The Lord’s Justice Will Come

If you have your Bibles, Malachi 3 will stand and read verse... Actually, jump back one verse. We're going to start in Chapter 2, Verse 17, the last verse of Chapter 2. And we'll read through Verse 6 of Chapter 3.

The Bible says in Chapter 217, ...or where is the God of judgment? Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in. Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appearth?

For he is like a refiner's fire, and like the fuller slope. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver. That they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in the former years. And I will come near to you in judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling, and his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside unto the stranger from his right. And fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts. For I am the Lord, I change not.

Therefore, the sons of Jacob are not consumed. God, we do praise you tonight for your word. We come tonight because you are worthy of our time. We love the brethren.

We love to be with God's people. And we pray that our hearts would be set aflame by your truth. God, may we love your word more than anything else. And I pray that you would help us to grasp the understanding of your truth and the magnitude and weight of it. Help us to apply these things that we hear tonight. Thank you that you are a God of justice, though many things happen on this world we don't understand.

Thank you that we can trust you in those seasons. And I pray tonight, if anyone doesn't know Christ, that tonight might be the night that they come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. We ask your blessing now on all that are here.

Thank you for them. In Jesus' name, and God's people said, man, you may be seated tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. And you say, where in have we polluted thee? Everything that God challenges them with, their sins, they turn around and challenge God with. Instead of looking inward, they kept accusing God of being the one who was off.

They saw God as being the one who was the problem. You ever had somebody who got on you for something, and in your immaturity, you always played the victim card? You know what I'm talking about? It's not my fault. You're the one that made me hit you when I was a kid. And we began to make excuses for all of our actions, and if you have children, you know how this works. You bring them in a room, you say, okay, tell me what happened.

And none of them say, you know what, Dad? It was my fault. I was stressed out. I was frustrated. She took the comb, and that's the kind of conversation going on in my house. It took the comb, and something happened, and then you get into this argument.

Or they wore their clothes. Anybody have siblings that do that? Yeah. Because I have four daughters, this is how it sounds. You know what? She's been wearing my clothes, and I'm tired of this, and I say, listen, quit wearing your mother's clothing.

You need to make sure you get back to it. So, thankfully, I don't have to deal with that, man. I grew up with all brothers, and yeah, that was not always a pleasant season. But you see here where they're combative, they're always questioning, they're always arguing, they're always making excuses. Malachi 2 13, God says he will not accept their offering because they had such great sin in their life. What they were doing was divorcing their Jewish wives and going out and marrying pagan wives, and God says that he's going to judge them for this. And at the end of chapter 2 verse 13, or chapter 2 verse 14, it says, they said, wherefore, why are you going to do this? Why don't you accept our offerings? And then in verse 17, God says you've wearied, the Bible says you've wearied the Lord with your words, and they say, where in have we wearied him? And so this was their attitude, and it continues to permeate all through the book of Malachi.

So the priests and people would not accept God's call for them to repent. So what happens to a person or a people who don't recognize that they're sinning? It's the same thing that happens if you don't recognize your vehicle has an oil leak. You're going to have a major problem. There's going to be a breakdown.

Now either either you say, well, the dipstick saw for my oil light light is broken, and you just take out the fuse and you go on your happy way, you may feel good about it. But there's judgment going to fall on that vehicle. In the same sense, there is an arrogance to people who will not examine themselves for sin. Every day there should be confession on everyone in this room's part of the daily sins that we commit. And if you can't think up a sin that you've committed, I can tell you, too, that you and I sin every day with, it's we don't love God enough, and we don't love others like we should.

We don't. We love ourselves too much, and we don't love God enough. This is a daily sin on all of our parts. And so, friend, how do you respond when God's word and his truth confronts you? If you don't see sin in your life, you will never confess and repent of it.

You won't receive God's forgiveness. And so do you repent and get right with God, or do you get upset and defend yourself? And that's really what conviction does. It either causes people to repent and get right with God, or they get mad, get angry.

And I think we've probably all been on both sides of that. Warren Wiersbe said it's a dangerous thing when people argue with God and try to defend their sinful ways. And so what you find in chapter 3 is God responding to their antagonistic question. Again, Malachi 2.17, this is the way it ends. Now, you need to know that chapters in the Bible, like where they put chapters and verses, are not inspired by God. Okay, so chapter 3, God didn't say, you need to put chapter 3 after the word judgment. That was something man put in, and it helps us divide up the Bible and to structure it in a way, and so those things are okay. But chapter 2, verse 17, verse 17 goes, really chapter 3 should have started at the end of verse 16. So you need to understand, sometimes that happens.

It's rare, but it happens sometimes. So verse 17 really is included with the first six verses. If you section this stuff off, that's how that would go. And so they come, and God says, the Bible says, you have wearied the Lord with your words, yet ye say, wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them, or where is the God of judgment?

