Malachi 2:1-9

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Intro:

This morning we are going to cover the second half of this second disputation speech here in the book of Malachi. As you hopefully noted as Jake read we are going to again be looking at the priests as Malachi continues to address these men seeking to, as we will see, move them to repentance and to take seriously the calling that had been given to them as priests of God.
Its important for us to review a bit just to remember how we got to where we are. This section starts there in verse 1 by saying, “And now, O priests, this command is for you.” So as you can tell from that statement we are linking what is going to come next here with what has been said already. “And now...” In other words, in light of where we stand as a result of what I have just said I now have a command for you.
So If you recall for a moment our time a couple of weeks ago in chapter 1:6-14 we saw that the major issue was that these priests had become severely spiritually apathetic. So apathetic that they gave little thought to the carrying out of their responsibilities, primary their responsibility to guard the Lord’s alter and only allow clean unblemished animals to be sacrificed there.
These priests were accepting all kinds of less than perfect sacrifices.
Got a blind sheep, this is your alter, lame lamb, we have a place for you, sick goat, bring it on. Blind, lame, sick, these weren't just semi-blemished animals these were animals that were so poor that Malachi has told the people they would be ashamed to present these things to their governors and yet they don't hesitate to bring them to God.
Now we saw that this was likely the result of dual falsehoods they had believed about the nature of sacrifice. We wont re preach the whole thing but in short these people were showing, first, that they had a transactional view of sacrifice. That they only needed to offer a sacrifice that was good enough for what they wanted to get from God. They also likely thought that God really hadn't done much for them lately and that until God stepped it up on His end they weren't going to continue making much of an effort on theirs.
Now we showed is totally wrong because we as fallen sinful creatures can never hope to force God hand or buy God’s favor. That sacrifices were given by the grace of God, that God in grace for this time had allowed this blood to temporarily cover them so that He could dwell with them and not totally consume them.
In addition to this they also show that they do not understand the substitutionary aspect of the sacrifice.
This was central to what we saw last time and we must ourselves understand this. You see when a sacrifice is offered is the death deserved by the person imputed to the sacrifice death but also the life of that sacrifice is substitute to the person. A thing that didn't deserve death Gets a death that we deserved and we who deserve death get the life that the sacrifice didn't deserve to loose. In this way you can see how a pure unblemished sacrifice is of paramount importance. A sacrifice that is anything less than perfect would only transfer its imperfections to us and leave us in the same condition as we were before the sacrifice, deserving of death!
In this way the demand for a pure sacrifice points us directly to Christ as the spotless lamb of God. In christ we find the full and complete fulfilment of what the blood of these unblemished lambs had always pointed to, we find the only person who has ever existed in human flesh who was totally sinless and thus not deserving of death and who never the less took upon Himself the death that we deserved and imputes to us His perfect life. Christ is our substitutionary sacrifice and so when these priests failed to insist on unblemished sacrifices they were not only showing dishonor to God but also jeopardizing this picture that God had ordained to point His people directly to His Son!
So now lets take a moment to pray and move into Chapter 2.

Pray & Read

There are three primary headings that we are going to trace through this passage.
1. First we are going to see the role that the priests were suppose to carry out and how it was that they got this role. 2. Then we are going to see how they had corrupted and compromised this role. 3. And lastly we are going to see the punishment that is going to result if they fail to heed this command.
Now this takes us right to the first thing. As we already mentioned there is a segue into this section there in verse 1 that talks about a command to the priests but the interesting thing is that if you read the verses that follow you would be hard pressed to really quote a specific command that is given. In reality this is because the command is drawn out from the text and the warnings that follow. The command is, essentially, that the priests heed the warnings that are given and return to faithfully carrying out their duties. That the priests turn from their spiritual apathy and embrace all that they have been called to as priests. This is why our first heading is the question of what is it that the priests were to do and how they got that responsibility.
Well there are several roles or duties mentioned here in the text and we will work our way through them in order. Keep in mind we aren't going to answer the other two headings yet so we aren't going to stop and look at the corresponding corruptions of these things just yet and we aren't going to see the threatened punishments, but we will come back and trace those as well.

