Good morning, church. It is great to see all of you here today. My name is Michael.

I am the lead pastor here at Christ the King Church. Today we are going to finish the book of Malachi. So, in Malachi chapter four, next week we'll start a new series in the book of Colossians. So, I hope you will come back and go through one of my favorite books of the New Testament, which really presents a very beautiful picture of Christ.

So, we'll get to know Christ more fully through that series. But today, Malachi chapter four. And in this text, we're going to look at, there's a bit of a recap of previous themes that Malachi has addressed in the book. And so, I want to look at two themes in particular that I can, I want to drill down a little bit more specifically on these two themes and one thing that we need to remember.

So, if you, if you have a paper Bible, if you're at this part the next page is the New Testament. So, this is not just the last book in the Old Testament in terms of where it falls, but this is considered to be the final prophetic word that God spoke to his people in the Old Covenant, Old Testament times.

So, this is a, if you're going to say goodbye to somebody and you're not going to speak to them or see them for a couple of years, let's say, this You might have something of more urgency, something that stands out really important that you would want to impart to them. I, I see this in the book of Malachi here at the chapter four.

This is a final word and God is going to not speak a prophetic word to his people again for, over 400 years. So, it's a long period of time, longer than America has been a nation. So, it's a very long period of time that God is not going to have a prophetic word. The next time God will send a prophet to his people, it will be John the Baptist and John the Baptist will prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Between what we're going to look at today in that time, silence, there's no word from God. God has already said all that. Needs to be said, and the next word will be Jesus Christ, who is the full word of God, the revelation of God that will usher in the new covenant era, the kingdom of God, and the last times, which is what we're in now.

So today, this final prophetic word, two broad themes that we'll address, and they might seem somewhat disconnected, but as we go through, we'll show, I'll show you the connection. Okay. The themes are God's judgment and God's law, God's judgment and God's law. So, let's dig in. And we'll read these six verses in Malachi chapter four, and then we'll walk through them a verse at a time.

For behold, the day is coming burning like an oven. When all the arrogant and all evil doers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.

You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall, 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, remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes and he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.

This is the word of the Lord.

Let's start with the judgment of God. This is the first theme. God's judgment. I'll read the text again. So, this is a prophecy from Malachi about things to happen. For behold, the day is coming, so it's future, burning like an oven when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

So, it's going to be utter destruction. There's not going to be any remnant. There's not going to be any trace or shred of evil left. Whenever God has done with this judgment, but for you who fear my name. So, here's not the evil or the wicked, but God's people, the righteous for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.

You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 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. Obviously, we're talking about something in the future. Something from Malachi's perspective is in the future, and something from our perspective is still to come in the future.

So, this is the theme of judgment, and it, you could, it is also known as the day of the Lord in the Bible. Or known as Judgment Day, all of these refer to the same thing. It is the day when Jesus Christ will return and God's judgment of all things, of all time, of all people will take place and be final.

And the day of judgment, as we see here in this text, it is a day of separation. So last week, Wade preached about the righteous and the wicked. And that's in the text just prior to the one we're in now. But there is this, there are righteous and the wicked. And The day of judgment will be a day of separation where God will gather the righteous to himself and the wicked will be destroyed.

So right now, in the year of our Lord, 2024, the righteous and the wicked, we're all mixed together, right? So good people, bad people, God fearing people that love Jesus and wicked people and people that are apathetic, we're all just mixed together, and we're fallen. So, we don't, we can't always tell.

It's not always obvious to us. God sees the heart. He knows all things perfectly, but it's not always obvious to us. So, the day of the Lord is a day of judgment where God's blinding, perfect vision, his piercing light will invade the world and it will separate. He will see those who are righteous, those who have faith in Jesus Christ and are forgiven, and he will gather them to himself.

And then he will also see those who do not have faith and also those who have a counterfeit or a false faith and they will be judged by God, and they will be destroyed for eternity in hell. So, you see this separation it's a day of judgment, but there's a separation of two kinds of people. So, it's two sides of the coin.

So, on the one side of the coin, you have you who fear his name, that's God's people, Christians or God's people in the Old Testament where his faithful covenant keepers. So, in the Old Testament times, God's people were the people in the nation of Israel who kept covenant. They were faithful and obedient to God's covenant.

