Thursday 21 May 2020

"With an Eye on the Prize" - Palm Sunday Message

“With an Eye on the Prize”
Palm Sunday

INTRODUCTION:
            Back in 2004 Mel Gibson’s box office hit, “The Passion of the Christ” took the country by storm.  People swarmed to the theaters to see a movie about the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life.  While many of us were gratified to see this interest in Jesus, most of us Christians also felt somewhat frustrated to observe that the average moviegoer was far more interested in His pain than in His person.  That’s because unbelievers typically see the crucifixion as the tragic culmination of His life, which they believe ended in failure, rather than recognizing that the cross was the purpose for which He came and the prize for which He lived.  It was not a failure, but rather, the capstone of everything He taught as well as the proof of His legitimacy as Messiah.

TRANSITION:
            The fact is that Jesus set out on the road to the cross long before most people imagine.  In fact, He put His feet to that road even before the world was formed, for the Bible says that our salvation was mapped out in the mind of God “even before the foundation of the world.”  Clear back in the Book of Genesis chapter 3 God promised a Savior who would crush the head of Satan and set men free from their slavery to sin and death.
            The solution was for the Son of God to come from Heaven to earth as the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.  John chapter 1 says that God, the eternal WORD, became flesh and dwelt among us in order to reveal God’s glory.  In Christian theology Jesus is God in the flesh, the God-Man, if you will.  The scoffers and skeptics of Christianity have choked on that for centuries, yet it remains the heart and soul of New Testament theology.  
If Jesus was merely a man, a teacher, a prophet, then He was no more a Savior than Gandhi, Buddha, or David Koresh.  Either He was all He claimed to be or He was a completely deluded fraud and deserves to be ignored.  There is no middle ground.  Jesus didn’t leave any middle ground where people can build a theological fence to sit on.
            The details of His death were carefully enumerated by the prophet Isaiah 700 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem.  The angel Gabriel told Mary to name Him Jesus, “for He shall save His people from their sins.”  His Hebrew name, Yeshua, means “Jehovah is Salvation.”  It is clear that from the very beginning Jesus knew that He was here for a divine purpose.  In Luke 2 we read about young Jesus in the Temple and His word to Mary and Joseph when they noticed that He was missing.  They went back to the Temple and found Him sitting in the midst of the Jewish teachers and He said to His parents, “Did you not know that I had to be about My Father’s business?”
            Yes, from the very beginning Jesus knew that every step He took carried Him one step nearer the cross, yet He did not shy away from His mission.  He came to be the Savior, the Lamb of God, to take away the sin of the world.  Like a runner in a marathon race, He fixed His eyes on Mount Calvary, for that was His goal.  He lived with an eye always fixed on the prize of accomplishing the mission He came to complete.
The Gospel of Luke is where we are going to focus our attention today, as we examine a number of texts that clearly show that Jesus was constantly aware that He was on the long road toward Calvary.  That road finally led Him to Jerusalem on that day long ago when people lined the road waving their palm branches to declare Him to be the rightful King of the Jews.  He rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey colt and the people chanted, “Hosanna!  Hosanna!  [It means, “Save now!”]  Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD!”  Their voices raised in jubilation, they welcomed Him as their Messiah.  A week later another huge crowd shouted His name saying, “Crucify him, crucify him!”  But even that turning tide of public opinion could not keep Him from accomplishing what He had come to do.
            Many people see the death of Jesus as merely a terrible travesty of justice and the tragic end to a good man.  They fail to understand that Jesus’ life was not taken from Him, but rather, that He laid it down willingly so that you and I might be saved.  Let’s look at some of these passages that support this premise that Jesus knew exactly what He was doing.  Come, take a stroll with me through the Gospel of Luke.

MAIN BODY:
In Luke’s Gospel Jesus gave His disciples many clear explanations of what would happen to Him in Jerusalem.  However, for the most part these statements went right over their heads.  They could not wrap their minds around the idea that their beloved Master was going to die on a Roman cross, and much less that He would be raised from the dead on the third day, although He explained it to them several times.  Their own personal views of who He was and what they expected Him to do blinded them to the reason for which He left Heaven to come and walk among us.  It was not until after the Resurrection that the pieces began to drop into place for them and they finally saw the big picture.

