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.”
Matthew 1:1-17
The Genealogy of Jesus
1 A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
4 Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
6 and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,
7 Solomon the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asa,
8 Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,
Jehoram the father of Uzziah,
9 Uzziah the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
10 Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah,
11 and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
12 After the exile to Babylon:
Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
13 Zerubbabel the father of Abiud,
Abiud the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
14 Azor the father of Zadok,
Zadok the father of Akim,
Akim the father of Eliud,
15 Eliud the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
17 Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.
From the time the Prophet Malachi wrote the last verses in his Book of Malachi until Matthew writes the Gospel According to Matthew about Jesus and his genealogy and birth, we have no written words about God for several hundred years...These several hundred years tell us that God does not directly communicate with every generation...But, there were believers in each of the generations that God was silent...The actual period is from when God communicates to the Prophet Malachi until Jesus' birth in Bethlehem...This is because Matthew did not write the Gospel According to Matthew till several years after Jesus' death...Many generations of people have come and gone, and while alive had to believe and trust in God with the Old Testament Scripture...God has been silent to many, since the Book of Malachi...There have been no up to date Old Testament book or books since Malachi...
The last words of the Old Testament that Malachi writes are about the Day of the LORD that is to come...God will send a messenger, who is or much like Elijah to announce His coming...The Elijah-type Prophet and messenger He sends is John the Baptist (Matthew 11:7-14)...After Malachi is written, there is about a four hundred year period, where there is nothing written, in our Bibles about God...There was a long period when God does not seem to communicate to the Prophets or to His people...There would be a long awaited delay, and the a Grand Miracle would take place...The birth of the Son of God, by a virgin...The virgin Mother was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit...
Matthew introduces us to a major theme for the start of the New Testament...Jesus is divine...He would be called Christ...Christ is a title...Christ is the Hebrew translation for Messiah...The Messiah is the Anointed One...The Anointed One comes from the lineage of King David was prophesied throughout the Old Testament Scriptures...The Messiah would be a Son of David, a Son of Abraham, the legal Son of Joseph, but the real Son of God...Matthew give the lineage of Jesus in his first chapter...
The Son of the Blessed One come from a poor family...His Mother, was an innocent virgin, and His earthy Father, a carpenter...He would grow up humbly and a be the Child and the Son of God...He would begin His preaching and ministering around Nazareth, and the Sea of Galilee and then mostly south to the city of Jerusalem...He really did not travel far, and was never in an elite or wealthy status, and was actually as much controversial as He was famous (in my opinion)...When He began His ministry, He began to preach for people to repent, because the Kingdom of Heaven was now near...God, whom we had not heard of for four hundred years, has blessed the people of earth and believer with a Savior, His Son...
We can praise God and thank God that His silence is now over...We were given the New Testament to complete the Old Testament...The Scriptures can now be read in context, because the New Testament books about Jesus are written...The Messiah and Christ have come...God has spoken and He brings to earth the Truth...God has given us the Word, His Word, who is His Son...Jesus, and the Word has been with God from the very beginning (John 1:1)...The Word translates and is the Logos...The Logos is the true meaning and reason for life...Logos refers to God, and is the purpose of life...The Logos is the rational, and logic, that governs the universe...When God spoke His Word in Genesis, all life and all things came into being...The universe came into existence...When His Son was born, man is given a purpose and is made alive...In this sense man came into existence, when His Son, the Word was born...