Honor God’s Name

Now starting at the top we see first that the priests were to “give honor to God’s name.” We see this in verse 2. Specifically we read:

if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says

Now we need to understand exactly what the priests were to be doing here. This is given in the negative “will not take it to heart” but we can assume that the opposite is thus supposed to be taking place. In other words the job of a priest was to take it to heart, to take to heart the things that they heard, you see how listening to the Lord is right there, so they are to take to heart the things they have heard from the Lord and thus give honor to His name.
Now we need to understand take it to heart. One of the difficulties that we have is that in our western terminology the heart is the seat of the emotions. When we say that you took something to heart it typically implies emotion. The heart for us is the seat of emotion. In fact when I asked Chat GPT what it means to take something to heart even this computer AI said “it means you were deeply affected by it, often emotionally. It implies that the words, advice, or criticism resonated with you on a personal level, leading you to reflect on them seriously or internalize them.”
Now in the Hebrew the heart is not the seat of the emotions. That would be the bowels, I know that doesn't fit quite as well on a Hallmark card, but its true. One Commentator summed it up well:
Haggai, Malachi (1) Curse against the Priests (2:1–4)

The word “heart” (lēb / lēbāb) denotes in Hebrew what may be called the command center of a person’s life, where knowledge is collected and considered and where decisions and plans are made that determine the direction of one’s life

In other words this has a lot less to do with emotionally receiving what these priests hear from God, it actually has nothing to do with that, it is all about their taking the knowledge that they have recieved from God and imputing it into the command center of their life and then determining their course of action based on that!
We need to pause here and just say that this is not something that only a priest should do! Many many Christians get hung up in the pursuit of a certain feeling or emotion, in fact if worship and preaching doesn't elicit an emotional repose they are quick to move on. However there is a caution here, the true driver of the life of a follower of Christ is not emotion but rather a reasoned response to understanding the word of God, considering it and trusting in it as faithful and then determining to live your life based on it.
Now there is nothing wrong with feeling emotions in worship or in a sermon or in your own quiet times. We are to love God and God has so made our hearts and minds so that we can be moved to tears and joy and great emotional depths when we behold the glory and beauty and wonder of God. Grace and I were talking about the majesty of God that we saw in the colors of the sunsets and sunrises this week and I can tell you that there was more than just reason going on in my heart or I guess my bowels and my mind.
However, this honoring of God that we see here flows from a careful consideration of God’s words and a determination to live your life based on what you find there. We honor God by making what we hear from Him, and we hear from Him in His word, we make what we hear from Him the primary thing that drives the course of our life.
It was the priests job therefore to be an example of this, to be a person whose life exemplified what it means to live your life based on the word of God!

Blessings:

Now the next thing that we see is that the priests were to give blessings to the people. We see also in verse 2 that the priests were to be the ones who uttered blessings over the people. This is what it means when God says I will curse your blessings. I believe He is talking about the blessings that the priests were to say over the people.
We will see more on how the priests got this role shortly but we read of the tribe of Levi in Deuteronomy 10 that:

8 At that time the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the LORD to stand before the LORD to minister to him and to bless in his name, to this day.

We also see in Numbers 6 that:

22 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 23 “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,

24  The LORD bless you and keep you;

25  the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

26  the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

27 “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

The priest as men who lived their lives in accordance with the word of God were given this wonderful role of speaking the blessings of God over God’s people!
We also see as we have already considered that obviously a role of the priests was to offer sacrifices. We see this in verse three because we see some scatological remarks about the blemished sacrifices they were offering and the judgement that will result from that but obviously we know that it was a priests job to guard the Lord’s alter and to allow only unblemished offerings on it.

Fear and Awe

We also see similar to the first point that the priest was to be one who feared the lord and stood in awe of His name. We see this in verse 5.
I include these though separately from the honoring of God in verse 2 because I think it is important for us to see that those who are spiritual leaders have better be those who understand what it is to fear the Lord and to stand in awe of Him. Again, as the priest did this they were to thus be an example to the people in it.
In our day there are a lot of preachers who can get up front of a crowd of people and keep them entertained and maybe even teach them some good stuff however in many cases when you hear these popular preachers you don’t get a sense that they have an awe and a reverence for God; and It doesn't have to be these mega church guys either, even leaders in small churches can fall into the trap of trying to make God seem more human and more approachable, more hip or what ever it is. Jake and I have mentioned before likely about hearing a pastor talk about the burning bush as a story about kicking off your shoes and chilling with God. An effort to make God seem approachable!
When we seek to make God seem more approachable we fail to understand that He is not approachable at all! That’s right, the Bible says that our God is a consuming fire! 1 Timothy 6 tells us:

he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

God is not approachable and indeed can not be approached by sinful man. God is holy and we are not, we could not bear to stand in his presence for even a second, we would be immediately consumed.
This is the majesty and mystery of the cross, You see while we can not approach God on our own merits we have been granted access to God through the blood of His Son! Only those who have tasted of the Fear of the Lord and know what it is to stand in awe of His name will be able to express the magnificence of the Grace of God that allows us to draw near to Him through the grace of the cross of Jesus!
Just as a preacher today must be able to express that fear and awe to his people so also these priests were to be well versed in this in relation to their roles as mediators of that old covenant and those who offered those sacrifices on behalf of the people. A priest that had truly tasted the fear of the Lord and who stood in awe of His name could not even fathom bringing a blemished offering! How could they dare!

