The “Before” is Important One
time in my early teens I was helping my brother clean up the dishes after supper. We conspired with each other to be able to go to the movies that night. My brother told me to put all the dishes I dried on the kitchen table. We finished washing and drying them, and it was 6:45 p.m. We were ten minutes from the movie house. It took 5 minutes to run down the hill to get there on time.
We ran into the living room to ask Daddy if we could go to the show. He looked toward the kitchen and realized we hadn’t done the dishes. He said if the dishes were done by 6:55 we could go. We ran back in and put all the dishes away. Came back 5 minutes later and said “We’re done.”
I think he knew we tricked him. He had a smirk on his face, but let us go. His mandate was to get the dishes done before we went. Since we did what he asked, we got to go.
There is a verse at the end of Malachi in chapter four, that foretells about Elijah, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. That’s the last prophet of the Old Testament. He was to come before Jesus’ Dreadful Day. That was the Cross. In Psalms 88:7, it speaks of God’s wrath lying hard upon Jesus, and affliction in waves upon Him. His friends are fled from
His face. He is shut up and cannot come forth.
I wondered why John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, couldn’t have helped Jesus in His ministry. But even John said, “He must increase, and I must decrease.” John knew his prophecy about his life from Malachi 4:5, would be before the great and dreadful day of the LORD. Now—i know it’s because God’s Word is very plain in what it says.
I had never seen that word “before” in that prophecy in all the time I’ve studied God’s Word. That’s why I love to read it. There is something new every morning.
But before Jesus comes, there is nothing else that needs to happen. The time has been set by God. The very second when Jesus splits the Eastern sky is ordained by and known by God alone. We must warn others of that impending, imminent day before He returns in glory. They need to know the coming days are going to be the worst mankind can ever do to mankind. They need to know after the seven year tribulation it will be even worse when they spend their eternity in Hell.
Please tell them Jesus paid their way into Heaven, before it’s too late for the lost.