Malachi Chapter 2 And as we have read in Malachi chapter one, we
really read a hard text. This is an indictment.
This is a charge against the priest.
So today we read the second discourse of this charge against
Israel. Read with me these hard words,
these weighty words that also have a different and a hard kind
of language, and I think you'll get a sense as we read this text
together. So from verse one, and now all
priests, this command is for you.
If you will not listen, if you will not take it too hard to
give honor to my name, says the Lord of Hosts, then I will send
the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings.
Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it
to heart. Behold, I will rebuke your
offspring and spread dung on your faces.
Ouch the dung of of your offerings, and you shall be
taken away with it. So shall you know that I have
sent this command to you, and my covenant with Levi may stand,
says the Lord of Host. My covenant with him was one of
life and peace, and I gave them to him.
It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me.
He stood in all of my name through instruction was in his
mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips.
He walked with me in peace and in uprightness.
He turned many from iniquity, for the lips of a priest should
guard knowledge and people should seek instruction from his
mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts.
But you have turned aside from the way you have caused many to
stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant
of Levi, says the Lord of Hosts. And I will make you despised and
and abased because of because before all the people in as much
as you do not keep my ways, but show partiality in your
instruction. These are very hard words.
These are very weighty words. And my prayer is that we would
feel the weight of his words. And so for this message, we use
the same title, the worship of God, Part 2.
And we're going to look at this under 4 headings, the warning to
the priest from verse one to verse 3, God's covenant with
Levi from verse 4 to verse 5, through instruction from verse 6
to verse 7. God's charge against the priest
in verse 8 and verse 9, as we have read the first discourse in
two weeks ago and the Lord being displeased by the priest and
being displeased, of course, by the offerings of the priest.
And we got that two weeks ago, that what we do in worship and
how we worship matters to God. And for those who were not here,
perhaps by a way of reminder that Malachi lived about 100
years after the Israelites had returned from return from the
Babylonian exile. And as you know, they were
living in Jerusalem. I think Hillary also touched
that at this point in time they were living in Jerusalem and
they rebuilt the temple. And this temple did not have the
same splendor as the Temple of Solomon.
It was a temple, but perhaps not in the same level as Solomon's
temple. And as they came back after
exile, they were they were coming back with a sense of
expectation. They had high expectations about
the promises God had made to them.
And it it is was their hope and their prayer that God in his
grace would fulfill all of those promises that indeed they will
see peace, they will see justice, but also they will see
the Messiah who would come and set up his Kingdom of peace and
justice. So they were hanging on to the
promises of God prophesied by Haggai, but also by Zechariah
and others. For example, in Haggai chapter 2
verse 7, it says, I will shake all nations, and what is desired
by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,
says the Lord Almighty. The glory of this house will be
greater than the glory of the former house, says the Lord
Almighty. And in this place I will grant
peace, declares the Lord. And so the Israelites are really
waiting for these promises of God.
And they begin to wonder, if God has promised us this, why are we
then not receiving or getting what God has promised to us?
And they are going through injustice, but also they are
going through poverty. And surely having come out of
exile, they know that they they have expectations that surely
God, we want to see prosperity in our time.
And this seems to be a contradiction to them, that
Lord, you've taken us out and yet we don't see the prosperity
that we have promised. Instead we are seeing violence
and poverty and injustice. To the mind of the Israelites at
this point in time, it seems as though God has defaulted on his
promises. To them it seems as though God
is not working, or God is not working for their good, or God
is not delivering according to his promises.
The Israelites in one sense are saying to God, we have done our
part, and now it is time for you, God, to do your part.
If you promised us all of these good things, why are we then not
seeing them? It is as though God is not
absent, or God has abandoned his own people.
Who has neglected his own people, the people of God.
Perhaps at this point in time, Phil sense of anger, maybe even
bitter, because if God has promised something, why doesn't
he fulfill it? And I think us too, we can feel
the same way as this Israelites. If God has spoken something has
said something and we don't see it come through, there is a
sense in which we feel angry, we feel bitter and we actually be
also be impatient. So when you feel you should be
in the advanced stage of your life and advancing in life and
that is not happening, there's a sense in which you feel bitter
when life is not going according to your plan, your schedule,
that the sense in which you get angry as though God, why do why
don't I have what I prayed for, what I longed for, what you know
that I need? And yet God, it seems as though
your eyes are looking elsewhere. When we feel as though we are
not getting what we deserve, God, surely we deserve this God
I have done. I've been a faithful believer.