So the first thing we see tonight is the challenge of God's justice. They challenge and question God's justice, and this is really one of the age-old questions that people throw against God. Well, I don't believe in God because bad things happen to good people. Why do bad things happen to good people, and why do evil people seem to prosper? It's one of the biggest struggles that people sometimes face, and really the question, to be honest with you, is not why do good things happen to bad people, but why do good things happen to anyone? There are no good people. The Bible says there's none that doeth good, no, not one.

So we have a different definition of good than what God does. But this is a struggle that you need to understand that the Jewish people had, and it had consumed them. They had been captive for 70 years in the nation of Babylon. They had now returned to their own nation for the last 100 years. They have rebuilt the temple, but the temple was not as grand as it was in Solomon's day, and some of the forefathers knew that.

And in the book of Ezra, they wept over it because they were disappointed in the rebuilt temple. They were also under the Medo-Persian control. They were under the thumb of the Medo-Persian empire, and they would be for about 200 years.

So after they come out of Babylon, they were still under a level of oppression there. Also, about 100 years prior to the book of Malachi, Zechariah had preached one of the most encouraging messages to the nation. And Zechariah was pointing forward to the millennial kingdom, the thousand-year reign of Christ that will happen at the end of the seven-year tribulation. Revelation chapter 20, verse 1 through 7 speak about it, and God's going to set his kingdom up on earth.

It's going to be heaven on earth, if you would, for a thousand years. And so all of those blessings that Zechariah talked about, they were not seeing them come to pass. They were upset.

Again, they were under the control of a pagan nation. And so they were seeing people that were evil prospering. They were seeing people doing good, going through trials and difficulty. And they were like, what's the point?

What's the point in all of this? And their response is literally, verse 17, they said, Everyone that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord. They were saying things like, God is basically saying, you're good if you do evil.

You're good. And where is the God of judgment? God delights in the people who do evil.

They were throwing out some wicked assaults against God. Now, one of the challenges we have to, our sensibilities, is to see those who do wrong often prospering in the world. I mean, some of the most corrupt people in the world are the most wealthy people in the world. You have some people that are in power that it's like, you ever ask the question, like, how do they stay in power? How do they keep, how is that guy still a governor? Like, how is that individual still in that political position, or how are they still, how are they not in prison? Has anybody else ever asked this over the last, I don't know, say 10 years?

Like, how are they still free? Obviously, there are some injustices in the world. And then you see sometimes, like, man, that is one of the nicest men or nicest ladies, and why are they going through so many heartaches and so much pain and so much difficulty, and it can be so difficult to see that stuff that can really weigh on your heart. If you're familiar with Psalm 73, you're familiar with that challenge that the author of Psalm 73 had. In Psalm 73, he writes about how the wicked were prospering, and he's like, I'm doing good, and I'm just going through hardship, and basically, what's the use of it all? He said it was so burdensome to his heart that he almost just lost his faith in everything. Psalm 73 16, it says it like this.

He said, when I thought to know this, it was too painful for me. All these seeming injustices were overwhelming to my conscience and sensibility. And notice how he concludes in verse 17. Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then understood I therein. When he got a divine perspective, it cleared the haze. And I think sometimes we can get so off balance because we begin to define God's goodness by what happens in July of 2022.

Seriously? So God's going to be defined by that vapor length period? God's goodness is not based upon what happens in a little jot of a life, in a little tittle of a life, in a little vapor length time span. God's goodness is based on what you will have happened to you for the next billion years. I just simply would say if you had a timeline that went from that end of this auditorium to the other, and the span of that was 10 trillion years, and I said, okay, at a span of 10 trillion years, what would like a hundred year lifespan look like on a scale like that?

Come up here and write on the line, like how long do you think it would take? And you would come up and you would put the smallest possible dot that you could on that time frame. And I say, okay, so is God's goodness based upon the little dot that you wrote, or is it based upon the whole time span? And so we often say, God, unless you're good, write that little tiny dot, then you're not good anymore, and I can't trust you. And God looks down at us sometimes and says, you don't even have a clue.

You don't understand. He is El Olam, the God who sits in eternity. He holds eternity in his hands. The Bible says a thousand days is like yesterday to God. It's like nothing. It comes and goes.

It's like a breath. And so any Christian today can commit these kind of sins when they begin to question God's justice. Does anybody think we deserve more? It's been the age-old lie of Satan. You need instant gratification. What did he tell Adam and Eve, what you have? Paradise is not enough. I mean, if Satan can sell you paradise not being enough, there's a problem, right?

So Jesus, he said, why don't you make some bread? You deserve it. You deserve it. You ever have somebody tell you that, you know, you deserve better than this. You need to stop them and say, you know what, I don't deserve better than this. I deserve worse than this, and I need to thank God for what I do have. So don't get up in this victim card mentality.

Show me a verse in the Bible where God comes along and says, you're the victim. You just need to wrap your arms around yourself and hold yourself tight and tell you how wonderful you are. You need to really look out for you. Love yourself.

