Malachi 2nd Disputation
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6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name. But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’ 7 By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the Lord’s table may be despised. 8 When you offer blind animals in sacrifice, is that not evil? And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil? Present that to your governor; will he accept you or show you favor? says the Lord of hosts. 9 And now entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious to us. With such a gift from your hand, will he show favor to any of you? says the Lord of hosts. 10 Oh that there were one among you who would shut the doors, that you might not kindle fire on my altar in vain! I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will not accept an offering from your hand. 11 For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts. 12 But you profane it when you say that the Lord’s table is polluted, and its fruit, that is, its food may be despised. 13 But you say, ‘What a weariness this is,’ and you snort at it, says the Lord of hosts. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from your hand? says the Lord. 14 Cursed be the cheat who has a male in his flock, and vows it, and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished. For I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.
1 “And now, O priests, this command is for you. 2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart 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. 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 So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the Lord of hosts. 5 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 awe of my name. 6 True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. 7 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. 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.”
Introduction
Book of Malachi.
The exiles have returned to their homeland from Babylon with the new reign of the Persian Emperor Cyrus with a declaration in 539 A.
Since their return the temple has been rebuilt, but it is now 80 years later and there is no sign of a glorious eternal kingdom of Israel. What happened to justicw and peace for all.
Malachi notes that they continue to be unfaithful to their God. After the exile they are no different than their ancestors. There hearts are still cold for God.
They know they are the chosen people of God, but they live life as though God is not in their midst.
"I know, I know—we are the chosen people. But once in a while, can't You choose someone else?" is from the musical Fiddler on the Roof. It's spoken by Tevye, the dairyman, who is lamenting the hardships and challenges faced by his community. The quote reflects a sense of yearning for a more equitable world and a desire for some relief from the burdens of being "chosen"
Malachi is a book of 6 disputations. God brings Malachi, his covenant prosecutor for God, to charge the people of their neglect of their Covenant God.
The first disputation ends on a high note that God still loves them through his covenant relationship.The first oracle ends with a statement about God’s greatness both in and beyond Israel.
In sharp contrast the second oracle addressed Israel’s failure to honor God properly in worship. Israel was supposed to love God wholeheartedly (Deut. 6:5) and to fear Him (Deut. 6:3), the seriousness of their condition was clear.
Today, we are breaking the second disputation in Malachi 1:6-2:9 into three sections
1. God Demands worthy worship.
2. Those most responsible for worthy worship are his Priests & Pastors
3. Worthy worship can only be found In Christ
1. God Demands worthy worship.
a. God’s analogy of a Father and Master
6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear?
Malachi spoke of proper relationships in society, relationships Israel certainly would have insisted on. A son honors his father, and a servant his master. Honor refers to a high regard, respect, or esteem for someone based on their character, actions, or adherence to moral principles. God is Holy and Just and abounding in steadfast love for his people.
God was like a father to Israel, for this analogy had been used before (Ex. 4:22; Isa. 64:8 ).
8 But now, O Lord, you are our Father;
we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.
22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son,
The fifth of the Ten Commandments states that children are to honor their parents (Ex. 20:12.
Disobedient children who rebelled against discipline and were drunkerds and gluttons were to be stoned (Deut. 21:18–21).
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
Therefore should the nation which considered itself a “son” of the Lord be less obedient?
So God’s question was sharply presented, If I am a Father, where is the honor or glory due Me?
Israelites should also view the Lord the Master of Israel. The Scripture presents Israel as the Lord’s servant.
Therefore how could the nation that was the Lord’s servant be disrespectful to Him?
If I am your master where is my fear?
There is no contradiction between the admonition to love God (implied in the first oracle, Mal. 1:2–5) and the exhortation to fear Him. Both appear together in the covenant (cf. Deut. 6:5 with Deut. 6:13). Fear of God does not mean being terrified of Him; it means a proper respect and reverence for Him, a reverence that leads to worship and obedience.
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
13 It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear.
Reflect on the implications of honor in our relationship with God and how it should shape our worship.
Deviation-Value How do you assess the worth or value of something? An item or person has both an extrinsic worth and intrinsic worth that are usually not the same. We have a market value that someone is willing to buy and someone will to sell at a certain price. Real estate.
Intrinic worth. Nice canvis $100. Oil paints $1000./Art appreciation. Mark Rothko was a 20th Century painter, best know for his color field paintings that depicted irregular and rectangular regions of color intended to elicit an emotional response from the viewer. At the end of his career began pain abstract art that you may have seen as they are vertical block lines of color. His painting violet, green and red sold for $186 million at an action in 2014.
What is the worth of God so if I ask you the question what's God worth I'm asking about his intrinsic value is intrinsic value the answer is incalculable he's God is holy and his righteous is merciful and Just.
He is all-powerful he's all those things and so he he's just God you can't really assess his value but if I ask you the question what is God worth to you I'm asking about his extrinsic worth the value that you place on him and an attribute to him that' sense in which I primarily want us to think about the worth of God today.
An indication as to how much God is worth to you is in the way you and I worship.
