Malachi 4

Malachi 4:1-6

THE DAY OF THE LORD Malachi 4:1-6. THIS 5th day of March, 1933, has been for the First Baptist Church of Minneapolis, Minnesota, a notable day. By the services planned to keep us twelve consecutive hours, 9:30 A.M. to 9:30 P.M., we have celebrated together the eightieth anniversary of the founding of this Church, and the thirty-sixth anniversary of my pastorate. It is a singular, as well as significant, circumstance that the day should also be characterized by a completion of the study of the whole Bible. Eleven years ago, we began with Genesis, the first chapter, purposing to go through the entire Book in expository and soul-winning work. By undertaking parallel studies, running the Old and New Testament side by side, we completed the New Testament something like a year ago, and the twenty volumes compassing that endeavor, have already been brought from the Union Gospel Press, Cleveland, Ohio.Tonight we finish the twenty volumes given to the Old Testament study, and while some months must elapse before they are all through the press, it is an occasion of thanksgiving that God has permitted me to complete this study with you, and has made it possible for so many of you to remain my fellow-students through the entire time.It is little less significant that we conclude this series of studies with tonight’s theme, “the one Divine event to which all creation moves” is the same event for which all revelation was given, namely, The Coming of The Lord.It is a significant thing that both the Old and New Testaments end with the presentation of that Blessed Hope. In the Old Testament we conclude time with the fourth chapter of Malachi, the last chapter of the Books that make it up. In the New Testament our revelation is still more complete, and while time ends with the twentieth chapter of Revelation, eternity is depicted in the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters of the same. The result is that the Old Testament studies end with the mingled feelings of faith and fear, while the New Testament concludes with Heavenly Hallelujahs!

The contrast is between time, as it is depicted in the first, and eternity, as it is presented in the second. Jesus said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation”, but He also added, “But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world”.In the study of tonight, however, as it relates to time, is a presentation of the Tribulation, the Translation, and the Adjudication.THE “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” (Malachi 4:1). The future holds its fiery furnace.“Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven”. Malachi is making no novel declaration. Tribulation is an Old Testament term, and it has been employed by Prophets preceding this one. But it is also a New Testament term. The Master Himself finally gives it its full meaning. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is speaking of this same period, and of it He says,“For then shalt be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matthew 24:21). These are days of siren songs. The very men who are set for warning have become pipers of peace. The Word of the Lord at the lips of Ezekiel has been forgotten, or if remembered, is being despised.“So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman * * “When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand” (Ezekiel 33:7-8). It is a singular circumstance and yet in perfect accord with prophecy that at the very time when even the souls, that are blinded by sin, sense approaching judgment, the professed Prophets of God should be saying, “Peace! Peace!” Let the last of God’s true Old Testament Prophets answer them,“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”. The faithless will become the fuel of that fire.“All the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble”. William M. Rae, in an article published in the “Spokesman” a year ago now, said sanely and truthfully, “The atmosphere is charged with an ominous, nerve-racking and universally distressing element of uncertainty, with rumblings of a rapidly approaching storm. Sober, thinking men tremble at what may break upon the world in the very near future! Was this always the case? No; less than a quarter of a century ago the world enjoyed a measure of prosperity and peace which at the present moment is unknown. Every part of the civilized world is affected by present conditions, and governments are tottering; social upheavals threaten our entire civilization.