Luke 9:18-23  
Once when Jesus was praying in private and His disciples were with Him, He asked them, “Who do the crowds say I am?”  19 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.”  20 “But what about you?”  He asked.  “Who do you say I am?”  Peter answered, “The Christ of God.”  21 Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone.  22 And He said, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and teachers of the law, and He must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”  23 Then He said to them all: “If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”

Luke 9:28-31   
About eight days after Jesus said [these things], He took Peter, John, and James with Him and went up onto a mountain to pray.  29 As He was praying, the appearance of His face changed, and His clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.  30 Two men, Moses and Elijah, 31 appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus.  They spoke about His departure [lit. exodus], which He was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.
[cf. II Peter 1:13-15 Peter talks about his own “departure” death.]

Luke 9:43-45  
And they were all amazed at the greatness of God.  While everyone was marveling at all that Jesus did, He said to His disciples, 44 “Listen carefully to what I am about to tell you: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into the hands of men.”  45 But they did not understand what this meant.  It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask Him about it.

Luke 9:51-53   
51 As the time approached for Him to be taken up to Heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.  52 And He sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for Him; 53 but the people there did not welcome Him, because He was journeying with His face toward Jerusalem.

Luke 13:22   
Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching, and proceeding on His way to Jerusalem.  

Luke 13:31-35   
At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to Him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else.  Herod wants to kill you.”  32 He replied, “Go tell that fox, ‘I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’  33 In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day—for it cannot be that a prophet should perish outside of Jerusalem!”  34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!  35 Look, your house is left to you desolate.  I tell you, you will not see Me again until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’” [Note: here He clearly makes a double-reference, first to the upcoming Palm Sunday events that were just days away, but also to a future day when He would return as the glorious King of Israel.]

Luke 17:11-19   
11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.  12 As He was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met Him.  They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”  14 When He saw them, He said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.”  And as they went, they were cleansed.  15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.  16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked Him—and he was a Samaritan.  17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed?  Where are the other nine?  18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”  19 Then He said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Luke 18:28-34   
28 Peter said to Him, “We have left all we had to follow You!”  29 “I tell you the truth,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the Kingdom of God 30 will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.”  31 Jesus took The Twelve aside and told them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.  32 He will be handed over to the Gentiles.  They will mock Him, insult Him, spit on Him, flog Him, and kill Him.  33 On the third day He will rise again.”  34 The disciples did not understand any of this.  Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what He was talking about.

Luke 19:9-11   
Jesus said to [Zacchaeus], “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.  10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”  11 While they were listening to this, He went on to tell them a parable, because He was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.

What happened next is familiar to most of us but for those who may not know the story of what we refer to as “Palm Sunday” let’s review it.  Christ’s so-called “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem is recorded in all four Gospel accounts but let’s stay here in Luke.  I’m reading Luke 19:28-44.  
28 After He had said these things, He was going on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.  29 When He approached Bethphage and Bethany, near the mount that is called Olivet, He sent two of the disciples, 30 saying, “Go into the village ahead of you; there, as you enter, you will find a colt tied on which no one yet has ever sat; untie it and bring it here.  31 If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ you shall say, ‘The Lord has need of it.’”  32So those who were sent went away and found it just as He had told them.  33 As they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?”  34 They said, “The Lord has need of it.”  35 They brought it to Jesus, and they threw their coats on the colt and put Jesus on it.  36 As He was going, they were spreading their coats on the road.  37 As soon as He was approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, 38 shouting:  “BLESSED IS THE KING WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD; 
Peace in Heaven and glory in the highest!”   39 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”  40 But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!”  41 When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, 42 saying, “If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace!  But now they have been hidden from your eyes.  43 For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, 44 and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.”  

