More as a, I guess, just to drive that point home, I don't want you to think I'm making a big deal out of a small verse and a small minor prophet at the end of the New Testament. So I wanted to draw that out. We're not gonna go through these references, but I just wanted you to see the volume of references here. The whole point of the Exodus, the whole point in God intervening in the history of man to work miraculously to call the people out to himself and then to meet with them at Sinai, and to designate the covenants that he made with them, right? The very root, if you will, of what it is we believe as Christians is evidenced there in that Exodus experience, right? Creation moved up into it in some sense, and I don't have time to develop that argument, but if you took a pyramid in some sense and turned it upside down, the very pinnacle of it would be creation, and you move into that Exodus period, what the Lord did in the Exodus period, And it just gets larger and larger. And you say, what about Noah? And what about this? And it all fits in that pyramid really nicely. But the Exodus is this unbelievable thing that the Lord keeps going back to and saying, no, no, you don't understand. This is where it began. This is what it looks like. This was the first time I showed you what it was to be like. And every single verse of it drips specifically with, and I did these things that you would serve me. A lot of those first references there are actually the plagues being announced to Pharaoh. And in every one of them, Moses goes to Pharaoh and he says, let my people go that they may serve me. But you can see it, it just keeps going, right? Deuteronomy and Joshua and Jeremiah and Zephaniah, and it continues into the New Testament in Luke. And there were many more passages that I could have thrown in there. I kind of asterisked, I don't know if that's a word, Actually, it's not a word. Luke 4, 8 there, because it quotes from the Old Testament. What I like about the quote is it's Moses reminding the people not to forget why it is God drew them out in the Exodus, why God drew them to himself. So whether you call that drawing them out of being under the curse or drawing that to yourself, there's really no clear distinction, at least in my mind, between those two. When Moses is trying to remind the people, this is why the Lord acted in history. This is why he did what he did. And what a better time of year to be running. Who thought Malachi 3.18 would be a great Christmas verse, but it is. This is why Christ came, that you might serve him. Peter puts it in a different context and I've quoted it later, right? But these very great promises and the enablement of the Holy Spirit have been given to you that you might serve Him. And we'll cover that in some more specific language here in just a second, but it's all through the scriptures. distinction, I can't say it enough times, the distinction between those that will stand before the Lord in the day of judgment and those that will flee from that judgment is their service. It is distinctive service. And in the context of the last couple of weeks of Malachi, it is specifically not for the profit of this world. It doesn't mean that the profit doesn't happen or that it doesn't come or that God abominates those that are able to profit much from their work in this world. He tells us all to work and to provide for his families and he promises to come alongside us in that even. I just can't underscore enough how formalistic religion likes to say the words of God and teach the words of God and be satisfied by the intellect of God, but always fails short in service. Actual obedience, just plain obedience. And it is not to prefer one over the other. I don't think anybody that knows me would accuse me of being anti-intellectual. At least I hope not. Inept, maybe. but not anti-intellectual. I'm at least not against it, even if I can't rise to the occasion. But oh, I want my service to be right. I want to stop, just personal here, right? I want to stop getting to the end of the week with a grumbling heart. That's formalistic religion, religion that allows me to teach on Sunday mornings. But the testimony of at least my heart, if not often my mouth or my attitude, is the opposite of serving God. It says He's not good enough and not satisfying enough. He's not done enough for me. He's not cared for me in the right way. I don't have what I need. He is not good. And I know how I play that out, but I'm asking you to just be honest with yourself. Many of you, because of the disposition of your character, play that out in different ways. You call it shyness, or you call it struggling with sickness, or you call it, I'm just a serious person. I mean, you call it different things, but we all know what it looks like. It looks like a person that doesn't serve a great God. A dead religion always forgets to serve God. And I'm just using the word that the scriptures use there, right? It always forgets to serve God according to his law. And we hate that word. I hate that you hate that word. I wish you loved that word because at least in Hebrew, it's the word toro, which gives a better sense of it as the teachings of a father, a loving