Malachi 4:1-3: Rising Sun

Malachi 4:1-3: Rising Sun

The country of Iraq isn't just hot. It's punishingly hot. Record-breaking, oven-like hot. During my deployment there, temperatures regularly reached 120 degrees or more.  I can recall a time sitting inside a broken C-130 aircraft on a sweltering runway in July, wearing complete body armor, helmet, weapons, gear, feeling my insides almost cook, smashed between soldiers and prisoners, preparing to transfer prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Afghanistan.  Misery.  Agonizing misery.  Panic-stricken wretchedness.  That’s what 120 degrees feels like, squished into an environment of virtual suffocation.  Sweat poured, soaking uniform and skin to the bone.  And without the nearly steaming hot water we consumed, out of the practically cooking, plastic water bottles we drank from, we surely what have passed out, and perhaps even eventually perished.  If you wish to know what that might feel like, put on your winter gear, turn on your oven to 400 degrees, open it, and stand in front of it as close as, and as long as, you might dare.  As I sat there, I said my prayers in a state of desperation, unsure as to whether I would make it through that day unscathed.  Many succumbed to heat exhaustion. And it was in that moment on that runway that I came closer to a sense of what hell might be like than I ever have before. 

We see the same hellish reality for those who reject God in today’s text. For some, the day I had in Iraq won’t even compare to the misery that awaits those opposed to or ambivalent towards God.  But we also see the elated joy of those who fear the LORD. 

Which brings us to the main idea of our text: A day will come when the sun of righteousness, Jesus Christ, will rise to judge the wicked, and vindicate those who fear God. Amidst a world going its own way, we need God’s intervention.  We need him to make all things right.  If scripture proves anything—and it proves a great deal—it proves man’s utter inability to do the right thing.  I hope and pray that as we unpack this text together, each of us will see our need for Jesus.

 Back in ch1, vv1-5, God reminded his people that he had sovereignly elected them to be his. They had returned from Persian exile about 100 years before, still under Persian rule, with their land reduced to a mere fraction of its former glory.  As a result, they had forgotten God’s love, because their sinfulness had caused them to experience God’s judgment.  So, God called them in vv6-14 of ch1 to give him their best, for he is worthy.  Instead, they brought God their worst, offering sacrifices that were blind, lame, and sick.  And so, God cursed the priests in ch2, vv1-9 for allowing this, chastising them for their failure to give honor to God by guarding knowledge and seeking his instruction.  And as the priests had gone, so had gone the people.  One unfaithfulness led to another.  Which led to a practical outworking of unfaithfulness to God in ch 2, vv10-16, manifested in unfaithfulness in marriage.  Now the inevitability of this happening was no wonder, for God’s messengers had failed to honor God and lead the people in the way they should go.  So, God promised in ch 2, v17 through ch 3, v5 to send his own messenger to both purify his people through trial and vindicate his people through judgment of sinfulness.  Then in ch 3, vv6-12, God addressed another practical outworking of unfaithfulness.  Not only had they demonstrated unfaithfulness in what they offered God, and how they treated their marriages, but also in terms of how they both viewed and used their finances.  So, he cursed the self-indulgence of his people but blessed those who faithfully used the resources entrusted to them in ways that honored him.  Then in ch 3, vv13-18, we saw where all this unfaithfulness ultimately originated: in a lack of fear, or reverence, for God.  But those who feared God would be spared the coming judgment.  In today’s passage judgment has come.

I. The Fate of Evildoers, 1

Right at the start of this first verse, we are told to “behold.”  In other words, to pause and consider both the weight and magnitude of what God needs to convey.  We don’t want to gloss over this.  It’s important.  And just in case, we gloss over this call to behold, Malachi offers a familiar emphasis in Hebrew writing, in the use of repetition.  Twice he says, “the day is coming” or “the day that is coming.”  Meaning that what he has to say regarding this day is vitally significant.  It’s one of the most significant days he could speak of.  It’s not Christmas Day, or Easter Sunday, it's certainly not your birthday, or D-Day, but Thee Day.  In Malachi’s day, a day of moral ambiguity and confusion regarding absolute moral standards—a day kind of like our day—a day will come, “burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble.”  Meaning that judgment cometh. 

