Malachi 4:2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
[The Great Controversy pp 302>303] On rocky Patmos the beloved disciple hears the promise, “Surely, I come quickly,” and his longing response voices the prayer of the church in all her pilgrimage, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” [Revelation 22:20.] From the dungeon, the stake, the scaffold, where saints and martyrs witnessed for the truth, comes down the centuries the utterance of their faith and hope. “Being assured of Christ's personal resurrection, and consequently of their own at his coming, for this cause,” says one of these Christians, “they despised death, and were found to be above it.”
They were willing to go down to the grave, that they “might rise free.” They looked for the “Lord to come from Heaven in the clouds with the glory of his Father,” “bringing to the just the times of the kingdom.” The Waldenses cherished the same faith. Wycliffe looked forward to the Redeemer's appearing as the hope of the church. Luther declared: “I persuade myself verily, that the day of Judgment will not be absent full three hundred years. God will not, cannot, suffer this wicked world much longer.”
“The great day is drawing near in which the kingdom of abominations shall be overthrown.” “This aged world is not far from its end,” said Melancthon. Calvin bids Christians “not to hesitate, ardently desiring the day of Christ's coming as of all events most auspicious;” and declares that “the whole family of the faithful will keep in view that day.” “We must hunger after Christ, we must seek, contemplate,” he says, “till the dawning of that great day, when our Lord will fully manifest the glory of his kingdom.”
Malachi 4:5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: 6 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.
May God add His blessing to the study of His word. “Good night” and God bless!