Sermon Tone Analysis

Are the sins of Christian Leaders more grievous than the sins of others?

The curse causes them to be the opposite of what God’s intention is for them.

Are the sins of Christian Leaders more grievous than the sins of others?

The weight of public responsibility should have hindered their sin.

Also leading others to sin and stricter judgement.

Held to a higher standard.

Are you a victim of bad christian leadership?

What does God say to victims?

I hate ministerial hypocrisy 1000 more than you do and intend to spread dung on ministerial hypocrites.

Vengeance is mine, I will repay.

God loves you and hates it when his glory is profaned.

Good Leaders

Fear the Lord and stood in awe of his name (v.5)

does not listen/ take to heart/ or give honor to his name (v.2)

Through the priest God blesses his people with life and peace (v.5)

Because of a bed priest, the people are cursed (v.2) despised and abased before all the people (v.9)

True instruction is in his mouth, no wrong is found on his lips (v.6).

The lops of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is a messenger of the Lord of hosts.

(v.7)

show partiality in their instruction (v.9)

He walked with me in peace and uprightness (v.6)

turned aside from the way (v.8)

He turned many from iniquity (v.6)

You have caused many to stumble by your instruction.

You have corrupted the covenant of Levi (v.9)

How ministry is supposed to be:

Root: Fears God and stands in awe of his name (Contrast with verse 2)

Trunk: commitment to defend and proclaim the truth of God’s word.

Branches: Piety and holiness of the preacher, the life of devotion to God and the public life of righteousness in the preacher (v. 6)

Fruit: He turned many from iniquity - salvation from sin

Does our Worship Glorify God?

John Calvin:

There is no access to God for us or for our prayers until the priest, purging away our defilements, sanctify us, and obtain for us that favour of which the impurity of our lives and hearts deprives us...But since God under the Law ordered sacrifices of beasts to be offered to him, there was a different and new arrangement in regard to Christ—viz. that he should be at once victim and priest, because no other fit satisfaction for sin could be found...Christ now bears the office of priest...

For we though in ourselves polluted...offer ourselves and our all to God, and freely enter the heavenly sanctuary, so that the sacrifices of prayer and praise which we present are grateful and of sweet smell before him...

For being clothed with his holiness, inasmuch as he has devoted us to the Father with himself (otherwise we were an abomination before him), we please him as if we were pure and clean, nay, even sacred.

Es gibt keinen Zugang zu Gott für uns oder für unsere Gebete, bis der Priester, der unsere Verunreinigungen reinigt, uns heiligt und für uns die Gunst erwirkt, die uns die Unreinheit unseres Lebens und unseres Herzens vorenthält... Seit Gott aber unter dem Gesetz befahl, ihm Tieropfer darzubringen, gab es eine andere und neue Anordnung in Bezug auf Christus, nämlich dass er zugleich Opfer und Priester sein sollte, weil keine andere angemessene Satisfaktion für die Sünde gefunden werden konnte... Christus trägt nun das Amt des Priesters... Denn wir, die wir in uns selbst verunreinigt sind, bringen uns und alles, was wir haben, Gott dar und gehen frei in das himmlische Heiligtum ein, so dass die Gebets- und Lobopfer, die wir darbringen, dankbar und von süßem Geruch vor ihm sind ... Denn da wir mit seiner Heiligkeit bekleidet sind, da er uns mit sich selbst dem Vater geweiht hat (sonst wären wir ein Greuel vor ihm), gefallen wir ihm, als wären wir rein und sauber, ja sogar heilig.

Prayer:

John Piper: Oh God, grant that the glory of God, the word of God, and the righteousness of God would so fill this church that people will turn away from sin and receive the righteousness of God.

John Calvin: Grant, Almighty God that as you have been pleased to choose us at this day your priests, and have consecrated us to yourself by the blood of your only-begotten Son and through the grace of your Spirit, — O grant, that we may rightly and sincerely perform our duties to you, and be so devoted to you that your name may be really glorified in us; and may we be thus more and more confirmed in the hope of those promises by which you not only guide us through the course of this earthly life, but also invite us to thy celestial inheritance; and may Christ your Son so rule in us, that we may ever cleave to our head, and be gathered as his members into a participation of that eternal glory into which he has gone before us.

— Amen.

Schenke, allmächtiger Gott, dass du uns heute zu deinen Priestern erwählt hast und uns durch das Blut deines eingeborenen Sohnes und durch die Gnade deines Geistes dir geweiht hast, - schenke, dass wir unsere Pflichten dir gegenüber richtig und aufrichtig erfüllen und dir so ergeben sind, dass dein Name in uns wirklich verherrlicht wird; und dass wir so immer mehr in der Hoffnung auf die Verheißungen bestärkt werden, durch die du uns nicht nur durch den Lauf dieses irdischen Lebens leitest, sondern auch zu deinem himmlischen Erbe einlädst; und dass Christus, dein Sohn, so in uns herrsche, dass wir immer an unserem Haupt hängen und als seine Glieder in die Teilhabe an der ewigen Herrlichkeit aufgenommen werden, in die er uns vorausgegangen ist.

- Amen.