Refined by Fire | Trials, Transformation, and Grace | Malachi 3:1-5

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in

practical ways. Good morning, good morning, we talk oh not

through good mooning. Good morning to you and you and you.

You got to trademark that.

Hey, that's right, Well it's already been traded by it.

It's called Singing in the Rain.

But it's not Chris's version.

Oh I see, yeah, I definitely have modified it. So hey,

good morning everybody. We are the Bible Guys. It's Wesley

and I today, and it's because Jeff's out of pocket again,

this time for a voice thing, and we're at the

Heritage Church stage. In case you're watching online as opposed

to listening and you're wondering about that, Well, today we

are diving into Malachi chapter three, and today is going

to be a pretty big promise about what's to come

from God. It's a pretty short but strong promise that

we're going to be looking at. But before we do that,

Desiree once again, our Desiree has given us a segment

and it's called two Truths and a Lie. Okay, so

it says Wesley has become a regular Bible guy. But

there are still things about him we don't know. So

for today's segment, Wesley's going to share two truths and

one lie and Chris can see if you can figure

out which one the lie is.

Okay, are you ready for this?

I am ready by two truths.

And one lie.

This is gonna be good. I'm looking forward to this.

Here we go.

Okay, Yes, number one, Yes, I don't eat seafood O

number two.

Wow, Wow, that's a statement. Okay.

I was born in Brooklyn, New York.

Wow.

Number three? Yeah, I have never been up north.

Oh, come on, two truths and a lie.

I don't eat seafood.

For non Michiganders, I was born in Brooklyn, yep, I

have never been up north.

For a non people who if people don't live in Michigan,

up north refers to northern Michigan. Yes, okay, so.

Uh yeah, anywhere in northern Michigan up there.

I think I've heard you say before that you don't

need seafood, because that is such a shocking statement. So

I'm going to say that's the truth. Is that correct?

That is correct, and there's a backstory to that. I'm

allergic to seafood, yeah, which is why.

That would do it?

That would do it? And then and then you were

born in Brooklyn, New York, and you've never been up north. Okay, uh,

You've lived in this area forever, ever since you were

a kid, So there.

Is no born here.

Well I was thinking of that.

I was.

I was analyzing the up north statement. I'm thinking, there

is no way that you're that you've not been up north.

So I'm going to say the lie is you were

not born in New York? Is that correct?

I was not born in New York?

Yes, So I got it right. Yeah, okay, okay, yeah,

so I.

Have to even look at it again and make sure.

Yeah, where were you born?

I was born here?

Okaya, which city?

But I alloy in Detroit.

But I got to say this, I always mess up

the two truths and a lie, like every single time

because I'm trying to think of the lie part, and

I'm like, I mess that up.

That's so funny. You know. We were doing we were

doing a Bible Guys in Bible Gals for our Heritage

Church for our study, and my wife was on there

with me, and we were playing two truths in a lie.

Yeah. I messing up every time.

My wife gave me three truths.

Yeah, I do the same thing every single time.

I was trying to guess which when the lie was,

and she goes, oh, she was. I was just trying

to think of three things you didn't know. And I

was like, Liz, the name of the game is actually

called and a lie.

That is good.

But anyway, Hey, so yesterday we made a promise to

the to the listeners and watchers.

I feel like suspense is building around the country right now.

Around the world. I feel around the world.

I can almost like subtle earthquakes are taken place right now.

Because we said that yesterday to tune back in and

you would finally be able to meet the the not

the famous, but the infamous.

The the the most incredible, yes, unimaginable adjectives.

I don't know, Yes, desiree.

So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Desiree. Oh look look

we get a balirl.

Wow, very good, it's hilarious.

He told me to come dancing, so I wasn't going

to disappoint.

Yes, yes, So for those of you who are listening,

you can hear your voice. For those of you who

are watching, you can see the lovely Desiree dancing as

a ballerina. So so describe to people. We always reference you.