father for his child. Dead religion always forgets to serve God according to his Torah, according to his teaching. Dead religion always forgets that he has granted to us, and this is the 2 Peter 1 verse here, for whatever reason. Oh, I was gonna say, for whatever reason, I didn't tell you where it was, but I did in the footnote. Dead religion always forgets that he has granted to us his precious and very great promises so that through them we may become participants in the divine nature. I don't know where your mind goes when you hear divine nature, but I just think Christ. We always talk about being like Christ, right? We are supposed to participate in the life like Christ. The one that pleases God, the one that evidences our response of faith. And it goes on in the next verse, verse five, adding to our faith. Your English Bibles will say virtue, but I don't know. dislike that word a little bit, because it means something differently in modern English than it meant about 3,000 years ago in Greek literature. When the Greeks talked about virtue, they had some very specific things in mind. As a matter of fact, there are books that you can buy talking about the Greek concept or philosophy of virtue. And it really comes from this word arete. And the best way I can describe that to you, this appeals to my sons. I get that it will not appeal to everybody in the room. But as a father of sons, I work for son metaphors, right? And for my sons who have more knives than anybody could possibly use during a lifetime and are still looking to purchase more, they like this metaphor. You can talk about a knife having certain kinds of perfection, but if you never use it, if it never satisfies the intent for which it was created, it lacks virtue. It's ornamental, but it is not virtuous. For a thing to be virtuous, it must be excellent for the end for which it was formed or created. That's the sense of arete. How many of us are like, again, I get this metaphor doesn't work, please replace with your own, I apologize. How many of you are like those decorative knives? Right? Instead of the ones that when you use them, and I get again, you guys are like, I don't really do that. Well, I do. I own a lot of land. I have knives this big, this big. I've got sharpeners for them. When I grab and use an excellent blade, it makes me happy. If you've ever tried, you understand. An excellent tool, if you prefer, makes me happy. I work, maybe, I don't know if this works, and I'm not trying to be sexist here at all, but I work with a lady that's not at all dainty. Matter of fact, she's a tough old bird, younger than me. But she quilts, which is somehow hard for me to put that label on her, but she quilts, and she has several sewing machines, and one of them, I have no idea what it costs, but she's always like, that's pretty much as much, costs as much as a car. Whatever it is about that sewing machine makes her eyes get bright, right? It's not ornamental. It doesn't sit in a shelf. She takes a whole week off of work. She just did it. That's why it's fresh in my mind. She takes a whole week off of work to go hang out at some conference facility and do quilting stuff. And she loves that machine. It is excellent at accomplishing the end for which it was made and for which it was purchased. I just don't want you to miss that. That's what Peter is calling you to. Service that accomplishes what God made you for and what God saved you for. To add virtue or arete to your life, to your walk. It's the same call here in Malachi. Holiness, usefulness, do a study sometimes, it's so rich. Everything that God does is ultimately useful. Ultimately useful, ultimately purposeful. And everything that he has done in redemptive history is for his own glory, but has worked, his glory has been manifested through his goodness and redemption. And yet we would take that redemptive act and act like it's some sort of ornament that we get to somehow grasp or realize and then put on a shelf and do nothing with. And that's so objectionable. That's so objectionable. Dead religion hears God, but does not serve him. I'm not gonna go to that passage, but that Ezekiel passage there is pretty good. We read it last week, actually. It's ready to hear God's word and gather others to hear God's word, but when it comes to obeying it, Not gonna happen. And you're familiar with the James passage there, right? Faith and works. So, I'm not gonna, I don't wanna say bore you, but I'm not gonna weigh you down with that. Stay on target with Malachi. The righteous and the wicked listen to God's word, go through the motions of religion, want God's goodness, and name God's name. But only the righteous Serve God. Serve God. Please don't make that word other than what it is, right? Obey God's word in the activities of all of their lives. That's what it means to serve. And it's just so simple, right? And yet it's one of those abstract words to us. Well, you didn't serve God. We all kind of go, well, that doesn't sting too bad. That disputation doesn't seem to sting too bad until you realize that God made you for a purpose and for an end. And for you to sit ornamentally on a shelf, adoring those truths and naming that name and not