Instruction:

We see next in verses 6 and 7 that a priest was to be an instructor. We see true instruction in His mouth. We see him turning people from iniquity. We see his lips guarding knowledge and we see the people seeking instruction from his mouth.
We saw this in our messages over the summer when we talked about the OT foundations for the preaching ministry in the church. We saw that God had provided not just one family who were to be the priests but a whole tribe of people who were not given a land specifically so they would be scattered among the people and were responsible for teaching and instructing the people. This is where the local synagogue developed. Levites who were not members of the priestly family who never the less were responsible for understanding the word of God and instructing the people.
Now I also think we need to understand what is meant there by guarding knowledge in verse 7:

7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and

There the word carries the implication of preserving but also of obeying. In other words its not just that the priest is someone who teaches the right things but is also the person who practices that which they preach. Not only do they study the law and seek to understand it clearly but they also put it into practice in their own lives.
This is why the people were to seek instruction from them. They not only understood the word of God and could teach it but they also lived it out.
We see similar standards for elders of the church in the NT. You could summarize the requirements that we find in the pastoral epistles of Timothy and Titus as an elder is to be someone who understand the word, can teach and preach the Word, and who is committed to living faithfully to the word. These are the types of people that are to be sough out as leaders in churches and these are the types of people that the priests were to be.
So we see these priests were to honor God’s name by walking in accordance with His word in their hearts, they were to bless the people with priestly blessings, they were to offer pure sacrifices and guard the alter, they were to have a fear of God and an awe for His name, and they were to live out the instructions that they provided to the people and so be guardian of the knowledge of God for the people.

Covenant

Now we need to ask though how it was that these men got this job. You see several times in this passage a reference to the covenant of Levi. (4,5 &8)
Now this is interesting because we don't actually fin a specific covenant with Levi even though it is mentioned a few other times in scripture. So lets consider a moment how these people got this role and what we might be able to learn from that.
First, we have to note that priest and Levite are used pretty interchangeably though while all priests were Levites not all Levites were priests.
We should also note that when we read of this covenant with Levi in verse 4 and 5 that its not talking specifically about the patriarch Levi the father of the tribe.
That Levi was actually one of two sons of Jacob who were chastised by their father for killing all of the men of Shechem because of what had been done to their sister Dinah. And so we find that Jacob kind of curses them when the blessings are given to his sons at the end of his lie in Genesis 49.

5  “Simeon and Levi are brothers;

weapons of violence are their swords.

6  Let my soul come not into their council;

O my glory, be not joined to their company.

For in their anger they killed men,

and in their willfulness they hamstrung oxen.

7  Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce,

and their wrath, for it is cruel!

I will divide them in Jacob

and scatter them in Israel.

And so we do indeed find that Simeon is sort of absorbed into Judah and doesn't really get much cred as a tribe in Israel and are even left out of certain passages that sum up the tribes, but what about Levi. We we do find that they wind up scattered amongst their brothers but they don't fade out of sight like Simeon does so what happens why do they get the role of being the priests and instructors of their brothers?
Well we have to turn to Exodus 32 and the story of the golden calf. We read there:

25 And when Moses saw that the people had broken loose (for Aaron had let them break loose, to the derision of their enemies), 26 then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Who is on the LORD’s side? Come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered around him. 27 And he said to them, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.’ ” 28 And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. And that day about three thousand men of the people fell. 29 And Moses said, “Today you have been ordained for the service of the LORD, each one at the cost of his son and of his brother, so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day.”

Because of their faithfulness here and standing with Moses they are redeemed you might say from their curse and we find that God actually uses this curse as a part of His plan to place amongst the people a tribe dedicated to teaching and instructing them!
This is likely the covenant that is referenced, this covenant or ordination to God service which is then further enhanced when Phineas shows zeal for the Lord in Numbers 25 and kills the man and the Midianite woman he is fornicating with and stops the plague that God had sent on Israel. Here we find because of his zeal his line is chosen to carry on the high priesthood.
So this covenant was not made with Levi the patriarch but there are been Levites that have exemplified exactly the kinds of things this passage is commanding these priests to do and be.
These men should have known these things and understood them but they have failed to live up to their calling and so the next thing we consider is their corruption.

Messenger

However, quickly before we move on to that we need to see one last thing. Note there at the end of verse 7 that the priest is said to be a messenger of the Lord of Host. Now one of the key components of Malachi is going to be this promise of this coming messenger and another messenger who is going to go before Him and we will see that this is obviously a messianic hope, that Malachi is going to add to and reiterate the messianic hopes that there is a coming leader who is going to bring God’s cleansing fire to the people.
Now it is interesting that the priests are called God’s messengers here. I don't believe that Malachi is erasing the division between the prophet and priest, though the prophets are those typically thought of as messengers. What I believe Malachi is doing is drawing a connection between what these priests were to do and be and this coming messiah. In other words these priests in their office and role as priest were to be a type of the messenger who is to come.
It is interesting to see here just as we saw in Zechariah chapter 3 where Joshua the High Priest is crowned in a vision and we see this mingling of the messianic hopes of Kingship with the role of the priest. One of the reasons therefore that the priests were to be committed to faithfully carrying out their duties was that they, in faithfully executing their offices, pointed to the great High Priest, the Messiah, this Messenger who was to come!

