Is Jesus Worth It? – Malachi 3:13-4:6

Sermons – Emmanuel Bristol

Israel speaks arrogantly against God

¹³ ‘You have spoken arrogantly against me,’ says the Lord.

‘Yet you ask, “What have we said against you?”

¹⁴ ‘You have said, “It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? ¹⁵ But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it.”’

The faithful remnant

¹⁶ Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honoured his name.

¹⁷ ‘On the day when I act,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. ¹⁸ And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.

Judgment and covenant renewal

4 ^[a]‘Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘Not a root or a branch will be left to them. ² But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. ³ Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,’ says the Lord Almighty.

⁴ ‘Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.

⁵ ‘See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. ⁶ He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.’

Footnotes

1. Malachi 4:1 In Hebrew texts 4:1-6 is numbered 3:19-24.

(NIV UK)