[AI translation] This book of the prophet Malachi is terribly timely! Just as today, the people, the pious, the religious, the religiously beautiful, groaned, "Where is the God of judgment?" Or is it better to understand this reproachful lament, "How much longer will God put up with this?What we are talking about here in this passage is that the pious, the pious, the pious are dismayed at the world, at the shameless behaviour of the heathens and the half- heathens around them. They are shocked at the immorality between the sexes, at the corruption of the whole public life, at the unfaithfulness, untrustworthiness, and wickedness of men. Oh, what the decent man must suffer in such a pagan, godless world!" they say with great self-pity. Oh, how the whole life rots and decays because of the many wickednesses of men - of other men, of course! These pityers, these grumblers, cannot understand why God does not already intervene against those who do harm! It is in God's interest that there should be order at last! And behold, God seems to condone the works of the wicked. As if He did not care how much innocent suffering, how much injustice is done on earth, and how much wickedness flourishes, as if all evil-doers were good in the sight of God, and He took pleasure in them! As if the Lord would help them directly against the good, the merciful, the innocent and the righteous! Not quite, but it almost looks like it! They know that the Lord does not love evildoers, but that is why: why does he not punish them? They deserve it! It is high time they did! Where then is the God of judgment?" they say. Do you understand? These pious, these fair-minded people, seem to cry out to God, more and more loudly and more and more stubbornly, for punishment and vengeance, to the wicked and corrupt world, with these words, "Where is the God of judgment?"
Would that the prophet were alive to-day, would that he heard the anguished groans of men to-day! And against this despairing mood the prophet cries, "Ye have wearied the Lord with your words!" (verse 17a) Perhaps men are happy to listen to each other complain about a corrupt world, but God is not! He is weary of such talk! He who says, "Behold, the keeper of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps" (Psalm 121:4), is weary of such idle talk! It is to him like some boring yawn! Let's be frank: it's no more than a boring yawn! This is not the role God intended for His children, to lament over the world and complain that, alas, the world is rotten! God takes no pleasure in prayers that seek to hurl the destructive power of His judgment from Him upon the wicked world. Remember how Jesus rebuked the two disciples who, when they were not admitted to a village in Samaria, would have asked for fire: "Lord, do you want us to tell them to let fire come down from heaven and devour them, as Illyse did? But Jesus, turning round, rebuked them, saying: Ye know not what spirit is in you: For the Son of man came not to destroy the souls of men, but to save them." (Lk 9,54-56) In such a defiant and desperate, so-called crusading mood, the merciful are living against the evil world, but for God, this talk, wearisome!
And how patient the Lord is: behold, He is willing to answer even such an unreasoning question as, "Where is the God of judgment?" "Behold, I send him... and he is coming... whom ye desire... behold, he is coming, saith the Lord of hosts" (Mal 3,1) Fear not, the pious, the Lord will not delay in his promise and in its fulfilment! If He has said this, He has promised to come: then let no one worry that He may not come! And while the impatient, the faithless are asking, "Where is the God of judgment?", there He is, standing at the door, His hand on the doorknob, ready to come in at any moment. Observe these words, which are here, at the end of the Old Testament, on the last page of it, "Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall clear the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek, and the messenger of the covenant whom ye desire, shall come immediately into his temple; behold, he cometh, saith the Lord of hosts." And now notice the words with which the New Testament begins, "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in the prophets: Behold, I will send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee; The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths: John stood forth, baptizing in the wilderness, and preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And all the province of Judea and the people of Jerusalem went out to him, and were all baptized by him in the waters of the Jordan, confessing their sins. And John was clothed with camel's hair, and had a girdle of skin about his waist, and was eating locusts and honey of the wood. And he preached, saying, "He who is stronger than I, to whom I am not worthy to stoop down and loose the strap of his sandals, is coming after me." (Mk 1,1-7) Behold, the end of the Old Testament is a great promise, the beginning of the New Testament is the fulfillment of that promise. And the literal correspondence between promise and fulfilment is almost astonishing. God is so deadly serious about His promises that He has fulfilled them word for word!
I once compiled from the Old Testament 24 prophecies concerning Christ that were fulfilled word for word from the evening of Good Thursday until the evening of Good Friday, 24 hours. That is how sure you can be of what God has promised! There is also a great promise running through the New Testament, that Christ is coming back, and He is coming back in judgment! He will sit on the throne of His glory, and all the nations will be gathered before Him - for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ! Nothing is more certain than that this promise will also be fulfilled word for word, and soon, suddenly and unexpectedly, as the first coming of Christ! "Where is the God of judgment?" you ask, weary, discouraged, suffering, impatient! Well, then, accept it, be content with what the prophet says: "The Lord whom ye seek, and the messenger of the covenant whom ye desire, is coming into his temple; behold, he is coming, saith the Lord of hosts." And this means that He is on His way, at any moment the God of judgment will enter, and then the judgment of God will begin!
