Studies in the Book of Malachi #4

Transcription of the fourth episode of the series Studies in the Book of Malachi brought to you by Pastor Rusty Tardo.

You can listen to it here.

"Praise God.

We want to deal tonight with the first part of Chapter 2. This is a section, we'll deal with the first nine verses of Malachi.

It's a section I've titled, From Blessing to Curse.

You know, we can go from curse to blessing by receiving the Lord, repenting of sin, walking in the light, forsaking the world, embracing the truth. We go from darkness to light.

We go from curse to blessing.

But you know, you can also go the opposite way.

You can go from blessing to curse.

And it happens all too often, where people who were blessed and healed and delivered and walking in joy and peace and victory, they start living too close to the edge, too close to the world.

The world just creeps in more and more.

And what was a blessing in their life, all of a sudden things start turning into a curse. Their life goes to pot, and they wind up, sometimes quite literally, and so they wind up, they go from blessing to cursing. And that's what we want to see here in this passage, from blessing to cursing, or from blessing to curse.

We could also title it, or when leaders mislead.

And, you know, sometimes that happens, too.

Chapter 2 and verse 1, And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you.

There's no doubt as to who this section is addressed to. And now, O ye priests.

Now, you remember, Malachi has got to be one of the boldest prophets you'll ever read. He's an in-your-face prophet.

And he gets right into the thick of things.

I mean, he jumps at the religious crowd. These are the spiritual leaders. Now, you want to remember, the priest, these are the people everybody looks to.

These are the ones that actually set the spiritual thermostat for the nation. These are the spiritual leaders of the nation.

And Malachi is in their face. And you can just see the boldness of this prophet as he says, And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you.

If you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto My name, saith the Lord of Hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings, yea, I have cursed them already, because you do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces. Even the dung of your solemn feasts, and one shall take you away with it.

And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the Lord of Hosts. My covenant was with him of life and peace, and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. The law of truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips.

He walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth. For he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts.

But ye are departed out of the way.

You have caused many to stumble at the law.

Ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord of Hosts.

Therefore, have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as you have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.

Well, this is a very, very stern rebuke.

And at the same time, there's a couple of verses in here that are some of the most blessed verses in all the Bible concerning what the ministry should be doing, or what the nature of the ministry is.

So what you find here is now Malachi is not only rebuking the priests for desecrating the temple, remember which is what they did before, bringing in their unclean sacrifices, their unacceptable offerings, their lackadaisical, slipshod way of rendering service to God.

He rebuked them for that in Chapter 1. But now here in Chapter 2, he's accusing them of an even more serious failure, and that is a failure to teach the Word of God.

You know, the priests' ministry was not just to perform ritual and sacrifice, but also to teach. There's numerous passages in the Old Testament where the people were told to go seek out a priest in order to get instruction from his mouth.

You know, the priest's duty was to teach. If you notice verse 7, it says, the latter part of verse 7, that he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts. The priest was supposed to be a messenger.

He was supposed to be an instructor and a teacher of righteousness, a teacher in the way of truth, a teacher of the Word of the Lord.

But what was happening here is the priests were failing in their duties. The ministry was not ministering the Word.

In fact, it seems like possibly what they were ministering was not the Word. And as a result, many, verse 8, many were caused to stumble. They were not teaching the truth.

They were not leading them in righteousness.

And as a result, many were being led astray.

Many were falling by the wayside.

And he's holding the priests responsible. You know, it's a solemn duty, a solemn responsibility to be a teacher, a preacher.

Even in the New Testament, James 3.1, let not many of you become teachers. They shall have the greater condemnation or the greater judgment, the more severe judgment, because the ministry, the nature of the ministry is to lead God and instruct. 

And that means not only from your mouth, but also by your example.

And if either one is leading people into error or leading them into deception or whatever, you know, God holds the ministry accountable for that. All the more accountable, because they are in the public eye. You know, the public eye of the congregation, the assembly, even the eye of the unsaved, because they do look at the ministry with a little bit more scrutiny, it seems like.

So, you want to keep in mind now, in the New Testament, we're all priests.

So, let's make application of this message to ourselves.

You know, in the New Testament, what does Revelation say?

It's made us unto our God, kings and priests. You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.

We're all priests in this sense.

We all have access to God.

We can all go directly to God in prayer, intercession, communion, fellowship, intimacy.

We can all intercede for others, for ourselves.

You know, we're all priests.

You don't have to go to a man now and have him go to God for you.

You can go directly to the Lord yourself. You have access, immediate access, into the very presence of God in heaven. We're all priests, and therefore, let's make application of this message to all of us, because here's the message.

And now, oh ye priests, this commandment is for you.

Here's God's message.

Let's make application to our own lives.

And here's the things that Malachi accused them of and warned them of. And let's see how we can apply it to our own lives. Here's charge number one.