I come to church every Sunday. I serve in the youth, I serve in
the worship in the band. I do all of these things.
Surely, God, you should be opening all these doors for me.
And yet it may feel as though the doors are shut.
The Israelites are thinking about the promises of God, and
yet it seems God is not acting according to their schedule and
according to their calendar. And we too may feel the same.
The psalmist knows something about this.
For in Psalm 73, verse 2, quite an interesting Psalm, the
psalmist recalls a time when his feet almost stumble and he says
my step had nearly slipped. Why?
Because I was envious of the arrogant.
His envy was fuelled by the fact that he saw the prosperity of
the wicked. Is that quite interesting that
he sees all of the citizens, though the wicked are
prospering, the wicked are doing so well.
And the question the psalmist is asking, what about me?
How can ungodly people prosper? And I don't prosper.
And he says because of this, my own feet nearly slipped because
the arrogant is prosper, prospering.
These are the things in which we also perhaps wrestle with, and I
believe the people of Israel we're wrestling with.
And I think often we look at what God has not given us
instead of looking at what God has given us.
If you were to sit at home after church this morning and start to
count your blessings, instead of in terms of what the Lord has
given you, how the Lord has been gracious and merciful and kind
to you, Can I say to you, you may be surprised of what the
Lord has given you? Perhaps we need to shift our way
of thinking and look at what God has instead of what God has not
done. The Israelites at this point in
time, they is it as though their own expectations have not been
met. And at times when our own
expectations are not met, we can doubt God's love, but also we
can doubt God's shepherding care as though God does not care.
And to some extent that may lead to bitterness.
That is why church I I do not like.
I'm trying to use a, a, a, a church word here.
I do not like the prosperity gospel because it over promises
and it under delivers and it will leave you with so many
disappointments that if you do this, you're going to get this,
you'll be wealthy. God's going to give you all of
this thing. That's not Christianity, that's
paganism. That's not what the text says.
As you look at the life of Jesus and look at the life of the
apostles, he does not always promise health, wealth and
happiness doesn't. And sometimes he does promise
suffering for those who believe in him.
Therefore, let us not allow temporary circumstances to cloud
our judgment or to cloud our view of the sovereignty of God.
And so God says to them, guys, if you don't obey, guess what
I'm going to do? I'm going to curse you.
If you don't obey me, I'm going to curse you.
Here in this text we are not questioning God's love for
Israel because we know from verse one to verse 5 God loves
Israel. What is in question here is
Israel's love for God. They indeed have forgotten.
Be reminded when we looked at chapter one that at this point
in time they are taking the Lord's name in vain.
They are bringing the worst instead of bringing God the
best. They're bringing some kind of
cheap worship, half hearted worship, a some form of
ritualistic kind of worship with no sense of awe or devotion to
God. The Bible tells us that they
kept the best offerings and gave God the cheap ones.
They kept the best for a nice bride and BBQ and gave God a
lame and diseased and defiled animals that that is the worst
kind of worship they gave to God.
Not only that, they cheated God and deceived God.
In other words, their heart and their attitude was not in the
right place. And God says to them, guys, what
you give to me, you wouldn't even give to an ordinary Persian
ruler. You wouldn't give this to a
governor. Why would you give me this kind
of defiled, polluted offering? And the Lord says to them in
verse 1, chapter one, verse 6, you are despising my name.
And it says in chapter 10 a he says, shut the doors.
In other words, let's close the temple because of your defiled
worship. I cannot take it any longer what
you are giving me. Let's shut the temple and close
shop. That is it, because they failed
to meet God's standard for worship, because again, what
they were doing was a picture and a shadow of a type of giving
the Father would give as He offers His Son for our
salvation. Therefore, they were to do it
right, to bring a perfect lamb, an unblemished lamb before the
Lord. Now notice the first indictment,
the first warning to the priest, the Lord from verse one to verse
three. He, he charges Israel for their
failure to administer worship and to teach, excuse me, and to
teach God's law. They have misapplied the laws of
God and Jesus, and God announces the consequences for misapplying
his laws. Notice what he says.
