Malachi 4:1

0:00 Good evening. On the way to church tonight, Johnny looked at me and he said, Dad, I want you to preach like Greg. And I said, what do you mean? He said, well, not long like Greg, but funny like Greg. So this is my best attempt. One of my favorite, perhaps my only hobbies, is going to the movie theater. Now some of you who know me well might be thinking, hang on, aren't you a Louisville sports fan? And I would say, yes, that's not a hobby. That's part of my identity, right? I practically took a blood oath to be a Louisville fan. And I feel like a lot of you all know this about my affection for movies, because almost every Sunday, someone will come up to me and ask me, hey, have you seen, you know, fill in the blank. And almost every time, the answer to that question is, yes, I have seen, you know, F1 and Jurassic Park 7. I've actually seen that twice. And Superman. I've also seen that twice. And How

1:03 to Train Your Dragon. I've only seen that once with my kids. You know, so I like movies. And yet, I really, really dislike previews. Like, if I'm alone at the movie theater, which doesn't happen as often as it used to, but it still happens, during the previews, I aim for distraction, right? So I grab my AirPods, which I always have with me, except for right now. I just throw them in and I just zone out. If I'm with other people, I aim for discipling, right? So during the previews, I'll look over and I'll be like, hey brother, like, you know, how you doing? How's your marriage?

1:40 You know, how's your life? Use those 20, it's usually 22 minutes, usually 22 minutes for discipling. I don't want to see the future of something that I am almost certainly going to experience myself. Tonight's verse gives us a preview of the future. However, I hope that it is not a future that any of us will experience. What we're about to read is part of the final warning from Israel's final prophet Malachi.

2:18 It's one of the Lord's last sentences before 400 years of silence. Malachi chapter 4 verse 1. For behold, the day is coming burning like an oven when all the arrogant and all the 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.

3:01 Here's what I hope to convince you of this evening, and it's simply what the passage hopes to convince you of. It's very simple. That day is coming, and it's getting closer. So that day that we just read about, it's coming, and it is getting closer. We're going to ask three very easy questions about that day. We're going to ask when, we're going to ask what, and we're going to ask who. So the first question, when is that day? I have no idea, but it's coming.

3:37 That was true 2,500 years ago when Malachi prophesied these words. It is still true today. It is coming. I don't know when. Now, that might sound too vague to be important to you or too vague to be urgent for you. I mean, after all, we human beings, we say things all the time that we say that things are coming all the time when, in fact, they are not coming or will never come. So we'll say, yeah, I'll get that email to you.

4:11 I'll call you back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll look at that proposal. We can interface about it. Or we say stuff all the time that we like mean but don't mean. You know what I mean. Yeah. Yeah, Johnny. Johnny, we'll throw football right after this. Just give me one more minute. Or yeah, we can wrestle tonight. If you do that again, you'll be disciplined.

4:47 We say thanks to our friends. I don't say that to my friends. We say thanks to our friends, our family members, our kids, our spouses, that don't come true. We say something's coming, but it never comes. Malachi chapter 4 verse 1, the Lord through Malachi says that something is coming.

5:20 For behold, that day is coming. Friends, we can trust Him. We must trust Him. You see, because when God says that something is coming, it always comes. he's not like us you know in a 2500 year wait between promise and fulfillment it doesn't lower his trustworthiness or lower his dependability or lower his reliability in fact it heightens his glory and our praise when he makes good on what he promised some folks love this question when when when is the end coming so they'll they'll put on their tinfoil hats they'll they'll get out their flow charts and their felt boards and they'll do some

6:25 eschatological arithmetic to answer this question and they'll say it's coming here or then But in this case, when is this coming, the day? As in a lot of the time, actually, the godliest, most mature, most theologically astute and biblically faithful answer to the question is, I don't know. But we know it's coming.

7:00 Friends, we need to believe that God's calendar is more important than our confidence on the calendar. Obsessing over the wind is us trying to be like God. That's His job. How kind of the Lord to warn us about this. I mean, 2,000 years of history, 39 books in the Old Testament, over and over and over again.

7:37 He warns us, the day's coming. 27 books in the New Testament, through prophets like Malachi and John the Baptist, through preachers like Greg and like me and your parents and your gospel project teacher and your youth pastor and all the AC staff who storm cafeterias and make sure that people can't eat lunch without hearing about the gospel. Praise God for all the people that the Lord brings into our lives to tell us about this day that is coming.

8:12 It is so kind of him. As Greg said this morning, he didn't have to do that. Friends, the day is coming and it is getting closer. When is it coming? I don't know. second question what will happen on that day what will happen on that day about four years ago we moved into a new house and when we we moved into this new house we quickly noticed this massive tree in our backyard specifically we noticed that there was a massive crack in this massive tree I mean it was right sort of down at the bottom in the in the middle kind of split it in two like a like a wishbone and this thing hung over our house like a ghoul I mean, it was just like all over everything.

