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Welcome to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia, that seeks

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to glorify God through biblically sound, thought-provoking and challenging talks and interviews.

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In this episode, from a chapel service held on Tuesday 1st of April 2025, Paul Williamson, lecturer in Old Testament, Hebrew

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and Aramic at Moore Theological College, speaks on the Book of Malachi 3:13-4:6, and Malachi's final appeal to turn back to God.

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Paul reminds us that the day of the Lord is coming.

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Those who have placed their confidence in God and God alone have nothing to worry about.

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But those who fail to repent can expect to one day face the terrifying, all consuming inferno of God's wrath.

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We hope you find the episode helpful.

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Good morning.

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Please turn back with me to Malachi.

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Malachi chapter three in verse 13.

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I was just thinking this morning, I began my little series on the minor prophets in my first year here 25 years ago.

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And I was thinking not many of the faculty, the present faculty were here then.

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And I thought, well, Dan, he'd have been the first year, but I asked him just before chapel and he didn't start for another two years.

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Um.

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And not the way I'm going.

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I've only got, I haven't even got halfway through.

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I've got about a third of the way through.

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So I don't know if I'll ever get this series finished, but I will get Malachi finished today.

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So, uh, please have a look at Malachi three

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before we consider this passage.

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Let's pray.

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Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight.

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Oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer.

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Amen.

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I'm sure we've all seen movies with surprising endings.

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The standout one for me is the sixth sense.

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I must confess I didn't see it coming, and yet as you re-watch that movie, you think, how did I miss that?

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So many clues, so many details staring you in the face.

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So many little things that only really make sense when you reach the end, which isn't that surprising at all.

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Well, spoiler alert, the book of Malachi is a bit like that.

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At first, its ending may seem surprising or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.

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Sure, we expect some resolution.

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We hope the book will end on a high note, especially after all that's been said.

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Yet the book ends on this surprising note.

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It's not quite the happy ending we may be expecting.

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It's not all doom and gloom, and yet the book does end on a bit of a cliffhanger and some may be left.

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Wondering whether malachi's ministry has been all that effective?

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He's taken the community to task for doubting God's love for dishonoring.

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God's name for defiling.

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God's Covenant.

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For denigrating.

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God's justice for delaying God's blessing.

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Yet little, if anything, seems to have been taken on board.

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Indeed.

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Here in this final section, the audience is still making disparaging remarks about God.

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Now they're deriding God's integrity.

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Have a look with me at the foolish sentiments we see expressed there in verses 13 to 15.

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You have spoken arrogantly against me, says the Lord.

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Yet you ask what have we said against you?

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You have said it is futile to serve God.

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What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty?

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But now we call the arrogant blessed.

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Certainly evil doers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it.

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This final disputation starts same way as the others.

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We have a, a prophetic declaration that evokes the audience's rebuttal, and this prompts a, a more detailed accusation that follows, in this case,

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the, the charge sheet relates to the Oregon sentiments that they've expressed in considering it futile to serve God as far as they're concerned.

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Serving God is simply not worthwhile.

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It's not worth the effort, nevermind the cost.

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What profit, what benefit is there in carrying out God's decrees or repenting and sackcloth and ashes?

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These people are clearly thinking transactionally.

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They're treating God as a vending machine that has turned out to be a bit faulty.

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They've inserted their cash, they, none of the goodies have dropped down.

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These people believe God owes them something, but he isn't paying up.

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He's not treating them as he should.

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He's not treating them the way they deserve their worship.

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Makes no difference.

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After all, it's the arrogant who are blessed.

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It's evil dear who prosper rather than a vending machine.

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God's behaving like one of those coin pusher machines.

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You know the ones, I mean.

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Same at the amusements arcades.

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You, you put your coins into the slot and the, the tipping point has all these coins in it, and you're, you put

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another coin in, in the hope that that coin pushes them over the edge and you get a whole lot more coins back.

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I. Yeah, you've seen those.

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I was preaching this sermon in my own church on Sunday.

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I made a mistake of, uh, talking about what I did as a kid with, with these slot machines, horror shock,

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and my wife told me afterwards, don't call them slot machines.

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Those are pokies

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anyway.

