If we fail to listen

After all of the rebukes God gives the people, he ends this book with a warning.

He warns them that the day of judgment will come. Those who persist in their evil will be condemned, and at that point, there will be no hope for redemption.

With no “branch” or “root” left to bring any hope of life, they will face eternal death.

But to those who fear the Lord, they will find healing to all the wounds they suffered here on earth. Evil will be a thing of the past, and their joy will never again be taken from them.

So God tells the people,

Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. (Malachi 4:4)

In other words, “Because judgment is coming, remember what I’ve told you. And do what I’ve commanded.”

Of course, we are no longer under the Old Testament law, but there is still one command God has given us that we must follow. What is it? The apostle John tells us,

And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. (1 John 3:23)

Malachi then closes by predicting the coming of Elijah, which was fulfilled when John the Baptist came, preparing the way for Jesus. And God warns the people,

He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse. (Malachi 4:6)

As we saw in chapter 2, there was a breakdown in marriage, with husbands divorcing their wives, and here we see there also was a breakdown between fathers and their children, perhaps related to the former problem, as we see in society today.

As God told the Jews, one reason he joined people in marriage was that they would have godly offspring.

But with the breakdown in marriage and the family, the children were growing up not only with broken relationships with their fathers, but with broken relationships with God.

And with a whole generation growing up like this, with parents and children failing to listen to God, society would soon come under a curse.

That’s exactly what we’re seeing in American society. A nation that started “under God” is very swiftly falling faster and faster away from him. And it will find God’s judgment along with any other society that fails to listen to God and his Word unless they repent.

How about you? What kind of heart do you have?

Do you have a heart turned toward the word of God?

Or do you too ignore what God has said to us?