Welcome to Prophecy Q & A with Jimmy DeYoung!
Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament. It is one side of the bridge that spans 400 years over to the Book of Matthew in the New Testament. These two verses set the stage for the leap over the 400-year period of time. Both books have a relationship to the End Times.
Malachi 4:5-6 says, “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.”
Verse 5 is the key verse. Elijah never died. He was caught up in a chariot of fire and carried into the heavenlies. Elijah and Enoch (Genesis 5) are the only two men who were on the earth and then taken into the heavenlies; they have yet to die. Elijah has to come on the scene before the Tribulation Period completes itself and before Jesus Christ comes back to the earth. When John the Baptist was born in Matthew 11, Jesus said that he was the greatest man ever born of woman in all of history and that he could have fulfilled this prophecy of Malachi 4:5 had the Jewish people believed in what John the Baptist was saying. He said that he was the forerunner of the Messiah, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ. But the Jewish people rejected John the Baptist as they rejected his cousin, Jesus Christ. Elijah was not fulfilled in John the Baptist. In Matthew 16 and 17, Peter, James, and John realized that He was talking about Elijah who must come back.
I believe Elijah will be one of the two witnesses (Revelation 11:3ff) that will be headquartered on the Temple Mount in the city of Jerusalem. I also believe that Enoch will be the second of those witnesses. Enoch was a Gentile, and Elijah was a Jew; these are the two people groups that will be on the Earth after the Rapture when the church is taken up into the heavenlies. Only Gentiles and Jews will be here. The witnesses will be testifying of what they saw. I believe that the two men in white apparel in Luke 24:1-4 were Elijah and Enoch, standing by the gravesite. They saw Jesus Christ resurrected from the dead. When the three Marys came to the empty tomb, the two men said that Jesus was not there but had risen.
It also says that there were two men, not angels, in white apparel, standing at the Mount of Olives when Jesus Christ ascended into the heavenlies. They said to the disciples, why are you standing here, gazing into heaven; He is gone and will come again one day. I believe that this is what the two witnesses will be testifying to. A witness gives testimony of what he or she has seen. They saw the resurrection of Christ and His ascension into heaven. Their message from the Temple Mount for the first three and half years of the Tribulation Period will be that Jesus Christ did die for you, that He will save you if you admit that you are a sinner, that He did die and rise from the dead, and that He will save you if you call upon Him. The first results will be the 144,000 male virgin Jews (Revelation 7:4-8), and they will go across the world, preaching the gospel of the kingdom as well.
Jimmy DeYoung was a prophecy teacher and journalist who travelled the country and the world educating the Body of Christ of the future events foretold in God’s prophetic Word. His goal was to equip Christians with the knowledge and understanding of what God’s Word says will happen someday soon, so that they can make better decisions today. Dr. DeYoung went home to be with his Savior on August 15, 2021.