This is the Day of the Lord: Judgment Day.  Not a day of Terminators, but of God, the Adjudicator, coming to make settlement regarding justice.  He comes to judge two types of sinners, in particular: (1) The Arrogant, or those who want no part with God, those doing well enough without him, and (2) The Evildoer, or ungodly—those who do not keep God’s absolute moral standards, who feel no sorrow for their sin, and make little to no effort to repent.  And those who judged right and wrong by their own sense and their own standard of what they believed right and wrong to be, will be judged rightly, and found wrong.  Those arrogant and evildoers who call evil good and good evil as we read in Isaiah 5:20, given to following the spirit of the Age, rather than follow the Holy Spirit of God, will come to see the error of their ways.  What they thought and believed with such certitude will result in a painful, unending reality of judgment. 

Notice it says they will be stubble.  In other words, they will be brought low, but not destroyed.  Now this quells any notion of annihilationism, where some believe the wicked will be snuffed out completely, where they will not experience eternal judgment.  No, no.  They will, according to John the Baptist in Matthew 3:12, “be burned like chaff”—the same idea we see here in Malachi—“with unquenchable fire.”  Unquenchable.  Unending.  And lest we think the arrogant and evildoer only belong to that class of truly heinous evil—your serial killers, sadists, and Nazis—God would have us know that anyone who does not bow the knee to him and confess with their mouth his lordship, his right to rule and reign over them, fits in this category.  Notice the red-hot, fiery words he uses throughout these three verses: burning, oven, ablaze, a sun rising, and ashes.  Now thankfully, those are not the only words he uses in this passage.  We’ll get to those later.  But for now, let us behold both what this is and who it’s for.  For some, it will be a terrible reality.    

From Malachi’s perspective, it’s a coming day, meaning something in the future.  From our perspective, it’s a day that both has come in one sense, and will come in another sense, meaning a day both past and future.  In terms of past, again John the Baptist spoke of one coming after him who will gather his wheat into the barn but burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.  Jesus says of himself in John 9:39, “For judgment I came into this world.”  Meaning that the process of judgment has already begun in the first coming of Christ, where Jesus has begun to make separation between those who fear him and those who do not, gathering his people but passing over the arrogant and evildoer until that future coming day when judgment will be consummated at his second coming. 

In that day, it says, “The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them with neither root nor branch.”  Behold the terror of it all.  It’s an unquenchable fire.  It’s eternal separation from the mercy of God so freely offered to any who would turn from their sin, turn from trusting in themselves to trusting in Christ.  But it’s interesting to note that the prophet Zechariah often refers to the coming Messiah as the Branch, same idea here in v1 where he says this day “will leave them neither root nor branch.”  Meaning that those who refuse to walk in the Lord’s way and keep the Lord’s charge as the Lord calls them to in Zechariah 3:7-9 will be separated from this branch—will be separated from Jesus, uprooted, and cast into the fire as Jesus says in Matthew 13:50.

 Can we contemplate so grim a reality?  In the year 1741, one of America's most important and original philosophical theologians, Jonathan Edwards, tried to contemplate so grim a reality in one of his most famous sermons, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, a sermon used by God in the Great Awakening of many converted souls.  In that sermon he said, “There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment out of hell, but the mere pleasure of God.”  And, “All wicked men’s pains and contrivance which they use to escape hell, while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked men, do not secure them from hell one moment.”  And “In short, they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of; all that preserves them every moment is the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance of an incensed God.”  And “O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed...You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.”