8:55 And I would have friends over, and some of my more risk-averse friends, some of whom are here tonight, would say, like, you really need to get that thing cut down. And I'd kind of look at them like, I don't know. I mean, that thing's probably been here a few hundred years, and we're only going to be here like 20 years, 30 years. It feels like a pretty good bet that it's just going to stay in the ground like it's always been in the ground. Every time it rained, especially when it stormed, my wife, Melanie, would just sort of go outside and stare at it. And she would watch it sway, just waiting, waiting for the crack to widen, the branches to fall.

9:32 She wanted it down ASAP. Who do you think won in this sort of disagreement? Me or Mel and all my friends? Who do you think won? Yes, one of you is right. Mel won. Of course she won. Now, LG&E helped us, but that's neither here nor there. So we had this thing removed, and it was an incredible process. Again, this tree was massive. They brought in, like, two cranes. They had this massive net to catch all of the falling limbs that would have fallen on our house, potentially, in, like, 50 years.

10:05 You know, they had this incredible army of these, like, these wood-cutting wizards who would just, like, you know, like, hop up the tree. And they would just do this amazing stuff. It took the whole day. Now, because LG&E helped to pay for it, they left, of course, this pile of desiccated branches on the ground that we had to clean up. And today, if you go to our house, you know, in our backyard, you'll still see more than a stump, but a big chunk of this tree that has been left intact, but all the dangerous parts are gone.

10:39 What will happen on the day that we're reading about in Malachi chapter 4 verse 1? It will be nothing. It will be nothing like I just described. It will burn like an oven. And people, you realize it's a metaphor, people will be set ablaze.

11:16 There will be nothing left, no root, no branch, no stump, no remnant. It doesn't matter how long you've planted your roots in this earth. A hundred years, 80 years, 60 years, 40 years, 30 years, 12 years. It doesn't matter. When that day comes, everyone who is not trusted in Christ will be turned into stubble.

11:56 Here one day and gone. friends that day it's coming and it is getting closer third question who will this happen to well hopefully look down at the verse Malachi tells us when all the arrogant and all the evildoers will be stubble So if you have a phone or a Bible, you should pull it out because we're going to look at the two verses before and after here in a second.

12:34 So Malachi 4, 1 says the arrogant and the evildoers. I think the previous verse at the end of Malachi 3 gives us even more clarity. So I'll just read the last verse from Malachi 3. Then once more, he says, the Lord says through him, you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him. In other words, arrogant and evildoer, it's not an exhaustive two-part behavior checklist. In other words, you can't read that and say to yourself, well, you know, I'm not an arrogant evildoer.

13:07 I mean, I might be a lazy legalist, but this verse is not talking about me because I'm not an arrogant evildoer. No, of course not. This day is talking about the wicked. Arrogant and evildoers are the wicked. Which is another way at the end of Malachi 3 is just describing those who don't serve the Lord. Friends, there are two kinds of people in this world. Those who will be turned to stubble and those who will be saved.

13:41 And only those who serve God will be saved from becoming stubble. now in the immediate context malachi is speaking to israel 2500 years ago he's encouraging them you can look at this later in malachi 4 verse 4 he's encouraging them to to look backward and to remember all that the lord had done for them all that he had taught him in the torah in other words a righteous person in that time revealed his or her righteousness by believing god and obeying the Torah by depending on the Lord's mercy that has been offered to them through the sacrificial system. You realize that the sacrificial system is beautiful. It's gracious. It's not legalism.

14:25 It's God's gracious invitation. It's not rote sacrifices done out of duty, but hearts that delight in who the Lord is. They know, faithful remnant in the Old Testament knows that by participating in the sacrificial system that is how they persist in god's presence in peace now we need to understand there's an important difference for us the messiah has come we talked about that this morning the son of god has come and what jesus has done my friends is he has obeyed perfectly and he has offered himself as a better no that's not the best word he has offered himself as the perfect all-sufficient sacrifice that's why we have no need for the sacrificial system because jesus died on the cross and he rose again the debt we owe to god has been paid by god and so jesus jump starts a new covenant and just like the old testament faithful ones we participate in this

15:27 covenant by faith by believing that just as he did in the old in the new the lord has provided the perfect provision for us to dwell in peace with him which is through Jesus Christ. So my friends, the dividing line between the righteous and the wicked between those who serve the Lord and those who reject him is not fundamentally about our behavior but it is about our belief in Jesus.

16:01 That day is coming. It is getting closer. Who will it happen to? Those who reject the Lord. I asked you a moment ago to take out your Bible or phone or whatever. I think it would be edifying for us to read our verse and the one after it together. For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and the evildoers will be stubble.

16:36 The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the Son of Righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings, sounds familiar sounds like Christmas in July hail the heaven born prince of peace hail the son of righteousness light and life to all he brings risen with healing in his wings my friends the day is coming and it is getting closer And the separation that it brings between the righteous and the wicked, it is permanent.

17:37 And the only way to escape it, the only way, is to trust in Jesus. Let's pray. Father in heaven, thank you for making good on your promise to send the Savior. And we trust that you will make good on this promise also. I pray that we would all prepare appropriately.

18:15 We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.