6b But you say, ‘How have we despised your name?’ 7 By offering polluted food upon my altar. But you say, ‘How have we polluted you?’ By saying that the Lord’s table may be despised.
b. Despised/ polluted/ sacrifices
How have we despised your name?
Polluted Sacrifices on my alter. (Pollution is not dirt but unclean and unacceptable)
How have we polluted you?
Buy despising the alter with your sacrifices.
In God’s Covenant, his people had specific instructions on what constituted defective sacrifices (Lev. 22:17–30). They were warned against offering such sacrifices lest the priests thereby profane and defile God’s name (Lev. 22:2, 32).
19 if it is to be accepted for you it shall be a male without blemish, of the bulls or the sheep or the goats. 20 You shall not offer anything that has a blemish, for it will not be acceptable for you. 21 And when anyone offers a sacrifice of peace offerings to the Lord to fulfill a vow or as a freewill offering from the herd or from the flock, to be accepted it must be perfect; there shall be no blemish in it. 22 Animals blind or disabled or mutilated or having a discharge or an itch or scabs you shall not offer to the Lord or give them to the Lord as a food offering on the altar.
32 And you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the Lord who sanctifies you,
The fact that they saw the charge of improper sacrifices as a defilement of God Himself showed that they were familiar with Las.
They had become so hardened and had so rationalized their sin that Malachi could portray them as daring God to spell out their wrongs. This made them guilty, deserving of death
9 They shall therefore keep my charge, lest they bear sin for it and die thereby when they profane it: I am the Lord who sanctifies them.
But why are offering imperfect animals considered evil?
God deserves our best, not our left overs.
They know it is wrong, their excuse:
Complaint of weariness and snorting.
13 But you say, ‘What a weariness this is,’ and you snort at it, says the Lord of hosts. You bring what has been taken by violence or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from your hand? says the Lord.
Governor- Would he be pleased?
The governor’s “table” was a lavishly prepared banquet (cf. Neh. 5:17) including “offerings” from the people. Certainly the governor (peḥâh, a Persian title) would not have been pleased with the meat of blind, crippled, or diseased animals; in fact he would not have accepted it. How much more absurd it was to expect the favor of the LORD Almighty (cf. Mal. 1:4) with such offerings. He did not accept such sacrifices, nor did He accept (vv. 8–9) the priests.
One of our prize possessions in a digita Photo frame that our children regularly up load new photos from the grandchildren. If I accidently knocked it of the counter and the glass shattered, but I then give the defective frame to my boss for Christmas?
9 And now entreat the favor of God, that he may be gracious to us. With such a gift from your hand, will he show favor to any of you? says the Lord of hosts.
The situations is so bad God desires the doors of the temple to be shut the doors. vs 10. He has no pleause in them and will not accept their offerings.
No worship is better than unworthy worship.
Regarding vows for sacrifice, God states in vs. 10, Cursed be the Cheat who Vows it and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished.
14 …For I am a great King, says the Lord of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations.
Here Malachi moved from speaking of sacrifices in general to discussing the payment of vows. Making a vow to the Lord was not mandatory, but if a person did so he was required to pay it (Deut. 23:21–23). Moses (Lev. 22:17–25) gave the priests specific instructions about the kinds of sacrifices acceptable for payments of vows. The vow to give an acceptable animal and then bring a blemished animal was wrong.
The cheat is the person who promises to do something and fails to do it.
Certainly no one would try to cheat a king or governor, for fear of being reprimanded and punished by that authority. Nor should one try to cheat the great King, the One whose name is to be feared among the nations.
I have no pleasure in you. I will not accept your offerings.
d. I am the great King for all nations.
11 For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.
Book of Malachi itself. The prophets predicted a time when Gentiles will see the light and become worshipers of the Lord (Isa. 45:22–25; 49:5–7; 59:19). The Messiah will become King over the entire earth. Believers in all nations will worship Him (Isa. 11:3–4, 9; Dan. 7:13–14, 27–28; Zeph. 2:11; 3:8–11; Zech. 14:9, 16). Malachi also spoke of the coming of the future day when the Lord will return and will bring about pure worship in Israel (Mal. 3:1–4).
2. Those most responsible for worthy worship are his Priests & Pastors
10 You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean, 11 and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses.”
1 “And now, O priests, this command is for you. 2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart 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.
6 “A son honors his father, and a servant his master. If then I am a father, where is my honor? And if I am a master, where is my fear? says the Lord of hosts to you, O priests, who despise my name…’
The word worship has its etymology in the Old English word worth-ship worship and to worth-ship something was about attributing or recognizing the
-A serious charge was given to priests to teach and uphold God’s covenant, they were to lead the people in worship.
if you will not listen and take it to heart to give honor to my name, then a curse has and is coming
Since the priests had failed to guard the purity of the temple, the Lord threatened to punish them in a manner which fitted their crime. Because they ‘have shown contempt for’ (‘despised’; 1:6) and failed to honour the Lord’s name (2:2), they will be despised and humiliated before all the people (2:9).
