If we read the Old Testament in tandem with the New Testament, we sometimes have to employ a double focus. Verse 1 of our passage promises that God will send a messenger ahead to prepare the way of his coming. And that is certainly true when we look toward Christmas. God gives all sorts of preparatory signs before Jesus Christ is born in Bethlehem. An angel choir announces to shepherds that the one born is the Savior of the world. A rising and leading star alerts Mesopotamian astrologists to the fact that a special king has been born. Indeed, the whole Old Testament testifies to God's centuries of working toward the birth of his Son and centuries of Israel's longing for that saving Ruler.

Then, before God begins his ministry to his people and to the world in the person of his Son Jesus Christ, he sends the messenger, John the Baptist, to prepare the way. "I baptize you with water," that prophet preaches, "but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Luke 3:16). Thus, the Gospels see in the person of the Baptist the fulfillment of the first line of our Malachi text.

Then we have to employ another focus, however, when we read the rest of this Malachi passage. After God sends his messenger to prepare his way, he will suddenly appear in his temple to judge and save his people. And that will be God's final, decisive coming -- his Day of the Lord, the scriptures call it -- when God appears to judge the earth and to set up his kingdom over all the world. At that time, evil-doers will be condemned and sentenced to death, but the righteous will be saved and exalted. Therefore, asks Malachi, "Who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?" (v. 2).

Can you? Can I? If we stand before the judgment seat of Almighty God, can our lives stand up to his scrutiny -- the searching examination of the One who knows when we sit down and when we rise, and who discerns our every thought from afar (Psalm 139)? Have we always loved our God and our neighbor? Have we obeyed his commands and shown mercy to the poor and helpless and been faithful in our trust, even when we were suffering or in difficulty, or better still, even when everything was going right with us? Have we had no other gods beside the Lord? Or have we tried to be our own gods and goddesses and attempted to run our own lives, forgetful of our Creator and Redeemer?

Almighty God comes to judge the earth, proclaims Malachi along with the Psalmists (cf. Psalm 96:13; 98:9, et al) and other prophets. And if we ask, "How can that be?" the New Testament replies that the judgment will take place in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Then the Day of the Lord Christ will be at hand, and the Lord of the church will be our Judge. The Apostle Paul therefore prayed constantly that his churches would be found pure and blameless through faith "in the day of Christ" (Philippians 1:6, 10; 1 Corinthians 1:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:24), and Jesus repeatedly told us to "Watch!" and to be prepared, for we do not know when that hour will come (Mark 13; Matthew 24; Luke 21).

Our passage in Malachi states that God will send his messenger before the Day, and Malachi 4:5 identifies the messenger as Elijah. That encourages us to think that maybe we will have time to prepare ourselves before the last judgment. But, warns Jesus in the Gospels (Matthew 11:14; 17:11-12; Mark 9:13), Elijah has already come in the person of John the Baptist. The warning has been given. The preparing messenger has been sent. Now Christ can come again at any hour -- maybe this afternoon, or tomorrow, or perhaps not for years. So the admonition simply is, "Watch!"

G. Campbell Morgan, a great preacher of the past generation, once wrote that here is the test of true faith and character. Can we gladly say, "Come, Lord Jesus. Yea, quickly come!" Are we ready eagerly to welcome Christ and to stand before his burning love? Or would we like to put off the coming of the kingdom, with its last judgment, indefinitely?

There is a hopeful note, however, in our Malachi passage. The prophet proclaims that when God comes in judgment, he will subject us to his refiner's fire and his cleansing fuller's soap. A refiner was one who sat before his bubbling cauldron full of ore and boiled out all of the impurities, until there was left pure gold or silver. A fuller bleached out spots from cloth, using strong soap made from lye, until the cloth was pure white and free from blemishes. Is that not what our Lord does in our lives also? Refining us by the little judgments of every day -- troubling us, prodding us, sometimes pounding us, but always working to purify us, until we learn to rely totally on him and put behind our attempts to save ourselves.

We have the stereotype that God is with us only in peaceful and beautiful moments. But the scriptures tell us otherwise. God is present and at work in our lives also when we are suffering the fires of affliction. For example, we think that God is present only in a happy marriage. The truth is that he may be most present in an unhappy marriage -- troubling, upsetting, shoving, trying to get us to turn around and to walk in his ways of forgiveness and healing.

Israel heard from Malachi that God was purifying her by the afflictions that she was suffering. So too God may be purifying us by the fires of his daily judgments and the cleansing lye of the troubles he brings upon us. But his aim is always that of love -- to rid us of our sin. "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world," said John the Baptist of Jesus (John 1:29). Our Lord by his Spirit at work in our lives and world is taking away -- taking away the sin that will make us unable to endure the coming of the Day of the Lord. By his action as the Refiner of our lives, God in Christ is able to keep us from falling and to present us without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing (Jude 24).