HaGadol (The Great)

(I originally wrote and posted this in my previous blog for Shabbat HaGadol last year on 04/01/2007. Shabbat HaGadol this year begins at sunset this evening.)

Reading: Malaki (Malachi) 3:4-16; 4:1-6

In this last part of the last book of the Prophets, YHWH lets us know that He shall not change:

Mal 3:6 "For I am YHWH, I shall not change, and you, O sons of Ya'aqob, shall not come to an end.

As it has always been, so it also will be that those who fear Him and think upon His Name will be written in a book of remembrance. They will be His, and He will spare them:

Mal 3:16 Then shall those who fear YHWH speak to one another, and YHWH listen and hear, and a book of remembrance be written before Him, of those who fear YHWH, and those who think upon His Name.
Mal 3:17 "And they shall be Mine," said YHWH of hosts, "on the day that I prepare a treasured possession. And I shall spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him.
Mal 3:18 "Then you shall again see the difference between the righteous and the wrong, between one who serves Elohim and one who does not serve Him.

If there is no difference between those of us who say we are serving Him and those who do not make such a claim, then are we truly serving Him?

Mal 4:4 "Remember the Torah of Mosheh, My servant, which I commanded him in H?oreb for all Yisra'el - laws and right-rulings.
Mal 4:5 "See, I am sending you Eliyah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of YHWH.
Mal 4:6 "And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with utter destruction.

Immediately before announcing that He will send Eliyah before the coming of the Messiah, He gives the instruction to "Remember the Torah".

The first fulfillment of this prophecy was during the first century when He sent Yochanan ben Zekaryah before the Messiah:

Luk 1:17 "And he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Eliyahu, 'to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,' and the disobedient to the insight of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for YHWH."

But Yeshua Messiah is coming again, and there will be a second fulfillment of this prophecy, so we would do well to take heed of YHWH's instruction to "Remember the Torah" because during that fulfillment He will smite the earth with utter destruction. We need to make ready and be prepared for Him.