What is your job description here at Heritage.

That's a lot a lot of things, yes, So mainly

I work with the Bible Guys with Jeff and Chris,

preparing your everything behind the scenes, as well as in

the executive office. I do admin work.

So yeah, okay, very good. And what do you enjoy well,

I should say I don't want to say most, but

what is one thing that you and that you really

enjoy about the Bible Guys portion of your job?

Honestly getting work to work with you and Jeff.

Oh, that's very nice.

It's it's a very fun opportunity and they never disappoint

in making me laugh.

So okay, and we always mentioned your first name. What

is your last name?

Fifer?

Fifer, Desiree Fifer.

Like Michelle Pfiffer.

So yeah, any relation.

There is unfortunately not any relationship.

Okay you said, unfortunately not Yeah, but you know, is

she a nice person? Yeah? Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Claim to fame yeah exactly, all right. Well, our claim

to fame, Desiree, is that we now know you and

our listeners now know you. Here I am all right,

very good. Hey, Desiree. Everybody.

It's so funny how many people didn't think she was real.

Oh yeah, you know how we would make references to

Desire and they're like, is it really a desert ate Like, yeah,

she's a real person.

Yeah, yeah, Desiree. She's the one that comes up with

every segment and she basically tells us what to do. Yes, like,

we come in and this is the honest, the goodness truth. Yeah,

most days, what I mean most I mean ninety nine

percent of the days.

Yeah.

I will literally walk in, I will sit down and

I'll say what are we reading today? Yeah, and desire

will be like, oh you're in Malachai. Oh okay, cool.

Yeah.

And because and that, by the way, that's not that's

not a disrespect of your time. That is actually designed

that way, because Jeff and I a long time ago said.

It's got authentic.

Yeah. The Bible Guys podcast is designed to encourage every

person to open the Bible, read it, and then just

talk about it.

Yeah.

Right, And the only way that we can do that

is we can do that with no preparation. So you

know the idea that we you know, Jeff and I

and you and Kyle have a plethora of reservoir because

we have a history of preaching and reading the Bible.

So yeah, there's certainly a lot of that. But also

it is possible to open the Bible and just to

read a passage and then say, you know, hey, let's

ask some questions. You know, what does this say about God?

What does this say about people? Is there a promise

to claim? Is there a sin to avoid? Is you know?

Is there is there something that I should do about this?

You know?

And all the other questions that come with the soap's method, right,

which I think I hit most of them there, right,

So anyway, all right, well, hey, that is our segment

and and we actually managed to do that in a

pretty good amount of time. So and by the way,

I would say, speaking of meeting.

New people, this is the bad transition.

There is a promise from God that one day new

people will come on the scene, that that people will meet.

I like that. That was like a four year old circle.

Horrible, But I mean it is true. What I said

is true.

That's good.

And today, Wesley, how many verses.

Do we have? We have just five Malachi three.

Wow, that's amazing. So you better make him good.

Yeah, here we go, Verse one, chapter three. Look, I

am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way

before me. Then the Lord, then the Lord you are seeking,

will suddenly come to his temple. The Messenger of the Covenant,

whom you look for so eagerly, is surely comings, says

the Lord of Heaven's armies. But who will be able

to endure it when he comes? Who will be able

to stand and face him when he appears, For he

will be like a blazing fire that refines metal, or

like a strong soap that bleaches clothes. He will sit

like a refiner of silver, burning away the dross. He

will purify the levites, refining them like gold and silver,

so that they may once again offer acceptable sacrifices to

the Lord. Then once more the Lord will accept the

offerings brought to him by the people of Judah and Jerusalem,

as he did in the past. At that time, I

will put you on trial. I am eager to witness

against all sorcerers and adulterers and liars. I will speak

against those who cheat employees of their wages, who oppress

widows and orphans, or who deprive the foreigners living among

you of justice, for these people, do not fear me,

says the Lord of Heaven's armies.

