This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.

Bibleline, Bibleline, they’re God’s word on Bibleline, everywhere, every time. Here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida. Clearly declaring the Gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made through the Bibleline website at calvaryoftampa.org. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s first part of this two-part message will be a blessing to you and your family.

Take your Bible and turn to the book of Malachi. Malachi. That sounds pretty good. I think it’s in the Old Testament. It ought to be a pretty good little book to take a look at. It’s not got a few chapters, not very big. The book of Malachi is really the last voice of the prophets. As you know, the Bible says in the book of Hebrews that God had sent his prophets and last of all, he sent his son. And in between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the book of Malachi is given to us.

And it kind of takes the Old Testament and the New Testament and kind of bridges at 400 years gap in there. You know, after the book of Malachi, almost 400 years of silence that God never talked. And I guess if there’s anybody who’s ever been hurt, it’s been the Lord. Because He talks over and over again about what He has done for the nation of Israel and still Israel rebelled against Him. And you think about sometimes the hurt that He must have gone through.

And then the thing is, even though He chases them, He so loves them. It’s just like you and me. He loves us, He saved us and then when we rebel against Him, He still loves us. And so when He has to beat the tar out of us, He still loves us. And I guess even here in the book of Malachi kind of pours out his heart of how he feels about Israel. And it uses the name Israel in chapter 1, chapter 3, it talks about Judah, but it’s really a reference because of the people that had been taken into captivity into Assyria.

Well, the 10 tribes, the northern 10 tribes were taken years before Babylon came and took the southern two tribes which was Judah and Benjamin. But as time went on, the 70 years passed that they were in captivity over in Iraq. Michael will say Iraq. You don’t the word is. And the time came when they were to come back to the land. But when they got ready to come back, not everybody wanted to come. So God used, you know, Ezra and Nehemiah and they brought some people back.

And even though they came back at one time, there was about 50,000 of them. Later on, Nehemiah went back and brought some more, about 1,800 he brought back. Anyway, they tried to get the walls built and the temple built, but when they finished building the temple, they were really down because the temple had none of the glory of Solomon’s temple. And so they were disappointed because it wasn’t as big as it used to be. It wasn’t as glorious as it used to be.

And here in this simple little book, it kind of tells us that there’s a lot of prophecy that is going to be used in the New Testament that fulfills the prophecy given in the Old Testament. Now, in the New Testament, there’s about 260 chapters in the New Testament. And 250, one of those is a reference to the Old Testament. So out of 260 chapters, you have all of these scriptures that are mentioned. And it’s… Incredible. I think it was 209 chapters or prophecies given.

So about 51, there wasn’t any prophecies given in some of those chapters or reference to Old Testament scriptures. But in the Old Testament, there were certain books that were never mentioned in the New Testament, but all of the books were except for a few. And you had the Book of Ruth and Esther, Ezra and Nehemiah and Ecclesiastes and Lamentation. Those are the books that you won’t find in the New Testament references to them. All the other books in the Old Testament are mentioned in the New Testament, and it puts the stamp of approval upon all of those books.

Now, Malachi is a good book in reference to prophecy because it talks about the Lord coming, talks about John the Baptist. It talks about both of the coming of Christ. When he comes, when John the Baptist shows up, and when he comes at the end, we’ve mentioned this in the book of Revelation, we talked about the Morning Star and the Son of righteousness. The Son of righteousness is found in Malachi in chapter 4. But the book of Malachi is important because the purpose of the book is repent and be blessed, or rebel and be cursed.

So for 400 years Israel rebelled. And because they rebelled, they were cursed. And there was a hunger and a thirst for the Word of God. They were hungry for bread. And so after 400 years, God sent the bread and Jesus was the bread. Now, America has been going for a little over 200 years. Can you imagine 400 years? How lost the people Israel must have been. How easy it was for them without a king and without a prophet to go astray.

So by the time Jesus gets here, they were a pathetic mess. They were religious but lost. Now Malachi’s problem was they had gone back to the land under Ezra, near Mayan, and established. Now the book of Malachi was written probably after Haggai and Zechariah. And so that those books were written a little bit sooner. And I don’t believe that the book of Malachi was written during the time of Ezra or Nehemiah because Malachi deals with the way the people were and the temple was built.