accomplishing the end for which he created you, it's an abomination. It's the opposite of virtue. It's the opposite of arete. Psalm one talks about what a righteous man looks like, right? Makes clear the distinction. And one author says, you know, Psalm one makes clear the distinction, that the distinction is not a matter of how a person appears to anyone or how they are understood by anyone or how they even understand themselves. but how they are treated by God. You say, what's the point of that? I just want to be clear that you are not the standard. And one of the major roadblocks to you participating, as second Peter says it, in the virtue or the arete for which God intended you, is that we often are willing to be satisfied by our own standard of what we believe we should be. But we are not the standard. Nobody cares what we think about ourselves. that he is the standard. God will judge. And one of the most, to me, one of those frightening passages in all of scriptures, right, is the one where he separates the goats from the sheep. Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Didn't we stand up on Sunday mornings and teach out of Malachi until people's eyes bled? Depart from me, I never knew you. You say, well, Paul talks about grace alone. I'll tell you what Paul says, as far as I'm concerned, that helps me to sleep at night. Paul said, be found in the race, running flat out for the glory of the Lord, even when your body is weary and broken and hurt. And because you're running flat out for the glory of the Lord, you can have confidence that you know Him, because you're in the race, you're running toward the end which He intended you. That's what Paul says. So how does all the grace stuff fit in? I don't know, but I'm not gonna diminish that other passage. Actually, I don't have the time to develop that. I don't want to act like I don't care about grace. I care infinitely about grace. Without grace, I am doomed. Without grace, I don't get to be in the race. I never would have qualified. And the same grace that allows me to run the race demands that I continue in that running until the day he takes me home. It's being in that race, not being willing to sit on the sidelines, not being willing be discouraged, not being willing to fall down in sin and lay down in it instead of standing back up and asking for forgiveness and continuing in the race. Not counting all my losses as too much a price to pay and therefore quitting the race or walking the race. You say, I have to run? Yes. Yes. How do you know? Because Christ says, I require all of you. He that would not surrender all cannot be my disciple. It's important to see that the standard is God's standard, a standard that we are to be striving in the fear of God and in the strength of God to accomplish. I wanna be careful here. so much is required of us and yet we are desperately needy of what God must supply for us to do it. I just want to be so careful. I see no contest between my infinite need of God's sovereign work and my infinite obligation to add virtue to all that he has done by satisfying my infinite need. I see no contest there. How do they play together? I'm not exactly sure, but I can cite them and reference them and quote them from beginning to end of scripture. Any teaching that diminishes that has the gangrenous smell of dead or dying religion, if I use the metaphor of Malachi. The first words on your lips every morning are, I'm fine because of God's grace. I would challenge you that there's a smell of something dying, but if you tweak it just slightly, I am so happy that God's grace enables me to be reconciled to him. and to run hard for his glory and service today. Amen. See, that's an awfully fine distinction. I don't think it is. I'm sorry, I just don't think it is. I don't think Malachi thought it was. I don't think John the Baptist thought it was. I don't think Ezekiel thought it was. I don't think Christ thought it was. I don't think Paul thought it was. I don't think Peter thought it was. Because so much of their writing talks about this very thing. And then we come to Malachi 4.4, which is really the beginning of our lesson today. So, because those things are true, don't forget, remember, The law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Remember the Torah of my servant, the teachings that I gave him. Deuteronomy 12, 28, be careful to obey all these words that I command you, that it may go well with you and with your children after you forever. Notice how that plays into verses five and six, particularly six. When you do what is good and right in the sight of Yahweh your God. When you do what is good and right in the sight of Yahweh your God. Notice the synthesis there of obeying. Not just knowing the words and the laws, obeying them, and doing what is good and right in the sight of Yahweh your God. It has all the elements there that we've already talked about. The need for service, the need for obedience, the need for arete, and the standard is squarely in Yahweh's court. He maintains the standard. It is in His sight. that we must do what is good and what is right. And Christ picks up that exact same construct, if you will, that same truth in Matthew 