We are told that God will send Elijah the prophet before the great and dreadful day of the Lord. Who is this Elijah and what message do they bring? Jesus’ second coming marks the end of all things on this earth. But before He comes, a great message of warning and a call to repentance is to go out to prepare His way. This message will be given by His people, who will lighten the whole earth with His glory.
Prior to his translation to heaven, Elijah faced the difficult task of bringing judgement upon Israel and calling them to repentance. King Ahab and Queen Jezebel had led Israel into worshipping false gods and rejecting the commandments of God.
And he answered, I [Elijah] have not troubled Israel; but thou, and thy father's house, in that ye have forsaken the commandments of the LORD, and thou hast followed Baalim. 1 Kings 18:18
Ahab’s wickedness before God, and the apostasy of Israel in following Baalim, resulted in Elijah bringing the judgement of drought and famine upon Israel for the space of three and a half years. At the end of this time Elijah returned to King Ahab and called all of Israel together to demonstrate that there is only one true God and call the people back to obedience to Him alone. The central message of Elijah was to repent from their sin and disobedience and to acknowledge God alone as Lord.
In Malachi we are told that Elijah will come again before the coming of Jesus.
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: Malachi 4:5
The great and dreadful day of the Lord mentioned here is when Jesus shall return at His second coming to receive the righteous and lay waste to the wicked.
Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty… And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. Isaiah 13:6, 11.
However, we also know that John the Baptist came in the spirit and power of Elijah and was spoken of by Jesus as Elijah that was to come.
For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come. Matthew 11:13-14
This prophecy of the coming of Elijah has two fulfillments: He heralded Jesus first coming through John, and he will prepare the way for Jesus second coming through God’s church in the last days. Some mistakenly believe that John was Elijah and that Elijah will literally come again just before the second coming of Jesus. However, the angel explained to Zacharias (John’s father), that it was in the spirit and power of Elijah that John was to preach, he was not Elijah himself.
And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. Luke 1:17
The message that John brought to Israel also acts as a representation to us of the work of the final Elijah that shall come. Like Elijah, John came with a message of repentance from sin.
And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Matthew 3:2-3
John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Mark 1:4
Repentance is a turning away from sin, and sin is breaking the law of God (1 John 3:4, Romans 7:7). As with Elijah, John came with a message of repentance, turning people back to true worship and obedience toward God and His law.
John is referred to as ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness,’
As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Mark 1:2-3
This is a direct reference to Isaiah,
The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. Isaiah 40:3-5
This passage represents the work of John the Baptist, and more importantly, the work of God’s people living in the last days. By studying this passage we can gain a greater understanding of the final message that is to go out to all the world before Jesus comes again.
The first aspect of the message is to make straight in the desert a highway for our God. What does this mean? What does this highway represent?
And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. Isaiah 35:8
To be holy is to be like God. This highway is a pathway of righteousness. In ancient times men would be sent ahead of the King to prepare the road for his journey. Anything that could cause difficulty or prevent the King’s travel would be repaired or removed. What repair does God desire before He will return? What path is to be laid out? We have seen that this is a message of repentance from sin. As sin is the transgression of the law, it would make sense that to prepare the way to holiness is to repair the breach that has been made in God's law.
And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in. Isaiah 58:12
God calls His people to repair the breach and restore the path to holiness. This is a message of repentance and restoration to the way God laid out for us in the beginning. Isaiah 58 applies directly to us today. This is the work of the final Elijah that has been given to the faithful people of God to fulfil before Jesus will return. We are to prepare the highway of holiness for God, to repair the breach and restore the path of righteousness. Following from this Isaiah 58 gives greater emphasis to the repair that is to be made:
If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it. Isaiah 58:13-14
To turn away our foot from the sabbath is to stop trampling it underfoot. We are to call this day a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable. The breach that has been made in God’s law is the change of the Sabbath from the seventh day (Saturday) to the first day (Sunday) by the Papacy at the Council of Laodicea in 364 A.D. This change was a direct fulfilment of the work of the little horn power in Daniel 7:25, who is the antichrist. God is calling us to return to the path of obedience to Him, to keep holy the day He set forth at creation, and to honour Him as our Maker.
