Kameel Majdali's Road Ahead

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts — Malachi 3:1 Yes, God will send His messenger and indeed, he has already come. His name is Malachi, which literally means ‘ my messenger .’ This last prophet of the Old Testament may actually be anonymous and his title has become his name.   While this book deals with issues of the day, it speaks about modern things like tithing (3:8-12). It is not an exaggeration to say that you can tell the direction of a person’s heart by where their money goes. In places where Christians are an oppressed minority, you can tell who the infiltrator or ‘fake Christian’ is during the church service because they steadfastly refuse to give money when it is offering time. As always, Jesus said it best ‘ For where your treasure is, there will your heart be a...

… And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers — Malachi 4:6 (last verse in the Old Testament)   INTRODUCTION TO MALACHI   In the last book of the Old Testament, we have a message from a little-known prophet with some very strong convictions. He speaks in favor of honoring God’s covenantal conditions, criticizes automatic and hypocritical worship, idolatry, and divorce. Tithes and offerings are given a strong endorsement as part of faithfulness to God. By the time of Malachi there was a fully functioning second temple in Jerusalem with all the sacrifices reinstated. Despite this, both priests and people have backslid and are ripe for prophetic rebuke. This sounds familiar: Nehemiah had a similar observation when he came from Persia to visit Jerusalem: corrupt priests, unpaid tithes, intermarriage with heathen people. Then, in the very last chapter of the book, which is the last chapter of the Old Testament, it takes...