Christmas: Refiners Fire

Malachi was written during the most depressing time of Israel's history. Not the darkest, that honour goes to Judges or Lamentations, but definitely the most depressing. The Hebrews had returned from exile, been blessed with Godly leaders and rebuilt a temple, but still the people sinned, still they offered blind animals in the temple, still they married the daughters of a foreign God.

There's a depressing familiarity about all that isn't there? Your author has been blessed with loving parents, world class training, a faithful wife, and types this from an office on a million dollar campus, but he still sins, he still shows unfaithfulness, ingratitude and laziness whenever he feels like he can get away with it. And the same is true (to a greater or lesser extent) of you too.

So what's to be done? Malachi tells us. And the answer is not found in religious activity, nor moral relativism, nor a government programme, the answer is a person. This person will suddenly come to His temple, He'll turn up one day and throw out the money changers. This person is the messenger of the covenant, He has made promises to the Sons of Jacob that He will keep. And He's like refining fire.

Fire. Bad news. Fire is a terror, as Smoky the Bear reminds us every summer. Fire will burn up the alloy, and since we're all alloy, we need some good news. The good news? That sweet word, refiners. Yes we're alloy, but there's silver to be made, when we are refined.

So Christ comes to refine us. He comes to end our false worship, our spiritual adultery, our lazy sins. He comes to burn up the things in life that displease Him. He comes to help us live by the Spirit, He comes to help us choose the narrow way. He comes to save, and to sanctify. He has saved us from the penalty of sin, and He is saving us from the power of sin. Slowly but surely those joy killing weeds in our hearts are being burned up. Slowly but surely sin looks less and less attractive, and Jesus more and more.

This is the hope that Malachi held out to the faithful remnant. There won't always be blind and sick animals being sacrificed. There won't always be priests who lead their people astray, Judah won't always be a forgotten backwater, God will keep His promises. The Christ will come, committed to His people, and save them from sin.

And it's that same hope that the whole Bible holds out for us this morning. We won't always sin. One day, we'll be with the Lord, and sin will be, well, not even a memory. But before then, be encouraged, that the Lord is so committed to your happy holiness, to your refinement that He not only lived to make it happen, but He died to make it happen.