In the New Testament times, they are not people just from the nation of Israel, but God's people in New Testament times are determined by their faith in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who fulfills the purpose of Old Testament Israel. So, Jesus Christ is the people of God. He is Old Testament Israel.

And then us through faith in Jesus Christ are welcomed into the people of God with Jesus Christ as us as the one through whom we are brought into that people were adopted into God's family. So, it's people from every nation, every tongue, every people, every tribe. And these are people who believe in Jesus Christ, the son of God.

And on that day of judgment, we God's people are not punished for sin. Jesus Christ was already punished. Jesus Christ already experienced his own judgment day on our behalf. So, we are not punished. We're not destroyed with the wicked. We are blessed. We are brought into God's presence, and we are blessed immeasurably.

The son of righteousness shall dawn, and it will jump out of the stall like. Calves, it says here, this beautiful imagery of just this life and freedom and joy and blessing that will be abundant and rich forever. That's what we receive as Christians. And Jesus Christ purchased that for us on the cross.

So that's what we get. We have this and, but Jesus sees, he sees who's righteous and who's wicked. And since there is a mixture of all of us living in the same place together, God will have to separate one from the other. So, we will receive God's mercy. But on the other side of the coin are the arrogant and the evildoers.

Some of them, now they don't always have horns, and pitchforks, and tails, and fire coming out of their eyes, and just saying horrible things. A lot of times they're just very nice people. But in their heart, they reject Jesus Christ. So, the nicest guy you may ever meet may be an atheist, and in his heart, he hates God because he does not accept the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

So, it's not the nice guys from the mean guys. It is those who believe in Jesus Christ, who acknowledge his Lordship, and those who do not. That is the criteria that separates the righteous from the wicked. So, they don't always look wicked to us. And we are not qualified to make such distinctions, right?

That's why Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, do not judge. And what he means it's it is not, it is above our pay grade to, to determine for, from our perspective, who is in and who's out. We can. We can evaluate people's fruit and we can try to discern, but ultimately it is God who sees the heart and he sees all things perfectly, so God can distinguish. And then on the day of the Lord, the judge is Jesus Christ himself. He comes and he will say, these are mine. These are the ones who have faith in me, who trusted me, who are loyal to me, and then these are the ones who do not. And so, it is a time of separation and Christ is the judge.

Now, whenever we talk about judgment, that's uncomfortable, right? It's an uncomfortable, unpleasant subject because we want to think what God loves everybody and God accepts everybody, and nobody goes to hell. We're all happy forever, right? But that isn't simply is not what the Bible teaches. You can only believe that if you're imposing your own opinion upon the word of God and not submitting yourself to what the Bible says.

But what I just the text we're reading in Malachi. I'd say at the bottom of my sermon notes, I have this thing where I'm just like cutting room floor verses that I just don't have the time to read. And it's pages after pages of texts that I could have read to reinforce this point, but you only have so much time and attention span that I want to take.

So, we'll just trust me, read the cross references in your Bible, page after page of texts that warn us about the judgment of God. And so, this is not something to ignore or dismiss. Nevertheless, it's an uncomfortable subject. Because we know people that may have died and didn't know Jesus.

That's a horrifying fact because we love them. And so, this is a sobering fact, but it is a fact I want to read to you. This is something from a Bible commentary when he just talks about the wrath of God, the judgment of God, wrath and judgment, related themes. Let me just read you this quote from the expositors Bible commentary.

The word wrath. does not mean a sudden gust of passion or burst of temper as it's not God doesn't fly off the handle and he's just willy nilly erratically just zapping people. No this is not a gust of passion. Rather it is the settled displeasure of God against sin. It is the divine allergy to moral evil, the reaction of righteousness to unrighteousness.

God is neither easily angered nor vindictive, but by his very nature, he is unalterably committed to opposing and judging all disobedience. For God to be a just God, he must judge sin to be consistent with his own character. The moral laws of the universe are as unvarying and unchangeable as its physical laws.

Let me read that again. The moral laws of the universe are as unvarying and unchangeable as its physical laws, and God cannot set aside either without violating his own nature. The rejection of his son can be followed only by retribution. Now in the verses that follow here in the text in Malachi, God says he will send Elijah, the prophet, before that day comes.