 “Therefore, let everyone that is out of Christ, now awake and fly from the wrath to come.”  How can we be ambivalent about eternity considering this passage?  Friends, I do not mean to scare anyone.  I only mean to motivate each and every one of us to see the reality that comes for some, that comes for those hostile to, those ambivalent about, those unconcerned with their standing before God in judgment someday.  Friends, let’s be assured that that day will be more real than this day.  Can we see it?  Can we feel it?  Can we imagine what it might be like?  How might considering this coming day change how we live?  If we knew that we only had a month left before this coming day, what might we do differently?  Now, I am not suggesting that we quit jobs, or go crazy, but to sober ourselves as to what we’ve been living for.  If you only had a month, what would you do differently?  May I suggest, that we should probably live in light of that, with our lamps lit, ready for the bridegroom to return at any moment as we read in Matthew 25.

I am currently reading a book called, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder in one of my book clubs.  During the shipwreck, a few of the crew abandon all hope and reason, and simply turn to the alcohol left aboard the ship and drink themselves drunk.  They do not bother boarding the lifeboats to get to the nearby island, or take care of the sick, or help those in need of assistance.  Instead, they stay aboard the wreckage, ambivalent to the fact that the pounding waves against the hull will eventually tear it asunder, turning to “liquid cowardice” in their despair.  Friends, God does not call us to despair, but warns of coming judgment, early enough that we might have time to seek shelter from the coming storm under the shadow of the Almighty.  In v1 we see the Fate of Evildoers, a fate that can, in the interim, be altered.  While God tarries, he still extends mercy, even to the vilest offender who would but repent and believe.  Which leads us to the one who can alter so wretched an estate.

II. The Sun of Righteousness, 2-3

“But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”  Herein, we get a picture of a new day dawning.  A day comes for some that will bring terror unspeakable.  A day comes for others that brings both light and healing.  As promised in Isaiah 9 and Matthew 4, the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.[1]  God reserves such blessing for those who fear, those who revere, those who worship him, those who recognize their sinful estate, those who seek God’s forgiveness, through his Son, the mediator, Christ Jesus, called the Sun of Righteousness here.  Malachi compares the appearance of the coming Messiah with the rising of the sun; the cold, dark night, where danger can most easily lurk, replaced by the warmth, light, and security, and all that this rising sun reveals in a new day dawning.  Recently, coyotes have been spotted in my neighborhood of Green Tree, not a remote neighborhood—mind you—not a neighborhood nestled against a forest, but a populated neighborhood nestled against Interstate 376.  Coyotes.  And I have to be cautious about letting my little dog, Gizmo, out in the early morning before dawn.  It’s not necessarily safe, or as nearly as warm, when it’s not light.  Friends, that’s life without Christ, metaphorically speaking: a cold, dark, dangerous reality.

When we think of the rising sun we certainly think of its beauty, but we also think of what it typically brings: warmth, and light, and even safety.  I am particularly appreciative of each of these in the winter months when we often get less of each.  But notice what this new dawn brings here.  What does it say?  Sun of what? Righteousness.  The sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings, brining light, warmth, and safety, spiritually speaking.  Now, in one sense, that dawning has already begun in the hearts of God’s people.  Yet, in another sense, we await the day when the sun of righteousness will arise completely, and we will be healed completely of all that plagues us: sin and death shall be no more.  We need this so desperately.  Until that day, we need to be mindful of how God works between our day and this coming day: (1) We may not get perfect justice between now and then,[2] (2) Vengeance belongs to God, and not us,[3] and (3) God remains slow to anger, wishing that all should repent.[4]  Until that day, we sing each Christmas the message of this verse right here in Malachi, “Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!  Hail the Sun of Righteousness!  Light and life to all He brings.  Risen with healing in His wings.”

A. The reaction of the God-fearer to this dawning reality, 2b

The reaction? —Joy!  “You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.”  Pure joy, and freedom unlike anything you have ever experienced in the cold, dark night before the dawn of our salvation.  We lay bound to our sin as much as a calf stood constrained in its stall over a long winter, as confined as I felt in my roasting, sweat-soaked body armor inside the belly of that broken C-130, stalled on the runway in the scorching heat of Iraq.  But then, for some, John 8:36 becomes a reality.  “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”  This freedom from Christ’s healing wings results in the same kind of boundless elation a calf would experience after being pent up for an extended period in an enclosed space.