28, 20. It's the last words that Matthew records in his gospel. Christ is about to return. He's doing this great commission. He says, baptize them in the name of Christ, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. What does it mean to observe it? It means to obey it. It means to do it. It means to act it out. It means to accomplish that which we've been instructed in, that which we were saved for, that which the Holy Spirit was given us for. And so 4.4 stands like a narrative summary, if you will, over all of Malachi. Because these things are true – and we're going to review what these things are here, I've listed them all out for you, and we're not going to re-teach through them, but we are going to go through them quickly enough to get a good sense in our minds of what's going on here – but because these things are true, remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. So let's look through. What's the motivation for this remembrance? We have six incisions. Insensitivity to grace, right? And just to refresh yourself there, right? God says, I have loved you, and you say, well, how have you loved us? And then they point to their circumstances, and God says, pay attention. The implication in 1.5, Yahweh corrects their perspective and declares what is true. See what the Lord is doing. See what the Lord is doing. Christiana last week challenged a few of, well, challenged me, really, but by doing that, I argue that she challenged the room. You know, to journal some of that, to write it down, to go through the practical exercise of writing down, what is the Lord doing in my life? And how am I thinking about it? I recommend that, particularly in this one, it's super helpful. We don't see, or we don't know, or we don't believe that the Lord is caring for us because we're not getting what we want the way that we want it in the time that we want it in. The Lord says, what is wrong with you? Look what I am doing. I love you. I have loved you. Look at all the things I've done. I continue to love you. Look what's going on in your life. And I will love you. Look at the promises that I've given you. insensitivity to grace, insincere worship. They offer polluted food on my altar. They bring whatever is convenient to the altar. You see so much in number two, Number four, number five, and number six. All those incisions. You see so much of the interaction between our desire for the things of the world. And all I mean by the things of the world in that sense is not the traditional like, oh, those ugly, awful, sinful things. I just mean the things you can taste, touch, see, and feel. You begin in this insincere worship one and it's just magnified as we go through to see that our distraction, our desire for those things of the world competes so much that what we bring the Lord in worship is what's left over. And yeah, that is true of things as transactional, as a sacrifice or an offering, It's really just so difficult for us to understand how important, how costly, I guess I'll say, these sacrifices were. You bring the best. You work hard to do all this stuff that you do, and then you identify the best of the outcome of all of those efforts, and you bring that to me. insensible to grace or insensitivity to grace, insincere worship, instability of families. We are faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers in the sanctuary of the Lord by doing two things, marrying the daughters of a foreign God and covering Yahweh's altar with tears, with weeping and with groaning. It is grievous to me that the statistics for broken homes and broken marriages in the church is identical, is identical to the world's. I don't know why, I've been here a very long time now, about half the history of the church. Hope, not like I thought church. Not that old, thank you, I saw that. I, and I don't, I just share this with you as a picture, all right, not a condemnation. But I remember when Angela and I got here, for whatever reason, we, can't say that we were great friends with the Barrios, But we, for whatever reason, bumped into them a lot in ministry type activities. And they were doing a tremendous amount of counseling at the time. And it was all like young, well, not just young, it was marriages. It was marriages and families. It was young couples that were engaged or recently married that were were just tremendously unfaithful to each other in all sorts of different ways, both physical and emotional and spiritual. If you could talk about, I don't even know what spiritual means in that sense, but not fulfilling the obligations that God intended them to fulfill. That's what I meant by spiritual in that sentence. And I just remember we were so impressed by that. And it wasn't that this church was worse than the others. I just think we got some insight into it because of this person that we had been bumping into who was so active in ministering to those very kinds of people. So that's all I was trying to say, right? There's no condemnation or criticism there. I'm just sharing that with you. And while I intersect less with Pastor Gabe, he seems like a crazy busy dude. And he's got additional help now, right? Other people that come alongside him, like