So, I want to deal with their text a little bit out of order here. Let me read to you. So, here's verses four through six. So, I want to bracket off verse four, and we're going to return to that in a moment. So, let's just jump down here to verse five, because this is how the book of Malachi ends.

So, he says, Judgment is coming. It's going to be awful for those who don't know Christ, or don't know, who don't fear the name of God, but it's going to be, but it's going to be wonderful for those who do fear God. And then he says, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

So, Malachi is okay, here I am. Here I'm standing. I'm looking ahead of the future. He's received a word, a prophetic word. He's looking out into the future. And he sees, God allows him to see in the spirit, this day of judgment. And he's warning about it. And he's now sometime between where I'm at now, and that distant thing to come, the day of the Lord, Elijah the prophet is going to show up.

And he is going to he's going to turn here. Verse six, he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. So, what do we have here? We have this thing that's to come and Malachi saying between where I am at now in some 500 years before the time of before the time of Christ that time.

And then there's this judgment that is yet to come you. Somewhere before, between now and then you should expect somebody to show up who is Elijah the prophet. And what Elijah the prophet will do is he's going to turn people's hearts back to their fathers, which I think is maybe a euphemistic way of talking about returning their hearts back to God, the father, God's law, obedience to God, the traditions that they inherited.

They're going to, this Elijah will turn people back to the old ways, right? Now if that doesn't happen, then there's just going to be a. Utter destruction in the land. So, this is going to happen unless God strikes the land with a decree of utter destruction. Let me read to you what the New Testament says about John the Baptist.

Okay. So, Luke chapter one, this is the infancy narrative of Jesus and John the Baptist, he was Elizabeth was pregnant with John about the same time Mary was pregnant with Jesus. And so, an angel, the Lord appears to Zechariah, who is John the Baptist's dad. And the angel says this, and he's talking about John here.

And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord, their God. And he will go before him, him referring to the Messiah, who is Jesus. So, he, John, will go before Jesus in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the father to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just to make ready for the Lord, a people prepared.

So, Malachi says, guys will come and when he comes, he's going to call you back to the old ways. The traditions turn your hearts back to the fathers. And then the book of Luke tells us, hey, John the Baptist, the story I'm about to tell you about this guy named John the Baptist, that's the guy Malachi four was talking about.

This is Elijah, but Elijah is coming as a baby and John the Baptist, but he is the prophet that God is sending to make way for the Messiah, Jesus Christ to come. And if you know the story of John the Baptist, he basically has a one-word message. Repent. That's john. The Baptist message calls people that are unfaithful, wayward people in Israel calls them to repent, which means, hey, you need to obey God.

Because the Messiah is coming, and you want to be ready for the Messiah who comes. Interestingly, whenever John the Baptist does grow up and he starts preaching, he has a message. And then in the book of Matthew, we get a little snippet of this message from the book of Matthew. And he doesn't say, hey, the Messiah is going to come and die on the cross for your sins, so that you can be forgiven of your sins.

He doesn't say that. He says, the Messiah is going to come and he's going to bring judgment. So, he's thinking about Malachi when we read to you from the book of Matthew chapter three. So, this is John the Baptist speaking. John says, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I.

That's called my Jesus who sandals I'm not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand. Do you know what a winnowing fork does? It separates wheat and chaff. It's so it's a ministry of separation, just like Malachi predicted. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn.

Those are the people who fear God. He's talking about Christians here, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. I think very clearly john the Baptist is self-consciously aware that his ministry is one of Elijah the prophet as Malachi four predicted. Now Malachi prophesies about these events from his perspective before the time of Christ that would lead up to the ministry of john the Baptist and Jesus and about the day of judgment.

Now there was something that Probably he didn't, I don't know that he actually knew about Malachi. I don't know that he actually knew that the Messiah would not bring the day of judgment immediately when he arrived. What they, what Malachi may not have known, I don't think he actually knew was that the day of judgment would actually be delayed for a time.

And that's what nobody anticipated was that Jesus would actually come to earth, not just once, but twice. The Old Testament, from our perspective as New Testament Christians, we can read the Old Testament and say, Oh, here's the first coming. Here's the second coming. But they were just mixed together in the Old Testament times.