CONCLUSION:
            Today marks the beginning of what Christians have long called, “Passion Week.”  But let me tell you, the Passion of the Christ lasted much longer than a mere seven days.  In fact, the Bible says that since the foundation of the world God, the Architect of Salvation, has always been passionate about saving sinners.  The Bible tells us that’s because He “desires that none should perish but that all should come to repentance.”  The Word of God clearly says, “God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.”  In fact, the most well-known verse in the Bible declares, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  Jesus left Heaven’s glory and the Father’s Throne to come and be your Savior.  That long road led Him to the cross.  Today, if you want to receive the gift of eternal life you will have to meet Him there at the cross.  You must call on Him, believe in Him as your own Savior and Lord, confess your sins to Him, and by faith receive the gift of forgiveness and eternal life.
            Jesus lived out His life always with an eye on the prize, always looking ahead to accomplish the will of the Father for which He had been sent.  His race was not easy!  It would have been much easier to simply quit and let us all go to hell, but He continued to the very end so that you and I could be with Him in Heaven for eternity.  The writer of Hebrews sums up His life beautifully in Hebrews 12:1-3 and uses Christ’s example to show how we should also live our lives.  I like how it reads in the New Living Translation: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up.  And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.  We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the Champion who initiates and perfects our faith.  Because of the joy awaiting Him, He endured the cross, disregarding its shame.  Now He is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.  Think of all the hostility He endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up.”  
            One more thing in closing… Three times in the verses we read today we come across the phrase saying that what Jesus was doing was “hidden from the eyes” of people; in Luke 9:45 and 18:34 speaking about the Twelve, and in 19:42 with reference to the population of Israel and Jerusalem in particular.
How is it possible that Jesus’ plan to go to the cross to be the Savior of the world was hidden from the people closest to Him?  He certainly didn’t hide the facts from them.  He didn’t blind their eyes.  So what did?
            The greatest spiritual blinder is UNBELIEF.  It will blind you to the truth of God’s Word and to the plans and purposes of God, and it will keep you from seeing Christ for who He really is.  Is He hidden from you today?  He’s offering you salvation right now.  Can you see it?  Can you see Him?  I beg of you, don’t leave here today without crying out to Him for salvation.  He’s ready and able to save you if you’ll just trust Him.  Ask Christ into your life today, right now.  Let Him cure your blindness.  Paul tells us in II Cor. 3:15-16 that sin forms a veil over the heart of the unbeliever, but then he says, “But whenever a man turns to the LORD, the veil is taken away.”  Trust Him today.  Let Him rip off that veil that keeps you blind.  God’s Word says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!”  Put Him to the test today.

Malachi Study - Part 8


“And you thought Phoenix was hot!”
Malachi 4:1-6 (Message #8 in Malachi Series)

INTRODUCTION:
            I have lived in some ridiculously hot places in my lifetime. When I was a kid we lived in Guam for several years. For those of you who may not know, Guam is a US Territory out in the far Pacific, located close to the Philippines. It makes up part of the Marianas Island chain, which also includes the little islands of Saipan, Rota, and Tinian. It is a lush green little island (32 miles long, 4-8 miles wide), unbelievably beautiful, densely covered with jungle. I loved living there because of the easy-going laid-back Chamorro culture, the gorgeous white-sandy beaches, and the incredible variety of sea life. However, most people that go there complain of the heat. Indeed, it gets unbearably hot, and on top of that they have close to 100% humidity all year around. You sort of get used to the heat but not completely. Some days you just have to find a place in the shade and spend the day fanning yourself and drinking iced tea.
            Then when we ministered in Brazil as missionaries, our second term was spent in an interior city of the State of São Paulo known as Ribeirão Preto. It is known all over the country for its hot climate. Sometimes when I would be downtown walking around and going about my business the cobblestone streets and footpaths would get so hot that I could not stand to walk on them. After several days of scorching weather, the basalt cobbles would heat up so much that you could literally cook an egg on them.
            And some of you have been to Arizona during the hot season. You know what that is like—hotter than the hinges of Hades. Folks who live in Phoenix all have central air conditioning because without it you can hardly survive. It gets ridiculously hot there!

TRANSITION:
            In our text for today the LORD talks about a day that will be even hotter than Arizona, or Guam, or Ribeirão Preto. You thought Phoenix was hot, but you haven’t seen anything yet!

MAIN BODY:
Verse 1: “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.”  
·         What day is the LORD referring to here? You have probably guessed that He is talking about the Day of Judgment, sometimes called in Scripture “The Day of the LORD.” In the NT it is called “The Great Tribulation.” This is a common theme in the OT. For example, in Zephaniah 3:8 we hear the LORD say, “Therefore wait for Me,” declares the LORD, “for the day when I rise up as a witness. Indeed, My decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out on them My indignation, all My burning anger; for all the earth will be devoured by the fire of My zeal.”  
·         He says here that on that day the heat will be like a furnace and will utterly burn up the wicked as though they were chaff. They will be set ablaze and will be completely destroyed—from the tip of their deepest root to the tip of their longest branch. There will be nothing left of them but ashes. Absolute annihilation! 
·         This idea of a day of fire and burning has already been introduced up in 3:2-3 where the LORD said “the day of His [Messiah’s] coming” would be like a “refiner’s fire” and a “smelter’s furnace.” In both cases, anything that is not the pure precious metal is burned away to nothing. Here in 4:2 the picture is a little different. It is the useless chaff that will get burned away leaving only the pure, precious grain.

