Talk of JESUS .com

Tag: christmas

  • Stubble & Chaff – Repentance before the Lord

    Stubble & Chaff – Repentance before the Lord

    “Behold, I send My messenger,
    And he will prepare the way before Me.
    And the Lord, whom you seek,
    Will suddenly come to His temple,
    Even the Messenger of the covenant,
    In whom you delight.
    Behold, He is coming,”
    Says the Lord of hosts.

    Malachi 3:1 NKJV

    The prophesy is clear from Malachi, Prophet of the Lord in Judea of Persia, perhaps shortly before his death in about 486 B.C. History of the next five centuries leading up to another Prophet in the wilderness and the Messiah would be tough times for God’s chosen ones.

    What main course awaits Priests, Rabbis and a defeated people of Israel?

    Repentance!

    Malachi 3: ESV

    refiners-fire Malachi 3.22 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

    For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver…

     

    Surely the LORD can do this. He can bring repentance to the life and purity to the heart of any man. Yet how we resist: Priest (sons of Levi) or Rabbi (teacher), or common one who knows the Lord and continues in the impurities of sin.

    The LORD is going to send a fuller’s soap man to the Jews to purify their hearts and prepare the Temple.

    Malachi 3:5 excerpt I will be a swift witness against

    • the sorcerers,
    • against the adulterers,
    • against those who swear falsely,
    • against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages,
    • (those who oppress) the widow and the fatherless,
    • against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and

    “I will be a swift witness against … those who do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts. Mal. 3:5

     

    A mere mortal would come along in time to accuse a Jewish King rightfully of adultery. He would accuse officials of the Temple and teachers of the Law of their leavening of God’s word. Like Prophets before and John the Baptist, who would follow five centuries later, Malachi warns that God requires repentance.

    7 From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.

    The Lord indicts us of our sin through the words of the Prophet Malachi. Note that some, not all respond.

     

    The Book of Remembrance

    16 Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. 17 “They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him.

    Malachi 4:

    The Great Day of the Lord

    Malachi 4:14  “For behold, the day is coming, 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.

    sun of righteousness2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.3 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.

    4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

    5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. 6 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.”

    Five Centuries Later

    Luke 3:

    John the Baptist Prepares the Way

    3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

    7 He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.

    As humble as the Lord Christ Jesus IS, born in a manger, baptized by John though He is righteous, and sacrificed on a cross for our sins; He IS King and Lord yet to return on the clouds in these last days to call up the dead to judgment and the living to new and eternal life.

    Repent!wheat-kernals-in-hand1

    Turn back to your Father, the Lord. Bear the fruit of righteousness, fellow sinner condemned.

    Or meet your Maker as He separates the wheat from the chaff.

    Even the Chosen of God and christians only claiming Christ are lost without repentance, a turning of our hearts back to the Lord our God.

    Isaiah 33:

    10 “Now I will arise,” says the Lord,
        “now I will lift myself up;
        now I will be exalted.
    11 You conceive chaff; you give birth to stubble;
        your breath is a fire that will consume you.
    12 And the peoples will be as if burned to lime,
        like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire.”

    Are the warnings of God through the Prophets not more urgent to sinners in these last days?

    Therefore, repent! The Lord IS come.

    13 Hear, you who are far off, what I have done;
        and you who are near, acknowledge my might.
    14 The sinners in Zion are afraid;
        trembling has seized the godless:

    “Who among us can dwell with the consuming fire?
        Who among us can dwell with everlasting burnings?”

    To be continued…

    These messages highlight the scripture of the coming of the Messiah, Christ Jesus, Who IS and was and will always be. Prepare your hearts in this year of our Lord, 2015, for Christmas and for the day when the Lord will return.

  • The Burden of the Word of the Lord

    The Burden of the Word of the Lord

    The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi.

    מַשָּׂא דְבַר־יְהוָה אֶל־יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּיַד מַלְאָכִֽי׃

    We have heard it before: a ‘burden,’ a weight laid upon the back of a mortal soul, an oracle from the LORD laid upon the tongue of a Prophet. Malachi was the last Prophet of Judah. Israel (Samaria) had already fallen. Defeat of the Jews and a silence of the LORD prevails until the voice in the wilderness of John the Baptist.

    The LORD had spoken severely to disobedient sons and daughters through many Prophets. In fact, the argument of the burden of leading the LORD’s chosen goes all the way back to Moses.

    Numbers 11:11

    Moses said to the LORD, “Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me?

    Leading a people or a family steeped in our own righteousness is not an easy thing.

    How quickly we forget what the LORD has done to redeem us, how He saves us from the slavery of our past.

    Before the Lord came to us in a manger in Bethlehem in the Person of the Messiah, a great silence would follow the chastening of the Prophets.