It talked about the sacrifices in the temple. And see they had to go back and rebuild the wall and the temple so it couldn’t have been at the same time because it wasn’t done yet. So there’s certain little clues that kind of let you know that the book of Malachi had to be written later. And even though Nehemiah was there, it has to be after Nehemiah. Now we believe that around 450, 455, something like that, when the decree was issued to go back and to rebuild the temple and all.

And the Bible tells in the 70 weeks of Daniel that the first seven weeks was 49 years. And so that 79 years was in the building of the temple and the end of that would throw it up to close to 397 BC. So that would fit about the time that many believe that the book of Malachi was probably written. And since the temple was there and the people were there, the book is divided into two main things. One, it is a rebuke to the priest because of how they were administering the sacrifices and so forth in the temple.

And then it was also concerning the people themselves. One in the first part deals with where God is speaking directly to the priest. And the second part from a chapter 2 verse 10, it talks about where the prophet Malachi is talking to the people. So God speaks to the priest and the prophets speaks to the people. And it references about two comings of Christ. But look there in, I want you to see this, look in chapter three of Malachi.

And you’ll notice there in verse one, where it says, Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple. Isn’t that interesting? So this is a prophecy and it’s according to the scripture, the next thing to happen. Now, their only problem is they didn’t know because they weren’t walking that close to the Lord. They were rebellious. So they couldn’t see the signs. They didn’t understand Daniel’s prophecy in the 70 weeks and so on.

But he says, no, I’m going to send my messenger and the Lord is coming. whom ye seek and suddenly he will appear come to the temple. Now this is a reference to Jesus Christ when he comes the first time. Now if they believe this and John the Baptist did come on the scene and he didn’t do it. Now look there in chapter 4 of Malachi and in chapter 4 it makes a statement verse five, which I believe is a reference when Christ comes, which is yet in the future.

Behold, I will send you Elijah, the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. See the great and dreadful day of the Lord is not when he came and was born into the world. That’s a reference to another period of time. But this book is important because it kind of says, you know, you’re not going to hear from me for 400 years and no word. And then all of a sudden the king is going to appear suddenly in his temple.

But he said, I’m going to send the forerunner first. So he tells us this, do you have any clue who that might be? It’s John the Baptist. Now hold your place right here and look all the way over there to the book of Isaiah in chapter 40. Isaiah and chapter 40. Isaiah chapter 40 and look there in verse 1. Where God says that he is, yes, he’s going to chase in his people, but she’s going to get a double wenny.

Verse 1, comfort ye, comfort, E my people say, if you’re God. Speak eat comfortably to Jerusalem and cry into her that her warfare is accomplished that her iniquity is pardoned for she hath received the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. And then lo and behold, verse 3, the voice of him that cryeth in the wilderness. Now wait a minute, do you realize there’s almost 700 years in in between this. In verse one and two, God does pour out His double whammy upon the children of Israel and then 400 years of silence.

Now see 70 years is when they went captivity. Then they go back to their land. Then they had to rebuild the walls and the city and so forth. The Bible says in troubleless times and then they rebuilt the temple and that’s the temple that was standing when Christ came, but Herod, who was a little before Christ, had already rebuilt and got the temple looking pretty good. And so they called it Herod’s temple. It was in a lot better shape.

But look there in verse 3, the voice of him that cryeth in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough way places plain. And in verse 5, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.” This is when he suddenly appears like he promised. Now a couple hundred years after this, well, Malachi wrote and refers to the very same time.

But see, whenever Christ comes, He is the bread of life. He is the living Word. In the 55th chapter of the book of Isaiah, where it talks about, oh, everyone that thirsteth, let him come and let him buy. And why do you labor for that which does not satisfy and so forth? Because what he’s talking about, it’s going to be free, it’s something you can have and you can have it now. But look in verse 6, the voice say, said cry and he said, what shall I cry?

shall I cry? All flesh is grass and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the Theum, the grass withereth, the flower of the fated, because the spirit of the Lord bloat upon him. Surely the people is grass, the grass withereth, the flower of the fated, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Now I believe, and this could be a little yank eology, interjecting into this, that he says the people are like grass. He says, but the word of the Lord endures forever.

He just said that he’s going to send his messenger and then the arm of the Lord is revealed as you read in the book of Isaiah 53. He shall grow up before him as a tender plant. And then when he He makes a statement here in verse three, and the glory of the Lord is revealed. Suddenly he shall come to his temple. This one is not like people that are like grass that die and fade away, but this Son of God that’s coming is the word of God that liveeth and abideth forever.