And so I ask you, if you are a Christian, are you a leaping-calf Christian who knows the excitement, gratitude, and joyful freedom your salvation has brought?  Or are you more like that gloomy, depressed, old, grey stuffed donkey, that Eeyore, who expects little from life and experiences little of the happiness that those around him do?  Do we realize we have much for which to be joyful?  Do we realize scripture commands joy for those who fear God?  It’s not optional.  It’s essential.  Psalm 32:11, “Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!”  Luke 6:23, “Leap for joy.”  Romans 12:12, “Rejoice in hope.”  1 Thessalonians 5:16, “Rejoice always.”  Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always”—and in case you missed that—“again I will say, rejoice.”  And on and on.  

Finally, Luke 6:22-23a, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!  Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy”—same idea here in Malachi 4:2—“for behold, your reward is great in heaven.”  Do you feel hated?  Excluded?  Reviled?  Spurned?  All because you follow Jesus and love what he loves and hate what he hates?  Let me just say, you’re in good company.  Jesus knows what that feels like.  And how does he tell us to feel about all that negativity directed our way?  Rejoice!  Leap for joy.  Behold, our reward is great in heaven.  We certainly need to look around us and see who has need, we need to look within us to evaluate how we’re doing, but if we’re no looking up to the one who’s working all things for our good, we will eventually despair.  Brothers and sisters, a consummate, melancholy Christian is somewhat of a contradiction in terms.  We have been called to rejoice even amidst trial and suffering.  Now that does not mean that we will not ever be sorrowful.  In fact, God commands in Romans 12:15, to weep with those who weep.  But just as God is not indifferent to his glory, neither is he indifferent to our joy.  We shall go out leaping.

B. The trampling of the wicked, 3

“And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.”  Now, I sat for two days contemplating this verse before I could really unpack it.  In some sense, it’s a bit disturbing when you think about it abstractly.  If a faceless, unidentified group of believers trampled down an equally faceless, unidentified group of wicked people, we might be somewhat sympathetic to the wicked. 

 But what if we thought about someone like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor theologian murdered by the Nazi regime.  What if, upon his resurrection from the dead, he went out leaping like a calf from the stall, like a man reborn and tread over the already consumed ashes of Heinrich Himmler?  As dark as that image might be, we probably would not see anything wrong with the picture. 

 What this verse communicates is that God brings justice.  Not us.  Vengeance is his, not ours.  The sins of the wicked are ultimately sins against God, more so than sins against us.  We simply participate in God’s victory over sin, as surely as we participate in the suffering itself, trampling the ashy remains of the wicked in a reversal of roles.  Just as when Abraham said to the rich man in Luke 16:25, “Remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish,” so too will believers experience the goodness and mercy of God, while the wicked experience his judgment.

Do we know of unbelievers right now, whom we love, whom it would bring tears to our eyes to imagine them being trampled, burned, and forever cast into judgment?  Shouldn’t that compel us to share the hope we have within us, rather than to be concerned with what they might think, or say, or do if we told them the mercy that Christ wishes to extend to them, if they would but turn from trusting in something other than Christ, to trusting Christ?  And I know that many of us have shared that with them, again and again through tears and much prayer, and they refuse to turn.  And their refusal, as sad as it is, is not our fault.  We did what God commanded us to do, we will continue to do what God calls us to do, in sharing the hope we have within us.  But a day will come when the sun of righteousness, Jesus Christ, will judge the wicked, but vindicate those who fear God.  What role might God have us play in ensuring others might experience the joy, elation, and freedom that Christians will experience one day as God vindicates us?  Let us flee—and let us help others to flee—from the wrath to come.