Verse 2: “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.”  
·         This verse stands in stark contrast to verse 1. The Day of the LORD will put an end to the seemingly endless night of the wicked in which they appear to prosper and to get away with all their ungodliness. When the Day of the LORD comes the wicked will be destroyed, and their time will be cut off.
·         “But for you who fear My name…” He is, of course, speaking to the righteous remnant that continued to hold God in wonder and awe, who responded to Him in obedience, and who lived for Him with constant faith. The Day of the LORD will be very different for them.
·         On that Day, He says, “the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.” He is saying that on that day the righteous will be blessed, and healed, and filled with joy.  There are those who want to say that this phrase, “the sun of righteousness,” refers to Jesus Christ, that it is a veiled reference to Him. I do not believe this. I believe that it is a word picture showing the rise of the day of righteousness and the victory of godliness over evil. This is in line with Isaiah 60 where God and His glory are likened to the sun.  Certainly the Lord Jesus will be the active agent on the Day of Judgment because He will be seated on the throne as the Judge, but I do not believe that this phrase in verse two is referring to Him specifically.
·         In the same way that in the night of wickedness the administration of evil touched every corner, when the day of righteousness comes, the beams of the sun will reach every nook and cranny and will root out and destroy every vestige of wickedness. The sun of righteousness will rise like a majestic eagle upon its strong wings. As the sun rises and its penetrating rays dispel the darkness, sin and all that sin produces will vanish away in an instant.
·         “…And you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.” A young calf is one of the cutest things you will ever see. Their big brown eyes can melt the hardest heart. When a calf is born it is pretty unsteady on its feet but after a day or so, it is ready to run and play. When the farmer opens the stall door and lets the little guy loose, he will jump and run and gambol all over the place out of pure joy. That is the picture here. On that Day the righteous will be filled with pure joy and will skip around like little calves, unable to contain their happiness. No longer downtrodden and oppressed by the schemes of the wicked, the righteous will finally have their day! What a beautiful picture!

Verse 3: “You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the LORD of hosts.  
·         “You will tread down the wicked.” The wicked will be just so much dust under the feet of the righteous as they dance in the streets, rejoicing in what the LORD has accomplished.
·         “…on the day which I am preparing.” This phrase looks directly back to 3:17 where the LORD promised: “And they will be Mine,” says the LORD of hosts, “on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.”  

Verse 4: “Remember the law of Moses, My servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel.”  
·         In these last three verses we have the concluding remarks to the book. Here the LORD gives a closing exhortation to the children of Israel to obey the Scriptures. He says, “Remember!” This means more than to merely recall something. It means to act upon the teaching that God had given them. In the NT we are exhorted to be “doers of the Word and not hearers only.” Earlier we saw that the LORD’S indictment of the Jews was that they had gone away from God’s ordinances (3:7) and had deliberately “forgotten” His statutes. That is “spiritual drift.”
·         This exhortation is really addressed to sinners and saints alike. The Law, with all its statutes and ordinances, was given by God to Moses at Mount Sinai and was “for all Israel.” No one was above it or excluded.

Verse 5: “Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD.”  
·         Elijah was arguably the most revered and beloved of all the prophets of Israel. You can read about his ministry in 1 Kings 17 – 2 Kings 2. His ministry lasted many years and during that time he performed many jaw-dropping miracles. He was fearless in preaching the Word. He took no guff from anyone. I believe he exemplified the truth found in Daniel 11:32-33 which says, “…but the people that do know their God shall be strong and do exploits.  And they that understand among the people shall instruct many.” 
·         Here we see the promise of “Elijah’s coming” in verses 5-6. God says He will send a prophet to prepare the moral and spiritual soil to get things ready for Messiah’s coming. The appearing of this person was first spoken of up in 3:1 where the LORD refers to him as “My messenger” [literally, angel], saying that he would “clear the way before Me.” In other words, this ministry of this human messenger would prepare the way for a divine Messenger, referred to in the same verse as “the Messenger of the Covenant,” who is, of course, Jesus Christ himself.
·         So, here in 4:5 the LORD says that this human messenger is “Elijah.” However, we know that Elijah was long since dead, so is the LORD saying here that He is going to resurrect Elijah, or is there some other explanation? What we have here is a form of parallelism in which the messenger who will make his appearance before the arrival of the Messiah will be Elijah-like. In fact, we learn from the NT that this prophecy is really speaking about the ministry of John the Baptist, who came “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” so it is not about Elijah himself (cf. Matt. 11:13-14; 17:12-13; Mark 9:11-13; Luke 1:15-17). Luke 1:15-17 is in the story about the birth of John the Baptist. Here we hear the angel Gabriel telling Zacharias about his son who was soon to be born: “For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, TO TURN THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS BACK TO THE CHILDREN, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” So, we do not have to guess what the LORD was talking about back in Malachi 4:5-6. The NT lays it out for us. John the Baptist is the “Elijah” spoken of in Malachi.

Verse 6: “He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.”  
·         “He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.” Luke 1:16-17 quotes from this verse, but what does it mean? The LORD says that through the ministry of John the Baptist many people would be brought to the LORD through repentance and conversion, and once again Israel would be brought back to obeying God’s Law.
·         Malachi ends with both a promise and a warning. You will notice that this verse is conditional. The LORD is saying that He “will not come and smite the land with a curse” IF the people’s hearts are turned back away from wickedness towards righteousness. We see this again and again in Scripture. Whenever God announces judgment there is also always an offer of His mercy. Jonah 4:2 is a good example: He [Jonah] prayed to the LORD and said, “Please LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore, in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity. Here in Malachi God is holding out an olive branch, a promise of a different outcome if they will turn away from their sin and return to Him. However, if they refuse to repent, God will deal with them the same way He did with Edom (cf. Isaiah 34 5; Malachi 1:3-4).

CONCLUSION:
            So, although the OT closes with a conditional curse, the NT begins with the story of how this “Elijah,” John the Baptist, did come and did make ready a people prepared for the LORD. He preached a message of repentance and many responded. He preached about turning away from sin and many heard and obeyed. He preached about the coming of the Messiah and many believed and rejoiced at His appearing. John’s prophetic ministry “in the spirit and power of Elijah” produced a revival in Israel and prepared the way for the coming of Jesus, the Christ.
            God’s offer of salvation is still in force today. The Bible says, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Have you done that? If not, what are you waiting for? Do it today, while you can. “Behold, today is the day of salvation.”

Malachi Study - Part 7


“How to Tell the Righteous from the Wicked”
Malachi 3:13-18 (Message #7 in Malachi Series)

INTRODUCTION:
            Scientists tell us that among the approximately 7.8 billion human inhabitants of Planet Earth there are no two people exactly alike. Even those pairs that we call “identical twins” are quite different one from another. Oh yes, all humans share certain genetic and physiological similarities but in many ways each of us is unique.
            This fact sometimes creates problems. For example, law enforcement officers always want to be certain that they have the right person in custody. There are cases of people getting arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, just because they bore such a striking resemblance to the person who did commit the crime. To avoid such problems police investigators look for any DNA evidence, pore over fingerprints left at the crime scene, show comparative photos to the witnesses, and interview the possible suspects at great length. They do all of this to try and sort out the good guys from the bad guys, the guilty from the innocent.
            Now on TV it has always been much easier to tell them apart. In the old westerns, for example, bad guys usually wore dark coloured hats, smoked stinky cigars, shaved only on rare occasions, and leered at the girls. The good guys always dressed better, were clean-shaven, had smarter horses, wore white hats, spoke to the ladies politely, and sang songs on the trail. But that is television. In real life, it is not always so easy to tell the good guys from the bad.

TRANSITION:
            So then how can we do it? How can we tell a righteous person from a wicked person? Do they look differently? Do they talk differently? Are there any defining physical characteristics we should look for? Oh, that it should be so simple!
            Unfortunately, wicked people often look good, and they try to pass themselves off as righteous. Some of them even have religious titles and TV programs on Christian networks. They dress nice, sing well, talk about Jesus, then lie and stick it to you to try to get you to send them money. To use a biblical phrase, they are “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” Moreover, they sucker many unsuspecting people into their evil, money-grubbing schemes because folks do not know how to spot a phony. In our text for today, the LORD tells us how we can tell the righteous from the wicked. That may turn out to be an especially useful skill, indeed. Let’s look at Mal. 3:13-18.  

MAIN BODY:
Verse 13: “Your words have been arrogant against Me,” says the LORD. “Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against You?’”  
·         You will remember that in our last study we looked at verses 7-12 where Jehovah God invites the people of Israel to put His promises to the test to see if He would make good on them. He accused them of stealing from Him by their unfaithfulness in giving the tithes and offerings they owed Him. As a result, He warned them of what would happen to them if they did not repent of their waywardness and begin doing what He required of them. At the same time, He promised to open the windows of Heaven and pour out blessings upon those who repented and returned to love and serve Him with their whole heart.
·         Now the LORD brings up another issue. They have been speaking evil things of the LORD. But how did He know? He knew because He knows everything. The Word says, “Nothing is hidden from His eyes.” What is done in darkness or in secret is laid bare before Him as though it were daylight. That just means we cannot get away with anything. You thought your mother had eyes in the back of her head? God is way more perceptive than your mother. He does not have to guess. He knows exactly what you are thinking, and He hears every word you utter. You can run but you cannot hide!
·         In verse 13 the LORD declares, “Your words have been arrogant against Me.” The word arrogant means puffed-up, inflated. We sometimes say that a person is “full of hot air.” That is the idea here too. This is also the word for “proud.” Their sinful pride is what has been driving them. And right on cue, just like all the times before in this Book of Malachi, the people respond with, “What have we spoken against You?” They plead ignorance. They act like they do not know what He is talking about. So, He lays it out for them.

Verse 14: “You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God; and what profit is it that we have kept His charge, and that we have walked in mourning before the LORD of hosts?’”  
·         Basically, they have begun to view their worship and service of Almighty God in terms of dollars-and-cents. They have been saying, “It is not worth it to serve Him and to do the things He asks of us. If there is no material prosperity coming from it, why should we keep doing what we do? If we are not getting anything out of it, we might as well quit.” That is the kind of thoughts that were going through their heads, and God could hear those thoughts.
·         “We have walked in mourning before the LORD of hosts.” The problem is that they had merely been going through the motions, showing the outward forms associated with repentance, without ever experiencing true repentance in their hearts. Their religion was all on the outside. And frankly, God has never been impressed by religiosity. 

Verse 15: “‘So now we call the arrogant [proud] blessed; not only are the doers of wickedness built up, but they also test God and escape.’”   
·         These religious hypocrites go on to allege that the wicked in their pride say whatever they feel like saying and God does not punish them. On the contrary, they claim, He blesses them all the more, in spite of their arrogance and sinfulness. And they do not stop there—they say that these evildoers deliberately do things to test God, and still they escape judgment and justice. This is just a rephrasing of their earlier charge against God stated up in 2:17.
·         These guys are angry, and they do not care who knows it. And as often happens, in their anger and frustration they misstate the facts and lose perspective about what was really going on. They are spouting off and saying all kinds of stupid things that are false about their own innocence and about God’s supposed injustice and unfairness.
·         Now I think it is important to note that it is not a sin to question God. He is not intimidated by our honest questions. In fact, the Psalmist in Psalm 73 struggled with this same issue and questioned why the wicked sometimes seemed to prosper. Listen to his words starting in verse 3: “I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4 They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. 5 They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills. 6 Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. 7 From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits. 8 They scoff and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression. 9 Their mouths lay claim to Heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth. 10 Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance. 11 They say, “How would God know? Does the Most High know anything?” 12 This is what the wicked are like—always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.”  
·         The difference between the Psalmist’s questions and those of the people of Malachi’s day was this—the attitude of the inquirer. It is OK to ask God hard questions in the genuine search to better know the heart and ways of God. It is not OK to murmur against God and accuse Him and impugn His motives and His character, especially His justice. God hates men accusing Him of being unjust! He will not tolerate that.

Verse 16: Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name.  
·         But notice, all this badmouthing of God has now reached the ears of some of the godly people who have loved and served God all along for all the right reasons. It says, “They spoke to one another, and the LORD gave attention and heard it.” Not everyone in Israel had turned his/her back on God. There was still a group of righteous people who had remained faithful to Him. Moreover, that faithfulness was carefully noted by God. “A book of remembrance was written before Him.” Why would God need a written record? Surely, He does not suffer from a bad memory like some of us. No, He keeps accurate accounts so that for all eternity there will be a public record of the obedience and faithfulness of His people. “…for those who fear the LORD and who esteem His name.” To fear the Lord means to hold Him in awe and reverence. His name encapsulates all of whom and what He really is, so that those who truly love and revere Him will be zealous for His holy name. We learn here that God rewards people for that.
·         The last part of verse 16 reminds me of Jesus’ words to a group of His disciples recorded in Luke 10:20. He had sent “the Seventy” out to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom and to heal the sick and they had returned with amazing stories to tell of what God had done through them. That is when Jesus said: “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in Heaven.” But where are those names recorded? The Book of Revelation speaks of “the Lamb’s Book of Life.” That is the record of every true child of God, those who are redeemed and will be in Heaven. If your name is not in that Book, it will not matter how many times you have been knighted by the Queen, or walked down the Red Carpet, or been voted into “Who’s Who.” When the time comes, if your name is not in the Lamb’s Book, the Lord Jesus will say to you, “Depart from Me. I never knew you.”  
·         I believe that Malachi 3:16 also shows the value of Christians coming together to share openly and prayerfully with one another in the sight of the LORD. When we come together and praise the LORD, and talk about all His benefits, and testify of His goodness, and bless His name He is right there in our midst, and He hears every word we say, and He takes notes! Not one word is lost! It does pay to serve the LORD.

Verse 17: “They will be Mine,” says the LORD of hosts, “on the day that I prepare My own possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.”   
·         “They will be Mine.” The LORD says that in the Day of the LORD (cf. 3:1-2) He will claim for His own all those who have loved Him and faithfully served Him. He regards them as His children and will spare them the way a man spares his own faithful son. You can hear the pride in God’s voice when He says this. He is proud of His children.  
·         “…on the day that I prepare My own possession…” I like the way this verse reads in the NKJV: “They shall be Mine,” says the LORD of hosts, “on the day that I make them my jewels.” The Hebrew word here translated as “jewels” could be rendered “special treasure,” or “treasured possession” as we have it in the NIV. This word is a beautifully endearing term that is used several places in the OT to describe the value that the LORD places on the people of Israel who have remained faithful to Him (cf. Exodus 19:5; Deut. 7:6; Psalm 135:4).

Verse 18: So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.  
·         At the beginning of this message I asked the question: “How do you tell the righteous from the wicked?” The answer to that question is found in this verse. The righteous can be recognized by their service to God. Specifically, that means loving Him, putting Him first, obeying His commandments, and finding one’s greatest joy bringing glory to His name.
·         The wicked, on the other hand, care nothing about serving God. They are only concerned with what is in it for them, as we saw up in verses 14-15. They are not zealous for His name; in fact, it means nothing to them.
·         Notice that He says, “So you will again distinguish between the righteous and the wicked.” This implies that they used to know the difference but had perhaps started to confuse the two. The fact is, we are not always good at telling sheep from goats, but the LORD never makes that mistake. With a glance He can tell them apart. Even if you take a goat and dress him up like a sheep, you still have not fundamentally changed him. In Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus told of a day yet to come when He will judge the nations. He said: “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.” In this word picture, the sheep are the righteous and the goats are the wicked. The end of the story is in verse 46: “These [the goats, meaning the wicked] will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” 

CONCLUSION:
            When that great Judgment Day comes, which side will you be standing on? Are you a sheep or a goat? Will you go into eternal punishment or into eternal life? For, you see, on that day God will act, and justice will be meted out. For the wicked it will be a dreadful day (cf. Zeph. 1:15-18). However, for the righteous it will be a glad day because they have the promise of the Lamb that He will deliver all those who belong to Him (cf. Psalm 91:7).
            One more thing… the people that the LORD exhorts up in verses 13-15 were religious people who were just going through the motions. Their hearts were not in what they were doing, so God had not blessed them. In turn, they blamed God for not blessing them the way they thought He should. There are a lot of professing Christians who walk around with the same attitude. They say, “I have tried to do my best to please God, but He is just never satisfied, so now I am just coasting. It just doesn’t pay to go overboard on religion.” They may attend church services but often they do it to criticize. They have little interest in praising God, serving God, or worshiping God, because they really do not love God. 
            Religion for religion’s sake is a chore and a bore. But when you have a close, intimate relationship with the Living God then worship services take on a whole new meaning. When your heart is filled with gratitude to God for all His mercies, then service for Him makes perfect sense and presents no hardship.
            Which are you more concerned about: What you are getting out of following Christ? Or, What Christ is getting from you? If you are more worried about what’s in it for you, then you need to go back and truly get saved!