He says, the opportunity, the opportunity to avoid judgment is quickly passing.

The opportunity to avoid judgment is quickly passing.

That's verse two.

He says, if you will not hear, you're not going to listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord, I will even send a curse upon you. Now, isn't that an obvious warning that, look, the opportunity for you to escape judgment, there's a window of opportunity here for you to escape judgment, but that window is closing fast. The opportunity to avoid judgment is quickly passing, and he's saying, if you don't listen, I'm going to send a curse upon you.

Now, that's pretty strong. That's, in fact, that's very sobering.

He says, if you will not lay it to heart.

And the idea there is that you can hear without listening.

And how often do we see that happen? You talk to people, and they sit there, and they hear you without hearing you.

They hear without listening.

It's like, you know, goes in one ear, comes out the other. They hear what you've got to say.

They know you're right, but they pay no attention.

They don't take it to heart.

That's the idea.

And here's what Malachi is saying. Look, you've heard this, you've heard it, you've heard it, but you're not taking it to heart. It's time to do something with what you hear.

Our problem is we've become a nation of hearers. James addressed that very thing. He said, don't just be hearers of the Word, you've got to be doers of the Word.

It's not enough to hear and hear and hear.

It's time to take it to heart.

In other words, do something with what you're hearing.

Put this Word into practice in your life.

So many times people hear and don't harken to what they hear, and as a result, catastrophe, as a result, disaster.

I'll tell you a good example.

I thought about this when I was preparing the message.

You know that ship, the Brightfield, that just crashed into the dock in New Orleans?

The people heard the warning whistles, but they didn't pay any attention to it.

They didn't know what they were hearing.

They didn't know this was a warning whistle.

They didn't know it meant this ship was in trouble and you better run for your lives because this thing could kill you. It's coming right at you. People were strolling down the dock and the ship's heading right for them.

It's sounding its whistles. That's the alarm. That means you better run now.

The window of opportunity to escape is closing quick.

Here's a perfect example, because God's giving, He's blowing the warning.

His prophets are sounding the warning.

Malachi is preaching to them, the window of opportunity is closing fast.

It's time to run to the throne of grace and find grace there.

Run to the throne of mercy, find grace.

It's time to repent.

You can't keep procrastinating because judgment is knocking at the door. He says, if you don't listen, I'm going to send the curse.

Sober. Very sober.

He also mentions this in verse 2.

He says, if you won't lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of Hosts.

Well, you know, that's really the nature of the priesthood.

They were supposed to glorify God.

That's what their duty was.

You know, ethicists, philosophers, through the eons, have philosophized as to what's the chief end of man.

What is it that we're supposed to do?

Christianity gives the only accurate answer, and that is, man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

Glorify God.

You know what your calling is in life? To glorify God.

That just means to live your life in such a way that it actually brings honor to the Lord, that he's proud to call you his son or his daughter.

Our life is to glorify the Lord.

That means our speech is to be always gracious, always loving.

Now, even when we speak with sternness, like the prophet Malachi, let me tell you, there was no question in anybody's mind that he was speaking from the heart of the Lord.

And God is speaking even through his prophets, even in harshness, to cause his people, if they will hearken, to avoid the judgment.

That's inevitable if they don't hearken.

Our life should glorify God.

That's the point.

This sums up, I believe, the entire priestly duty.

Give glory unto my name.

That's what you're called to do.

Give glory to my name.

Live in such a way that God is glorified.

In the workplace, make sure your conversation glorifies God.

So that even when you're talking about business, business affairs, whatever it happens to be, your conversation, your speech is always clean, always godly, always pure.

It's not peppered with obscenities and gutter talk and so on and so forth.

Your lifestyle is always one that is above reproach.

People can't accuse you of the sins of the flesh and so on. Let's live our lives in such a way that we glorify God. You see, the priests in Malachi's day, the level of living had fallen to an all-time low.

And so the priests, the people who were supposed to be representatives of God, they were living in worldliness, carnality, spiritual shallowness, indifference. I mean, these people were so backslidden, they bring in blind and lame cattle to the temple to offer up the sacrifices for God. You know that their idea of whatever duty or responsibility they had for God was gone.

They had no more fear of God, no more reverence, no more respect.

They were living shallow.

They were living backslidden.

God says, I'm calling you to fear me.

That's our purpose, to glorify the Lord, to serve Him in holy reverence.

I'll tell you something else.

It could be, maybe I'm reading between the lines, because maybe it didn't go on in those days like it goes on today. But you know today, there's a lot of religious pre-Madonnas in the pulpit.

There's a lot of showmen, a lot of religious performers.

And you know what God says?

Where is that?

Isaiah 42.

He says, My glory I will not give to another.

I'm not going to give my glory to another.

All glory goes to God.