And it wasn't so clear that Christ the Messiah would come twice, but he did. So, his first coming, Jesus did not come to bring that judgment in his first coming, right? Jesus came at his first coming to die as a sacrificial offering to take away sins. And then in his second coming, that's the one that we're anticipating now, where Jesus will come to judge just as Malachi 4 and John the Baptist prophesied to separate the righteous from the wicked.

Now you might think where's that in the Bible? I'll show you John 3:16, the famousest verse in the whole Bible, but you may not know the verse right after the famousest verse in the Bible, John 3:17. So I'll read them both. And you can see the first and second comings are mixed here together for God.

So, love the world. That he gave his only son. Let me just slow down here. God. Here's the father So loved the world that he gave his only son That's Jesus That whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life You know this one so Christian You believe in Jesus. Amen. Praise God. We believe in Jesus.

And because we believe in Jesus, what do we believe is true of us? We will not perish. We have eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ because we believe in him. We know that we are secure. We're God's child and we will not face judgment. So, we will not perish, but we will have eternal life. That's the first coming of Jesus Christ.

Verse 17, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. So, he's saying you might be expecting the Messiah to come into the world to condemn the world. If you've read Malachi 4, that might be what you expect. The Messiah is going to come, Elijah is going to prepare the way, call people to repent.

The Messiah is going to be, Hey, I'm here. I'm the Messiah. Oh, you don't repent. Boom. Judgment. You're gone. But that's not what happens. Jesus, this is Jesus speaking. She said, God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world. I'm not here for judgment right now, but in order that the world might be saved through him, that's what's on God's heart.

When he sent Christ into the world, this surprising truth is what we call the gospel. And that is through faith, those who are the arrogant and the wicked and the rebellious and the godless and the hard hearted and the evil, they become the righteous. They are transferred from one loyalty, one allegiance to the other.

They are brought out of the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of the devil and Satan and sin, and they are transferred into the kingdom of light of Jesus Christ, the son, because they believe in Jesus Christ, the righteous one who suffered the penalty of their sin on their behalf. That's what the hope is.

That's why it's the gospel. That's why you could talk to any most hard hearted, wicked person and tell them you can be forgiven. You don't have to fear the judgment of God because you, your judgment can actually be applied to the son of God, Jesus Christ, and then by your faith, you are counted righteous as Jesus is righteous.

And you're not condemned. That's the gospel Romans chapter one, verse 16. The apostle Paul says, for, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. Why it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek. It's not just for us Jewish people, but also to those out in the world, the Greeks, which was the most proximity, but by extension, the whole world, anybody from any tribe, language, people, nation, everywhere around the world.

That's why we in the United States of America, we're not Israel. We're Gentiles, most of us anyway, I would imagine, but we're the nations. We are these people, and we, through faith in Jesus, fulfill this promise, and that's why we're not ashamed of the gospel either, because the gospel is salvation for us, right?

So that's what we get, and that's why the ultimate judgment of God that is surely coming is delayed for a time. Jesus didn't come to torch the earth and set this thing on fire. He could have, and he would have been perfectly righteous and just to do but he didn't. Because if he did three or four or five, seven, eight, 10, 20, 30 years ago, many of us in this room would be in hell, but he didn't.

He delayed that judgment so that we can be saved. And this has been happening for 2000 years since the time of Christ, God is patient. God is patient so that evil people can repent, turn to Christ and be saved. And then in the, in this time between now and Christ returns, the gospel is propagated and spread throughout the world and that Jesus Christ is named and people are told to call upon the name of Christ to be saved.

So, every single day between. The day of between now and the day of his return is a day where people have an opportunity to repent. So, second Peter, let me go back here.

Second Peter then three, nine and 10, the Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise to some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

God's patience is an infinite. The day of the Lord will come. And when it comes, it'll come like a thief. It'll sneak up on you. You're not expecting it. And then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

That's the day of judgment. But the day of judgment is delayed. That's the point. Now tucked away in the middle of this prophecy is verse four. And now I want to turn our attention to that. Verse four urges God's people to remain faithful to the law. How is that relevant to judgment day? It might not seem like it's right.

We could just close right now but in the middle of this prophecy, verse four talks about staying faithful to the law. So, let's go back to this verse. We bracketed off before, remember the law of my servant, Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Now, you might be thinking Malachi is Old Testament.