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To get back to the point

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when I was a kid and I'd exhausted all my coins, and, uh, the thing had got closer, closer to the tipping point, but no coins had dropped.

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I had no coins left, and then this other guy would've come along and stuck in one coin and sure enough, all these coins would've dropped.

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I, is that fair?

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It's not.

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That's how these people were feeling.

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It's not fair.

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God was not paying out to those who deserved it yet.

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It was rewarding though.

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He simply didn't deserve it.

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Indeed, even when such evil doers test God, they escape unpunished.

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It's a clear echo here of what Malachi said in chapter three and verse 10, where he encourages the people to actually test the Lord.

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It's the exact same terminology that's used here, but with a very different nuance.

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The idea is trying to force God's hand in effect.

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These people are pushing the boundaries to see just how much they can get away with.

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And, you know, they seem to be getting away with a, an awful lot.

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Hence this logical inference, this deriding of God's integrity.

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What's the point in trying to please a God who's clearly not doing right by us?

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Turning a blind eye to what's going on, while allowing decent people to suffer a God who's clearly unreliable.

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Whatever his promises and threats, clearly he's not following through on them.

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And Malachi's audience was now the first nor the last to think such thoughts that I'm sure we've all met or know people who think exactly this way.

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They point us to disasters like the Myanmar earthquake, and they say, why does God allow

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that purely a good and a powerful God wouldn't allow such a thing to happen with a highlight.

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Many examples of evil triumphing over good where oppressors get rewarded and their victims are penalized.

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Don't have to think hard for examples of that today.

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Hence the retreat into cynicism just like these people in Malachi's Day, or at least like some

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of them, it's clear from verses 16 to 18 that not everyone traveled down this particular path.

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Rather as the little interlude reveals there was a clear dichotomy, chapter three, verse 16.

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Then those who feuded the Lord talked with each other and the Lord listened and heard.

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A School of Remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name on the day.

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When I act as the Lord Almighty, they will be my treasured possession.

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I will spur them just as a father, as compassion and spurs his son who serves him.

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And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked between those who serve God and those who do not.

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Thankfully, Malachi's ministry was not a complete flop.

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We're not told how many, but we see here that some people responded positively.

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Now what they actually said to one another is left unstated.

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It's almost a an open invitation to preachers to let their imagination just run wild.

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Indeed.

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One commentator who I have great respect for even suggest that the following phrase should really be understood.

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Within quotation marks, Yahweh has paid attention.

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They say he has listened.

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Their words, but the grammar in the syntax suggests otherwise.

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The start of verse 16 is best translated.

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Then those who feared the Lord started discussing these things, or they talked to one

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another about this, but whatever they actually said, it clearly met with God's approval.

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The Lord listened and heard.

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So a scroll of remembrance was recorded in his presence for or with respect to those who feared him and honored his name.

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Now, this scroll has generated quite a lot of debate.

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Some think it's the Book of Life.

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Others consider it a covenant renewal document like we read about in Nehemiah chapter 10,

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or an official record like Xerxes consulted before rewarding Mordecai in the book of Esther.

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However we understand this scroll of remembrance.

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Its focus.

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Its focus is what really matters.

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It concerns those who feared God and honored his name previously.

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Malachi has rebuked the people and the priests for doing the very opposite, for dishonoring,

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for profaning, God's name, the name that was or would be feared among the nations.

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Yet here, the situation is reversed Here, at least some people are doing the right thing.

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Responding as they ought giving God the honor that he deserves.

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And God takes note of this indeed, on the day that God will act decisively, these people will be God's possession.

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That's a promise God made way back in Exodus 19 verse five, before the covenant was even ratified.

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Now, if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then you will be my possession.

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It's a promise that God reiterated some 40 years later to the next generation,

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Deuteronomy, the Lord your God has chosen you to be his people, his possession.

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It's re reiterated later by the psalmist.

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The Lord has chosen Jacob or Israel to be his possession, and here at the end of Malachi is repeated once more.

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This righteous remnant will be God's possession, like a, like a signe ring.

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On a king's finger.

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Accordingly, just like a father has compassion and spurs his son, God will spur them on the day that he acts.

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Those who fear and serve the Lord have absolutely nothing to worry about.

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That's not because it's some mistakenly think God's gonna treat everyone alike.