But there seems to be a whole lot of religious pre-Madonnas who in a prideful, pompous, self-righteous, self-aggrandizing manner. I mean, if anything is promoted, it's their name, their ministry, their anointing or whatever it happens to be. I tell you what, you wonder if some of that went on in Malachi's day, where some of the priests maybe were kind of strutting or whatever, and maybe didn't happen in Malachi's day.

I tend to think it probably did.

You know, the pharisees, they were these self-righteous type people and all that, people with the pharisaical type of attitude. But I mean, I know that in the past, I've been to meetings where it seemed to me like men were glorified. Or I'll tell you one thing, I've been to meetings where denominations were glorified.

I'll tell you what, I've been in some where I would have been embarrassed. In fact, I was embarrassed.

But where a denomination is just glorified like it's the greatest thing that God ever did was to give us this denomination, because this is the denomination that's doing it all, that has it all, that knows it all, and so on and so forth.

You know, God won't share His glory with anybody.

Not with any person, not with any organization, not even with a church. A church can get proud, can get arrogant, can get self-righteous, can start thinking, we're the only ones doing anything, nobody else is doing.

God won't share His glory with another.

We want to make sure that whatever happens at any time, God gets the glory at all times and in all things. Remember what happened to Herod when he made his brilliant speech in Acts chapter 12? Oh, Herod spoke...

Herod must have been a pretty educated guy and must have been a pretty eloquent speaker. But Herod made a speech in Acts chapter 12, and his speech was so profound that the Bible says the people started saying, that's the speech of a god, not of a man.

And the Bible says, and then God smote him, and he was eaten with worms. Why?

Because he didn't give the glory to God.

He, you know, men like to be primadonnas. They like to be the center of attention. They like to be showmen and entertainers.

They like the applause. They like the limelight. They like it.

And that's a dangerous thing, a very, very dangerous thing, because then it leads to big egos, lots of pride, lots of arrogance. And people begin to think that, you know, they're God's man of power for the hour or whatever.

So, it's a dangerous thing.

It really is.

I wouldn't know I've never been there, but I tell you, those who walk in that kind of limelight, they have to watch it. I'll tell you, years ago, when you see some of the big names in the spotlights, the big names in the religious circles, these guys especially have to watch that some of that power, fame, and glory doesn't rub off on them, so that they start thinking that they're something. I'll never forget, years ago, I was at a conference of a minister's conference where a pastor who at the time was in 160 different countries and having a profound effect, powerful effect upon the world.

His TV ministry was worldwide, having actually a tremendous effect on people all over the world. But in that minister's conference, when he spoke, there was so much self that came out of his mouth, so much pride that I can remember fearing for him and telling somebody that I was with that that's dangerous talk, because now he's talking like God couldn't do it without me.

And you find out real quick, God can do it fine without you at all.

And a short time later, that fellow went from the limelight to the gutter can.

But God can do it just fine without us.

He's not dependent upon us, that's for sure. But we are totally dependent upon him.

Well, in verse 2, he says, the window of opportunity is closing quickly for you to escape judgment.

If you won't hear, if you won't lay it to heart to give glory to my name, I will even send a curse upon you.

Now, don't get the idea that God doesn't do things like that, because there are some who teach, well, you know, God never sends bad things upon people.

What Bible do they read?

He says right here, I'll send the curse upon you if you don't get it right.

Well, he says, in fact, there's a definite article here in the Hebrew. He says, I will send the curse upon you. Now, the Jews, there was no doubt in their mind what the curse was.

They knew what the curse was.

They knew all that it entailed. You and I, we tend to think in, I think, in somewhat different terms than the Jews did.

When God speaks of blessings and curses to the Jews, that was something very concrete, very real.

I mean, they believed if they got a blessing, if somebody laid hands on them and imparted a blessing, they got blessed.

Or if a curse, if God pronounced a curse upon them, they didn't think that that was well. That's no big deal.

It was a very big deal, a very big deal.

They knew what these terms meant.

I know that most of us are familiar with some of the things the Bible teaches about blessing and curse. But can we take a minute and turn back to Deuteronomy and read a few verses back here?

I want you to look with me to Deuteronomy 30, and let's read a couple of verses.

Keep your finger here in Malachi, because we're going to come right back.

But I want you to turn with me, if you would, to Deuteronomy 30, and I want to read a couple of verses.

I'm in Deuteronomy 30, verse 19.

I want to read verse 19 and 20.

He says, I call heaven and earth to record this day against you.

Now this is a solemn event taking place here.

He says, I have set before you life and death. I have set before you blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live, that thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him, for he is thy life, and the length of thy days.

In other words, to cleave to the Lord, to serve him, he's going to bless you.

He's going to give you a long life. He's going to give you health.

He's going to give you blessing. He's going to provide your needs.

He goes on and says, that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, to give them.

He gave Israel a choice, life or death, blessing or curse.

