Fearing the Lord and esteeming His Name are important, these
are the ones who spoke together and the Lord heard them. The prophecy of Malachi is all about those
two things. The fear of the Lord is a
restraint on sin and is a right position before Him. Fearing Him who has the power of judgment, of
life and death, eternal reward or eternal punishment, is appropriate. I heard a talk radio personality say
yesterday that he prefers politicians who believe in a God who will judge for
all eternity because those politicians who don't have that belief have no
restraint in what they do, they have no fear of judgment. Interesting idea that I have never heard
before. Malachi says to look for Elijah
to come prior to the day of the Lord, Jesus said that Elijah had already come
in the person of John the Baptist. If
Jesus came today, would you be ashamed of what you have been doing or not
doing, or would He find you at work for the kingdom?
The tax collector, while involved a despised profession, gets
it right in prayer. He knows who he is
and he knows who God is. The Pharisee
compares himself to the tax collector and finds himself to be pretty good. The problem is that we don't compare
ourselves to one another, we compare ourselves to God Himself, to the one
standard that matters, perfection, righteousness, holiness. According to that standard not a single
person can stand before God except Jesus who alone is worthy, and whose
righteousness is imputed to us in faith.
We come as sinners but we receive the benefit of His righteous
sacrifice. Preparation for the day of
His coming begins with fearing the Lord and esteeming His Name, accepting that
we are sinners in need of a savior, and then continues in putting on Christ,
not just His blood.
James presumes the elders are righteous men. I have certainly been in churches where
righteous man wasn't a qualification for the office of elder, whatever that
position is called. Frequently we set qualifications
for our elders as those who attend, give and have some involvement in the church. We need to go back to a biblical eldership and
qualification system in the church if we are to move ahead as a body. If we would see the kingdom advance, healing,
etc we need to have our leaders be committed to righteousness. We need also to be interested in calling
others to righteousness as James says here about bringing back those who wander
from the truth. We are more apt to just
let them go. Our concern needs to be to
restore the fear of the Lord and the esteeming of His Name to the church.
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