Just give yourself a kiss. You know, I mean, this is insanity, but this is what the world, this is a psychobabble that the world puts out. Now, our value, and the reason I say that is because our value is not defined by the creation. When you begin to assess value, and if the creation determines value, then you have things like abortion, because somebody can come along and say that human being does not have value, therefore I can end their life, or that's why Adolf Hitler can come along and say that Jew does not have value, or you could take early Americans where they said, in certain groups who said, you know, those black people have different skin color, so they are less valuable, and you have all these problems, so once a human begins to define the value of another human, that's when tragedy strikes. Our value doesn't come from people. Our value comes from our Creator.

That's exactly what our forefathers wrote in the Bill of Rights, and so we're endowed with these unalienable rights because we're made in the image of God, and so that's who gives us our value. Now, we see their cry of questioning and assault against God's goodness because they felt like God was not just. Secondly, we see the coming of God's justice show up here in verse number one and two. God comes, in response of their question, he says in verse one, Behold, I will send my messenger. Now, the word behold there, it's like saying pay attention, listen up.

It's a call to get the reader's attention. It's used 318 times in the Old Testament, and it's used twice in verse one. God says, Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord, or Adonai, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to the temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in. Behold, he shall come, see again, Behold, he shall come, saith the Lord, or Yahweh of hosts.

Now, a couple questions as we look at this. Who is the my of verse one, and who is the messenger of verse one? I believe in verse one there are three different people being spoken about.

Three different people. The my of the messenger, I believe, is referring to God the Father. This is Yahweh speaking as it ends that way. The word Lord in the English is used twice. You notice one of them is capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. That's the last Lord of verse number one, and that's the covenant name Yahweh. It would probably be better translated Yahweh there.

So that's the covenant name. That's the name of God. Then you have the word Lord, and earlier, midway down the verse, that's the word Adonai, and that's a different person, I believe, that is being spoken of. Now, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost could all be referred to that way, but they're clearly referring, I think, to two different people in the Trinity, in the thrice person of the Godhead. And again, the Trinity is something that's difficult for our minds to grasp, don't get ahold of, but simply stated, the Bible teaches there is one God in three separate persons. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son.

The Son is not the Spirit. There are three separate persons in one Godhead. You say, that makes three gods.

No, it doesn't. It's one God in three persons. You say, I don't understand that.

That's okay. You don't understand quantum physics either. If you don't understand the God who created quantum physics, you're probably not going to understand Almighty God. So there are three spoken here. The Maya is the Father. Secondly, the identity of the messenger.

Who is the messenger here? It's actually the Hebrew word malak, M-A-L-A-K. It's the root from where we get the word malakai from, and it just means messenger. It's often translated as the word angel.

Malakai is a real person's name here. But the messenger here, in verse number one, is John the Baptist. And we know that because this statement is referred to repeatedly in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It's repeated in all four gospels.

Let me just give you a couple places so you can see this to be the case. Luke 1, 76, the Bible prophesying in Luke 1 is a prophecy of John the Baptist from his own father. And it says, And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his way. Exactly what chapter 3, verse 1 says. Matthew 11, verse 10 and 11. This is Jesus speaking about John the Baptist, and this is what he says. For this is he of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women, there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist. So we see when the New Testament defines verse 1 of chapter 3, the messenger is John the Baptist. The third person spoken about here is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ.

The word Lord is Adonai, which means Lord, Master, the Sovereign One. And this is a clear declaration of the deity of Christ. You ever have somebody say the Bible never teaches that Jesus is God?

You ever had somebody say that? The Bible doesn't teach Jesus is God. I don't know how you could not... Do you read the Bible with your eyes closed? The Bible is so... Do you remember when Thomas said... Jesus came to Thomas and Thomas said, unless I see his hands and put my finger into his hand and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. And Jesus shows up in the room, doesn't open the door.

That's a problem, okay? A little startled. Comes up to Thomas. And how did he know what Thomas said if he wasn't there? And then he says, Thomas, reach either your finger and put it into my hand and reach either your hand and thrust it into my side and be not faithless but believing. You know what Thomas said in John 20? He fell to his knees and said this, my Lord and my God.

If Jesus wasn't Lord and God, he would say, don't say that, I'm just a man like you. Do you remember, isn't that what Peter and Paul and John and the rest of them said? Do you remember when Paul went to Lyconium? And they thought he was Jupiter, which is Zeus. And they thought Barnabas was Mercury, which is Hermes, one of their Greek gods. And they were going to worship them, make sacrifice. And Paul's like, no, no. And they scarce restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them because he healed a man that was lame from his youth, and I think it's in Acts 14.

And so they stopped people from worshiping them because they knew there's only one God. I'm not God, God is God, you know? But what did Jesus do? You know what Jesus said to him when he fell to his knees? He said, my Lord and my God, he said this, blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah.