I'm going to curse your blessings.
Even that language is quite difficult to understand.
I'm going to curse your blessings and as you read the
text further from verse 2C, it seems the Lord has already done
it that I'm going to curse your blessings.
Now we must remember that one of the role of the priest was to
bless and the priest would say in numbers chapter 6, may the
Lord make his face to what to shine upon you.
It is as though the Lord is shutting the mouth of the priest
that you no longer want to bless anyone.
Instead, I'm going to curse your blessing, the privilege of
blessing priest. I have taken it away.
You no longer going to bless, I'm rather going to curse.
In other words, God's judgment, God's punishment has now begun
because the lives of this priest are marked by failure as they
fail to honor the Lord. And the Lord says, then I'm
going to do 2 things. Notice the first one he says I'm
going to it's quite an interesting when you read verse
2, verse 3, depending on the biblical on the translation that
you're reading. So if you read chapter 2, verse
3, the word it was ever saying offspring.
The NSAB will say an offspring. The ESV will say an offspring.
The NIV, I think will say an offspring.
The New King James Version will use a slightly different word in
the Hebrew. They will use the word seed.
Now how we ought to understand this verse, It could be
understand in two ways. Either God in his judgment will
deal with the offspring of the priest, but also he will deal
with their resource, in other words, their seeds and their
resources and their crops because that's how the priest
survives. But I do lean towards the ESV
and NSAV that it seems to be in the context that the word
offspring because the NSA V uses the word descendants, which is
quite close to the word being used by the ESV.
Whatever the case may be, what is clear here, God is going to
deal with the offspring. God is also going to deal with
their resources. And so God seems to say that the
disobedience of the priest is not only going to affect them,
it is also going to affect their children.
Not only their children. If we use the King James
Version, it may affect their resources.
It means their seeds and their crops.
It is quite interesting here that God is not only judging the
the the priest is judging their offspring that will come after.
Now in the language of the New Testament, we know of course
that children don't carry the sins of their fathers.
We we know that in New Testament.
However, I do think when we look at the New Testament pattern
that there are certain sins and in which we do that at times
might, might affect our families, but also affected the
community. Now, I thought about when when
you read the Bible, you read the New Testament.
For example, in First Corinthians chapter 5, there is
a man who does something that shocks Paul.
Here in the writing of his letter.
This man is having a relationship with his stepmom.
I mean, think about that. He's taking his father's wife,
his stepmother, and he's having a relationship with his
stepmother. The Apostle Paul is hard towards
this man. He says deliver this guy to
Satan. That's what I want you to do,
deliver this man to Satan with the hope that perhaps this kind,
this man would repent. Now that kind of sin did not
only affect him as an individual.
It affected probably his father family, but also likely it
affected the congregation hands. The Apostle Paul must deal with
it to deliver this man to Satan. There are sins, there are things
that we do that do affect those around us in a negative way.
Perhaps for some of us it could be gambling when you work and
spend your money at a casino somewhere, or whatever the case,
it could be an addiction, it could be immorality, it could be
abuse, whatever that could be. It will not only affect you, but
it will also affect those around you.
And God says what the priests have done is not only going to
affect them, but it's only going to affect their children.
In the order of the Old Covenant, or when the Puritan
puts it this way, sin doesn't sit quietly.
It is always trying to get you to do wrong.
Even when things seem calm, sin is working on the inside.
It whispers things like it's not that bad, no one will know just
this once. Sin always wants to be the boss
of your heart Church. The flesh is always hungry.
It never has its feel. It never says it's enough now it
always wants more. Not only that, the text says, it
says I will spread dung on your faces.
Now that's quite difficult Language.
You think, Oh God, that's quite strong language that the Lord is
using. Yeah, the Lord is using a strong
language because this is a rebuke.
The Lord is not happy and uses a very strong language to show
through the prophet Malachi that I am not happy with my people.
