SERMON I. 'FATHERS AND CHILDREN'



Malachi iv. 5, 6. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before
the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall
turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the
children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a
curse.

These words are especially solemn words. They stand in an
especially solemn and important part of the Bible. They are the
last words of the Old Testament. I cannot but think that it was
God's will that they should stand where they are, and nowhere else.
Malachi, the prophet who wrote them, did not know perhaps that he
was the last of the Old Testament prophets. He did not know that no
prophet would arise among the Jews for 400 years, till the time when
John the Baptist came preaching repentance. But God knew. And by
God's ordinance these words stand at the end of the Old Testament,
to make us understand the beginning of the New Testament. For the
Old Testament ends by saying that God would send to the Jews Elijah
the prophet. And the New Testament begins by telling us of John the
Baptist's coming as a prophet, in the spirit and power of Elias; and
how the Lord Jesus himself declared plainly that John the Baptist
was Elijah who was to come; that is, the Elijah of whom Malachi
prophesies in my text.

Therefore, we may be certain that this text tells us what John the
Baptist's work was; that John the Baptist came to turn the hearts of