Text: Malachi 3:1-5, 4:1-3.
God has a purpose for every generation. We may say many things in this generation but what will be told of us is only what God has in mind for us to become. Jesus said many things which were not manifested in the days in which He spoke them because the time of their fulfilment was not yet. In the programme of God, there is the allocation of times and seasons. The day of the Lord will be a time of purging and washing (Mal. 3:2). The tidings of God’s day is meant for the church and not the world. The book of Malachi has more depth to offer than the teaching of tithe and offerings. It is blindness caused by religion that limits our sight of this wonderful book to tithe and offering. Religion causes men to copy the form of godliness than to imbibe the power thereof (2 Tim. 3:5). This is what makes men carry out religious practices without seeking understanding of the word which is the most important thing.
God desires that all men come to know His tidings. There is a limitation in achieving this because man has his own righteousness. It is easier to deliver a sinner from sin than to deliver a believer from himself. This is because the believer has an understanding of what he perceives the word of God to mean that could be different from what the Lord is saying. The righteousness of God is both a light to the soul and a burning to iniquity. The righteousness of God consumes flesh; for flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 15:50).
The first prophecy of prophet Malachi is righteousness. This righteousness is the one that purges and cleanses the soul. The Son of righteousness purges us of flesh and everything the devil is using to keep us in this present time. In the day of His coming, certain things in us must be burnt up because it is a time when God wants to receive us. God sends righteousness to school the soul to be acceptable on the day of the Lord. God’s desire is to reap many sons from the earth.
God is a consuming fire and He cannot accept anyone who is flesh. This is why He first sends the Holy Spirit and then the Son. The Holy Spirit bears with our infirmities and teaches us to do away with evil. Then, the faith that is in the Son prepares us in righteousness. There is a righteousness that is in God; which was first inherited by Christ. The righteousness of God are glad tidings. The glad tidings can only be received by a heart that has prospered in righteousness. Glad tidings gladdens the heart of Christ.
Holiness is more than being free from sexual immorality. If the emphasis of righteousness is channeled only in dealing with sexual immorality, men will be denied the power to live a holy life. Holiness empowers the soul to live eternal life. A holy man is a man that is whole. A soul that is not healed from its diseases cannot be holy and therefore cannot be whole.
God allowed the pandemic but it is not our life, we must learn to fight the pandemic by faith. The tidings of God’s day is a special message; it is the glad tiding of the kingdom and dominion of God. The days of the declaration of the tidings of God are the days in which God seeks to be the Father. God has sent light in His Son and it is expected that we transact with this light till we become sons whom He can father.
The Holy Ghost raises a believer to the point where He can use the light of Christ. This means that it is the Holy Spirit that hands a believer over to Christ. The Holy Spirit reveals to us the depths of the wisdom that is in Christ. A man cannot be delivered of self righteousness by the laying on of hands. Rather, his eyes need to first be enlightened with truth, with enlightenment comes the shaking and taking away of wrong natures.The Holy Spirit reveals the things of Christ to us which fashion us into beings that can receive the tiding of God’s day. It is only when the wrong constitution in man has been dealt with that he can be accepted in the day of God.
At the point where God is bringing us to wisdom, it is a place of another feasting. This feast is important because it brings us to the place of enlightenment; where we can refuse the evil and choose the good (Is. 7:15). Refusing evil and choosing good comes about by exercising our senses in doctrine (Heb. 5:14). We would be fashioned in righteousness and we get enlightened in the teaching of it. God wants to enlighten us that is why He has brought His tidings. It is good to know that preaching the tidings of God does not guarantee our becoming. After preaching, we still need to obey and become. It is possible to be in the times when the tidings are spoken but be completely unaware of it, until our eyes are enlightened, we would not be able to discern the tidings of God and obey them.