Blessed are you. Blessed because you've seen me, you believed. He said, blessed are they who've not seen me and yet believe.

So he was calling him blessed because he professed what is true of Christ. Do you know, to be saved, you must confess Christ is Lord. Salvation is a confession of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot be a Christian and not believe in the deity of Christ. If you don't believe in the deity of Christ, you're not going to heaven. There is, because it's a different Jesus. Then Jesus is created.

He's a man. He is not eternal. And you know what the Bible says in Malachi 5 verse 2? When they said, where was Jesus to be born? They said, in Bethlehem of Ephrathah, for thus it is written in the prophets, out of Bethlehem shall he come, whose goings forth have been from old.

How long? From everlasting. That's how long Jesus has been around, from everlasting. John 1, when in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. He was God. He is the eternal God.

God made flesh. And so you just, it's so critical to know that. And if you have questions about that, I would be more than happy to sit down with anybody, whether watching or here, that has questions about the deity of Christ. That is such an essential reality. It's so clear in the scriptures. The only way you could come to the conclusion that Jesus is not God, you had to be taught out of that.

And so, what does this, what does this, again, A.R. Fawcett says this, when used with a definite article, as it is here in Malachi chapter three, verse one, when it says the Lord, talking about Christ here, it always refers to God, every single time in the Bible. Every single time in the Bible. So, so what does this mean, he shall prepare the way before me? Well, it speaks of the custom in that day, whenever a king traveled, they didn't have road crews. Okay, aren't you thankful for road crews to kind of clean the debris off the road? You know, you ever drive down the road and there's a big old tractor tire on the road, or one of the big tractor trailers blew one of their tires off, and, you know, somebody comes with a claw and cleans that up, or they clean the road off, and so forth. But, but, so they didn't have that kind of thing in those days, so what they would do is they would, they would, a public crier, a kaleo, they would go before them and cry, prepare the way for the king, and they would literally fill in potholes, and they would clear debris, tree branches, or whatever else, rocks that were on the road, to prepare the way for the king.

That's, that's what they did. And so Isaiah prophesies of John the Baptist, and just listen to what it says about him in Isaiah 40, verse 3. You ever read the book of Isaiah? It's so depressing, like for the first 39 chapters. It's like, judgment, judgment, judgment.

I mean, you're just like, always judgment! And, and then you get to chapter 40, you're like, yes! There's, there's, something's going to happen that's positive, you know what I mean? It's like this, this nation's just sin and judgment of God, and then chapter 40, it's like the light comes on, and it says in chapter 40, verse 3, the voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, prepare you the way the Lord makes straight of the desert, a highway for our God. That's, that's the idea of this preparation. Verse 4, every valley shall be exalted, every mountain shall, and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, the rough place is plain, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. All flesh shall see together for the mouth of Yahweh, or the Lord has spoken it. Now, what John needed to do was not physical road construction for the Lord Jesus Christ, but he needed to go prepare hearts for the Lord Jesus Christ and his appearing. Jesus said, my kingdom comes without observation. It is, it is a spiritual kingdom that Jesus was ushering in. And so the preparation was not road work, it was heart work that John was going to do.

It was not external preparation, but rather internal preparation. Now, to note, there's only one other prophet. Jesus was a prophet, priest, and king. There was only one other prophet that the Old Testament prophesies about his coming, and that was John the Baptist. He's the only other one outside of Jesus that was prophesied about of his coming. Now, what did John preach that prepared hearts for Christ?

And I think this is important. Matthew chapter three, listen to what the Bible says in Matthew chapter three, verse number one. It says, in those days came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea, because the Bible says when he comes, he's going to prepare hearts for God. He's going to prepare their hearts.

He's going to prepare the way for them. And we have maybe Matthew chapter three, verse two, it says, and this is what he preached, saying, repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he who was spoken by prophet Isaiah, saying, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way the Lord make his pass straight.

So the message John the Baptist preached to prepare hearts for God was a message of what? Repentance. Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. You ever had somebody say, you don't need to repent to be saved? Repentance is not part of salvation.

Really? Well, then how else do you prepare a heart for God? There's no other way. Repentance is what prepares you for God. Jesus said of those born of women, there's none risen greater than John the Baptist. There's none that has been risen greater than John the Baptist. You know why John was so great?

It wasn't because of the person. It was because of his message. And so you remember what John said? He said, I'm just a voice. He elevated the message, you see.

So we need to understand that if he was the greatest born of women, then his message was the greatest born of men. And he declared the message of repentance. You need to understand the weight of repentance. The word repent is from a Greek word that means to have another mind, to change your mind.

It is an inward way of thinking that is transformed. You literally align your thoughts in agreement with God. You ever had thoughts that didn't line up with the Bible? You ever used to believe something that was not right, and then you read it in the Bible, you heard it taught on, and you're like, uh-oh, I didn't realize I was off. I really believe something that's messed up.