Yeah. Wow, So this is the coming day of judgment. Yeah,

that's what this is. And it's really interesting how it

starts off. Malachi starts off by saying, look, I'm sending

a messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.

So this is in quotes, which means this is a

direct word from the Lord. Yeah, which is really important

to recognize. Right. So this isn't This isn't Malachi saying

that there's a messenger coming before him. This is Malachi

quoting God, which which often happens, yes, right, Like Isaiah

would often quote God in quotes, saying this is what

the Lord God says. Right. And so God is giving

a warning in chapter two he's giving a call to faithfulness,

and then in chapter three there is a coming gay

of judgment where it's also involving somebody who God is

going to send, which is why I said eventually people

will meet them. Right now, is what is your understanding

of who the messenger one day will be?

Well, we know that the messenger.

So there were types of messengers that we saw in

the New Testament, like John the Baptist. He was a

type of messenger paving the way for Jesus. But ultimately

the messenger is Christ, that who appears in the New Testament.

Yeah, and so a lot of people think that verse

one is referring to John the Baptist because John the

Baptist was technically the first voice is going to be

in this timeline, is going to be the first voice

in after four hundred years of silence, and and and

God is going to appear to Zechariah in the temple

and uh, and is going to appear to him and say,

or the Angel will actually rather on God's behalf and

say that they're going to bear a son, and that

his name is going to be John, right, and then

John is going to be born six months before Jesus.

And John's message is going to be I have come

to prepare the way who is going to come after me?

You know? And and and the one he's the Messiah,

He's the Christ, He's the one who's going to take

away the sins of the world. And so John the

Baptist's whole existence, this whole mission in life, is to

be the prepare of the way of Jesus. Which is

why the same verbiage is used in Malachai, which is

why people think. You know, he's saying, Hey, the first

messenger that's going to come is John the Baptist. He says, look,

I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the

way before me, and me refers to God, right, and

so you know, Jesus himself said, if you've seen me,

you've seen the Father. Jesus said, I am the Father

or one so God the Father can claim such things, right.

And then it says, then the Lord you are seeking

will suddenly come to his temple, the Messenger of the Covenant,

which we believe is referring to his second messenger, right.

And Jesus says that he has come to bring a

new covenant. Yes, right when he established communion. He says,

I bring a new covenant to you. And he's referring

to doing away with the entire system of the Old

Testament and referring to the sacrifice of himself as being

the new promise for salvation of sins.

Right, yeah, And so.

The Messenger of the Covenant is referred to as Jesus,

whom you look for so eagerly and by the way,

that also fits because that's referring to all of the prophecies. Yeah, right,

the hundreds of prophecies, someone of three hundred to four

hundred prophecies. So he says, whom you so eagerly is

sure coming? Says the Lord of Heaven's armies, And then

he goes on to say, but who will be able

to endure it when he comes? And then he goes

on to talk about standing in God's presence? Yeah, yeah,

which is you know, a pretty pretty tall order right there.

Yeah.

In verse two when it talks about for he will

be like a blazing fire that refines metal, I just

want to kind of park right there for a minute

in that when you refine metal, or let's say, if

you were trying to refine gold, Yeah, one of the

main objectives of refining the gold is to remove any impurities, right,

So that's what you're trying to.

Do in impurities meaning like in the earth.

Yes, yeah, so you're trying to get it to its

purest form. Well, the thing about that is God wants

to have that same refinement in our lives, to remove

any impurities or anything not like him in our lives

and to work on us and to prune us and

to shape us. And I remember an incident in my life.

I was going to Eastern Michigan University and I applied

for an internship that did not exist at the company

that I used to work for. So I came up

with a great idea. Don't know if this idea will

work today, Chris, but it was a good idea at

the time.

I sent my resume in.

A cover letter directly to the head of the HR department. Wow,

because I figured, just send it to the head guy

of this multi million, probably a billion dollar corporation.

He got it.

