April 28, 2024
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Last time we talked about the sovereignty of King Jesus, whom the Apostle Paul described in 1st Timothy 6:15 as the blessed and only Sovereign. Sovereign means one possessing supreme power and one who exercises supreme authority. Jesus is to be the only Sovereign One in our lives, and we should place no one in high esteem alongside or above Him.
Further, Paul writes in Philippians 2:9-11 that Jesus’ name is above every name, that every knee should bow at Jesus’ name, and every tongue should confess Him as Lord, to the glory of God. There is a reverence to our Lord and Savior, and we should bow before Him in action and thought. We should obey His command to proclaim repentance for the forgiveness of sin.
We also talked about how the world opposes Sovereign Jesus. We reviewed John’s writings that while the antichrist man is coming to deceive all, the spirit of antichrist has already come into the world and is opposing Jesus as we speak.
1st John 2:
18 ¶ Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen; from this we know that it is the last hour.
1st John 4:
3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; and this is the [spirit] of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.
And we also saw in Revelation 19 last week that Sovereign King Jesus is coming again to destroy the kings of the earth and all evil perpetrated through them in the earth by Satan, the antichrist, and the false prophet.
Revelation 19:
11 ¶ And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it [is] called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He judges and wages war.
12 And His eyes [are] a flame of fire, and upon His head [are] many diadems; and He has a name written [upon Him] which no one knows except Himself.
13 And [He is] clothed with a robe dipped in blood; and His name is called The Word of God.
14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white [and] clean, were following Him on white horses.
15 And from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may smite the nations; and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.
16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”
And so, today, the Lord has put on my heart the expression, “Lord of hosts.” God is described as Lord of hosts many times throughout the Bible, but especially in the Old Testament when the prophets were expressing the word of the Lord.
There is great significance to the term, “Lord of hosts.” The Hebrew word for “hosts” means a mass of people organized for war, that is, an army of soldiers waiting for warfare. Therefore, the expression is referring to Jesus’ role as Sovereign King over us in these end times, the One who directs us in spiritual warfare. In verses 14-15 of Revelation 19, we are the armies in Heaven. We will have been raptured as the Church, and we will follow Him on white horses as He smites the nations, rules them with a rod of iron, and releases the wrath of God.
So, when we see the expression “Lord of hosts,” it is referring to Jesus as the One who will war against evil, the One who will have power to release the wrath of God during the tribulation. He is the Sovereign One who will smite the evildoers among the nations of unbelief. And we are among the hosts, the mass of people organized for battle, waiting upon His direction at the appointed time.
The Lord of hosts is the Lord of us.
In the meantime, we are to be the mass of people organized for spiritual warfare as directed by the Lord of hosts. We are to wait when He says wait, and we are to pray when He tells us to intercede. We are to make disciples in those nations. If we do not do the will of the Lord of hosts, Matthew 7:21-23 tells us we will not enter the Kingdom of God, and Jesus will say to us: ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’ He is the Sovereign Lord of hosts, who will come to war and to judge in righteousness.
The Prophecy of Malachi
To illustrate how the Lord of hosts is all about the end times, let us look at the Book of Malachi. We know that Malachi 3 is often quoted to establish the requirement and benefits of tithing our income, but the book expresses much more in the way of prophecy from the Lord of hosts.
To add context, Malachi was a prophet of the Lord, and his message was proclaimed between 432 B.C. and 425 B.C., or almost a full century after the onset of the prophetic ministries of Haggai and Zechariah (the two previous books in the Bible).
In Malachi’s day, the Church was not in a good place. Malachi directed his words to a people and a church who had a false sense of security in their privileged relationship with God. The nation of Israel was plagued with corrupt priests, hypocrisy, marital infidelity, false worship, and arrogance. They were robbing God by not tithing their income and so the devil was able to devour their finances.
Because there was such sin, the blessings of the Lord were being withheld because God cannot bless sin. In fact, Malachi 2:17 says God was wearied by the people.
Malachi 2:
17 You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied [Him]?” In that you say, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and He delights in them,” or, “Where is the God of justice?”