And so what you do is then you have a decision to make. Okay, I believe something, and I've always thought this, and then I find out the Bible teaches something different. And so what you do, the Bible doesn't change. You have to move your mindset over to where the Scripture is.

Does that make sense? So there's people who say, you know, I think I'm good enough to get to heaven. I think, you know, God would accept me on my own terms of being a good person.

I haven't killed anybody, and they'll say stuff like that. And then you show them from the word of God that, hey, you need to repent, trust in Christ, and confess he is the Lord. And when they understand what the Bible says, then repentance is changing their mind, lining their life and will up with the truth of God.

And it's not just intellectual. It's an issue of the will of the person. You change your inward will to line it up with God. You bow your will to him.

And so this is not just intellectual. It is a change of mind that produces a change of behavior. Simply stated, to repent means to change one's mind and act on that change. Those in what I would call the easy believism camp teach it does not mean any outward change is necessary. Over the years, we've had people, very few, but we've had a small number of people, just you can probably count them on one hand, but that have left the church here because I believe that the Bible teaches when we preach this that you must repent in order to be saved. They say that's not found in the Bible. I say, have you read your Bible? The Bible says there's rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that what?

Repentant. The Bible says he's not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Jesus preached repent for the kingdom of heaven is the hand. That's what John the Baptist preached.

I mean, it's just everywhere, just everywhere, just drips off the pages of Scripture like the deity of Christ. And so the only way you don't, again, you don't see those things is if you've been taught in such a way that curves your belief system or you have pride that has kept God from being able to teach a person the truth because we're stout-hearted in some way, but Jesus made clear, if you clean up the inside of a man with repentance, you will clean up the outside. If you're truly repentant on the inside, how do you, like if somebody said this, hey, I'm going to go to the store. And then you talk to them later, are you going to go to the store? No, I changed my mind. But then they went to the store anyway, you would conclude that they did not change their mind. Does that make sense?

It's one of those duh things, right? So if somebody says, oh, I repented and gave my life to Christ, but their life is not given to Christ, then it evidences they truly didn't repent and change their heart and mind about it, right? So it doesn't mean you're going to be perfect, but it means that you're being perfected.

It's not the perfection of your life, but it is the direction that reveals true salvation. So repentance involves turning from sin and it's all through the scripture. Let me just show you from the Old Testament. I could literally, I have preached extensively on this in the New Testament, just show you a couple places in the Old. 2 Chronicles 7 verse 14, very familiar verse. It says, if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and in seeking his face, what does that also cause a person to do? They must turn from their wicked ways. You can't head in the direction of God and head in the direction of sin in the same time, right?

Then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land. Notice seeking God and turning from sin work in perfect harmony. People say, well, you can believe without repenting.

No, you can't. Believing involves repenting. It's a unified harmonious work. Ezekiel 18 verse 30 says, therefore, I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his way, saith the Lord God. Repent and turn yourself from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a new spirit, for why will you die, O house of Israel? When you read Ezekiel in 2 Chronicles, you see that God is calling them to repent and to turn from their sin. When God sent Jonah to preach to Nineveh, do you remember that? Jonah 3 verse 10, and after he preached, the people repented. It's a miracle.

Greatest revival like that ever could broke out. And Jonah's the worst missionary in the history of the world. He's upset for their conversion's sake.

He wants them to die. So Jonah 3 verse 10, and God saw their works that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil that he said he would do unto them and did it not. So when God saw they turned, then God turned. Now, the word evil there can be used in two way. There's in the Bible, it could be used of moral evil or calamitous evil.

Calamitous has no moral bearing. It's like a tragedy that strikes where moral is sinful. So God turned from the evil, which means the judgment and calamity that he was going to pour out upon the nation.

So here's what happens. The Bible says in John 3, 36, the wrath of God abides on the unbeliever, but when the unbeliever in repentance and faith turns in trust in Christ, God in like manner turns from the wrath that he was going to pour out and pours out instead grace and blessing and forgiveness. So as the heart of man turns, so God will turn from judgment to grace. How did God evaluate the Ninevites' repentance?

He evaluated it by their works, by what he saw. Now, they didn't get saved obviously by their works, but he could read their heart and mind, but he declares the evidence of true repentance was their external change. And so John the Baptist said in Matthew 3, 18, bring forth fruits, meat for repentance.

Bring forth therefore fruit, meat or worthy of repentance. There should be evidence, he's saying, of repentance. Do you have, when you examine your life, a lot of times people say this, have you been saved?

And like 80% of Americans will say yes, or 75% these days, 75 to 80%. You say, well, what does that mean? Some people say, well, I've been a good person. And you're like, well, that's not salvation.

You can ask them all kinds of questions and they'll find out that they don't even understand what salvation is. I don't ask people, have you been saved? Ask this, when in your life did you surrender your heart to the lordship of Jesus Christ and see him revolutionize you from the inside out? When did you fully surrender your will to Jesus and it was evidenced by a departure from the sins of your past to living for Jesus in your new life? People say, well, I've never seen a major change in my life. Well, then you've never met the major savior because when he comes in, guess what he does?