And in the Hebrew it must be understood that often when the
priest would sacrifice animals, they would take the inside
organs of the animals they are sacrifices and take all of those
organs out and put them outside of the gate of the city because
they were seen as unclean. So in the Hebrew, that's what in
fact that word down means. It is as though the the the
insides of the animals have been taken out because they cannot be
in the temple, which is a holy place.
They must be outside of the temple with the other unholy
things. Simply God is saying to the
priest, when I was I was spread down on your faces, is that you
will be unfit for ministry. I have no use for you anymore.
That's a strong. Language.
In other words, you are unclean. This is judgment.
This is the Lord's judgment. Of course, we know the Lord
wants to bless his people. He desires to bless his people
only if they obey. And in this case it is clear
they're not obeying. And God says, well you are
unfit. I will spread the number 2 God's
covenant with Levi, said I'll make my covenant with Levi.
As you read about Levi and the covenant God had made with Levi
is that the priest were entrusted with a huge
responsibility. Even those who will come from
Aaron. We know that the priest were
coming from the tribe of Levi's. We know Moses was a Levi, Miriam
was a Levi, and Aaron was also a Levi.
We know they had to meet a certain qualifications.
For example, they also had to have certain physique in order
to be a priest. When we read #4 advertised
Numbers 8, there is a sense in which they are the the age of
the priest is slightly different.
I think there's a reason for that.
One says the age of the priest it should be 25.
I think in Numbers 8 it said it should be 30 and I think that
should be seen. It's not a contradiction.
It would seem that the five years you are working as an
apprentice, in other words, you're not ready, you're still
being trained at 30. You are a fully fledged priest.
So it's not a contradiction of ages.
Others would think it is. And this priest were not to
curse. But also God is reminding them
that I made a covenant of peace and love with Levi and the and
the kind of priests there were to be the according to the order
of Levi, there were to be men who feared the Lord.
You see the language in from verse 5 to 445.
There were men who was to fear the Lord.
They were to live in all of the covenant of faithfulness to God.
Their lives were marked by uprightness.
They walked in integrity before the Lord.
These were shepherds of Israel. They were to lead God's people
in worship, but also in the sacrificial system.
In other words, according to the order of Levi, they had to be an
example and model to the Israelites what it meant to be
faithful. As you can see from verse 6, he
walked in peace and in uprightness.
God says this is what is ideally you should be doing because I
this was the kind of covenant I had with Levi.
But you guys, I don't know what you're doing.
This is this is what I made with covenant I made with Liva.
You're supposed to be this way. And so God is not happy with the
priest at all here. He's saying ideally that's how
you should be because when I made this covenant, it was a
covenant of peace. It was a covenant of life for
you to work uprightness before my sight.
For us who lead people, and you have a responsibility to lead in
any area, I want to say to you, our devotion to God as leaders
is important. Our faithfulness to God not only
in public but also in private is important.
Can we feel the weight of that? God tells them the idea who we
are as leaders is important because Why is this important?
Because in chapter 1 verse 7, it reminds us that they offer
polluted food. In other words, even though the
priesthood knew what they were doing was wrong, they did not
stop. They kept on offering that which
was blind, lame, and sick. The danger is here that often we
can do things because we know how to do them and has mastered
the art of doing them. And yet our own devotion, our
own heart, is far away from God. That's the danger.
You can learn to prepare a sermon in 30 minutes.
That may not mean anything to your own heart.
That's the danger for Eric and for you.
It may be something else. We can be biblically sound and
yet be lukewarm. Our service can be religious
instead of true pursuit of His glory.
We are too in danger. I love the words of the old
hymn. Prone to 1.
The Lord I feel it. Prone to live the God I love.
Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it.
Seal it for thy courts above. We too are in danger.
Church, I want you to notice something here.
The word of God does not downplay the word fear in verse
five. It was my covenant of fear.
And often we, we, we want to downplay the the righteousness
of God, the judgment of God. I don't know why the fear of God
and the judgment of God. I know the contradiction to
grace by this. There's a sense that sometimes
we want to minimize and downplay judgment as though it is a
mistranslation. It is not a mistranslation.
It is the fear of the Lord. Someone quoted this morning at
the prayer meeting, I think today.
Yeah, someone quoted this verse. The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom. I think it was purse.
In fact, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
This is the kind of fear where we are filled with righteous
fear. We are filled with awe.
