Malachi 4:1-6
The Day of the LORD
1 “Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the LORD Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. 2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.3 Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things,” says the LORD Almighty.
4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.
5 “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. 6 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.”
The Prophet Malachi tells us surely the day is coming; and on that day it will burn like a furnace...The LORD will send His servant Elijah on that great and dreadful day when the LORD comes...But when would He come?...No one for years would hear a word from the LORD after these words of Malachi were written...The skies of heaven remain quiet...
Four hundred years would pass and a Child is born in the most unlikely of places...A Child is born in a stable...We have our first Christmas...God has waited several generations without being heard from...It is like for five or six generations He is silent...He has hidden from these generations...Then He sends John the Baptist as His messenger...We are told by the Messiah that John was the Elijah to come (Matthew 11:14)...
God's Plan and God's timing is always right...Jesus is born, then He lives for approximately thirty years and then He teaches for three years...Then He dies on a cross for our sins...Then He rises from His death in front of His startled and surprised disciples...The disciples who were less than courageous the last three days after His death, become courageous and must tell His story...Peter and John tell the Sanhedrin they cannot help but speak about what they have seen and heard (Acts 4:20)...
For believers in the Messiah, and believe He came as Jesus Christ our LORD, Christmas is not over...For non-believers God remains silent and there is not God and there was no Messiah born...Believers have faith that the Messiah was born, lived and died, because they believe in the Four Gospels of Christ...In fact, believers know that He is alive...Their Christmas never ends, because He is alive...The Day is coming, when He will come again...He will rise again in His Second Coming, and His goodness and His love will rule the world...