He comes out. The reason you're sitting here tonight, you're saved, is because he came inside of you. Anybody thought 20 years ago you'd be sitting on a Wednesday night service?

Anybody think that was not in the cards for you? Raise your hand tonight, amen? Yeah, some of you are raising both hand and your feet.

It's like, how many limbs can I put up? So that's the grace of God and that's what does change us. So here in Malachi 3, God is declaring to a rebellious nation with rebellious priests that God's messenger will come. He will prepare hearts for the Messiah and that message was a message of repentance. Now, God's message from Malachi to Matthew never changes. What he called them to here is what he calls them to 400 years later when the book of Matthew, when John the Baptist shows up.

People must repent and turn to God. And so this verse has a double meaning, double fulfillment I should say. Many prophecies in the Bible do this. Because the Jews rejected John the Baptist and Jesus, there will be another messenger who will come to prepare the Lord, the way of the Lord, and that's going to be during the seven-year tribulation period. Revelation 11 verse 3, it says this, I will give power unto my two witnesses and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days clothed in sackcloth. So for 1260 days there's going to be two prophets who preach on the streets of Jerusalem. And they're going to do this for the first three and a half years of the tribulation period, the seven-year tribulation, the first half of that tribulation, they're going to be preaching.

And the Bible tells us this is going to go on, according to Revelation chapter 11 verse 1 through 14. They're divinely sent messengers from God. They're protected.

It says if anybody tries to hurt them that person will be consumed. They have power to perform miracles. They're going to be doing incredible things. And this stuff's going to be like on the news.

I mean they're going to see this stuff. They'll probably twist it around as much as they can and make them as evil as they can. Now their identity is unknown, but I believe this is no one else but Moses and Elijah. I believe it will be those two Old Testament prophets.

And you say why would you conclude that? Well because the miracles that these two men perform in Revelation 11 mirror the miracles of both Moses and Elijah. Like Elijah, they're able to keep it from raining for three and one half years. And like Moses, they will be able to change water into blood. Now also both of them were at the Transfiguration of Christ in Matthew 17. If you remember when Peter, James, and John came to the Mount of Transfiguration, it was Elijah and Moses that were there. And so also Elijah was taken up to heaven.

He never died and they could never find the body of Moses, though I believe he did die. And so very, very interesting. You can get a read about that later if you're not familiar with those two prophets in Revelation 11. What's interesting though, this was written 2,000 years ago in Revelation 11. It says they will be killed by the beast and they will lay on the streets for three days, three and a half days, and it says all the world will see them. Now how could all the world see them if this was written 2,000 years ago?

It would be impossible. But today everybody in the world could see two dead bodies laying on the streets of Jerusalem. There's actually a 24-7 live feed onto the streets of Jerusalem, onto the Wailing Wall right now. And after three and a half days, God's going to raise them. They're going to go directly into heaven.

And it's going to scare people to death. They'll literally stand upon their feet and everybody's dancing and rejoicing to these two prophets who preached all this hard stuff to them. Hey, they're going to be preaching some hard messages. They're going to bring the fire down, buddy. You think they're going to be counter-cultural?

You think they're going to be seeker-sensitive? They're going to come in their skinny jeans and looking all cool and whatever. They're going to come and bring the fire of heaven. They're going to preach like John the Baptist.

They're not looking for people's acceptance. They're looking for God's truth. And they are going to preach the Word of God and they're going to shake the nations with the Bible. And every eye will see them. And God's approval for them is going to be, He's going to raise their dead bodies off the ground and He's going to take them directly into heaven and the world will know we got something wrong.

And then I can tell you after the first three and a half, all hell breaks loose literally on earth. We don't have time to get into Revelation tonight, but Malachi, that's what he's talking about here. But look at verse number one again. So he says, I will behold, behold, I will send my messenger and he shall prepare the way before me. And if you remember Malachi chapter four, he says in verse six, it talks about he'll come in the spirit and power of Elijah. Well, that Elijah, there's two, you know, John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah, but I believe this Elijah will also be fulfilled there in that Revelation chapter 11 passage. So they were asking in chapter 217, where is the God of judgment? And God says, he will come, he will come, his messenger will come and the Lord will come. And it says, and he shall prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom ye seek shall, verse one says, suddenly come to his temple. The word suddenly there doesn't mean immediately, but it means that he'll come in a way that's unexpected to you, in an instant, literally in a flash. You say, well, if God's sending his messenger, how could he come unexpectedly upon them? How could that happen? That doesn't make any sense.

Well, let me give you an illustration that may help. When Mount St. Helens blew its top in 1980, geologists knew that something was brewing. They could see the bulge on the side of the mountain and they could measure the increasingly threatening tremors. They warned the local residents to get out of there, but they didn't leave.