We are filled with respect and honour for the law.
That's all it means. We must feel the weight of these
words as we strive to walk in a manner that is worthy of Our
Calling. It is a covenant of fear #3 it
is a covenant of true instruction.
Notice what God tells them as their task is to give
instruction. In other words, the priests were
called to teach accurately, impartially and compassionately
to teach the laws of God to God's people in the Toronto me
Sabah 33 verse 10, it says he teaches your precept to Jacob
and your Lord to Israel. He offers incest before you and
hope and offerings on your outer In other words, the the the the
priest where the custodians of doctrine.
They were to guard doctrine. They were to instruct according
to the law. They were supposed to teach
Julian diligently and guard the law of God according to verse 2,
verse 7 a they were to preserve the truth of God.
These men were the mediators between Israel and God.
And notice verse 6 quite hard what we see there in verse 6.
Many tend in iniquity. He turned many in iniquity.
In other words, the priest, instead of doing what has been
described as the ideal in the previous verses, in verse 4 and
verse 5, they turned many, many into iniquity.
They were unfaithful in leading the people of Israel.
Can I remind you and remind myself this morning that yours
and my faithfulness is often an encouragement to others.
You may not know that, but there are other people when they look
at your life, it becomes a source of encouragement to them
and in their Christian walk. And I want to say to you,
continue walking, continue being faithful because the priest,
they turn people away. They they turn them towards
other things instead of turning them towards God.
They misused their position of authority.
Our faithfulness matters to God. God can use us as instruments to
bring others to their faith, but also God can use us to turn
others to their destructive behaviors.
They are given authority to teach that, given authority to
instruct church. Let me remind you again, in the
New Testament, there is a warning in the New Testament in
James 1/3, it says not many of you should become teachers, my
fellow believers, because you know that though we who teach
will be judged more strictly, New Testament, I will be judged
most strictly. Laura, Hillary, Ryan, Stefan,
not sure I'm forgetting. Oh, we're going to get a hiding.
We're going to be judged more strictly by the Lord because we
have a responsibility to instruct and to teach truth to
God's people. And if we don't do that, the
Lord will judge us. It is clear here.
It's clear. Therefore it says don't rush to
do this. Don't rush.
Listen, I want to No, no, no. It says, not many of you should
do this, many of you, because you will be judged.
Why is that the case? Because the high calling of the
church depends on the preaching and the proclamation of the Word
of God. These are the words of life.
Let's be reminded, church, that the mark of the true church is
not similar to read stories on a Sunday, but the true mark of the
church and the centrality of the church is the preaching of the
gospel. It is the preaching of God's
Word, verse by verse, exposition after exposition, Sunday after
Sunday. That is the calling of the
church, expounding God's Word. And therefore those who are
given such a calling, they do not run away from hard texts and
say, oh Lord, I can't preach about this.
You, this is hard. No, no, no, no.
Those who are called by God, they take heed of X20 verse 27.
I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole council of God.
We teach everything from the Holy Scriptures, including those
that offend us as preachers and those may offend you as a
listener because the Lord may be pruning us and dealing with our
own sin and the sin that's in our hearts.
Therefore, This is why, again, this is important because they
were the messengers. Notice there the seven P.
They are the messengers of the Lord of hosts.
In other words, a messenger did not write the script the
messenger delivered. That's all they do.
Therefore, our brothers and sisters, we do not tamper with
the message of the scriptures. We do not change the message of
the scripture to appeal to the culture because it will offend.
No, no, we stand upon the Word of God.
We say solar scriptura totas septura.
So we do otherwise, then we're not meant to be doing that.
We are the messengers. We are sent by the Lord to do
this. Therefore we don't misuse it.
We do our best humbly, so humbly.
So with the Lord's help, we're trembling and with fear.
I was talking to a group of pastors this this week and and
one guy had said something about preparing as someone and he
says, guys, it's so hard to prepare someone.
That's what he says. A good friend says God, it's so
hard to prepare as someone and and I could feel it when he says
that because it's true. It is not easy enough to feel
pastor after pastor commenting guys, this is hard to do.
It is not easy to do it because the Lord deals with you, but
also you want to be faithful in delivering.
You don't want to tamper with the word.
