HOW encouraging, how refreshing, is the action in verse 16— “Then”, when the tide of evil is surging high; “Then” when the heart of man is daring in impiety, “Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another”; and the end of the verse brings in this further word about them, that “they thought upon His name.” There are two Hebrew words frequently translated “fear” in our Bible: one is yirah, meaning reverence; the other is pachad, meaning dread. The former, which occurs much more often than the latter, is represented here; “they that reverenced Jehovah.’ These two words are found close together in several passages; for example, in Proverbs 1, verses 7 and 29 (reverence); verses 26, 27, 33 (dread).
“And the Lord hearkened”—His attention, we may with reverence say, was attracted to the feeble few who often spoke to one another; what they said reached His ear; all unknown to them He listens; He causes a “book of remembrance” to be written before Him for them; and He who changes not, whose word shall stand forever, declares “They shall be Mine in that day when I make up My jewels.”
In an earlier day, He had promised deliverance by power through a remnant, as for example, in Judges 6:11-14,11And there came an angel of the Lord, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the Abiezrite: and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. 12And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, and said unto him, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. 13And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? but now the Lord hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. 14And the Lord looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee? (Judges 6:11‑14) etc.; but no change is here promised the remnant until the day of the Lord; all is to be allowed to go on, man pursuing his evil course, but a work of God will be maintained amid it, until iniquity has reached its height, and the Lord appears.
Verse 16 has ever, and rightly, spoken comfortably to Christian hearts, because they, too, have a remnant character in a world ripening for judgment; they too, are given no promise of a display of divine power, but are to go on in faithfulness to their Lord until He takes them to Himself.
What we have in verses 17 and 18 is without exact parallel in Christian doctrine, relating to the deliverance and bringing into Millennial blessing of the earthly saints, and, particularly the Jews who will be converted after the Church’s removal to glory. They will be Jehovah’s “jewels” or “special treasure”, as the marginal, reading puts it, in the day that He prepares. Before that day the heavenly saints, including us (believers) who are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with the dead in Christ, in heavenly bodies, to meet the Lord in the air and to be forever with Him (1 Thess. 4:16, 1716For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16‑17)).
Although the Old Testament prophecies are almost without reference to the heavenly saints (part of the mystery revealed by the Lord to the apostle Paul), that would be a cold heart indeed, among them, that would be indifferent to the day when the Crucified One shall be glorified on the earth in a redeemed and blest earthly people, objects of divine grace, as are we for whom a place in the Father’s house is prepared.
Between these two events one, like John the Baptist in the spirit of Elijah, will be used to bring about for God the accomplishment of chapter 4 verses 5 and 6, a work for which the Baptist labored with small result, being rejected and cut off as was his Master, four hundred years after Malachi closed his prophecy (See John 1:2121And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No. (John 1:21); Matthew 11:14; 17:10-1214And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. (Matthew 11:14)
10And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? 11And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. 12But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. (Matthew 17:10‑12)).
These “Bible Lessons” are now concluded.
ML 12/26/1937