But let's not just think of the last judgment here! God is judging this world incessantly. This world is under the constant judgment of God, and under such continual judgment events are moving toward the final judgment! God will judge the wicked not only in the last judgment, but even here on earth, and will shine forth His own glory here! Only His timing is different from ours. If He doesn't do something in the next five minutes, it doesn't mean He will never do it. God rarely intervenes when we think intervention is necessary. He is so free in His action that He does not allow Himself any time limit. He always sets the time limit! He can wait and He will wait even when His children are impatient!
Voltaire, the great 18th century French scoffer, once said, "Jesus of Nazareth needed 12 men to spread Christianity over the earth, I alone will wipe it out!" And what a strange judgement of the Lord that in Paris, in the house of this Voltaire, is now the depository of the British and Foreign Bible Society. The house is full of Bibles, and its old occupant long forgotten even by the world! Nietzsche, the famous God-denying philosopher, once cried out, "God is dead, God is dead, do you feel how he rots?" And this Nietzsche ended his life in a madhouse: Nietzsche is dead, God is alive! "Where is the God of judgment?" Do you not see? Open your eyes and see that never has the judgment of God been absent from this world, nor will it be absent from this world. The prophecy is true that "he is coming... behold, he is coming, saith the Lord of hosts", just wait!
So: he will come, that is certain, "But who shall suffer the day of his coming? And who shall stand at his appearing? For he is as the fire of the fiver, and the lye of the laver of garments," continues the prophet. (verse 2) "And he will purify the sons of Levi, and make them shine like gold and silver." (verse 3) So: the sons of Levi will also be subjected, will be brought into the purifying, painful, great judgment! For God's judgment - which the discouraged pious ones long for - will come in such a way that it will not only fall on the unbelieving world, but also on them, the pious ones themselves! But believers must be very mindful, when they desire God's judgment above all else, that this judgment will come upon the world, but it will not spare believers either! The church of God will not sit on dry land while the storm lasts, and watch from a lodge or some peephole how God will punish the wicked, for all judgment will come on the elect! When the wicked go hungry, so do the believers. When the wicked are cold, the believers are shivering. God rains down the showers of His judgment not only on the wicked places of the world, but also on the houses and temples of the godly.
When God judges the accumulated evil of this world throughout history, believers always have the last opportunity to applaud. What is written is true of all, "It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God." (Heb. 10:31) When His mighty hand is laid upon this earth, both the righteous and the unrighteous will surely be shaken under it! But let one eagerly awaits God's judgment, but know this, "Who shall suffer the day of his coming? And who will stand at his appearing? For he is as the fire of the fifer, and the lye of the garment washer" (v.2) God's judgment burns and burns, so it hurts, the woe-word is multiplied greatly on the earth! "Where is the God of judgment?" - do not desire to see it, for the judgment of God is certainly terrible!
Moreover, the prophet goes a step further and turns the expectation of judgment back on the merciful. As if to say: Thou who hast urged the judgment of the wicked world, beware, for judgment comes first of all upon thee! The God of judgment will come, and will sit down as a potter or a silver-purifier, and purify, not the unbelieving world - which the pious say is so ripe for purification, but: the sons of Levi! That is, the very pious ones who have urged judgment, and makes them shine like gold and silver! And now the prophet sets before them, as a mirror, the same sins which the merciful had first spoken of the unbelieving world, as their own sins. Look at yourselves in the wickedness of the world: is this world unbelieving? And you, the so-called believers? Is this world a harlot? What about you, the so-called saints? Is this world hateful and vindictive? Are you, then, those who know the mystery of divine forgiveness? Is this world unjust? Is this world cruel? And you, the merciful? If anyone sees that there is a need for purification here, a need for the fire of judgment here, it is precisely the sons of Levi, the merciful, the complainers, you who need it! "Where is the judgment of God in this world?" you ask impatiently, because you are suffering because of the wickedness of this world. Well, see then: it is up to you, it is you whom God will judge, you who ask how long God will tolerate the wickedness of the world!
What can be the meaning of this judgment but that thou mayest be melted in the fire, and then come out of it washed and cleansed! This cleansing will take place when you, a disciple of Christ, humble yourself and admit that it is not the world that needs cleansing in the first place, but you and I, the church, the sons of Levi, who need to be cleansed! If you no longer ask defiantly, but with humility and repentance, "Where is the God of judgment?", you will see him there, on the cross of Calvary, where the great judgment has already taken place, where the great melting and purification, the great washing by the blood of Christ, is taking place. There is the God who takes judgment upon Himself, your condemnation! In that one place, on Calvary, in the person of Jesus Christ crucified, God is no longer a God of judgment, but a God of infinite and unconditional grace for you!
Amen
Date: 31 July 1949.
Lesson
Mal 2,17-3,5