Mike Moody, for instance, and try to help out. These are busy people. I probably have a little more access to some of the stories from the men, and I have no access to the stories from the women, which I'm grateful about, but I happen to know there's a healthy women's counseling ministry in this church as well. You say, is that all horrible? No, yes. I guess I cite it as an indication that we need to hear the message of Malachi. That someplace along the way, we have discarded the priority of satisfying the God-given covenants of family. And we have allowed ourselves some self-established standard that says, it's okay. It's okay. At a minimum, it's okay that we are not sold out to our roles as one flesh in Christ, husband and wife. It's okay because it's so hard, by the way. I'd be the first one to admit it. It is okay that we are not doing a good job raising our children. You say, how do you know if you're doing a good job? I'm not sure. Talk to Pastor Plum. That would probably be my response. He seems to have done a great job with four children. One, two, three, four. Did I get that right? Four? I'm still trying to do it with two. I'll let you know how it turns out. Sensitivity to grace. If I keep repeating them, I'm hoping you memorize them. Insincere worship. Instability of families. Inaccurate. And by the way, then when things don't work out, we just get emotional in our worship. Right, God stops responding to us because we are not responding to him in the way that we obey and serve him. And so we just decide we're gonna turn up the emotion on our worship and God says, stop it, stop it. I'm not interested in your tears. Return to your families. Serve me in the way that you satisfy the purpose I had for you in marriage and the purpose I had for you in giving children. Say, wait, I didn't actually ask for my children, it just happened. God opens the womb and God closes it. If you've got a kid, it's because God intended it. There's a good message for you to take down to the Laurel Pregnancy Center, by the way. Inaccurate views of God. You have wearied God with your words. How have we done that? By saying everyone who does evil is good in the sight of Yahweh, and he delights in them. Or by asking, where is the God of justice? And again, that or is conjunctive, not disjunctive, right? It's both, not either or. We don't see God acting, and so he's not real. He's far off, he's distant, he's removed. He doesn't require our service. What's he gonna do anyway? Look at that guy, he's not doing anything to that guy, what's he gonna do to me? Well, I don't know, is that guy called of God? Because God might be pouring out an extra dispensation of mercy, if you can use the word dispensation of mercy on that guy, knowing that this is all the goodness he'll ever see. Because the judgment will consume him. I don't know what God's doing in that guy's life, I just know that these six disputations are for us that name the name of Christ. And when we act as though God does not care about our daily activity and its consistency or compliance to his law and his rule, he considers that wearisome. And how does that one end? It ends by saying, God will come and he will judge. And the implication is act now in accordance with my standard, not your standard, but my standard. because when I come, that's it. That's it. Insufficient views of God, inaccurate views of God, and insufficient views of God. So you might say wrong views of God, and then small views of God. You have continually turned away from my commands for generations and not kept them. Return to me. How are we to return to me? Stop robbing me. How are we robbing you? Tithes and offerings. We spent a lot of time on that, but ultimately the implication there is if we bring our best and first to God, he will grant great abundance. Do you believe that the greatest value is in God? Ten years ago, I started a small business. I started a small business so that I could run, I could be a part of something that honored God, that was ethical and had high integrity. That was my principal motivation for starting a company. Secondarily, I wanted a venue for being a witness to Christ. As a business owner, I get a lot of flexibility to establish a certain conduct and tenor at work. What's permissible and what's not? And where will we be focused? And what will we attribute things to? We do not observe Pride Week at my company, just in case you missed that. And that's just a simple high-level example. But we do interview and potentially hire gay people. Just like we interview and hire people who struggle with pornography. You say, well, does that come up in the interview? Of course not. But as I find out later, it's not one of the questions I ask. I don't ask you if you're gay in an interview. I don't ask you if you're a pornographer in an interview. I don't ask you if you're faithful to your wife in your interview. I do ask you if you're a drunk, because I need to do your clearance. Or if you do drugs or other such things. I wanted to establish a company that allowed me to every day be a witness in the marketplace for the glory of the Lord. And it has not gone the way I thought it was going to go. It's not bad at all. I