Can You Stand It?

Are You Ready?

First in Advent

Collect: Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and [the]* dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

Old Testament: Malachi 3:1-6, Malachi 4:4-6 (KJV)

3 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.

2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:

3 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.

4 Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.

5 And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of hosts.

6 For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

4 Remember ye the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments.

5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:

6 And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

I used to look forward to my father coming home from work. But there were times when his arrival did not turn out as I expected. These were times when my mother would meet him at the door to report my latest misdeeds, and his coming home meant judgment for me.

They did not realize it, but the Jewish people of Malachi’s day were in a similar position.

1. Disappointment

1.1. Back in 586 the Babylonians invaded, conquered their country, ransacked their capital, destroyed their temple, and took the best people back to Babylon. Fifty years later the Persians conquered Babylon. The Persian king told the Jews that any who wanted to return to their homeland could go back. Those who returned built homes for themselves but neglected rebuilding the Lord’s house, the temple. However two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah started preaching; the people got started on rebuilding; and the temple was completed in 516.

1.2. In Malachi’s time, the mid-400s B.C., Judah was insignificant. The population was only 150,000 and the territory was only 20 by 30 miles. They had no king and only a homeguard army to defend from the hostility of neighbors. Their forefathers resettled the homeland 100 years earlier. The temple had been completed 80 years before.

Now they were terribly discouraged and disillusioned. They thought the LORD had let them down. At the time the temple was rebuilt Haggai and Zechariah promised much more. Haggai told them this temple would have an even more glorious manifestation of the LORD’s presence than Solomon’s temple.

The LORD would live among his people. The kingdom would expand. People would come from all nations to learn about the Lord from the Jews. They would be glorious among the nations, and their army would the instrument of the LORD’s judgment against their enemies. The Messiah would give peace, prosperity, and glory.

1.3 But none of it had happened. With disappointed hopes came a decline in worship and devotion to the LORD. They became cynical and said things like, “The Lord calls good those who do evil,” and, “Where is the God of justice?”

We can be disappointed with God about our lives, our parish, or the church in the world. At such times we face spiritual dangers - that we will become cynical about the church, lose zeal for worship, and grow cold in love for the LORD.

2. Preparation

The residents of Judah were so ready for the glory of the LORD to fill their temple and for the Messiah to come. But were they?

2.1 In the ancient world, when the king planned to visit a city, the king would send an advance man, a messenger to make preparations. The LORD said through Malachi, “I’m still going to come to you, but before I do, I am going to send a messenger to prepare the way before me.” He reveals more about the messenger in chapter 4: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord” (4:7). He was not saying that Elijah would be reincarnated or be raised from the dead, but that he would send someone with the same bold straightforward ministry as Elijah who confronted wicked King Ahab and challenged the prophets of Baal.

They did not know it, but the people of Malachi’s day needed an Elijah, because, if things did not change, the day of the LORD would be a great and dreadful day, not just for the wicked nations, but for them. They were suffering the “frog in the kettle” syndrome. They had got so used to themselves and their sins that they did not know how displeased the LORD was with them.

2.2. Malachi’s mission was to make them see themselves as the LORD saw them.

He confronted their complaining against the LORD. When the LORD said, “I love you,” they said, “No he doesn’t, or he would treat us better.” How insulting it is to throw back in the Lord’s face his declarations of love.

The people offered defective animals for sacrifices and the LORD challenged them about it: “Try paying your taxes to your governor with such animals. Why are you surprised I do not bless you?” It would be like the LORD saying to us, “You give me whatever you can spare? Try that when you pay taxes. You come to church when you want? Try that at work. You give me your leftover energy. Try that with your boss.” The LORD is a great King and deserves the best.

The LORD rebuked the priests, “I chose the tribe of Levi to be priests. You are supposed to teach and model the truth to the people. But you show partiality in teaching, don’t follow the Lord’s way yourselves, and cause God’s people to sin."

The LORD accused the people of profaning his covenant by intermarrying with pagans. When they asked why the LORD did not look favorably on their offerings, he said, “Because you have not honored your marriage covenants.”

2.3. If someone did not prepare them for the LORD’s coming, they would be destroyed. So he sent an Elijah as his messenger to prepare the way. Jesus told his disciples that the promised Elijah had come. That was John the Baptist. John preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” and “Bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance.” He warned that already the axe of judgment was already laid to the tree to cut it down if there were no repentance.

Advent calls us to look at the condition of churches and ourselves.  What do we see? A lack of awareness of sin; failure to take sin seriously; a lack of the fear of the Lord; and, in some cases, redefining sin as good. We do not see ourselves as God sees us; we doubt God will judge. We ministers don’t prepare people for Christ’s second coming in judgment.

3. Advent

3.1. The LORD will send a messenger to prepare the way, but he will also send another messenger who is different from John the Baptist. He is called Lord and the messenger of the covenant. They seek him, delight in him, because they believe when he comes the age of blessing they long for will arrive. God says this messenger will appear suddenly in his temple.

But will they be able to endure his coming? Do they know what he will be like and what he will do? He is like a refiner’s fire. The refiner must make his fire intensely hot in order to melt the precious metal and separate it from the dross. This is the only way to get pure gold or silver. He will be like fuller’s soap. Fuller’s soap is not like your dishwashing or laundry detergent. The fuller washes sheep’s wool, cleansing it of oils and dirt before it is made into cloth. He uses lye soap that is so harsh it burns the eyes and nostrils.

The messenger of the covenant’s coming will be salvation for some, judgment for others. He will refine the dross out of some, purifying them. He will cleanse priests and people so they may offer pure and pleasing worship to the Lord.

But he will also cleanse the dross from among this people by separating evildoers from his own. In him the LORD will also draw near for judgment against others - “the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me.”

The messenger of the covenant is the Son of God incarnate in Jesus. The first time he appeared in the temple, when his parents brought him there at 40 days old, old Simeon declared his saving work. Simeon took the Messiah into his arms and said, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32). The way that Jesus brought salvation to his people and purified them from their sins was by himself being consumed by the fires of God’s judgment in their place.

When he came to his Father’s house, the temple, in the last week of his life, he revealed that his coming meant not only salvation but judgment. When he saw the merchants profaning the temple courts, he wove a whip out of cords used to tie animals, overturned the tables, and drove them out saying, “This is supposed to be house of prayer, but you have turned it into a robbers’ den.”

The first coming Jesus set in motion both the saving and judging work of God. His second coming will mean final judgment for all who do not repent. For those who repent it will mean their full and final salvation. We will all be found on one side of that divide or the other - on the side of judgment or salvation.