Chapter 4

Four events connected with the second advent are given in this context. The first one is the judgement of the baptism of fire which occurs at the second advent — verses 1-2. The second is the battle victory of the second advent, verse 3. The third is the heralds of the second advent — verses 4,5. The fourth is evangelism, revival, prior to the second advent — verse 6.

The second advent of Jesus Christ terminates operation footstool. Everything between the ascension of Christ and the second advent is designed to terminate the intensified stage of the angelic conflict. Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father. The moment He is seated the Father says: “Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool” .Operation footstool requires the formation of the Church or the body of Christ. When the body of Christ is completed it is removed from the earth. Then before operation footstool can be completed the Age of Israel must be concluded. This is again a period of overt intensification of the angelic conflict. Then Christ returns with believers and at this point Satan is removed as the ruler of this world, and all demons, the entire host of fallen angels, are removed at the same time. This is all a part of operation footstool. Then we begin the perfect environment of the Millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ.

These six verses do not cover the Millennium as such but events which surround the beginning of the Millennium, events which have to do with the return of Christ to the earth.

Verse 1 — “For, behold, the day cometh.” The day refers to the judgement which follows the second advent of Christ. It means the day of judgement; “shall burn as an oven” — the word for burning here is a qal active participle of ba’ar, which means the most intense type of burning and a burning which is continuous. It is described as burning as an oven, the oven being a container, a good description of the baptism of fire. This judgement is alluding to the judgement of the living Jews at the end of the Tribulation and the judgement of the living or surviving Gentiles. This is a judgement for unbelievers only; “all the proud” are unbelievers whose pride is involved in the fact that they accept human good as the basis for salvation, and human good doesn’t stand. As in Malachi 3:15 the proud are depending for their happiness on the details of life, which means in effect, they are thinking in terms of time and they have rejected any thought of eternity; “and all that do wickedly.” The word to do here is, once again, asah, which means to make something out of something. It is with a word for the old sin nature, so it means they produce out of the old sin nature. From area of weakness they produce sins; from area of strength they produce human good; and their motivator is the lust pattern of the old sin nature. Whatever the old sin nature produces cannot save man; “do wickedly” means that the unbeliever is under the control of the old sin nature as long as he lives — “shall be stubble”.

The baptism of fire

1. There are three Biblical passages dealing with the baptism of fire — Matthew 3:11,12; Luke 3:16,17; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9.

2. There is an analogy in Matthew 24:36ff which does not refer to the Church. Noah began the post-diluvian civilisation; when Christ returns we have a new civilisation. So when there is a new civilisation the unbelievers are cast out and believers go into the new civilisation. Generally, just before the civilisation begins there is a total indifference to spiritual things. That is the concept in these verses. The principle is that people were so indifferent to spiritual things that there is tremendous occupation with the details of life.

3. There are some parables that describe the baptism of fire: the wheat and the tares is an example — Matthew 13:24-43.

4. The Gentile baptism of fire is described in Matthew 25:31-46.

“shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up” — this is the baptism of fire again; “saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.” Remember Matthew chapter 3 verse 11 — the axe is applied to the root. Neither root nor branch means utter destruction, removal from the earth. That is the unbeliever. What happens to the believer at this time?

Verse 2 — “But unto you that fear [reverence] my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.” Sun of righteousness is a title for the Lord Jesus Christ at the second advent. It is a title taken from Jeremiah chapter 23 verses 5,6,8. The word “healing” is from rapha. Originally this word meant for there to be some kind of a wound or a cut and to sew it up. So it means a pulling together and actually it means here a pulling together of God and man. So actually it often means deliverance. The “healing in his wings” indicates security, salvation, and finally, deliverance from the fifth cycle of discipline (this is written to the Jews). It refers to the fact that the nation will be restored.

What are believers going to do when this happens? — “and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.” These calves receive special care and feeding so they become very fat, and so on. This is a reference to Jews in the Millennium. Calves in the stall is an idiom for prosperity and they will have spiritual and economic prosperity.

Verse 3 — the battle victory of the second advent. “And ye shall tread down the wicked” — “ye” is a reference to Jewish believers who continue to resist the king of the north at the Armageddon campaign, cf. Zechariah 14:1-4. The word to tread down is asas, which meant to trample grapes to produce wine, it also is used to have great slaughter in a battlefield, great success. In other words, just as the trampling breaks open the grapes and the juice is put into a bath this way, so fighting results in the slaughter of the enemy. Grapes are often used as an analogy for the shedding of blood on the battlefield. The treading down here means the victor. The wicked refers to the king of the north besieging Jerusalem, as per Daniel 11:40-45; Zechariah 12; 14, “they shall be as ashes under the soles of your feet” is the second analogy to the tremendous slaughter at the Armageddon campaign; “in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.” “I shall do” is asah again, and it means to do something out of something. Out of a sure defeat the Lord turns it into a definite victory when He returns.

Verse 4, 5 — the heralds of the second advent. A king must always be announced by his heralds. At the first advent who is the herald of the King? John the Baptist. At the second advent the King has two heralds of the same nationality: Moses and Elijah.