And just to show you how things are coincidental, his

assistant went to Eastern Michigan University. That's where she graduated from.

She knew she didn't know me, but that was kind

of like my shoe in there because I was going

to Eastern Michigan. She graduated from there. That's how I

kind of got in there. So I had an interview

with her and they brought me on for an internship

program they didn't even have, so God kind of worked

that all out. But after being there, so I moved

up in the rink. So I was an intern. Then

I went to Inside sales. Then I went to the

accounting department. As time went on, I really felt a

calling on my life to do ministry full time. That's

what I really wanted to do. God, I want to

do ministry full time. Well, Chris, let me say, be

careful about what you ask for.

Ye. So I was.

Already in ministry, but I wanted to do it full time.

That was my.

Prayer, vocation.

Yes, that was my prayer, and I kind of.

Felt like God said, Okay, this is what you're asking for,

this is what you want, I'll make it happen. Now

here's the funny thing about God. God doesn't necessarily do

things like how we think he should do them, or

in the timeline we wished he would do them. In so,

I'm at that company and that company ended up downsizing

and my job was let go. Now I'm thinking, God,

my prayer to you was I want to do ministry

full time. My prayer was not God, I want to

be jobless. That was not my prayer. But I ended

up losing that job and then very humbling experience. I'm

collecting unemployment. This is not how I pictured all of

this panning out.

And then one.

Day we're at a fair in the parking lot outside

of this church, and this kid walks up to me

with a card that says Heritage Church, and he just

says here and almost shoves the card at me. It

wasn't like, sir, would you like a card from my church?

It was here, and I kind of felt like that

was the Holy Spirit saying.

Hey, I'm over here.

Yeah.

Took the card, put it into my back pocket. Fast

forward Heritage, and this is before I was coming to Heritage.

I heard about this church having a Super Bowl party.

It sounded really cool. The kids could play flag football,

the adults would watch the game. I go to that

event and I meet this guy named Jeff, who ended

up being the pastor of the church. Jeff's like, hey,

you know, if you want to know like how a

larger church operates and different things like that. As I'm

talking to him, he says, hey, why don't you just

start coming to our staff meetings.

I'm like, Okay, this is crazy. You don't even know me.

You don't know, like know anything about me, and you'll

let me come to your staff meetings. So I started

coming to the staff.

Meetings and just for our listener's sake, Jeff has a

very strong heart. Yes, for younger pastors who to develop them.

Yes, yeah, yeah he does. He gave me a ton

of books. You need to read this, this, this, come

to our staff meetings. So I was here all the time,

coming to all the staff meetings. And at a certain

point we launched another campus and Jeff said, okay, Wesley,

you're here all the time, You're at all the staff meetings.

Do you just want to come on staff? And I said, yes,

Now I want to stop right there and then back up.

What was my prayer to God? My prayer was I

want to do full time ministry. I would not have

scripted the story the way that it unfolded, but that

was God refining me, humbling me, and going through the

entire process to get to the blessing that I asked

him for in the first place. So the refinement was

not pretty, it was not nice. I did not like it. No,

I don't want to go through that again, but it

was very necessary to get me to the spot that

I prayed to God for, which was full time ministry.

Yeah. I remember one time I did a series. This

reminds me of this topic. I did a series one

time called clay in the potter's hands. And since then

I have sort of refined it and used it at

different retreats and things like that. But it's really about

a theme that exists all throughout the Bible, and really

there's only certain themes. There's only certain themes that sort

of have the tapestry from Old Testament all the way

through the New Testament. Like, for instance, like you know

the shepherd and sheep, right, you can find that in

the Old Testament, you can find that in New Testament.

Another one is how God is the potter wor the clay.

You can find that in the Old Testament and the

New Testament. So it's just it's this theme that goes

along that says, hey, we're just clay in the potter's hands,

and so you know, using verses in Jeremiah Versus in

Romans and things like this, I came up with these

four ideas that parallel how a potter makes some to

be used right, And the first one is getting they

have to get the potter, They have to get the

lump of clay, and they have to put it in

the center of the wheel, which is equivalent to us

being in God's the center of God's will.