The economic structure of finance faces universal collapse; the world’s industries are paralyzed. National and racial hate, accentuated by greed, threaten to overthrow all government. Lawlessness and crime are rampant everywhere and flout defiance in the face of our judicial courts, rendering them helpless. Why all this? Because the age is drawing to a close according to the Prophetic Word.”“The way of transgressors is hard”. Eternity will pass no judgments that were not paralleled and prophesied by the experience of time.Forty years ago when I was pastor in Indiana, one of the most wealthy, one of the most notable, and one of the most reputable men in the state yielded to the lust for gold and robbed the bank of which he was president. When convicted in the federal court he was past seventy years of age, and when asked what he had to say, his answer was, “Please sentence me in the private chambers. I don’t believe I could live through the humiliation of a public sentence, and at my time of life I know that I will never leave the prison walls. For after seventy odd years of respect and honor I shall end existence as an imprisoned criminal,” and yet that man admitted that his sentence was just.“He that being often reproved and hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly he destroyed, and that without remedy” (Proverbs 29:1). There are plenty of people who are willing to accept that philosophy as it applies to the individual, but who will not believe, on the testimony of Divine revelation, that a kindred fate awaits the multitudes that hate holiness and resent God. However, according to this textTheir destruction is to be complete.“And the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch”. “It is a horrible doctrine,” say some. It certainly is! But as a popular author says, “What else can God do with the wicked?” His proffered mercy they have refused, His offers of grace they have rejected, His atonement for sin they have scorned.When the fisherman brings his net to shore and finds it filled with good fish and bad, what else can he do with the bad fish but throw them away? When the farmer reaps his grain and finds the bundles containing wheat and tares, and separates out the tares from the wheat, what else can he do with the tares except to burn them? Let Jesus interpret His own parable.“The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the Kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; “The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. “As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. “The Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; “And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:38-42). There can be no question that we are now feeling the beginning of God’s judgment against sin. Carrie Chapman Catt, famous peace advocate, says:“Consider for a moment the results of the great war:Cost in Men Dead 10,873,000 Wounded 20,000,000 War Orphans 9,000, 000 War Widows 5,000,000 Refugees 10,000, 000 “Debts weighing each nation down to the verge of bankruptcy produce a problem never before known. ‘It will require,’ says Philip Snowden, chancellor of the British exchequer, ‘seventy-six million days of labor each day, by British workmen for the next sixty years, to produce the means to pay America alone.” “The United States, being more fortunately placed than most nations, lent to European nations at different times and in different forms to meet expenses of the war $10,338,000,000.00. “The war was followed by a universal depression in business, an enormous amount of unemployment, the prevalence of diseases spread by means of the war, unspeakable crime, unrest, and many other forms of human misery.”It is seldom in Scripture that a Prophet goes from the darkest picture to the brightest presentation of truth in a single bound; but Malachi dares that dramatic leap, passing from the statement that the wicked shall be burned up, neither root nor branch of them left, to the good news that unto those that fear God’s Name shall the Son of Righteousness arise with healing in, His wings.It is an abrupt turning from the vision of the tribulation to the joy of the translation. And in the sentence he says three things: The Saints Shall See in Jesus a Saviour: In His Shadow They Shall Find Safety: and Through Him Enjoy an Eternal Victory.The saints shall see in Jesus a Saviour.“Unto you that fear My Name shall the Son of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings”. In the New Testament we are told of certain Greeks that they came to the disciples of Christ one day and said, “We would see Jesus”! That desire may have been the promptings of curiosity; but the promise of seeing Jesus involves felicity to all believers. They are to see Him as their Healer, they are to see Him as Provider, they are to see Him as Conqueror, and they are to share with Him in all.It is a great thing to see Jesus at any time. The sight of His face commonly means salvation. A writer in one of our religious papers tells how some theological students came home from the Pacific Garden Mission one night full of joy over a large number of conversions they had witnessed. Drunkards and other social outcasts had sought and found the Lord.

The writer says, “Next day I met Harry Monroe, then superintendent of the mission, and said to him, ‘Harry, the boys tell me you had a great time at the mission last night.’ ‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘It pleased the Holy Spirit to illumine the face of Jesus and sinners just saw Him and were saved.’ It was a unique way of stating the truth. To see Jesus is to be saved.But there is yet a higher meaning in the promise of this text, for this looks not alone to salvation from sin but to salvation from that tribulation that is to come upon the earth; the salvation accomplished by the translation.The poet said: “Lo! He comes, with clouds descending, Once for favored sinners slain; Thousand thousand saints attending Swell the triumph of His train: Hallelujah! God appears on earth to reign.

“Every eye shall now behold Him, Robed in dreadful majesty! Those who set at naught and sold Him, Pierced, and nailed Him to the Tree, Deeply wailing, Shall the true Messiah see.

