometimes feel like despairing because there are no good families left, there are good families. Families do pray together and do stay together through life. This is
the greatest turning together of hearts, fathers talking to their children
about the Savior, children talking to their fathers. Their hearts are touched
through the only thing that touches hearts, the Word of God.
10.
People understood that something was missing when
the Old Testament ended with a word of curse. But they couldn’t do anything
about God’s curse by simply moving words around here in the last chapter of
Malachi, the last book of the Old Testament. And neither can we. But, thanks be
to God that He did do something about
this curse. God kept the promise he had made, from Genesis to Malachi, to deal
with sin and the curse. “He does not
choose to do it through his unveiled, brilliant, and glorious majesty, out of
consideration for us poor, weak and timid mortals and for our comfort, for who
could bear such majesty for an instant?” So God sent Christ. And right now,
in our lives, he works through “tolerable,
kind, and pleasant means . . . He has, for instance, sent to you a Pastor to
speak to you the Gospel of our Lord Jesus, to preach, to lay his hands on you,
forgive sin, baptize, give you bread and wine to eat and to drink. Who can be
terrified by these pleasing methods?”
11.
With the Christ who came and is coming again, we are
not in fear. Instead we are left hungry, in a good way. Like newborn babies, we
are eager to keep drinking in the pure spiritual milk of God’s Word and by it
to grow up to salvation. (See 1 Peter 2:2.)
Amen.
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