Some did, but others stayed. There was an old man named Harry Randall Truman, who had lived there for decades. When the newscasters interviewed him, he said that the mountain had been there for centuries. He didn't believe that it would blow up, so he wasn't going to move. But suddenly one morning the mountain exploded. And men like Harry Truman and others, who had ignored those warnings, perished immediately in the destruction that came. The destruction came suddenly upon them, though they were warned.

And in the same way, friends, that's what's going to happen to this world. I believe the Lord Jesus Christ is on the edge of his return. And the rapture of the church will happen, and there will be seven years of judgment that comes upon this nation. The 70th year of Daniel will be fulfilled.

Daniel 9 talks of it. And this will come to pass. This is going to happen.

This is going to happen. And you need to be... If you're not saved, you need to be saved.

You need to prepare for it. And you say, well, it's been 2,000 years. They've been preaching about Jesus coming for 2,000 years. Yeah, and you're right, and it's getting close. You say, how do you know it's getting close?

Well, because the Jewish people came back into their land. All these things that God's prophesied about are coming together. I've preached messages on 10 signs that point to the end times, and so many things that are shining that. Verse 17, they ask, where is the God of judgment? And the Bible says the Lord will come suddenly, and then you'll come to his temple. And here it's not talking about Zerubbabel's temple that they rebuilt here. It's not talking about Herod's temple, which they expanded in the New Testament, but it's talking about Ezekiel's temple. If you ever read Ezekiel, the book of Ezekiel, chapter 40 through chapter 48, is just all about the temple. And if you measure the dimensions of that, I've shown slides on that before, but it's just massive. It's so much bigger than Solomon's temple.

It's just huge. And so that's the temple. That's the temple that will be there during the millennial kingdom. That's the temple the Messiah will come to. Now, it says, even the messenger of the covenant whom you delight in, behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.

Jesus Christ is the messenger of the covenant. He will judge people based upon the divine standard of his word. In this statement in verse 1, he says, whom you delight in is really a statement of irony. It's saying you have no delight in God, and he will come in judgment.

It's really mocking them. And so we see God's justice question. God's justice will come. And finally, in conclusion, we see the preparation for God's justice in verse 2 through 6. Look what he says in verse 2 of Malachi 3. He says, but who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appearth?

For he is like a refiner's fire and like somebody who cleans stuff, a fuller's soap. And so here Malachi presents two questions to the readers. When Almighty God, when Adonai returns, when Yahweh's son returns, when he comes, are you ready to face judgment? Are you ready for God? Psalms 30 verse 3 and 4 rightly says, if thou, Lord, should mark iniquity, who shall stand?

You know, no one will stand, will they? Psalms 24 verse 3 and 4 says, who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart who hath not lifted up his soul into vanity nor sworn deceitfully. That's why when Jesus came, he said, blessed are the pure in heart. They shall see God. We need an inward cleansing, friends.

We need to be clean on the inside. Now, there's two kinds of judgments described in verse 3 down to verse number 6. God's judgment of purifying people and God's judgment of destroying the ungodly.

In verse 2 and 3, God's judgment is declared as a refiner's fire and fuller's soap. God would purge his people, cleanse them. And what would happen when somebody was a silversmith, they would heat the precious metals up very hot and all of the dross would bubble up to the top. They would scrape that off. And they say that those silversmiths would do that. They would keep scraping that off as it heated that and the dross would bubble up.

And they knew all the dross was removed when they could see their reflection in the metals and the silver and the gold, when they could see their reflection. And that's what God does. He turns the temperature up in our life. He purifies us with heat. And the heat of life cleanses us. And we say, God, why is there injustice? And God says, it would be unjust for me not to cleanse you with trials. It would be unjust for me to allow you to continue in your sin or continue in some way that is not what God's best is for you. And so that purifying process and God's doing that so that He could see His image reflected in our life. The Bible tells us, friends, that the purpose of salvation is not just to get us to heaven, but it's to conform us to the image of His Son.

Anybody feel like you have a ways to go still? Don't point at your husband and wife. Now that's what God's doing. Anybody like to go through trials?

No? Hebrews 12 verse 11 says, No chastening for the present seemeth joyous but grievous. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. We don't enjoy the pain of chastening or the difficulty of trial, but we know from James 1, Hebrews 12, that it is through that process that God purifies us.

And I'm so thankful for that. I'm so thankful that God is so gracious that when we sin, He just doesn't cast us away. You know, that He gives us mercy and grace.

I always think about Psalms 130. The Bible says in verse 10, He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward us.

As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities them that fear Him. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, plenteous in mercy to all that call upon Him. That is who God is. He doesn't judge us according to our iniquities. He's not rendered to us just judgment because we should already be dead.

We should already be separated from God. And He's been so merciful. The scale had been so lopsided of how much sin I have and how much mercy and grace God's poured out instead of justice and judgment upon me. So there are those who God refines, and you see that in verse 2 down to verse number 4. He says in verse 3, And he shall sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver, and shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.

Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant in the Lord, as in the days of old as in the former years. And then what you find in verse 5 and 6 is God coming in through chapter, and also chapter 4 verse 1, God coming to bring judgment to those who are ungodly. He says in verse 5, And I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be swift witness against the sorcerers, sorcerers of those who practice occultic things, and against the adulterers, those who are unfaithful in their marriage vows, against false swears, and against those who oppress hirelings, those who oppress people who have power, and people who earn wages, they oppress them.

It talks about oppressing people like the widows, the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from the right. And the reason for all of this, it says, And they fear not me. They don't have a fear of God, and this reflects really Romans 3.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. And it says, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Yahweh of hosts, and that's the name that's used multiple times over a dozen times in the book of Malachi. And he says, Verse 6, For I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. And if you read verse 1 of chapter 4, it says, For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, all that do wickedly shall be stubble in that day, and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

So you see, there is a coming day of wrath and judgment upon the world of unbelievers. And during the seven-year tribulation, you say, What's the purpose of this? There's two reasons for the tribulation period. When the Jewish people rejected their Messiah, God turned his attention to this unique entity called the church, where he married both Jew and Gentile into one in Christ, and they became this entity called the church.

For the last 2,000 years, that's what Christ has been building. The Bible tells us that there is one more period of seven years that God has. If you read Daniel chapter 9, it talks about 70 weeks of Daniel, 70 weeks of years of Daniel.

So there's one seven-year period left. And when the Messiah was cut off according to Daniel chapter 9, and you see that fulfilled when Jesus was crucified, God's time for the Jewish people came to a stop. And he turned his attention to both Jew and Gentile, brought them together in one. Romans 11 talks about this. Once the church is raptured up, God will turn his attention back to the Jewish people. The seven-year tribulation, the seven years that clock will begin again. And the two purposes for the tribulation is, one, the salvation of the Jewish people. You will see the Jewish people turn to their Messiah. Secondly, it is to judge the world for their sin. God's going to bring great judgment. I've heard people say this all through the years, you know, I believe hell's here on earth.

They have no idea what they're talking about. You think this is hell? You live in America. You ever been to Haiti? You ever been to a third-world country? You ever been to one of those places where you work all day and you make just enough to buy rice?

And maybe like four ounces of meat for the day, that's just your wages, and you live in a little shack off of a hillside, and you're calling hell on earth? Why? Because your boss was hard on you? Because you don't like the political leader?

It's ridiculous. When hell comes to earth, you know, there's so much going to be said, I don't have time to divulge all that, but it's critical to know that judgment's coming, friends. And we need to make sure that we're in the right group, that we are under the grace of God and not going to be under the judgment of God.

Now, you know which group you're in by this. Examine if your faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. I didn't say in Jesus Christ, but in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says, Whosoever shall call upon the Lord shall be saved. You don't get saved by asking Jesus in your heart. You get saved by confessing Jesus is Lord. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart God raised you in front of the dead, thou shalt be saved. For whosoever shall call upon the Lord shall be saved. You know what the thief on the cross said? Lord, remember me in your kingdom. It is a confession of the king, the sovereign, your God in Christ.

Have you done that? Have you repented and turned from your sins and turned to God, fearing God more than man? Your life, though it may not be perfect, obviously none of us are, but your life is moving in a direction that loves God more than anything else. Sometimes, friends, life will seem difficult.

There'll be challenges in our life. But above all else, we need to understand that God's goodness is not based upon what happens in July of 2022. It's based upon what will happen for eternity. Instead of questioning God's justice, trust God and praise Him for His perfect justice, He is going to bring that in. They're like, where's the justice of God? God says, oh, it's coming.

My messenger is going to come. My Messiah is going to come. And He's going to set His kingdom up in justice like a refiner's fire. We'll even purge His people and cleanse them so His perfect image will be reflected in them in such a glorious way in His temple. It's God's temple.

It's not man's. It's God's temple. And if you're not saved tonight, tonight would be the night for you to be saved. Call out to Christ.

Trust in Him. Repent of your sins. Surrender your life to the King.

Let's all stand this evening. Heads bowed, knives closed, the altar's open. If God spoke in your heart, you're welcome to come. Maybe you need to make a spiritual decision tonight. We have men and women at the front that could talk with you and say, I have some questions about how to be saved, how to know when my life's over, how I could be in heaven. Friend, we'd love to have you come and to sit down and show you from the word of God how you can know that for sure.

You don't want to leave here tonight without knowing that answer. Father, we thank you for your word tonight. We thank you for the gospel, for its truth. I pray that you would help us to examine our light and life in light of these truths and seek to honor you, Lord God, with our mind, our heart, our life. And all of us fall short every day and so we come humbly. And you said in your word, if we confess our sins, that you're faithful and just to forgive us, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so we pray that you would do that work. We thank you for your mercy and your grace. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen.