“Behold, I send My
messenger,
and he will prepare
the way before Me.
And he Lord, whom you
seek, will
suddenly come to His
temple, even
the Messenger of the
covenant,
in whom you delight. Behold
He
is coming.
Says the Lord of
hosts.”
Malachi 3:1
We are just
two days away from the great festival: Christmas. While this is first, and
foremost a Christian festival it has become a time when non–Christians have
commercialized it to the point that the Christian meaning is almost lost. It is
lost when are motive for celebrating this festival is more about gifts, parties,
etc., and not a time to focus on the event that it celebrates: the coming of
the promise Messiah. Some may want to apply this verse to John the Baptist, but
this is a poor understanding for it is the Messiah promised and is the
Messenger of the Covenant. Matthew writes the words of Jesus Christ in relation
to the question of John the Baptist in prison: “For this is he whom it is
written: ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your
way before You” (Matthew 10:11). The words of Malachi, albeit that we have
given chapter numbers and verse numbers, falls on the previous words where he
admonished the Jewish people: “You have wearied the LORD with your words;
yet you say, ‘In what way have we wearied Him?’ “In that you say, ‘Everyone who
does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and He delights in them,’ “or, ‘Where
is the God of justice?’” (Malachi 2:17). Yes, it is true that John the
Baptist was the messenger that prepared the way for the Messenger of the
Covenant, Jesus Christ and John the Baptist’ ministry called people to
repentance a preparation of the people who repented for the coming of this long
promise and prophecies of His coming was about to be fulfilled. Jesus then when
answering John the Baptist now imprisoned and questioning about Him and what said
about Jesus was answered and the prophecy in Malachi found it meaning in Jesus
Christ. Jesus, the Messenger of the Covenant, prophetically foretold of His
coming and His role as Messenger of the Covenant by Isaiah: “Thus says the
LORD: ‘In an acceptable time I have heard You, and in the day of salvation I have
helped You; I will preserve You and give You as a covenant to the people, to
restore the earth. To cause them to inherit the desolate heritages” (Isaiah
49:8). There are Churches that have ignored this warning to Israel about
calling “evil” “good” and allow homosexuality in their churches, and adultery not
addressed according to the command of God. Those liberal churches are a stain
upon the Messenger of the Covenant who came as a babe, God in the flesh, to
restore the heritage that was lost, first by Adam, then this loss was carried
forth in greater sinfulness so that man in no way could restore himself to
receive what God willed for man. Jesus Christ came to His temple, and I do not
mean the actual, physical, building called the temple for the temple of God is
His elect: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy
Spirit who is in you, whom you have form God, and you are not your own”
(1Corinthians 6:19)? If we are to obtain favor from God, and from His
Messenger then we must meet the Messenger in His temple, and since you are the
temple of God, the temple that the Messenger comes to by means of the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit; then ought we not take time to cleanse the
temple? Since we cannot do this alone, we have something so great as that the
ministry of Jesus Christ prepares the sinner’s heart to be His temple, a temple
cleansed, holy, and sanctified and this He does by the conviction of the Holy
Spirit. God does not care about sacrifice. God desires us to be obedient to
Him. This obedience shown by our conversion and cleansing of ourselves by
adhering to the commands of God and this too, we have help to be able to do so.
By your will you act, one way or the other, therefore it is by our will that we
choose to follow the Messenger and be the temple in which He comes into and
lives within. It by our will to follow Him, and by Him, we are separated from
indwelling corruptions. This babe lying in a manger that, the One who will care
for His people and refine them as is done in refining gold, or precious stones
came to do just that, the One who will care for His people and refine them as
is done in refining gold, or precious stones. It is by this babe laying in a
manger in swaddling cloth that will by His grace, that grace that only God can
give, makes us acceptable to God. This babe is not ordinary babe, no, for He is
God, incarnate, and it is He the Messenger of the Covenant, the One who
fulfilled all prophecies abut the Messiah who came to do His Father’s will,
that is to die for sin, to pay the debt owed to the Justice of God. It his babe
that by His coming that the way to eternal life is guaranteed to all those who
believe upon Him. It is by this babe, surrounded by the trappings of a manger,
the place where cattle, sheep would eat and sleep, that He would not only die
by the will of the Father, He makes now eternal intercession for all those
called by God.
As you
prepare for this great festival, do not allow this time of joy and happiness to
override the real meaning behind all that we celebrate: the coming, dressed in
human flesh, complete man by His mother Mary, and complete God, by being
begotten by God who is His Father, and yet is Him, one in essence with the
Father. Our joy is: God has come to save His children.
Yet from the days of your fathers
You have
gone away from
My ordinances and have not kept
Them.
Return to Me, and
I will return to you,
Says the
LORD of hosts.
Malachi 3:7a
Give God Praise
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