always feel like I come up here and talk about how horrible it is. It's not bad at all. We are this teeny little company with potential out to here. Work flows in every day that I don't even look for. Literally, people find me on the internet and call me and say, I need you to do work for us. But it has been hard. And I'm frustrated because I keep thinking I'm going to get over some cuss, but it won't be hard anymore. I keep waiting for the coasting period, and it never happens. And I'm getting bitter, frankly, waiting for that. The point I'm trying to make here right, is in studying through Malachi for these last six or seven months as I work through it with my small group and then again in here, right, what happens if the Lord never gets me to the coast period? What happens if it just stays like it is? What happens if he closes it? I think I told you a few weeks ago, I don't have too much time for this, but I think I told you a few weeks ago, a guy that's been in business that I've known very long, I think he's actually a Christian, He and I certainly talk about Christ all the time and God's sovereign superintending of all things work. And it looks like the Lord is just scrapping his business. He had a red letter year last year and this year he's going under. I'm busy trying to find work for some of his employees on a contract basis to keep this guy afloat. After 15 years of success, what happens if God does that to me? Opening my hands, I've told you about this, right? In my prayer time, I open my hands and I'm like, Lord, this is all that I have. And you see what I want. You see what I'm trying to do. And you know my heart better than I do. I want to stand in front of these Sunday morning classes and say, God is good enough. No matter what you take or what you put into my hand, take from my hands or put into my hands. I want to show that God is the greatest value. Not by some fiction of my own activity, not like some actor. I'm a good speaker, I'm dramatic, I'm Irish, it comes naturally. Right? I don't want to impress you with something that comes from me. I just want to reflect the excitement and goodness of God in my own heart. And reflecting is the best word I can think to say that. I want my own response to God to be such that it shows, it reflects only Him. And I'm coming, the older I get, the more I'm coming to the realization that there's, I think, some necessity that that be done through trial. That the most durable testimony of God's goodness, the most effective testimony of God's goodness, I'm getting excited about this, I promise I won't go too far with it later, The most effective testimony of God's goodness is in my trial. is in my struggle, in my pain, in my sickness, in whatever it is for you, right? In that thing that God is doing in your life that where you just feel like my grip is lost. My grip is not sufficient to hold on in the midst of this thing. It's in those times that God's glory is made greatest, right? And then, you know, of course, I teed it up for you, but you know the passage, right? God's goodness and God's glory is magnified in my weakness. an insufficient view of God. We demonstrate that every day when we fail to reflect that amazing goodness of God. I'm bringing everything that I have to you, Lord, and surrendering it to you. How do I serve you today in the midst of this? What you're taking and what you're assigning and what you're doing and what you're giving and what you're oppressing with, if you want to use that word, because that's how we feel about it sometimes. I don't know that that's an accurate word for what God does to us, but that's how we feel. All those things. Bring your whole life to God. He said it before him, right? And see if he will not open you the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing that you shall not have room enough to receive the Malachi 310. Mostly out of the KJV with a little ESV sprinkled in there. Improper motives for service. You have overruled me, right? You have spoken against me. How have we spoken against you? You have said it is vain or useless to serve God. I just cannot help but wonder how many of us actually think that this, I don't think any of us would say that or think those specific words, but let's not get too excited about Christ. Well, why not? Because does it matter? Does it matter? You want an example of one of the chief symptoms that I see of this type of formalistic religion? A lack of involvement in each other's lives. It is messy to get involved in people's lives, and our own lives are already so messy that we can't imagine how that's going to play out. How can I do that? What is the profit of our keeping his charge or of walking as in mourning repentance before Yahweh of hosts? Is he really paying attention? He is paying attention. Those who fear God and esteem his name live in strong distinction to the ones who do not by serving him. insensitivity to grace, insincere worship, instability of families, inaccurate views of God, insufficient views of God, and improper motives for service. And then we have here in the epilogue, this summary challenge. So remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and the rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. And I don't wanna make too big of a deal about this, but remembering to keep the law of the Lord really seems to speak, I mean, just directly into incisions one through three. And preparing for the coming day of the Lord really speaks into those incisions number four through six. I love that in Deuteronomy 31, nine through 13, Moses challenges the people that every seven years during the feast of booze, gather all the people and read the law that they may hear and learn to fear Yahweh your God and be careful to do all the words of this law." What's he saying? He's like, you have a tendency to fall away. You have a tendency toward formalistic religion. You have a tendency to live in the culture of religion without the heart of religion. And so every seven years, And not only that, but every seven years, I want you to gather the people for a time of remembrance. And I want you to read the law to them that they may hear and learn to fear Yahweh, your God, don't miss that. Fear the standard by which he will evaluate us and respond to that standard with obedience, with service. And that their children who have not known it may hear and learn to fear Yahweh. You are God. Those same challenges are repeated in the New Testament, lest you think this is only an Old Testament context. Look at James 2.7, Hebrews 12.14, John 14.15, Matthew 7.22-23, and Romans 6.2, and others. Just a few more minutes, if you'll bear with me, that's really the end of that section, but I'd like to come back and just flesh out some of the things that I think are worth noting about verses five and six here. I called it a bridge to the New Testament, one story. And I quoted that Joel B. Green. He does a great job talking about how Luke picks this up as though there were no break. A lot of New Testament commentators like to talk about, hey, this is the Old Testament. And then you get to the New Testament and they talk about promise and fulfillment. And by fulfillment, they somehow mean what was done and the Old Testament is done, and now we start this whole new thing, and I dislike that. I dislike the disconnect between the Old and the New Testament. That doesn't mean that Christ did not fulfill things, but the way it's presented is, though, it's just different. It's not different, and it's like trying to grab this heavy pendulum halfway through the stride and stop it, and go, well, I'm not gonna let the Old Testament swing into the New. I'm gonna lose all the momentum, and I'm gonna start all over. Well, what do we do with all that? And Luke does this great job of going back to the Old Testament and just showing Christ in the context of the, this is the follow through on that pendulum swing. And that's a poor metaphor, but it's the best one I got for right now. The Bible is a narrative of God's work to bring glory to himself by manifesting his goodness in redeeming for himself a peculiar people. I hope you can remember all those things. It's a full narrative, right? A story, if you will. It's a full narrative of God bringing glory to himself by manifesting his goodness through the redemption of a peculiar people, a people called out to himself, conspicuous in their service. Behold, I will send you Elijah, the prophet, before the great and awesome day of Yahweh comes. In Matthew 11, 13 through 14, and 17, 10 through 13, make it very clear that Elijah is, this Elijah here, is John the Baptist. It's also in Luke 1, 17. And John the Baptist's message is repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and I would argue that sits as a great summary of Malachi. Look at all these things, these disputations, look at where you've gone wrong in your worship of God, in your religion, in your formalistic religion. So repent, because the kingdom of God is at hand. Christ says the same thing in Matthew 4, 17. He says, repent. for the kingdom of God is at hand, just to be clear. And he goes on to teach about the difference in formalistic religion and true membership in the kingdom of heaven. Go read just the, you know how your Bibles have those little section headings that are usually some bold print above the passage or whatever? Go through the passage, Matthew 6, 1 through 7, 29, and just read those section headings. They look remarkably like the six disputations in Malachi. Obviously bigger because they're coming through Christ and he's revealing, this is what I really meant. You didn't get it, but this is what I was really saying. And so in some senses they're explanatory, but they're remarkably similar to the six disputations of Malachi. This day of the Lord here is a bit tricky. And it's tricky because it really has two renderings. terribly thrilled with my references here, but look through them. The day of the Lord that is being spoken of here in Malachi is both the coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ. And you say, well, which is it? My answer is it's definitely the coming of the Messiah, because it's in the context of this Elijah who will come as a messenger. And Christ said, and Gabriel said that John the Baptist is this Elijah. So we absolutely know that Malachi is talking about John the Baptist being a messenger for