Summary

1. The heralds of the first advent: angelic — Luke 2:1-15; human — John the Baptist.

2. The heralds of the second advent: angelic — the mighty angel of Revelation 10; human — Moses and Elijah, the two witnesses of Revelation 11.

a. There is a passage which indicates that Moses and Elijah are definitely the heralds — Matthew 16:28-17:3 — for at the mount of transfiguration we have a format of the second advent; it is so stated in that section. Moses and Elijah are there with Jesus Christ in His glorified state.

b. The problem of John the Baptist. In chapter 4:5 it says: “Behold, I will send Elijah the prophet” .That appears to be first advent but it is really second advent. This is also stated again in Isaiah 40:3. The Malachi passage anticipates the Christ would be rejected at His first advent and recognises the omniscience of God, under which He knew that Jesus Christ would be rejected at the first advent and, therefore, Elijah is not John the Baptist. If Christ had been accepted at the first advent then Elijah would have been the herald. But since Christ was rejected then Elijah is the herald for the second advent and John the Baptist is the herald for the first advent.

c. Luke 1:16,17 — John as the herald of the first advent had the same Holy Spirit and the power of the Spirit that Elijah will have as the herald of the second advent.

d. John 1:21 — John specifically declares that he is not Elijah. Apparently this was a problem because people asked John: “Are you Elijah?” The greatest preacher of eschatology was John the Baptist and he kept talking about the baptism of fire and things of this sort. Why did John keep talking about the second advent and the baptism of fire? So that people would learn to distinguish that there are two advents.

e. Matthew 11:11-14 — If they had received John’s message regarding the King — but they did not — then the kingdom would have come during the first advent of Christ and Elijah would have been the herald and not John.

f. Who are the two heralds of the second advent? Moses is identified as the herald of the second advent in Acts 3:21,22. The fact that there will be two is the subject of Revelation 11 — the two witnesses. Elijah is the other — Matthew 17:11. Enoch, who went up without dying, is eliminated, he is a Gentile. Christ is a Jew and no Gentile is a herald for the King.

Verse 4 — “Remember ye the law of Moses my servant,” “remember” is a qal imperative of zakar, which means here to remember something that you’ve known before but you have forgotten it, and since you have forgotten it you can’t apply it — so remember it again, learn it again, in other words. This is a command from Malachi to the generation of Jews in 420 BC who are about to go out under the fifth cycle of discipline and were delivered from it. They had a close call but Bible doctrine saved their necks. Here is the point: Bible doctrine is the deliverer. Zakar means you have forgotten it and therefore can’t apply it, so learn it again so you can apply it.

Malachi is the last of the prophets and there will be no more prophets for Israel until John the Baptist, 400 years later. Can people get along without a prophet? — a prophet is a person who declares doctrine fresh from God, pertinent to the situation at the moment. The answer is yes. You can get along without a prophet one way only, to learn Bible doctrine. If you go back to the Egyptian bondage and they didn’t have any written Word. In the Egyptian bondage the Jews definitely had the Word in some form but it was not in writing. How do we know that they had some form of doctrine even though it wasn’t written. We know it from Genesis 15:13,18, the prophecy with regard to the Egyptian bondage, and we know it from Joseph’s warning in Genesis 50:24ff. Moses wrote those things down but apparently they were passed down by word of mouth and the first prophet after the 400 years was Moses. In the next 400 silent years from Malachi to John the Baptist the Jews had the Word — which is called here the law of Moses [the Old Testament]. The point is: in each case of the 400 years they were carried by doctrine available.

Verse 5 — Elijah presented. “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet.” Elijah had one ministry, now he is going to have another at the second advent. Shalach is the verb “I will send.” During the Tribulation Elijah will be sent, “before the coming,” the second advent, “of the great and dreadful day.” It is a great day for those who are saved because they go into the Millennium and it is a dreadful day for those who are unsaved because they go into the baptism of fire.

Verse 6 — revival before the second advent. “And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children,” “he shall turn” is a hiphil stem, the message of Elijah shall cause many Jews to turn [be converted]; “the heart of the fathers to the children.” This is just the opposite of Matthew 10:35,36 — “and he shall convert the heart of the children to their fathers.” Actually, what this is saying is that people will get saved in the Tribulation and when families get saved they will change their attitude. In the Tribulation there is going to be a breakdown of families, people will betray their own parents and parents will betray their children to avoid penalties and vengeance from the false church of the Tribulation, the universal religion of the Tribulation. All of that is changed when people are converted, it changes their attitude; “lest,” a negative purpose clause [that I do not], “I come and smite the earth [the land, not the earth] with a curse.”

The curse

1. The Hebrew verb cherem. The word means a ban which cannot be reversed.

2. It is a reference to anything put under a curse where death is the penalty — it is not redeemable — or property is destroyed.

3. This then refers to the unbeliever at the second advent. He is under a curse because he has rejected Christ. He has been evangelised and so he has looked at the cross and said No, that puts him under cherem. So the last word in the Old Testament is cherem and it refers to those who reject Christ during the Tribulation.

4. God put the Canaanites under a ban or cherem. For this cause the Canaanites of Jericho were to be slain.

5. The exception was Rahab the prostitute and her family. They were believers and therefore not under the curse. In other words, the cross is the only thing that can eliminate cherem.

6. The Old Testament ends with a curse; the New Testament ends with a blessing — the last word in Revelation 22: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”

7. The purpose of evangelism in the Tribulation is to avoid the curse, cherem, and you have the greatest period of evangelism in all of human history in the seven years of concentrated difficulty.

8. All who reject Christ as saviour during the Tribulation are under two curses: the baptism of fire which removes them from the Millennium [they miss the prosperity]; the great white throne whereby they spend eternity in the lake of fire [they miss the eternal state].