Verse 17 tells us that evil was being rationalized as good and the people were doubting God’s justice and love, even though it was their sin and unbelief that was causing a divide with the Lord of hosts. This sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Today, there is a rush to rationalize sin in the name of inclusion, instead of proclaiming repentance for the forgiveness of sin. Unbelievers today oppose Israel and ask: “Where is the God of Justice?”
God was so put off by the people in Malachi’s day that He even began to withhold prophetic utterance from them, as Malachi was the last prophesy before the 400 years of prophetic silence that was finally broken when John the Baptist spoke of Jesus in the Book of Matthew.
Despite His disapproval of the people’s actions, God nevertheless loved them so much that he spoke an end times word to them through Malachi 3.
Malachi 3:
1 ¶ “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the LORD of hosts. (NASB)
Verse 1 is a prophecy that John the Baptist will come first to prepare the way for Jesus to come suddenly to the temple. This is a tremendous lesson for us – even though God is not happy with our behavior, and cannot bless our behavior, He still loves us and points us to Jesus for salvation. The Apostle Paul was convinced of this when he wrote:
Romans 8:
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God remains in love with us, but He cannot bless sin and unbelief. In fact, He cannot fellowship with sin and unbelief, thus the absence of prophecy for 400 years.
What’s interesting about Malachi 3 is that after expressing weariness with the people in Malachi 2, the Lord of hosts points the people to their Savior in Malachi 3:1. And in the next few verses, Malachi speaks to the Second Coming, when Jesus will come to purify the Church and to refine it like gold and silver.
Malachi 3:
2 “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap.
3 “And He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the LORD offerings in righteousness.
4 “Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD, as in the days of old and as in former years.
5 “Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien, and do not fear Me,” says the LORD of hosts.
6 “For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.
Verse 3 says He will come as a smelter and purifier of silver. The process of smelting involves melting or fusing a substance to produce a chemical change that separates metals to remove impurities. He is coming to remove the impurities in the earth. So, no one can endure His coming when He comes to purify. No king of any nation will be able to withstand Him.
But note the verse 5 promise that the Lord will draw near to Israel and come against sorcery, adultery, liars, those who oppress others, and anyone who does not fear (revere) the Lord. In these end days, we cannot pretend to be His church. We cannot attempt to justify sin. We cannot be arrogant hypocrites. And we cannot ask: “Where is the God of justice?”
Instead, we are to stay in worship. We are to bow our knees to Jesus, revere Him, and confess Him as Lord.
I love verse 6: the Lord does not change. He remains faithful to His people. He remains faithful to those who worship and heed the commands of the Lord of hosts!
In Malachi 4, we see more prophecy of the Second Coming from the Lord of hosts.
Malachi 4:
1 ¶ “For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the LORD of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.”
2 “But for you who fear My name the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.
3 “And you will tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the LORD of hosts.
All the arrogant and evildoers will be burned like chaff (straw) being tossed into a furnace, leaving no root or branch of evil in the earth. And the sun will rise as righteousness with healing. The wicked will be ashes trampled under our feet, and the great victory of the Lord of hosts, as well as the armies behind Him, will be complete.
Closing
The Lord of hosts is Jesus, our Sovereign King, who is Commander in Chief of the armies of Heaven, which include us. I feel like we the Church are susceptible to the attitudes of unbelief that crept into the Church of Malachi’s day. There is a trend in the earth today to justify sin as though God would approve of it. And there is a tendency to ask: “Where is the God of Justice?” as they did in Malachi 2:17. Malachi spoke the word of the Lord of hosts directly to us – Jesus is the Lord of hosts who is coming against all evil, against any who would oppress and deceive.
Every knee should bow at Jesus’ name, and every tongue should confess Him as Lord, to the glory of God. That will be the difference when the Smelter comes. Those who confess Him as Lord will receive the healing sun of righteousness. Those who refuse will burn like straw in a furnace, whose ashes will be under our feet.
Let us pray.
Father God, thank You for the words of prophecy in the Book of Malachi. Thank You for loving us despite the weakness in our faith and thank You that nothing can separate us from Your love. Send Your Holy Spirit to convict us of sin, arrogance, and unbelief, and to draw us to repentance for the forgiveness of sin. And quicken our spirits, Father, to hear the direction of the Lord of hosts in our everyday life. We look forward to the day when He comes with a sword to smite the nations, to rule and reign, and to burn the chaff. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
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