“Now the Saviour, long expected See, in solemn pomp appear; All His saints, by man rejected, Now shall meet Him in the air; Hallelujah! See the day of God appear.” In His presence and power the saints shall enjoy safety. Some years ago when Philip Mauro was in complete command of his faculties and was producing profitable books, he referred to the end time and said, concerning the tribulation, “This consummation will not occur until the Church, the Body of Christ shall have been caught away from the earth to meet the Lord in the air in fulfillment of 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17.”Without entering, at this point, into any elaborate discussion of the question that we have somewhat fully presented elsewhere, let me say again that while I believe the Church of God will be caught up out of the tribulation, I believe also that it will see its terrible and bloody beginning. If it is not to be so, I cannot understand what Jesus meant when He said, “For the elect’s sake” that period should be cut short.To be sure, there are those who say the elect are the Jews, or at the most, Judah and Israel; but let us not forget that there are sufficient passages in Scripture referring to the trials of believers to lead a large number of students to say that the Church will go through the tribulation; and while certain of us hold that according to 1 Thessalonians 4:17; Isaiah 26:19; Luke 17:31-37, the Church will be caught up out of the tribulation, Isaiah’s words are peculiarly appropriate here:“Come, My people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. “For, behold, the Lord cometh out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain” (Isaiah 26:20-21). Still further, we find that when this persecution breaks the glorious woman is taken into the wilderness where God hath prepared a place for her, there to nourish her for a thousand two hundred and threescore days (Revelation 12:6).It seems a fair necessity, therefore, that if we witness the beginning of this tribulation, we will not endure its middle, and will not be present at its end, save as Heavenly witnesses of an earthly judgment. But our text gives us promise beyond safety, evenThe promise of victory itself.“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” (Malachi 4:3). There are people who fear to have the end of this age come lest with its termination there be an end to all opportunities for salvation. There are Bible teachers who say that in the Millennium the Spirit of God will have been removed from the world and no souls can be saved.Their arguments have not convinced us. We read that in that day—and evidently the millennium is referred to—“many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, * * and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths”.We read also, “The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea”.We learn also from sacred Scriptures that in that day every knee shall bow to Him and every tongue shall confess to His glory. And, while we know from the testimony of Sacred Writ that certain of these professions will be spurious and the deceiving subjects will gather to the banner of Satan when after the thousand years, he is released for a little time, yet doubtless, many of them will have found Him in whom is hope for time and eternity.When Peter at Pentecost, referred to the “great and notable day of the Lord” and to the very time of tribulation when the sun shall be “turned into darkness, and the moon into blood” he said: “It shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be saved”.And yet, while there is security and felicity for the believer, the whole text does not close without referring toTHE “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” (Malachi 4:4-6). The Law of the Lord is the basis of Judgment.Statutes and judgments stand as premises and conclusions. There are many people in these days who are trying to impress us with the idea that there is no judgment.It is only a little while ago that Prof. Paul Haupt of the Johns Hopkins University, speaking before the American Philosophical Society, affirmed that there is no Biblical foundation for the idea of the day of final judgment. His exact words, as reported, were these:—“The Book of Zechariah which Jews as well as Christians give as authority for the description of the last judgment refers merely to a municipal plan for municipal improvements laid out by the Maccabees. The language has been misinterpreted.”Isn’t it interesting! Of all the follies of which men’s minds are capable, certain titled professors take the prize!Uniformly the men who do not believe in judgment neither believe in law, and especially do they hold in contempt the Laws of Moses which are none other than God’s Laws; Laws that cannot be disregarded and judgment escaped. In this connection I think of Martin Luther’s hymn:— “Great God, what do I see and hear! The end of things created! The Judge of all men doth appear, On clouds of glory seated: The trumpet sounds; the graves restore The dead which they contained before; Prepare, my soul, to meet Him.

“The dead in Christ shall first arise At the last trumpet’s sounding,— Caught up to meet Him in the skies, With joy their Lord surrounding: No gloomy fears their souls dismay, His presence sheds eternal day On those prepared to meet Him.

“But sinners, filled with guilty fears, Behold His wrath prevailing; For they shall rise, and find their tears And sighs are unavailing: The day of grace is past and gone; Trembling they stand before the throne, All unprepared to meet Him.

“Great God, what do I see and hear! The end of things created! The Judge of all men doth appear, On clouds of glory seated: Low at His Cross I view the day When heaven and earth shall pass away, And thus prepare to meet Him.” However,As we approach the judgment day we are promised warning.“Behold, I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (Malachi 4:5). In connection with the first coming of Christ John the Baptist was the Elijah,—the forerunner,— and “John bare witness of Him”, and like the Prophet Esaias pleaded, “Make straight the way of the Lord”.The Prophet’s office still retains its remnant. There are many ministers of the Gospel who are faithfully declaring the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord; but their combined voices do not seem to be adequate to stay the on-rushing crowd, or even to compel the most flagrant sinners to pause and reflect upon their approaching doom.God may, therefore, raise up another whose voice will be as much more effective than those now heard as was the voice of John as compared with the scribes and Pharisees of his time. In fact, it seems clear that as the antichrist will have his “prophet” to prepare the way for his coming, so Christ will send another voice into the wilderness to warn men with an eloquence that can scarcely be disregarded.The fullness of this prophecy was scarcely found in the appearance of John the Baptist, for the day to which this text refers is not the day of His first appearance, but of His second,—the great and dreadful day of the Lord.But blessed be God, in the end grace shall prevail.“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” (Malachi 4:6). And in the time of the Tribulation, and later, during the days of the Millennium, those who believe will be saved, for as dear John Newton wrote:— “Day of judgment, day of wonders,— Hark! the trumpet’s awful sound, Louder than a thousand thunders, Shakes the vast creation round: How the summons Will the sinner’s heart confound!

“See the Judge, our nature wearing, Clothed in majesty Divine; You who long for His Appearing Then shall say, ‘This God is mine:’ Gracious Saviour, Own me in that day for Thine.

“At His call the dead awaken, Rise to life from earth and sea; All the powers of nature, shaken By His looks, prepare to flee: Careless sinner, What will then become of thee?

“But to those who have confessed, Loved, and served the Lord below, He will say, ‘Come near, ye blessed; See the Kingdom I bestow: You forever Shall my love and glory know.”