We're New Testament Christians. We're not under law. We're under grace. Anybody disagree with that? I don't. I don't disagree with that. We're not under law. We're under grace. In fact, when you know it, the Bible teaches it for sin will have no dominion over you. Since you, Christians, are not under law.

But under grace, so is that true? It's God's words. It's true. So yes and amen. That is true. 100 percent true. We are saved by grace. We are not saved by keeping the law. 100 percent true. However, there is this thing over here. Sin will have no dominion over you. So, what does that mean? So, we're not under law, but how do we know what sin is?

How do we define what sin is apart from some standard by which we can ascertain what sin is in order to know, am I being, is sin having dominion over me right now? How do I know what sin? We need something to tell us what sin is. We need sin to be defined for us so that we can know that this is not what doesn't have dominion over us.

Now some Christians who don't know the Bible very well, they will see things like this. We don't need to worry about God's law. We just need to love people. Ever heard that? Dogs heard it. We don't need the law. Now people that care about God's law, what do they call you? Legalist. That's right. You Pharisee?

Self-righteous Pharisee? Why are you worrying about God's law? We don't need the law. We just need to love people. How do we know what love is? How do we know how to love people? What is the standard? Is it just my feeling? I don't know about you, but I've noticed people don't always feel the same way about what love means.

Love is not just some syrupy thing that we feel, some uber subjective inner impulse. Love has moral and ethical content. Love is not just how you feel. Now I won't bang this drum, so I'll just go ahead and hit the first note right now. Love is not about your feelings. Love is not about your feelings. Love is not about your feelings.

Love is not about your feelings. Alright, there's one measure, four beats. I want to hit it again later on, but that's something we really, and American modern Christianity really needs to know that we really need to know this. That's one of the dumbest things Christians could say, God cares. Excuse my ask.

Does God care if we go out and break all the 10 Commandments since? We're not under law, we're under grace. Does God care if you break all the Ten Commandments? Okay, God cares about that then. So that means, the Ten Commandments is part of God's law, so that means we can't just Throw away God's law.

God's law matters. So how does that? That's the question. How does God's law matter? Not does God's law matter? We know it does. So, it's how does God's law matter? That's what Christians really need to understand. We can't dismiss the law as some irrelevant artifact in a museum because the Bible does tell us we're not under law.

We're under grace. So how does it apply? That's the question. So, for starters, let's just acknowledge God's law is good. God's law is not the enemy here. God's law is not bad. It's not some oppressive thing that is making us miserable. God's law is good. Even the hard-to-understand parts. And I'll freely acknowledge there are parts in God's law.

I'm like, why is that a law? That's the most random thing in the world. You might feel that way. Even the parts that are totally random are not random. You just don't get it. And that's okay. There are times I'm reading the Bible and I'm like, I don't get this. God why is this in the law? Why is this in the Bible?

I don't get this at all. This doesn't make sense. Why do they got to, you got to, you got a little boil on your skin. You, it itches, and you got to go to a priest. And he, I'm like, what does that mean? I don't know, but that doesn't mean it's just totally arbitrary. It means I don't understand it.

God understands it. And there was a time when it certainly made sense to the people that it was applied to at that time. So, we don't just dismiss it. But God's law teaches us who God is. It teaches us how God made the world. It teaches us what went wrong with the world. It teaches us what man is like. It teaches us how man should live in a fallen world.

It teaches us how we can be made right with God. And Jesus himself said the very, this very thing, Matthew 5:17, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. Jesus Christ said that. So, Jesus himself acknowledged the value of the law.

It didn't come to abolish it, but it did come to fulfill it. And that's, that really is what we're trying to figure out. So, there are some parts of the law that no longer apply to us the way it did in the original context. And then there are other parts of the law that do apply in exactly the same way.

And there's a way to distinguish that. I want to tell you this now. It's a helpful way to think of God's law. It's not something I made up. This is a part of a good tradition, reformed tradition, Westminster confession of faith, London Baptist confession of faith, both talk about three categories of law in the Bible.

And if you think of these three categories as you're reading through the Bible, which I hope you do. You can get a better sense of what's going on in any particular instance. And they do overlap. And so, it's not like these are clean distinctions, but as far as you're thinking, this can be helpful as a tool.

