“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. “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 launderers’ soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, And purge them as gold and silver, That they may offer to the Lord An offering in righteousness. “Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem Will be pleasant to the Lord, As in the days of old, As in former years.
Malachi 3:1-4 NKJV
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”
Malachi 4:5-6 NKJV
Then, early in the first century, (roughly 5 BC), seemingly out of nowhere, an angel of the Lord appeared to a priest named Zechariah, who told him that his wife Elizabeth, who was older in age and was barren, was going to bear them a son. The angel said that many would rejoice at his birth, and that the boy must not drink wine or strong drink, and that he would be filled with the Holy Spirit, even in his mother's womb (Luke 1:13-15).
The angel also said, "And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will also go before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, ‘to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,’ and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Luke 1:16-17)
The man the angels were speaking of was John the Baptist. His father, Zechariah, said of John's purpose at the time of his birth: "And you child will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people in the forgiveness of their sins" (Luke 1:76-77).
In context, God's people at that time were the Jews, the children of Israel whom John was sent to. They were the descendants of Israel, the people God had chosen to bring the Messiah through, and His kingdom of people who represented Him on the earth. But according to God's prophets such as, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, Israel had once again turned away from God after their return from Babylonian exile over four hundred years earlier, and even at this time, they still had not repented. Therefore, God's promise of judgement against them as warned by His prophets was still pending. The final words spoken to Israel through His prophets warns them that His judgement would come to those who did not return to Him, and that Elijah the prophet (who is John the Baptist) would come before that Day:
“For behold, the day is coming, Burning like an oven, And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up,” Says the Lord of hosts, “That will leave them neither root nor branch. But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With healing in His wings; And you shall go out And grow fat like stall-fed calves. You shall trample the wicked, For they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet On the day that I do this,” Says the Lord of hosts. “Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, With the statutes and judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”
Malachi 4:1-6 NKJV
John was the "messenger " that Malachi spoke of hundreds of years earlier, and that he would be a prophet of God with the purpose of preparing the way for the Lord, by giving the knowledge of salvation to God's people, which is by the forgiveness of their sins.
In about 29 AD, John emerged in the Judean wilderness "preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins" (Mark 1:4). His message was simply, "Repent for kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 3:2) ( "kingdom of God" - Mark 1:14). "Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins" (Mark 1:5). Many Jews repented and believed through John's message of repentance as he prepared the way for the Lord through whom even more would come and enter the Kingdom.
Shortly after the angel visited Zechariah, a young couple from the tiny town of Nazareth were visited by angels with the news that the woman was going to give birth to the Lord of Salvation who would be Immanuel, God with us. The apostle John wrote, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." God came down from heaven to dwell among His people. He was sent by God to call His people Israel to repentance (Matthew 4:17; Matthew 10:5-8) because they had turned away from Him and were not producing the fruits of justice and righteousness (Matthew 21:34; Isaiah 5:7). That is why He came when He did as a Jewish man (Matthew 21:37). He was the King of the Jews who came to His own, but His own did not receive Him.
Jesus the Messiah was sent by God to "the lost sheep of Israel" (the Jews) as the final prophet to call them to turn back to God, otherwise they would face God's wrath that was promised some four hundred years earlier by His prophets. After John the Baptist was imprisoned, Jesus began preaching, “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mark 1:15.
Though many Jews responded favorably to Jesus by believing that He was the Messiah and turning to God, most did not and sought to kill Him. Jesus warned them in a prophetic parable, that when they succeeded in killing Him, God was going to take His kingdom from them and give it to a people who are faithful in producing fruits of righteousness and justice (Matthew 21:43; Isaiah 5). The Jew's rejection of Jesus made way for the Gentiles (all people) to also become the people of God. Prior to that, anyone could become a proselyte of Israel by being circumcised, but God was distinctly the God of the Kingdom of Israel. But now through Israel's rejection of their Messiah, God is the God of all people who believe in His Son Jesus, as pronounced by the heavenly host at the first coming: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people" - Luke 2:10. Paul affirms this in Romans 11:11: "I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles" - Romans 11:11.
As promised by God through His prophets, including Jesus, God did judge His people, using Rome as His instrument of judgement. They destroyed Jerusalem and the Jewish temple, thereby destroying the sacrificial system which is no longer necessary because of Jesus's sacrifice for sin. This was the "great and dreadful day of the Lord; the day of His coming which no one could endure, in which He refined and purified and purged them like gold and silver through fire" spoken of by Malachi hundreds of years earlier.
Prior to the temple's destruction, Jesus said that He wanted to gather Jerusalem's children together but they were not willing, therefore their house was left to them desolate. God had departed from the temple, leaving their house desolate and then destroying it because there is no longer a need for it and He does not want His people offering sacrifices to Him anymore. Notice He calls it "their house" and not "His house". Unfortunately, practitioners of Judaism today still reject the once for all sacrifice of Jesus, and hope to build another temple to offer sacrifice. Even more unfortunate is that many Christians support them in this endeavor, which flies in the face of what God did through Jesus by offering His Son as the atoning sacrifice for sin.
Through God's offering of His one and only Son, all people have the opportunity to become children of God and inherit God's blessings of His kingdom and eternal life. This can only be accomplished through Jesus because He is the only way to the Father. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.
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