Malachi 3:16-17 Then they that feared the LORD spoke often one to another: and the LORD listened, and heard it… The fidelity and steadfastness of man must rest on the fidelity and steadfastness of God. " He is faithful who hath promised," is a principle which underlies the whole relation of God the Redeemer to our race. We have considered the condition of the faithful few in Malachi's dark days. The sadder their estate, the darker the night around them, the more closely did they associate for communion and concert. The Lord was not unobservant of them. It was the Lord for whom they were enduring, who nerved them to endure. Three main features of description. I. THE BOOK OF REMEMBRANCE. Probably the rudiment of this idea is to be found in Ezra 6:1-5. There was a roll found, on a critical occasion, "in the place which is in the province of the Medea," the remembrance of which the Jews would not willingly let die. What concerns us is the fundamental thought. It is precisely what the Lord declared of old to Moses, "I know thee by name, and thou hast found grace in My sight." Those who, like all these men, stake all on fidelity to God, are the upper ten thousand of the universe, the peerage of heaven, throughout eternity. God knows them by name as living persons. As friends He holds them dear. God's love is not for qualities, abstractions, any more than man's. He caused to be written in His book of remembrance, not a catalogue of their principles, but their names, their desideration, as living human souls. Trampled in the mire on earth, their names should be read out in heaven. II. THE RECOGNITION OF THEIR SONSHIP. Perhaps the saddest thought of the righteous, in the midst of an ungodly world, springs from the sense of their own imperfectness, the feebleness of their witness, the languor of their zeal, the poverty of their work. The word son — "his own son" — reassures. A father's love wearies not and wanes not; a child's feeblest efforts please him better than a stranger's bravest work. "He will spare them," in the furnace of discipline; the Lord will temper its fierceness. In the battlefield of life, the Lord will be their strength and their shield. In the shadow of death, His rod and staff shall comfort them there. "They shall be Mine," — Mine for ever, "in the day when I make up My jewels." III. THE DAY WHEN THE BOOK SHALL BE BROUGHT FORTH. "Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just" is God's answer to the cry of many a faithful, patient spirit, who wins no recompense on earth but a cross. There is a life which can only be justified at the resurrection of the just. There is a life which has its full recompense here. "But thou shalt be recompensed," man of many tears, cares, and sorrows, weary and heavy laden. Long have the gems been buried in dust and darkness, encased in crusts of stone, enveloped in shrouds of vanity. The day comes when the Lord shall rend the shroud and crush the crust to fragments, and reveal His jewels before the universal gaze. (Baldwin Brown, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. |
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