Now I believe there is a connection here and it’s talking about this, And because this is what we call the good news, the gospel, the good news, good tidings. But look at the very next verse there in verse 9. O Zion, that bringeth, and here’s those two words, good tidings. Get the up into the high mountain. O Jerusalem, that bringeth good tidings. See, this is the good news. I believe myself personally that there is so much wealth of knowledge in the Old Testament that we probably will never see in this life.

But when we get to heaven and we will see everything, we’ll know everything, this will be like somebody just turned on a bright light and we will see all the scriptures and what they really mean and how much debt there is. And we might be studying this book for all eternity. Who knows? This is the living Word of God and there’s no bottom to the depths of this stuff. And I even imagine things that might not even be here.

What if it, what about all the real stuff? And I see a little bit of this, and I see a little bit of that, and I get all excited about it. And I just love it. But anyway, go back to the book of Malachi, the book of Malachi. So the one is going to deal with the presence of sin. And then also in chapter three and four, we’ll deal with the future where Jehovah talks about. About 400 years I’ve got somebody coming to the temple.

Don’t you wish he’d have just told him how many years it was? Well, he’d already done that in the book of Daniel. But I want you to go back there to verse 1 now. In to verse 1. God still loves his people and he wants them to believe it. Even though here God had told them, I brought you out of Egypt. I brought you into the land that I promised you. And I told you that I would whoop all the enemies.

And all you had to do is trust me. They had trouble trusting God. After seeing him open up the Red Sea where they could walk across on drag round, they saw all of this. They literally, as a people, they saw their shoes and their clothes that didn’t wear out after 40 years. I think I got some of my clothes that’s 30 years old. But 40 years it never wore out on them. They saw how God provided them miraculously. Waters out of rocks in the middle of a desert.

A special little health food bar that came down from heaven called Angels Food or Mana. And God took care of them and it came on certain days and not on other days and double on one day and They had trouble trusting God Now you’d be surprised Here we are living in good old America Don’t you think God was good to let us be born here in America? What have we been born in some other country and our parents were say Muslims and Taught us all of that and then we would wind up believing that You know, I’ve talked to Jehovah’s Witnesses and their Jehovah’s Witnesses because their parents were Jehovah’s Witness.

I’ve talked to Mormons and there were Mormons because their parents were Mormon. And I’ve talked to Church of Christ and you named the religion, I’ve talked to Catholics, their parents were and they are. And they believe that they’re right and probably fight to the death that they’re right. And yet you know everybody can’t be right. But for some reason or other they can’t believe that they could be wrong. Everybody’s wrong but them. Here you and I don’t we believe that we’re right and all the religions are wrong.

You say, well, that’s the truth. I mean, we’re really all right. And where you can separate truth of errors is that everybody believes in your work for salvation, that’s false. And so there’s a few people who believe it’s by grace and it’s totally free and God will say you can give eternal life. There’s maybe not many people that believe that. The Bible says the way to heaven is narrow. It means it’s only one way. And the broad way that leads to destruction, a lot of people believe that.

There’s religion, man’s way, and there’s God’s way. That’s what’s narrow. So I guess I’m narrow minded. Some people are so narrow minded they could look to a keyhole with both eyes. Now that’s pretty narrow minded. Looking verse one, the burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. Now that burden is talking about, it’s a heavy sentence. It’s a heavy thing God is unloading upon the people. You see sometimes some people can’t carry much. You can unload too much upon people and it crushed them.

You ought to see what God unloads on these people. You say, well, it’ll destroy them. God loads it, buddy. And he pulls no punches. He hits them right between the eyes. He talks about, you know, we should not try to offend people. And I do everything I possibly can, not to purposely offend. But I know that just by me being me, I offend. I don’t really want to. I don’t want to hurt nobody. But I have a great love and appreciation what truth is that sometimes I just figure in my mind, just get a grip, get a life.

Don’t worry about it. This is what God said, boom, that’s it. And so I sometimes fail to be really sensitive to people and how something that I say might affect them. Though I don’t want to, you know, purposely hurt somebody’s feelings. I know that in time I do. But you ought to see what God says. So he says here in verse two, I have loved you, say, of the Lord. Look what he says, I have loved you. Now wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.