But there is more yet to Elijah’s message. The process of repair and restoration is also a process of taking the gospel to the world.
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come. Matthew 24:14
The gospel in some form or another has been taken to essentially every nation on earth, so why has Jesus not yet returned? The problem lies in the message being taught. Today most churches preach a lawless message. They have misapplied grace, using it to make void God’s law, and legalised sin in the process. However, grace does not remove God’s law. In fact, grace cannot exist where there is no law. The law is what defines sin, so sin cannot exist where there is no law (Romans 4:15). When we remove the law, we are no longer sinners as we have no law to break. If we are not sinners, we do not need saving through God’s grace. The outcome of such a doctrine is that we no longer need Christ who provides us with this grace. So now we have not only gotten rid of the law, but we have gotten rid of Jesus as well.
It is time for thee, LORD, to work: for they have made void thy law. Psalm 119:126
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law. Romans 3:31
God never intended that grace should do away with His law. Grace is provided to save us from the punishment of breaking His law and return us to favour with God so that He can begin the process of sanctification whereby we become like Him, delighting to do His will and keep His law.
I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart. Psalms 40:8
The last element of Elijah’s work is that the ‘glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together’ (Isaiah 40:5). What is the glory of the Lord? How will it be revealed? And how will all flesh see it together?
When Moses asked God to reveal to him His glory, what did God reveal?
And he said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. Exodus 33:18
And the LORD descended in the cloud, and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation. Exodus 34:5-7
In response to Moses request to see the glory of God, God revealed to him His character. God’s glory is in His perfect character, it is the substance of who He is. God Himself is glorious, His perfect nature is the glory of His person.
The revealing of God’s glory is the unveiling of His perfect character. The whole world needs to be introduced to the true God, not the one clouded in false doctrines and misrepresentations. It is the truth that needs to sweep across the world, not the wine of Babylon. This great work is to be performed by His people in the last days.
Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; Hebrews 1:3
Just as Jesus came to reveal to us the character and love of the Father, we are called to reveal the same.
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Corinthians 3:18
Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God is working to mould us after His image, His character. In this way we are living epistles, living witnesses of the power and love of God.
Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. 2 Corinthians 3:2-3
If we allow Him, God will change us from glory to glory, until we reflect His perfect character fully in our own. It is through the living testimony of His people that God’s glory (character) is to be revealed to the whole world. This revelation will happen before Christ returns.
But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets. Revelation 10:7
What is this mystery that is to be finished?
Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Colossians 1:26-27
The mystery to be revealed is Christ in us; the perfect representation of the character of God through His people. This is how the glory of the Lord is to be revealed (Isaiah 40:5). At the time that the seventh angel shall begin to sound, just as the world is about to end, God will perfect His character in His people that they might reveal Him to the world.
And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. Revelation 18:1
If you read Revelation 18 you will see that this is the final message of warning for the world. Angels are messengers, and this angel represents the final message to be given to the world through God’s people. The world will be lightened with the glory of God as His people reveal His perfect character in their own. The final message of repentance from sin and returning to the keeping of the law of God will be given. God’s perfect character will be revealed to all people, everyone will be brought to a knowledge of the truth. Then, the end will come.
God is calling us now to prepare ourselves for this work. We must submit ourselves to the will of God, return to the keeping of His commandments, and allow Christ to renew us to His own perfect image. We must study the scriptures if we would understand who God is so that we can reveal Him to others. Prayer needs to become more important to us than food and water, as it brings us into the presence of the Infinite and shapes us after His perfect image. Then, and only then, will we be prepared to give a final message of warning to a dying world. We will then be fit to vindicate the character of God and reveal His love and justice undimmed before a world that has clouded Him with mystery and misrepresentation.