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No, quite the opposite is true.

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On that day, you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked between those who serve God and those who do not.

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Just as there's a clear difference between them in the here and now.

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There'll be an even clearer dis distinction on this coming day, a day that Malachi portrays here in terms of cataclysmic judgment.

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Chapter four, one to three.

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Surely the day is coming.

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It'll burn like a furnace.

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All the arrogant and every evil dear will be stubble and the day that is coming will

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set them on fire, says the Lord Almighty, not a root or a branch will be left to them.

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But for you who revere my name, the son of righteousness will rise with healing and its Ray and you'll go out and folic like well fed calves.

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Then you will crumple on the wicked.

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There will be ashes under the soles of your feet.

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On the day when I act as a Lord Almighty.

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As far as the Old Testament goes, this is surely one of its most graphic, most terrifying portrayals of God's wrath.

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A day of farry judgment that will burn like a furnace.

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The image of extreme hate, like being stuck inside a a huge pizza oven.

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Or like getting caught up in those bush fires that ripped through la an then tents all consuming inescapable inferno.

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That's the horror that's being depicted here and it's fuel.

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The burning stubble will be all the arrogant and every evil do.

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The day that is coming will set them ablaze, says the Lord Almighty.

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Brothers and sisters.

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It's not a pretty picture.

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It's a horrifying one and it's meant to be not a root or branch will be left to them.

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Like some of those mansions in the Palisades, the only thing that's gonna be left will be ashes.

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Not an encouraging prospect.

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It's stomach churning.

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It's something to be avoided at all costs.

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That's the main point of the Bible's graphic depictions of hell Fire.

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It's a somber warning to flee from this coming WR to repent of our sin, to put our hope in the Lord, to place our confidence in God and

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God alone, to do what this righteous remnant did in Malachi's Day to honor and serve the Lord as he has demanded on what God still demands.

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As at verse from Acts 17 reminded us earlier, God commands all men every word to repent.

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For, he has set aside a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed and he has given proof of this to everyone.

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By raising him from the dead.

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Jesus, the one who came to earth.

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The save us from God's coming WR is coming again to preside over this terrifying judgment.

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And on that day, only those who revere God's name, only those who have trusted in the name of Jesus will be saved.

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Malachi, Malachi puts it there in chapter four.

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For you who revere my name, the son of righteousness will rise with healing as rays and you'll go out and follow like well-fed calves.

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I don't often quote Spurgeon, but he's a Baptist, so I probably should.

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Spurgeon famously remarked the same son that melts the wax gardens, the clay, and he was using the illustration negatively.

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To note how the same gospel, same message, brings some people to repentance, but hardens others in their sins.

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Perhaps something similar is going on here in Malachi, the Son of Righteousness, which like a furnace,

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incinerates the wicked rises with healing in its res for those who revere God's name in the case.

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The image of this, this point is clearly a positive one, one of healing and blessing when this new day dawns in all its fullness.

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God's righteous people, those who have served God that are robe in the righteousness of Christ, we will jump for joy.

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We'll go out and frolic like well fed calves like a triumphant army will crumple on what's left of the wicked.

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It's an image of joy and freedom, and it's an image of ultimate victory,

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but it stands in more contrast to the fate of the wicked depicted in these verses as utter destruction.

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And if this was all the Bible had to say about hell, annihilationist would surely be correct, but unfortunately it's not.

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All the Bible says on this topic, God's revelation is progressive and the New Testament

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presents hell as a fate, worse than death, a blazing furnace, but with weeping.

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Gnashing of teeth, inextinguishable, fire, perpetual smoke, but no rest day or night mented, day and night forever.

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Whatever we make of that graphic imagery, it's a terrifying prospect.

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It's an scatological nightmare that truly moves us to warn to, to implore, to

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urge people around us to flee from God's coming Roth before it's forever too late.

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So as we go on mission next week.

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Let's keep this firmly in our minds, the punishment that awaits those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

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Well, like all good evangelists, Malachi concludes his message with a final appeal, chapter four, verses four to six.

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Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decre in laws I gave him at for all Israel.

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See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and grateful day.

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If the Lord comes, he will turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the hearts of

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the children to their parents, or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.

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Throughout the book, Malachi has functioned as a covenant enforcer, calling these people back to their roots and obligations.

