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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
CHANGE is a big part of our world, isn’t it? Think for just a moment… how much has your personal life changed over the past year, or 5 years, or 10 years? In your part of the world, what have been the biggest changes in the past 2 or 3 years? Have you noticed the pace of change is increasing rapidly, in every segment of life on our planet?
So where do we turn for stability in a world of such rapid and dramatic change, especially when the change is often entirely counter to what was understood to be reliable not that long ago?
I’m inviting you to a page in your Bible that I imagine you have not visited in a very long time, maybe never. Malachi chapter 3!!! Here’s the easiest way to find it: Go to that blank page between your Old & New Testament and turn left one or two pages, that should bring you to Malachi 3.
Malachi is a virtually unknown man who was inspired by God, about 430bc, to write a powerful little letter to the Jewish people of his day, many of whom were living the miracle of life back in rebuilt Jerusalem. Talk about change… my goodness! May I offer you this abbreviated overview that I hope will help you put the time-line pieces together:
597bc…King Nebuchadnezzar’s first invasion and capture of Jerusalem. Perhaps Ezekiel and Daniel were among the thousands of Jewish captives marched off to Babylon. Daniel, was remarkably positioned by God to be advisor to the next four emperors! (Daniel 1-6) Ezekiel began writing his powerful messages from God for the Jews in 593bc.586bc. . .King Nebuchadnezzar’s army again invaded Jerusalem, this time destroying the city and the great Temple built by King Solomon 400 years before. Nebuchadnezzar’s army marched most of the remaining Jewish inhabitants of Jerusalem 600 miles to Babylon as captives. Jeremiah the prophet was permitted to remain in devastated Jerusalem, and wrote the messages he received from God for the Jews, while living in the shambles of destroyed Jerusalem.
538bc. . .King Cyrus is miraculously moved by God, as Daniel, now an old man, informs Cyrus of Jeremiah’s prophecy, that God would move Cyrus to issue a decree allowing exiled Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild & repopulate their city! 40,000 Jews make that long trek back and begin the work of rebuilding their beloved and historic Jerusalem. (Ezra 1 & 2)
516bc. . .The second Temple is finally completed in Jerusalem (Ezra 6) as the residents of Jerusalem continue rebuilding their city, businesses, and life, despite the opposition of the peoples all around them who despise God’s people, the Jews.
458bc. . .Ezra comes to Jerusalem to bring religious instruction to the Jews who have re-settled Jerusalem, and God brings revival! (Ezra 8-10 & Nehemiah 8-10)
444bc. . . Nehemiah, who was a Jewish descendant, still living in exile back in the Persian Kingdom, as cupbearer to the King, heard news from his brother that Jerusalem’s wall around the city had still not been rebuilt from its destruction 140 years before! Commissioned by the Persian King, Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem, and led a remarkable engineering & re-construction project. The people completed the wall rebuild around Jerusalem n 52 days! Nehemiah remained for several years leading residents of Jerusalem in restoring their city and society, before returning to his role serving the Persian Emperor.
Now, may I ask you my friends, what do you know about the history of YOUR city? What I’ve just told you is only part of the miracle of God’s hand on Jerusalem through the centuries. Amazingly you can visit Jerusalem today and there are remnants of these periods of it’s ancient history still visible! How has God worked in the story of your city through the generations?
430bc. . .Malachi, received God’s final messages for His Jewish people and wrote the closing book of the Old Testament. Nothing more is said or written by anyone, claiming a fresh “word from God”, until Luke 1, when the angel Gabriel appeared to the priest Zechariah in the Temple holy place, to announce that he and Elizabeth will have a son. That son, John the Baptist, is the fulfillment of Malachi’s Old Testament ending prophecy: “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the hearts of the children to their parents, or else I will come and strike the land with destruction.” (Mal. 4:5,6)
Please note Gabriel’s words to Zechariah in Luke 1:13-17 “…He (John the Baptist) will be great in the sight of the LORD…he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. He will bring many of the people of Israel back to the LORD their God. And he will go on before the LORD in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children...to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” Remember, 4 centuries of time, 400 years, separate Malachi’s words from Gabriel’s words, but do you see they are very similar? That is because while generations of human beings come and go, GOD is ETERNAL and UNCHANGING!
So look closely at this powerful statement from God to our world, through God’s prophet Malachi: “I the LORD do not change.” (Malachi 3:6)
Don’t minimize the power of these 6 words, my friends! What are the implications of those words for you and your family heritage, past and future?
The God who instructed Noah how to build the ark in anticipation of a flood like he’d never seen; The God who spoke to Abraham and promised a nation would come from he and Sarah in their old age; The God who met Moses on Mount Sinai 8 times; The God who led Joshua and the people across the Jordan and into the promised land; The God who spoke to Samuel in the night as a young boy; The God who led Samuel to anoint young David to be king; The God who twice encountered Solomon and gave him wisdom beyond measure; The God who came to the rescue of His people at the call of king Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah; The God who was in the furnace of fire with Daniel’s three friends, and the God who shut the lion’s mouths for Daniel. . .that God is the very same God who spoke to Malachi. And that God, Jehovah, Almighty God, wants everyone to know HE DOES NOT CHANGE, even though we humans change by the minute, and we live in a rapidly changing world!
Because God doesn’t change, His truth does not change. Stop… Did you get that? Do you agree?
God’s natural laws don’t change. The laws God put in place which hold our universe together like gravity, and planet orbits, and the formula for manufacturing oxygen, don’t change! God’s attributes like Holiness, Love, Mercy, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience don’t change. Now when is the last time you thanked God for the really important FACT that God does not age, God does not sleep, God is never on vacation, God is ALWAYS fully alert to everything, everywhere?! (Ps. 121)
God was speaking this important message of truth through Malachi to a Jewish people who had experienced nothing but CHANGE for decades, centuries in fact. God wanted His people to know that He is reliable, dependable, trustworthy, and His truth was unchanging, and His desire for a spiritual vitality relationship with His people in 420bc, was the same as it was with Moses and the people at Sinai, 1000 years before!!
And guess what my “Walking with Jesus” friends around the world in August 2020. . .God is making the very same statement to you, me and 7.6 Billion of our fellow planet earth dwellers: “I the LORD do not change”! How important is that to YOU?
And by the way, God said it again, through the writer to the Hebrews, about 480 years later… “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) So… I urge you to ponder this powerful statement today, and jot down in your journal what it means to you, and your family, and what it should or could mean for our world, which is in constant change, if our world would take God’s statement seriously.
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Click to read today’s chapter: Malachi 3; Malachi 4:5-6; Luke 1:13-17. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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