Christ who is satisfying this day of the Lord clause here. But we know in the New Testament that the day of the Lord is the second coming of Christ. We see in part, just like we did in the Old Testament, we currently see in part what Christ is going to fulfill, or what Christ has fulfilled, and we will see it in whole when Christ comes again. And there's a bunch of passages for you. Just note that Elijah, Malachi, John the Baptist, and Christ emphasized repentance at the moment of opportunity, because the day of the Lord was coming. Consider these six disputations and do not, do not miss an opportunity for repentance, for change. To open your hands to the Lord and say, Lord, in one or more of these ways, I have participated in empty formalistic religion, and will you please help me to fix that in a daily service for you, a daily obedience. Kingdom of, oh, I didn't finish my thought, I'm sorry. Well, I guess it's good enough by as it is. The kingdom is coming, though yet far off, quote unquote, but now is the moment of opportunity for repentance. And that's what Malachi is getting to here. Remember the law of my servants, Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet for the great and awesome day of the Lord is coming. Do you hear the imminence in his voice? So you need somebody to remind you or to recall you to repentance. And then this is a difficult passage, but the meaning isn't hard, it's just the specifics of it that's tricky in verse six. And 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. So there's an imperative here, just in case you hadn't noticed. The work of Elijah, and the coming day of the Lord need to happen effectively, or Christ will come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. And again, the interpretation is easy enough to get the sense of, but hard to understand the depth of. On its face, the passage is, God is calling his people back into relationship with himself, and he's doing it across the generations, right? The fathers and the sons. But how it specifically plays out, I've only, there's about six different interpretations of it. I've only picked up on, I'll say the fourth and fifth ones. It's really fourth and fourth modified, but it doesn't matter. The couple of alternatives that are offered here is that the metaphor of reciprocal returning of fathers and children's hearts is about returning to the covenant of God. But in every sense, or at least any sense that makes any sense, I think this passage is talking about returning to the covenant of God. In other words, returning to the active obedience through service to the obedience of God's teaching, God's word, God's law. Now, in the first interpretation, The children are like the current and future people of Israel and they're returning to the covenant-keeping of those first fathers that entered into that covenant with God through like Moses's teaching. That's the first interpretation of this. I would submit that that falls short because then what does it mean when the children's, that's fine for children's heart return to father's, but what about the father's heart's return to children? And so that gets weird there. So I think a better alternative is really in the context of Malachi 2.3, which sees children as cut off from the fathers because of the sin of the fathers. In other words, one of the promises of obeying God, walking in His covenant, was that your branch would not be cut off. You would continue to be a part of the family of God forever. And a sign of sin, if you will, in the lives of the people is that the branch was pruned. And so I think when you bring that in here, this works better. Yes, it is a returning to the covenant love of the fathers, but it's also the fathers having the promise of a perpetual branch, perpetual children also being returned to him. And so you see the symmetry there. You say, why does that matter? I mostly just wanted to explain it to you. I didn't want to skip over it. Again, I think the meaning is clear enough here that the people, across all generations need to hear the words of Malachi and return to the Lord in active, whole-life service to his teachings and his words, that they must not allow themselves to continue in formalistic religion. It is a canker. It's like gangrene. It will kill the entire body. There is no such thing as I'm fine with five of the disputations, but I'm struggling in the sixth. If you're struggling in the sixth, you've got a gangrenous appendage, right? Cut it off or heal it or whatever is the right metaphor there, but do it. And then as we enter this Christmas season, right? Christ said, the spirit is not yet given because Christ has not yet been glorified. One of the most significant things about this season is the giving of Christ, that we would have the substance of God's promises and gifts, the power of God's promises, gifts to live a virtuous life, second Peter, right? To accomplish the end for which we were created for the glory of the Lord, that we would not be just ornamental. that we would not just be in name only. Dead religion is ornamental. Living religion is active in its service, desperate almost in its service for the glory of the Lord. Which are you?