Friday, November 30, 2012

LIKE A REFINER'S FIRE - THE SIXTH SEAL

Today's brief passage speaks a lot to what is going on currently in our world. As I read Malachi 3, it gripped me that this is relevant to the child of God, at any point in history! Malachi was the final prophet of the Old Testament, before John the Baptist comes on the scene right before the Birth of Christ (as a man) and it is he (John) of whom Malachi is writing, 400 years before he was born!

Here is our passage: “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. 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. 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, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the LORD....(Malachi 3:1-3 ESV)

John the Baptist (I supposed he was a "southern" Baptist, as he was south of Nazareth!!!) was called the voice of "one crying in the wilderness" who prepared the way for the Lord! John did proclaim Messiah who came into the Temple and taught and started to purify it by chasing out the money changers. But I see a more End Times prophetic declaration here in verse 2 "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...(Malachi 3:2 ESV).

Today, I encourage you to pray about this verse because, unbeknownst to him, Malachi just gave us an End Times prophesy which will shake the majority of mankind when he sees the terrible judgment of the Lord, on those who not only have rejected Him as Messiah, but persecuted His church and turned away from His attempts to reach them with pure and cleansing power of His Love! It was this Love which He demonstrated on the Cross. Yet, they still don't get it.

Here is the corresponding back up scripture to Malachi 3:2 and pray for those whom you know not to be walking in the ways of the Lord, because one day, some of them will be in this situation. Time is short...read, be terrified and pray, because the Day of the Lord approaches with each new day! Amen

FROM THE BOOK OF REVELATION:
When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.
Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?” 
(Revelation 6:12-17 ESV)

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