The three categories are civil law, ceremonial law, and moral law. Civil, ceremonial, moral law. Civil law is like speed limits. It regulated the life of people practically at a time when the nation of Israel was in the old covenant as a nation. So, before the time of Jesus, whenever God had a covenant with a nation of people, with kings and a lot of systems, and so the civil law governed the life of the people.

Then you have the ceremonial law. which regulated the worship of God's people. How does a nation of people approach a holy God when they are sinful? In a ceremonial, I said you do so with sacrifices, and there are priests, and there are particular stipulations that you do that can tell you how you can approach a holy God.

And then there's the moral law. Now, the moral law is universal. It applies all times. The moral law is still in effect. Jesus Christ fulfilled the purpose of the Old Testament nation because he is the true people of God, and actually it only has one member, and that's Jesus Christ the Son. He is the nation, and then all of God's people are now in Christ.

And Jesus also fulfilled the sacrificial system because they sacrificed bulls and goats and lambs and animals. And Jesus Christ is the perfect lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. So, he fulfilled the sacrificial system and the ceremonial law. But the moral law, this is a universal, these are universal obligations, and it represents the heart of God.

The moral law, if you could picture, if you could picture just a casual conversation with God and you would say, God, tell me, what do you really want? Can you sum it up? What are you really after? It would be the moral law. And I'll show you what this means here. The moral law is summarized by the 10 commandments.

Thou shalt not kill, steal, commit adultery. Those things apply all the time, right? So that's the moral law, but it's even further summarized by Jesus himself in Matthew chapter 22. So let me read this to you. When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.

Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And he said to him, I'll answer the question. You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, everything that is in you. That's what God wants of you. God wants every ounce of who you are fully dedicated to him.

This is the great and first commandment. But there's a second one and a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets. So, Jesus saying, here's the summary, guys. Love God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. That's what I want.

And then I want your love for me to be demonstrated in the way you love one another. That's the first and second command. If you get those right, then you really are you're striving after the heart of God. So, commandments one through four, tell us how to love God, right? Commandments five through 10, tell us how to love your neighbor.

But it's all about love. And John says the same thing. John chapter 13, Jesus said, a new commandment I give to you. That you love one another, just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Now, he said it's a new commandment, but there's another text in one John where it repeats the same idea, but he says it's not actually new in a way, it's the oldest commandment in the book.

In fact, this is the summary of what the whole law is about. It is to teach you how do you love God and to teach you how do you love your neighbor. Now, it might be, don't park your donkey in your neighbor's slot in the parking lot. That might be what the law actually says when you read it. But what is he saying?

Hey, here's how you treat each other. Because this reflects the heart of God, the character of God. This is the heart, the core. This is what all the Old Testament law is pointing at. Is this devotion to God as you live out the life of God in community with other people who are also living out the life of God.

So, the heart of the moral law then. Two commandments, Jesus said here, love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Now that is not sentimental well wishing. That is not, I love you too, okay. That's not something you say. It's not merely just a feeling. It is concrete ethical action.

How do I treat other people? We talked about this a few months ago about worship. Worship is not just we come into church, Wade sings a few songs that kind of sound good and feel good, get our juices flowing, and then we put our hands in the air. Now we're loving God with our worship. Now that's, those are feelings, but you can actually insult God by doing that because love has ethical content.

God tells you specifically what it means to love him. And that's what the Old Testament law was aiming at. So, Jesus fulfills the law, not by sweeping it aside but calling us further up and further into the heart of God. Romans 13, 10, love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

Love is not a feeling. Love is not a feeling. Love is not a feeling. Love is not a feeling. Love is not a feeling. Somebody should write that as a song. Love is not a feeling. And we could sing that on Sunday. It's not a feeling. Love is a feeling. That doesn't mean. If you just feel loving feelings toward people all the time, you're fulfilling the law.

No, that is not what that means. Galatians 6:2.

Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Those are actions, things that you do towards other people. Do you see what, do you see what I'm saying here? It is not about the way you feel. As Christians we would say sin has no dominion over us. We read that. We are then set free from rigid specificity of Old Testament commands because now as Christians we have the Spirit of God within us that can lead us into what love looks like in a given situation.

We have the power of the Spirit to more fully and freely obey the true intent of the law. From the heart. Let me show you another text. Romans 6:17. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become. Here's a change. You have now become obedient from the heart to a standard of teaching to which you were committed.

