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Dec 30, 2022

MALACHI 3:
In chapters 1-2 yesterday, we heard how skeptical and sassy the Israelites had become. This came out in the way Malachi has the people of Israel talk back to God. The first is like this:

Mal. 1:2 NLT “I have always loved you,” says the LORD.
But you retort, “Really? How have you loved us?”

Topics for such exchanges included offering sacrifices that don’t show appropriate honor to God, breaking covenants of marriage through divorce, and not honoring God as the God of justice. Two more sassy exchanges happen in today’s reading.

ISAIAH 66:
I highlight verse 17 from chapter 65, as it foreshadows what we will read in Revelation today and tomorrow:

Is. 65:17 NLT “Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth,
and no one will even think about the old ones anymore.

And I believe that these moving verses from that same chapter portray the torment of the lake of fire:

Is. 65:13 GNT And so I tell you that those who worship and obey me will have plenty to eat and drink, but you will be hungry and thirsty. They will be happy, but you will be disgraced.
14 They will sing for joy, but you will cry with a broken heart.

REVELATION 21:
In chapter 20, we read about the millennium or the thousand year reign of Christ, the defeat and imprisonment of Satan, his brief release following the 1,000 years, and his eventual eternal judgment in the lake of fire. Death and the Grave were also abolished in the lake of fire.