God, you just split the nation because of what Solomon did. You lie to your series to come in and take Israel, top 10 tribes. Then you lie on the Bible, I’m gonna come in here and do that and destroy our nation. God, you let people starve to death. They boiled their kids because they were hungry. You let them be taking a thousand miles in the captivity for 70 years. And then after 70 years, a lot of those people were too old.

They couldn’t come back. Now they’re ingrained in the beliefs, father, fallen in love with Babylon and didn’t want to come home. Not all of them did. Come back the city is destroyed. There’s all kinds of problems. People tried to kill them while they were trying to build the wall, tried to get them to quit. And Yhemiah says, I can’t come down and talk to you. Got the Lord’s work to get done. And they worked and laid blocks and had their guns and bazookas and all that stuff up there and tanks.

Okay, well maybe they had a sword and a spear, okay. And they built and they did what God says to do. But that didn’t mean that all the people were spiritually minded. There’s certain things that you can have for your homeland and they wanted their temple build and they did these things and there were some great problems that they had that they had to deal with. But under Nehemiah, see a lot of the people did do some good things and spiritual things and well…

It had to be enough time after that that maybe Nehemiah was no longer on the scene. And he couldn’t keep that tight control upon the people for some reason. Now we know he had gone back and they came back later with 1800 more, but as time moves on, there’s probably 30 years difference in here between when he probably stopped his work and Make sure you know here’s Malachi. Because by the time the book of Malachi is written, the temple is built.

They have been doing the sacrifices. And the people were corrupt. So he begins to lay down the rule to them about, look what I’ve done for you. I loved you. And even though you were all these things that have happened, he says, I did because I love you. Now, have you ever had children and you didn’t want to spank them, but you knew you had to spank them because they were rebellious and you’d rather have them feel the pain coming from a loving hand than the pain that would come on down the road because of bad decisions that they never learned and never suffered for?

So sometimes because you love children, you have to discipline them, you have to tell them no. There has to be correction. It’s not because you hate them because you love them. And this is what the Lord says. I loved you. He says, don’t you remember that there was Jacob in the e-sauce? He says, and I love Jacob and not Esau. Not Jacob and Esau. They had been dead for years. I mean, thousands more years or so. Don’t go on.

So he’s not talking about those two individuals, but what they represent. Because you see Esau, well, he became Edom. That’s Edom and so Moab, those people on the other side of the Jordan River, if you ever go over there and you look at it, it’s desert, it’s terrible. And you look at the land of Israel and it’s blossoming like a rose, totally different. Looks like a land of paradise. And everything they grow there, They’re grapefruits, they’re grapes, and all that stuff.

It’s just like you was reading in the book of Numbers where they went into the land and spied out the land and it came back with all this, the fruit, it’s true. Man, you can eat good in Israel. And every time I’ve been over there, six times I think, man, you can eat like a king. And they have, they raise that’s bigger and better than just about anywhere else in the whole world. But see what God says here in this verse two, he was not, he saw Jacob’s brother, sayeth the Lord, yet I love Jacob.

Talking about, I loved Israel. I gave them the best land. I gave to Israel the choice, the promised land, the land that flows with milk and honey. He said, he saw because he despised his birthright. He said, I gave him that land over there. He says, because I loved you. And it boiled down because of Jacob and the way Jacob was. Now he was a supplanner. He was a liar. He was a deceiver. At most times he was a bad man.

But there’s still something about him that he loved the Lord. You’ve ever seen people who love the Lord but still they have… They keep doing stupid things. Well Jacob did that. We’ve been listening to Bibleline, a teaching ministry of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, with Dr. Ralph Arnold. We pray that you were blessed by today’s message. Our two of this teaching will conclude with tomorrow’s broadcast. If you have enjoyed our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ, you can reach Bible Line and pledge your support to keep us on the air in your area by dialing toll-free 1-800-576-3771.

It’s 1-800-576-3771. If you wish to hear today’s program again or would like to download a free MP3 of today’s or any previous Bibleline program, go to BibleLineMinistries.org and click on the spinning globe in the upper right corner of our homepage. If you’re in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Our Sunday morning services begin at 10 30 and at 6 o’clock on Sunday evening. My broadcast of our services may be seen by going to our church website, calvaryoftampa.org.

Thanks for joining us on Bible Live and now a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. friend, one day it will happen. The trumpet will shout. We will be changed. Paught up to meet the Lord in the air. So live today and every day, believing that the Lord is coming soon and just keep looking up.