Malachi and his burden.
I. MALACHI, THE LAST OF THE PROPHETS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. He may be compared to:
1. A late evening closing a long day of light and blessing, and which is itself:
2. A midsummer twilight in some northern latitude, bearing on its besom the new and still brighter day of the gospel.
3. A finger post pointing across an untrodden waste of time in the direction in which the ages should move onwards towards the advent of their expected King.
4. A faithful minister, the last of a noble succession, resigning his trust (the prophetic gift), but bidding his flock expect to "see greater things than these," and expiring with the gospel on his lips (Malachi 4:2-6).
II. THE PROPHET'S BURDEN. Any word of the Lord is:
1. A burden of responsibility to the bearer (1 Corinthians 9:16, 1 Corinthians 9:17). Especially so are messages of judgment with which Malachi was charged. So Jeremiah felt (Jeremiah 15:10-21; Jeremiah 20:8-10), and Paul (Philippians 3:18), and our Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 19:41-44). It is thus a test of fidelity (Proverbs 30:6; Ezekiel 3:17-21) and of courage (Micah 3:8).
2. Messages of judgment should be felt to be burdens by the sinner because they proceed from a God to whom judgment is "a strange work," yet who hates sin more than suffering, and whose holiness is seconded by his omnipotence. Only by repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ can the burden be changed into a beatitude, the curse into a blessing.