Yeah, because it can't be on the side, It'll fly off.

Yeah, it can't be on the side, will fly off.

Yeah.

So you have to be in a position for God

to work on you. And the only way to be

in a position for God to work on you is

to be in the center of the wheel, right, or

in the center of his will. Right. So that I mean,

if you think about it, that's that's really a great parallel, which,

by the way, is the reason why God uses you

know that In Jeremiah, he says, hey, I went down

to the potter's house. I watched the potter make the clay,

and he realized that this was us, you know. And

that's the same thing with sheep in Shepherds. I mean,

if you really want to dive deep into Psalm chapter

twenty three, that the parallels run very, very very deep

with shepherd and sheep. Right, there's one hundred comparisons that

seems like between shepherd and sheep, and same thing with

the potter and the clay. And then the second thing

that I talked about is removing unwanted debris or refining

the process right to remove the all the impurities, because

today we have refined clay. We can go to Michael's

and buy refined clay. But back then, you know, you'd

have to pick out sticks from scratch dirt, right, you

have to pull it out of the earth.

And what I love about it it was messy, right,

which is a perfect reflection of how the process.

That is, that's right, that's right and so and so

therefore God wants to remove any unwanted sin in our

in our lives in order to mold us and shape

us and make us into who he wants us to be. Right.

And then the third one is uh, you know, to

being being crushed and remaked right, right, So in other words,

like sometimes you know, you'll see a potter, you know,

shape something and all of a sudden they'll have to

collapse it and then remake it, and and uh, and

sometimes that's what happens. We get crushed and remade through

through uh, you know, through the through the pressure of

the potter's hands. Sometimes that happens in our lives.

And it doesn't destroy the.

Clay, No, it doesn't destroy it.

Its just if you talk to the clay.

The clay may feel destroyed, but it doesn't destroy the.

Play will say why and ow why and how? And

then uh and then uh, then the fourth message that

I did was from the kiln to the shelf, right,

from the killing to the shelf. And the kiln, of

course is the fire right, and so it's it's it's

it's another another image of fire, uh, you know, committing,

committing to a purpose and uh and in this case

the fire and the trials, uh you know of of ministry,

the trials of mission for the for the Christian. And

then of course then after that being used for for

the intended purposes. Right, if you performed as a plate

or a fork or a pitcher or a vase, uh,

you know, then then you serve, you know, your intended

purpose of how God made you, how God wired you,

and how God wants to use you. And and and

it's the same thing the imagery of of what you

said of refining gold and removing the impurities. It is

it is. It seems uh harsh, it seems uncomfortable. There's

an ow, there's a y, you know, but yet God

says there's a purpose. And so God is literally saying,

this is exactly what's going to happen when I send

my my savior Jesus Christ. He's going to come into

the world as the new covenant maker, and he is

going to refine the process. He's going to refine my people.

And then once again you'll be in a position to

serve me. You'll be in a position to love me,

and and and once again you'll be able to obey

my covenant, obey my decrees, and and and it's because

his covenant is better. It's it's more, it's more lasting,

it's it's it's finalized. It is it is is, it

is once and for all. Jesus Christ. Thank God that

you and I are post the cross, right, we are

on on this side of the cross. And so Jesus

Christ died for our sins, and so we are under

the covenant of his sacrifice for our sins. And so

you know, we don't have to you know, you know,

jump through the six hundred and thirteen laws and precepts

that God is so upset about, right, that the laws

that they've forgotten, the laws that they you know, have

just ignored, even the priests. And God says, I'm sending

a brand new one, right, and it's love God and

love others. Right, that's what it is. That's what it is.

So well, hey, that's great, that's a great promise. That's

a great place you go.

There you go.

It's a great place for us to end. And so

hopefully we'll see you tomorrow on the Bible guys,