And having been set free from sin, sin no longer has dominion over you, you have now become slaves of righteousness. It's not feeling, it's how you act, what you do, how you treat people. So, Christians are not called to a lower standard, we're called to a higher standard. And God's law shows us how to love properly.

And this is the lesson that modern Christians so desperately need to learn. Because we're so conditioned to think of love as an emotion. I'm not saying it doesn't involve our emotions, I'm saying it is not so narrowly constrained to the way we feel. I was having a conversation with my mom. My mom is stepdad here today.

I was having a conversation with her yesterday about disciplining children and some parents will refuse to discipline their child because I couldn't, I just, I couldn't spank little Timmy. He's such a sweetheart. Even though he's defying me and setting the house on fire, it's he's, I just could never hurt my child.

I love him too much. No, actually you hate your child because you are not acting ethically in a loving way to correct. A sinful behavior and children that are not corrected. They grow up to be, I'm not gonna say it. They grow up to become miscreants. They become; they grow up to become fools that destroy our country.

That, that is what you do. We call it spoiling a child. When you spoil a child, you always affirm them no matter what. You never correct them. And that is not love, even though you might feel the most syrupy, sweet, sentimental feelings toward that child. And the Proverbs tells you this, if you spare the rod, you hate your son.

Love is not about how you feel. Love corrects, love holds accountable. That's so it's such a reflex. It's so hard for us to break this way of thinking, but it is so vital that we do because we don't, if we don't understand this, then we're going to misread our whole Bible. So, love is the standard. Love is not about your feelings.

And if you define love by how you feel about somebody, you might be doing it wrong, thinking you're doing it right. You might have a moral superiority about the way you feel about people when the actions you're taking are actually harmful to them. So, love is defined by God's law. Chiefly summarized in the Ten Commandments.

How do you love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength? Let's review them. First four commandments. You worship God alone. No other gods before him. You do not make idols. You do not worship things more than God. You do not take God's name in vain. You reverence his name, right? And then you honor the Sabbath.

You gather with God's people on the Lord’s Day and you rest from work. Then how do you, how do Christians love each other? How do you as a Christian love your neighbor as yourself? Five through 10 gives us at least a thumbnail sketch. You show honor to authority beginning with your father and mother, but it extends to all in authority.

You don't murder people. We also see in the book of James; murder doesn't mean just killing them. Murder also means anger in your heart. Jesus taught this in the Sermon on the Mount. You don't commit adultery, which is not just against your wife or your husband, but it is all forms of sexual morality. It is expansive.

You don't steal from them. You don't lie to them. You don't covet their belongings. All Ten Commandments are particular expressions and applications of the ultimate law of Christ, which is the law of love. But it tells you with some specificity, it trains you. It teaches you what does it actually look like day to day.

So, what's new in the new covenant is that we're purified by faith in Christ, given the spirit within us to obey the law, the real, the actual heart of the law from the heart and not having it rigidly prescribed to you, every detailed action. We give you one example of this. It's the most, it's an egregious example, but during COVID we were told, love your neighbor, get the shot, love your neighbor, get the shot.

Now, love, right? What is behind that? If you feel a certain way, if you want to be a virtuous, loving person, then here's how you're going to, so it's discounting God's law and substituting a new law. Here is my application of God's law. And it's such a wicked subversion of the truth because it violated people's consciences by telling them, you must do this.

And a lot of Christians got on board with this in ways that, that, that caused a lot of harm. So how is love defined though? Love is not defined by taking a vaccine. If you want to take a vaccine, I don't care. That's up to you, but don't force it on other people. That's the issue. And don't tell people that's what love requires of you.

And if you don't do it, then you don't love people. That's evil. That's evil. And that's not love. Love must always be defined by God's law. Don't lie to people. That's the ninth commandment. Love does not lie. Love does not promise that this thing is something that it isn't. So, when the very command, love your neighbor, get the shot, you're actually lying to people, which is forbidden in God's moral law.

We don't misrepresent something. Now, you may appeal to their conscience, but you don't lie to them and obligate them to do something. That's not love. There was another example a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned in the sermon on giving it, it was such a random text. Paul says he's talking, or I was reading from first or second Corinthians, one of the Corinthians, but I was talking about Paul saying, don't muzzle the ox when it treads out the grain.