So you're always asking Lord, help me to do this well with all
humility and with all wisdom that it may be of good to my
soul, but also of benefit to your people.
We are called to teach the law of God for the sake of God's
people, but also for the fame of His law.
Point #4 Our last point, verse 8 and verse 9.
Again, this is a a rebuke. It is seems as though these
priests have fallen. Notice that indictment, but you
have turned from the way and by and your teaching have caused
many to stumble. You have violated the covenant
of Levi. You that good covenant in verse
4 and verse 5. You priests have violated that
covenant. Malachi is pointing out to the
priest you have broken the covenant with God.
The word King James uses the word departed instead of turn.
So use the word departed. The NIV sticks to the word turn.
But I think they're both goods word other words you have
departed from the way of righteousness or you have turn
from the way of righteousness. In other words, now please, your
life is marked by ungodliness. You did not meet the obligations
as prescribed in your office. You I love again the the the ESV
and the new King James Version would say you have desecrated
you have violated the covenant with God.
Why? Because you have not you have
shown partiality in the matters of the law.
In other words, you have perverted justice.
You were selfish. This was a gross violation of
Leviticus 19 verse 15. They showed favoritism.
Now this priest, at some point perhaps they did walk upright
with the Lord. In this text, it is clear they
have now turned away from the Lord.
I want to share with you just a quick story of a church I used
to be part of before we planted FPC.
And about 200 meters from our church, there was a church being
led by, by a very was, was a good guy, was a nice man, a very
charismatic, a very educated guy.
I'm a wordsmith, very clever guy.
And he's probably, he's probably now in his late 50s.
I think about, I think about his age about 2016.
He, he, he wrote the wrong article in the letter rather on
Facebook. I think it was a Facebook post,
but also it sort of attached a letter.
He says the following will probably put the quote up.
This was his words, Pastors Cosana, he says, I am.
I'm not able to continue for another 30 years to that kind of
devotion which is Christianity, for I cannot reconcile black
pain with Christianity. I apologize for pointing people
to the cross. Few years before he wrote a
book. You can actually find it on
Amazon. He wrote a book titled Despond
the White Church, and I'm talking about his books because
often we don't read only those we agree with.
We must read those we don't agree with that that's that's
what we do. Now I'm sharing this story, not
to make it out to be a bad guy, but here's the point I'm making.
In one of these other interviews, he says being a
pastor was a waste of my life. Leading people for 30 years was
the waste of it to such an extent that he apologized to his
congregation for having LED you to God.
He says. I cannot do this ever again.
Completely turn away happens. It happens that at times people
would walk with God and sometimes will shipwreck their
faith and no longer believe it happens.
They, they, they have a new way of thinking.
There's many other influences, black consciousness, you know,
liberation theology and all of these other influences.
So people do turn away and denounce their faith in Christ,
just like this priest who once walked and now this priest have
turned and turned away from God. Here's the point here, leaders,
We must do our best to lead by example.
We must do our best to warn God's people of his grace, but
also of his mercy of have his love.
But here's where I want to also go is to say to the church as
leaders, we need you to pray for us.
I beseech you. I, I beg you this morning, pray
for us. We too could tend back.
Pray for us. When they once asked Charles
Spurgeon what was the secret of his influential ministry,
Spurgeon responded. My people, pray for me.
Leaders need your prayers because leaders fail, but Jesus
remains the same. And I'm saying in closing, we
all have to look to Jesus, who is our greatest example.
He walked in all. He walked in reverence of the
Father, for He came to do the will of the Father.
He gave good instruction to the disciples, but also to everyone
who listened to him. He brought life and peace into
the soul, even though it was peace that would divide.
But also he led many to repentance.
He was the perfect priest. He was the perfect messenger who
did not compromise nor corrupt the word of God.
He did not show partiality. He never once violated the very
covenant of God. He walked in integrity and have
righted that He obeyed the will of the Father as the one who
would burn the curse on our behalf.
He took our shame and took our ridicule in order for us to
experience God's blessing. And so the Westminster showed
the Catechism asking this important question to which I
want to close. It asked the question, what is
the chief end of man? It answers that question.
The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him
forever. The purpose of man is to honor
God and to delight in Him forever.