    Malachi wrote to the Jews of the Persian province of Judea about 500 years before the Christ. The burden of the LORD on Malachi is a heavy correction even of our own thinking.

    persian-empire-chartMalachi 1:

    2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord. But you say, “How have you loved us?”

    Isn’t that our own question to God our Father? Are we not disrespectful in asking how God has loved us? We are impudent spoiled children to ask our Creator, “How have you loved us?”

    The Priests’ Polluted Offerings
    6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’

     

    If Moses had been burdened by the leading of a rebellious people, surely these rebellious sons of Levi offered no purification for our sins before God our Father. Who could even imagine that the LORD would allow His Chosen People, the Jews, to be ruled by Egypt once more!?

     

    10 Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain!  I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand. 11 For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. 12 But you profane it…

    14b For I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.

    Malachi 2:

    Judah Profaned the Covenant
    10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers? 11 Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves…

    Minor-Prophets-Timeline

    The Messenger of the Lord
    17 You have wearied the Lord with your words. But you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

    Malachi preaches repentance to the Jews, captured by Babylon and now ruled by Persia. The word of the LORD is a hard burden on the Prophet, in these days prior to re-building a Second Temple by Ezra and Nehemiah. Yet even the Second Temple would fall.

    Judea of Persia:
    • Alexander the Great will conquer Persia in 331 B.C.
    • Alexander the Great will conquer Egypt a year earlier in 332 B.C.
    Judea of the Macedonian Kingdom:
    • Ptolemy I rules Judea
    • Alexander the Great rules the world
    • The Hebrew Bible is translated into Greek (Septuagint) in Egypt
    Judea of the Ptolemaic Kingdom:
    • The Ptolemy successors of Egypt rule Judea once more until 198 B.C.
    • Political upheaval brought the Seleucids to power from 321 B.C. until 64 B.C.
    • Ptolemy VIII (170-163 B.C.) and Cleopatra II (170-142 B.C.) vie for political power in Egypt
    • The Maccabean revolt in Judea defeats the Seleucids (166-142 B.C.)
    Judea of the Hasmoneans
    • Judas Maccabeus begins the line of Hasmonean rule (166-160 B.C.)
    • Pompey annexes Judea to Rome (63 B.c.)
    Judea under Rome
    • Augustus CaesarC. Octavius (later Augustus) was born on 23 September, 63 BC
    • Herod the Great (37-4 B.C.) gains political power in Judea as an ally of Rome.
    • Egypt, under Cleopatra VII, falls to Octavian (30 B.C.)
    • Rome (27 B.C.- A.D. 395) rules much of the world under Octavian
    • Judea is under the jurisdiction or Syria, part of the Roman Empire under Caesar Augustus.
    • Herod, funded by Rome, builds strategic roads for his Roman administration and rules over Judea with ruthless political savvy.

    The Prophet Malachi has foretold with accuracy these difficulty for the Jews in the time between the Temples and the coming of the Messiah.

    Malachi 3:  “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

    To be continued…

    This post is part of a series in preparation for Christmas in the year of our Lord, 2015.

     

  • In the beginning, and through time…

    In the beginning, and through time…

    “You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,
        and the heavens are the work of your hands; – Hebrews 1:10

    11 they will perish, but you remain;
        they will all wear out like a garment,
    12 like a robe you will roll them up,
        like a garment they will be changed.
    But you are the same,
        and your years will have no end.”

    Hebrews 1:

    1Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,

    2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

    3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

    Isaiah 49:

    jesus the jew - a light to the Nations…5 And now says the LORD, who formed Me from the womb to be His Servant, To bring Jacob back to Him, so that Israel might be gathered to Him (For I am honored in the sight of the LORD, And My God is My strength), 6 He says,

    “It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant

    To raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel;

    I will also make You a light of the nations

    So that My salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

    7 Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and its Holy One, To the despised One, To the One abhorred by the nation, To the Servant of rulers, “Kings will see and arise, Princes will also bow down, Because of the LORD who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen You.”

     

    • Do you realize that the story of Christmas is the Redemption of Israel?
    • Do you see what I see, that the Messiah, born in a manger in Bethlehem of Judea, is a Light to the Nations?

    Luke 2:30-32

    “.. for my eyes have seen your salvation
    that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
    a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
    and for glory to your people Israel.”

     

    In the year of our Lord, 2015, have you looked to the Lord for your salvation, to the Christ of ‘Christ-mas‘ as the redemption for your sins?

    The Revelation of Jesus Christ to the Apostle John:

    22:12 “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.

    13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

    14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.

    To be continued…

    This series in preparation for Christmas, in the year of our Lord, 2015, and His glorious return in these last days.