And he was talking about giving and paying salaries to people that work in the church. What's he doing there? It's like there's no law that says you must pay a pastor X amount of salary. It didn't say that. It says don't muzzle the ox, which means that the animal who's working is feeding on the grain that is being trampled on.

He's doing work for you and he's eating from the work he's doing. And so, there's a, there is a principle of application that theologians will call general equity. The general equity means there is a principle within even the more random and obscure Old Testament laws. Now we may not understand the principle.

We may misapply the principle, but God knows what it is and it's up to us to discover and apply it properly. But it is not just this arbitrary command that God made up. Paul is saying this random command in the Bible about not muzzling an ox when he's working out in the field. He's saying that actually has an application about how you treat your animals.

You feed them well, they're working for you. And actually you've, you feed those who labor among you as shepherds. That's a general equity application of some random law. Now, if you have some oxen that you happen to own, that Old Testament law, it's not like that applies to you. It's I got to find some way to obey this law with my oxen.

No, that's Jesus fulfilled the actual, the law in its original context, but the equity, the general equity, the principle within that law still applies now. And there are lots of ways that you can apply it. And the principle is people should get compensated for their work. That's the principle. So, the law applies that way, but you have to do some work.

So, if some atheist that you're debating talks about polyester or something as blended fabric, that's forbidden in the law. So therefore, checkmate Christian, your law is stupid. You can tell them about general equity and confuse them even further. But the idea here is this, that there are principles in the law that do apply even if we don't get it.

Okay. Let me conclude here. Just a couple of quick exhortations that we can glean from the text. The first exhortation is God's law is good. Even if you don't understand it, even the parts that may be difficult to apply, you don't know how it applies. If it seems random, God's law is good. It's not a burden.

It's not arbitrary. It's not meaningless. God's law teaches, the principles in God's law teach us how to align our hearts with God's heart, with his ultimate purposes. It draws us towards him, and it shows us how to know and love and obey Jesus as Lord. It shows us how to do that. And God's law promotes goodness.

It teaches us what love looks like. And so, God's law is the standard. And here's how it's connected to God's judgment. When God comes, when Christ returns, God's The judgment that he brings to earth, the standard is God's law, not just the specific laws in the Old Testament, but God's, the overall heart of God's law is the standard that we are all judged by when Christ returns.

So that's the second point. God's judgment is coming. It would be extraordinary, extraordinarily foolish to assume that God takes sin lightly. He does not. God is patient, but God is not indifferent to our sin.

God's holy and righteous wrath against sin currently is delayed so that more people can have the opportunity to be forgiven of their sin and be brought into God's family. That, that is the call for you. Humble yourself. If you're not a Christian, humble yourself. Repent of your sin. Because if you do not, you will face God without Christ as your advocate.

And you will be, you'll suffer eternally. So do not just ignore that exhortation. God hates sin, but there is a way for you to be forgiven and counted righteous through Jesus Christ. So don't let it be you that would suffer because you did not receive the son. Don't take his patience and kindness for granted.

Humble yourself, ask him for forgiveness and trust by faith that he will receive those that do let's pray. Our father and our God. We worship you. Thank you for speaking to us not only in Malachi chapter 4, but through this whole book, this whole series, which has been a delight to study. Thank you, God, that you show us your heart.

And Lord, it's, there are a lot of things that can be hard to understand, or it can be uncomfortable to deal with. God's justice or things like this, God's law, these are not small or light topics, but help us, Lord, to understand what you say revealed to us by the spirit. I pray for everybody here, regardless of how much they understand of what we, what I talked about.

I pray Lord that there will be one step that you will put on their heart that they should take today as a result of what we talked about this morning. And I want to pray for anybody here who is not converted, meaning they have not trusted Jesus Christ as their savior. I ask you, Lord Jesus, that you will burden them, convict them of sin, and lead them to faith in Christ.

And Lord, for those of us who are your children, as we come to the table, Lord, I pray that you will impress upon us ways that we can obey your law more fully, by the spirit and your power. Show us how we can obey you more fully and glorify your name in doing so. We worship you God. Thank you, Jesus, for your sacrifice that made it all possible We pray all these things in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit Amen