Because they had defiled God (1:7), he will figuratively defile them and disqualify them for service at the altar by spreading on their faces the offal taken from their rejected sacrifices. Since that offal was to be removed from the sanctuary and burned (Lv. 4:11–12), so now they too would be expelled (2:3). Because they had presumed to bless the people of God as if Israel’s sacrifices had been accepted and atonement made, God would now curse their blessings (2:2). As Matthew Henry wrote, ‘Nothing profanes the name of God more than the misconduct of those whose business it is to do honour to it.’
B. Rebuke offspring
C. Spread Dung on your faces
Field dressing a deer or cleaning a fish.
14 But the flesh of the bull and its skin and its dung you shall burn with fire outside the camp; it is a sin offering.
first it carries whether the sense of shame public shame and humiliation so to put it politely it's like God is saying because the people publicly shamed him with dung sacrifices he's going to publicly shame them through the dung of this of Isis so it's about humiliation in the eyes of others because that's what they've done to him but it is more than that because the word
translated dung is offel is both the dung and the entrails which in a priestly context were ceremonially unclean and so when you offer the sacrifices the priests job was to kind of cut those out and take the awful the dung and the entrails out to the outside of the city and kind of burn it in the dung heap and so what God is saying here is basically when he says I'm gonna smear the dung on your faces and carry you off with it what is saying is I'm gonna take the priesthood away from you because I'm gonna make you unclean and then carry you off and leave you on the dung heap with the rest.
And spread dung upon your faces: According to the Law (for instance in Exo 29:14; Lev 4:11–12), certain parts of sacrificed animals, including the dung, were to be taken away and burned, so for the priests to have it spread on their faces was a serious insult (compare Nahum 3:6). As well as dishonoring the priests, it would make them ritually unclean so that they could not carry out their duties. The dung of your offerings makes it clear what dung is referred to. The priests would not only be insulted by having the animal dung smeared on their faces, but they would also be treated as if they themselves were dung! • See, I am going to punish your descendants. I will spread on your faces the dung of the animals you sacrifice, and you will be taken away with the dung.
D. The positive Example of Levi.
God’s Covenant
One of life and peace.
Covenant of fear and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name
True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips
He walked with me in peace and uprightness and turned many from iniquity.
E. Purpose of the Covenant. Life and Peace
F. But you have turned aside from the way and caused many to stumble by your instructions. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi. So, I make you despised and abased before all the people.
3. Worthy worship can only be found In Christ
11 For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense will be offered to my name, and a pure offering. For my name will be great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts.
rising and setting of the son, Eschatological language.
Nations will be made to be ‘Levies” and will offer acceptable offering to the true God.
12 saying with a loud voice,
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”
We can only come to God through a high priest.
Jesus Christ is the perfect high Priest. Offered himself as the sacrifice
27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.
He intercedes for use ensuring that our worship is acceptable to God.
Call to Honor Christ. Colossians 3:23-24
23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.
Recognizing Jesus as our High Priest transforms our understanding of worship from obligation to a heartfelt response of honor.
Personal devotion, corporate worship, and community engagement.
Jesus is the one who makes verse 11 possible for people like you and I. He perfectly fulfills every requirement that Levi was supposed to do. He taught he is truth.
No a lamb, but offers himself his life as an atoning sacrifice once of all. He the true lamp, the spotless lamb without blemish or defect. He is the true temple.
Jesus has atoned for sins, but we are still called to worship. God is holy and righteous, the penalty for sin is death. And we all need forgiveness,
Our worship is a profound way to express our devotion to God and to show a watching world and worthy he really is.
We no longer need to bring a cow.
15 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
Living in Response to Honor and Worship - We need to cultivate a lifestyle of worship that honors God in every aspect of life (Romans 12:1
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Provide practical applications for honoring God in personal devotion, corporate worship, and community engagement.
Christ is not a dying sacrifice.
Paul says offer your body as a living sacrifice offer your life as a living sacrifice wake up every single morning put your body on the altar and say God this one's for you God may this day be an opportunity for me to use everything you've given me to show my devotion to you and your worth to a watching world.
I've got good news and bad news the bad news is it on your own you're actually in capable of offering worthy worship because even your best attempts to offer your life to God fall short of his expectation. We are incapable of worthy worship
One who was able to do it and his name is Jesus Christ because he offered his life not just as a living sacrifice but as a dying sacrifice in your place for your sins and faith in Him you also can be counted worthy and what that means is that even the life that if our sacrifice is imperfect a holy and pleasing to God went off at through faith in Christ and so in Christ is the one who makes our worship worthy
This then reminds us that our worship of God is a statement of God's worth to you the state of your worship of God is a statement of God's worth to you.
To worship God, we need to give him everything. Dreams ambitions, relationships, work family, finances future. Body. Your love heart.
What is God’s worth to you.
On our own we are incapable of offering worthy worship. We all fall short.
One can do it is Jesus Christ by faith.
This then reminds us that our worship of God is a statement of God’s worth to you the state of your worships to you.
Our worship on our won will never be worthy but through faith in Christ. God deserves our best.
Conclusion:
