In our visit today we will continue our study of the prophetic book of Malachi. We have used the study approach I call “4S”: spread, sort, structure and summarize. We came up with four points under which we can organize the information we discover in our study: Things to appreciate, to avoid, to appropriate and to anticipate.
As we begin to look at chapter 3 let’s list the things in this chapter we should appreciate. In reading the first 4 verses we find that God keeps His covenant: “The messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” declares the Lord Almighty. He has kept His covenants He made with His people in past centuries. He will continue to do so in the future. It’s been said, “The future is as bright as the promises of God.”
This is further amplified in verse 6 when God declares, “I the Lord do not change.” Theologians call this, God’s immutability. Though we often are unpredictable and unfaithful, we can count on God being faithful and therefore predictable. When we trust in Him He commits Himself to be our faithful friend and master.
Even when we fail, He will not fail us. Paul declared in 2nd Timothy 2:13, in the King James version, “He cannot deny Himself.” Just in case you think He might forget you and His promises to you, the prophet Malachi declares in verse16, “A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. ‘They will be mine,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘in the day when I make up my treasured possession.’”
Do you appreciate these precious promises and the one who gave them?