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And this is precisely what happens again in this closing appeal.

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Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees in laws I give him at hob for all Israel.

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That's a fairly good summary of the response and courage throughout the book.

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Remember your covenant obligations, return to me and I will return to you as the Lord Almighty.

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As well as this reiterated call to repentance and covenant loyalty, there's a further reminder of that great and

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dreadful day of the Lord that day that will burn like a blazing furnace that will bring about everlasting destruction

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to all who have failed to turn to God and repentance to all who have failed to be transformed by God's prophetic word.

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What's depicted there in verse six is much more than a simple bridging of the generation

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gap or the reconciliation of estranged fathers and sons understood in his wider context.

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The thought is surely that of covenant loyalty.

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Parents, again, loving their children and children again, honoring their parents as they ought.

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And

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the key to such transformation is turning in repentance to God the father who loves his children.

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He expects respect and honor from his children.

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In other words, what we have here is not just the hope of genuine repentance,

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but an illustration of what this entails and why it's absolutely necessary.

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However, we interpret the book's final clause, whether or less, or else, or less or otherwise begins that clause.

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One thing is certain, without repentance, the only prospect is total destruction.

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I. The Hebrew word is em.

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The word used to depict the fate of the killer knights, but it's also used as here to depict the punishment of rebellious Israelites.

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Those who, by fighting God's commands, express their contempt toward him.

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Yes, it may be a negative note on which to end the book, and yet it serves a very positive purpose.

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Evidently, total destruction is not what God desires.

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Rather, this is what this Elijah figure is going to be sent to prevent.

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It's what genuine repentance will avert.

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It's what Malachi desperately wants these people to avoid.

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Like all faithful preaching of the gospel malachi's message involves both good news and bad news, and both are inextricably linked.

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Without the bad news, the good news might not seem quite so amazing.

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But without the good news, the bad news would be absolutely awful.

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So let all who derive God's integrity.

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Take note on that day when God acts, the distinction between the righteous and the

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wicked between those who serve God and those who do not will be patently obvious.

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Those who have trusted in obey God will leap like calves.

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Those who have not will burn like chaff.

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Nobody will be left in any doubt on that day.

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The judge of all the Earth will most certainly do what is right.

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Amen.

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Thank you for listening to Moore in the Word, a podcast of Moore Theological College.

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Our vision as a college is to see God glorified by men and women living for

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and proclaiming Jesus Christ, growing healthy churches and reaching the lost.

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We invite you to attend any of our upcoming events, including this one that's happening at Moore College.

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Since 1977, the Annual Moore College Lectures have showcased leading contemporary biblical and theological

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scholarship on topics ranging from a theology of the Christian life with Kelly Kapic, the use of the Pentateuch

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in the New Testament with T Desmond Alexander, and last year's series on the Book of Galatians with Tom Schreiner.

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This year, Peter Orr, lecturer in the New Testament Department at Moore Theological

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College, will be delivering the 2025 Annual Moore College Lectures on the topic of faith.

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What is faith?

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Is faith without knowledge still faith?

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What did Jesus mean when he said that if we have faith as small as a mustard seed, we can uproot a tree or move a mountain?

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And why does Paul tell us that we are declared right with God by faith, apart from works of the

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law, in Romans, while James insists that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

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Join us on the mornings of Monday 4th to Friday the 8th of August, and hear from Peter

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Orr how God provides us with an unfolding revelation of faith across the whole Bible.

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You can find out more on the Moore College website: moore.edu.au.

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That's moore.edu.au.

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Registrations will open later this year.

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You can find out more and register by going to the Moore College website: moore.edu.au.

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That's moore.edu.au.

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If you have not already done so, we encourage you to subscribe to our podcast

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For past episodes further resources, and to make a tax deductible donation to support

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the work of the College and its mission, please visit our website at moore.edu.au.

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If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend, and leave a review on your platform of choice.

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We always benefit from feedback from our listeners, so if you'd like to get in touch, you can email us at comms@moore.edu.au.

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The Moore in the Word podcast was edited and produced by me, Karen Beilharz, and the Communications Team at Moore Theological College.

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The music for our podcast was provided by MarkJuly from Pixabay.

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Until next time.