Corruption

For our second thread we don't need to spend a lot of time on the corruption of their office. I think we can see how they have grown corrupt.
We know they are not honoring God, they are not living out the word He has revealed to them. We see that their blessings are actually curses. Now this is not that they are actually cursing the people but rather that when they proclaim the blessings that they were to proclaim in the course of sacrifices but those sacrifices are these blemished impure sacrifices that God in turn changes those blessings into curses. God says “I will curse your blessings.”
There is again here a caution for us. There are preachers who might say the right things, might speak you could say the right blessings. These priests for sure would have known the exact right words and would have used them. However, because they were also living spiritually apathetic lives and allowing the people to worship in ways that were not right and pure through these blemished sacrifices. God actively works to turn their blessings into curses!
We also see that their instruction was corrupted.

8 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, 9 and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction.”

This is the ultimate root of the whole thing. If these priests had not been neglecting the instruction of the people then this whole thing with the sacrifices wouldn't have happened. If the priests had correctly understood the nature of sacrifice and the nature of God as a holy God and the grace that had been extended both to the people and to them as we have seen in redeeming them from their patriarch’s curse and actually making them the people responsible for the worship and instruction of the people then the people would not have been bringing these blemished sacrifices in the first place.
However these priests have broken the covenant by failing to live in accord with the word of God and to instruct and hold the people accountable to live that way as well.

Curse

God tells them that as a result of this He is going to curse them “IF” they will not heed His words.
This is a great comfort. God has not cast them off. Just as their fathers before the exile He is graciously warning them and seeking to move them to obedience.
However, this motivation is pretty severe.
We have already seen that Go dis going to curse their blessings.
But we also read:

3 Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it. 4

This is not a pretty picture and it is directly connects with the blemished sacrifices. When a sacrifice was made the internal digestive organs would be removed. Now the ESV has dung here and some commentators even go so far as to translate this as crap, hence my use of scatological, but what this is is the internal digestive organs that would have been put in a pile to the side of the alter and then carried out and burned. Even these spiritually apathetic priests would have acknowledged that this pile of crap was unclean. Well God says to them if you want to continue to offer these unclean offerings on my alter than I am going to show you just how unclean they are, I am going to splatter you with all of the filth that is taken out for them and then just like all that filth is carried out of the city and put in the dung pile so you also in your uncleanliness will be removed from my sight.
We also see at the end that:

You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts, 9 and so I make you despised and abased before all the people,

I think that this speak to the truth that false teachers, those whose instruction is not good and those who show partiality do not actually have any real respect from those over whom they presume to preside. In other words their lives aren't worthy of any honor and so they wont actually receive any honor from the people other than maybe some outward shows that don't actually represent what the people actually think of them.

Closing

And so we see:
The role that the priests were suppose to carry out and how it was that they got this role.
How they had corrupted and compromised this role.
And lastly w the punishment that is going to result if they fail to heed this command.
But how are we to apply this to our lives today. Well I think the biggest thing is what we have already considered. If you are a preacher or an elder then this is obviously a passage filled with warning. There are so many parallels that can be drawn between the priests and what they were responsible for and what the elder in a church is responsible for. Above all we have seen the need to be someone who Honors the Lord, who has tasted the fear of the Lord and who stands in awe of the name of the Lord. True instruction in God’s word ought to regularly bring our people into contact with these realities.
However there is also a consideration for the lay person in the seats. Seek out this type of leadership. Seek out churches where the Word of God is taught fully and clearly. Don’t chase emotional experiences don't ask what can this church do for me. Seek a place where true instruction is found and where the leaders of the church are shepherding the people in the fear and awe of the Lord. (We seek to be this)
There is also a great need, and this might sound a bit selfish here, but there is a great need to be in prayer for your church elders. You see one of the reasons why these priests had grown so spiritually apathetic is because they were under constant attach from Satan.
We see a glimpse of this in Zechariah 3 which we mentioned earlier where the high priest Joshua is crowned in a dream but in that same dream we read:

Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.

Satan loves to see spiritual leaders fall, You don't have to look any farther that the situation recently with Steven Lawson and so many others. Those who lead churches are under constant attack and so there is a great need to be in prayer for those who have been given charge of the spiritual care of your souls that they might persevere in living the life that is required of a leader.
Seek these types of churches and then pray earnestly that God might keep your elders in His care and guard them from the attacks of Satan.
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