Malachi 3:1,2 - Who can endure the day of His coming?

3:1

So, the situation is far from good, to put it mildly. However, God is not going to stand idly by. He will send His messenger. Just look at the wording here: “I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me”. Mark refers to this in the opening of his gospel (Mark 1:2). John the Baptist was sent by God to prepare the way for the Lord Himself. The Lord would come suddenly to His temple. This can be taken generally, or more specifically to Jesus’ appearing at the temple when He cast out the money lenders. This was the Lord of the covenant in which the Israelites claimed to delight. He would seek to put the nation right, but as we know they would reject their Messiah.

3:2

The coming of the Lord would not be an easy matter, for He would come as a refiner’s fire. The Jewish religious system would not withstand this, for it would be found wanting. But being found wanting was not the problem. The problem was that they would be found wanting and refusing to admit their guilt and their need of mercy from the Lord. Whenever God comes into our lives there will be things that He highlights that need changing. But He does not come to condemn (John 3:16-21), if we will come into His light we will be healed, but if we are stubborn and refuse to come into His light because we do not want our deeds exposed, then we remain under condemnation.