| “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (Malachi 4:5-6). |
| “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen” (Revelation 22:21). |
| About 100 years ago, a small boy (actually one of my uncles!) asked his Sunday school teacher why it said “Amen” at the end of the New Testament, but not at the end of the Old Testament. This sounds like a boy’s question, doesn’t it? His Sunday school teacher did not know the answer right away and said that she would answer it the next Lord’s day. But later, when she read the two verses that we have for today, she immediately knew the answer. |
| The word “amen” means “I agree with that,” or perhaps in some cases, “Let it be done.” In the Old Testament we have the history of what sinful man is, and the results of all the testing God gave man, to see if there was any good in him naturally. But man was a total failure, and the “day of the Lord” which is mentioned in Malachi 4:5 is a day of judgment which will come on this world. Man is guilty before God and will come under His judgment, unless he accepts Christ as His Savior. |
| But could God say “Amen” to that? Is God happy to carry out judgment? No! He is a loving God who “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). God could not say “Amen” to a curse that will come on the world. |
| But in the New Testament we have the history of the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, who came into this world to save sinners. “The grace of God which carries with it salvation for all men has appeared” (Titus 2:11 JND), and all who will come to Christ can be saved. At the end of the New Testament, God can say, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.” Can God say “Amen” to that? Yes, He can, for “where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:26). God’s judgment on sinful man is necessary, but God takes no delight in it. He delights in displaying His grace and can say “Amen” to it. |
