Mal 4:5    See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes.

 

This is a verse that confuses many people but it is a verse of great encouragement. Prior to this verse the Lord warns through Malachi that there will come at the end a time of great accounting. He said, “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," (v.1) but there is an alternative: “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.” (v.2)

But supposing we get caught out and don't get prepared and cleaned up, we might think, won't I be in that first group? That's where the good news comes in. That's why God will send a prophet like Elijah who will call everyone to examine themselves and get cleaned up. (Do you see how this follows on from yesterday?)

God doesn't want us to get caught out and so that's why He sends one to grab our attention. That's what happened with John the Baptist. Jesus said of him, “if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come,” (Mt 11:14) because John performed the same task as Elijah and called the people to get right with God. Surely there will come a number of ‘Elijahs'. Who or what are they?

They are God's tools to prepare God's people to receive Him, and certainly in the very last days before He winds it all up.  He always wants the harvest to be as big as possible and so He sends His messengers to wake us up and show us there is something better on His agenda for us. Those messengers may just be the Holy Spirit Himself, they may be the Bible through which He speaks, they may be men or women to whom He gives such a ministry, all with the same goal, to prepare us today to conform more and more to Jesus, to be ready to meet Him at His appointed time. Are you ready? Are you listening?