Now, back in chapter 28 of Deuteronomy, he speaks of the curse and of what it consists. Now, excuse me, the whole chapter basically deals with the blessing and the curse. And I don't want to take the time to read the whole chapter because it's a very lengthy chapter.

But the first 14 verses of Deuteronomy 28 is a catalog of blessings.

This is what he says. All of these blessings will overtake you. They'll come upon you.

They'll overtake you.

If you'll harken to the voice of the Lord your God, if you'll do as will, keep his commandments and so forth, you'll be blessed in the city.

Verse three, blessed in the field, the fruit of your body, the fruit of your ground, the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your kind, your flocks, you'll be blessed in your basket and store. You'll be blessed when you come in, blessed when you go out. The Lord will cause all of your enemies to be smitten before you.

The Lord will command blessing upon your storehouses and everything that you set your hand to do. He'll bless you in the land. Now look, these are promises of blessing.

Now the Jews believe that. If you serve the Lord and do right, God will bless you.

Does that mean you won't have trials? No, that's not what it means.

Does that mean you won't ever have any problems or troubles?

No, that's not what it means at all.

But if you'll serve the Lord, the blessings will come upon you and overtake you.

You're going to go through trials.

Everybody's going to, but God will bless his people.

That's the point.

And he goes on and says, beginning in verse 15, on the other hand, verse 15, if you will not listen to God, if you don't observe his commandments, if you don't do what he says, then all these curses will come upon you and overtake you.

And he mentions every kind of curse you can mention.

Everything that was a blessing that he mentioned, he says that will be a curse.

You'll be cursed in the city, cursed in the field, cursed in your basket, cursed in your store. Cursed will be the fruit of thy body, the fruit of your land, the increase of your kind.

Cursed will be the flocks of your sheep. Cursed you'll be when you come in. You'll be cursed when you go out.

He'll send upon you, look at verse 20, cursing, vexation, and rebuke, and that all you set your hand for to do until you destroy. Nothing's going to work out.

Nothing's going to go right.

God has sent a curse upon you if you don't obey Him. He goes on, verse 21, The Lord will make the pestilence cleave unto you. He'll smite you, verse 22, with consumption, fever, inflammation, with burning, with sword, blasting, mildew.

You know, He says sickness, disease, discomfort, and pain, oppression, depression.

You name it, it's part of the curse.

God says it will come on you if you don't obey.

Now, when Malachi told the priests in his day that if you don't get it right and serve the Lord with all your heart and give Him the glory, look, the curse is going to come upon you.

They knew what he was talking about.

They knew.

Now, folks, there is still a curse that comes upon people for doing wrong. You sin, and you open the floodgates for the curse to come upon you. You live in sin, you live in disobedience, you do things you're not supposed to do.

God will deal with you.

He'll call you to correct it.

He'll give you opportunity to repent and so forth.

But if you don't, just remember, the window to avoid judgment closes quickly. The window, the opportunity to repent closes quickly.

When you don't repent, the curse comes. It's inevitable.

The curse will come.

The curse can take many different forms.

Problems, trials, difficulties, sickness, disease. I mean, all kinds of things come as a result of disobedience.

If you don't do right, the curse will come upon you.

That's just the way it is.

That's true in the Old Testament.

It's true in the New.

That hasn't changed.

He goes on and says in Malachi, he says, I'll curse your blessings.

I'll curse your blessings in Malachi 2.2.

Or 2...

Let me turn back there and see what verse was it again.

Yeah, 2.2.

I'll curse your blessings.

Imagine this. The priest, you know, their responsibility, part of the things they did was they pronounced blessings upon people.

They laid hands on people. Just imagine this. Instead of blessing, people got curses.

I'll turn your blessings into curses.

You know, maybe this is not the exact sense of what Malachi was implying, but it's true nevertheless. You know there's an impartation when hands are laid on you.

When people pray for you, there is impartation, there is transference.

If a cursed man lays hands on you, what do you think he's going to transmit?

If somebody in deception, delusion, if somebody in sin, if they lay hands on you, what are they going to transmit? If they're under God's curse, what are they going to transmit to you?

Well, I think we ought to think about that.

I'll tell you what it will do.

It will keep you from running into every line that comes through town and saying, look, just lay hands on me, brother Smith, Jones, brother so-and-so, sister this one, sister that. And people you don't even know, just lay hands on me and pray for me and impart something to me.

You've got to know what they're imparting before you volunteer your head.

Because there is a transference.

Absolutely.

I believe there's transference that takes place.

The Bible reveals there is transference.

Also, probably the actual sense that Malachi is, what he means here is when he says, your blessings will turn into curses, is that all the things that you've been blessed with, whether it's your crops, your cattle, your lands, your financial blessings, whatever, all that's going to now be cursed.

Instead of blessed, as it was before.

That's probably the actual sense of the passage. But I think it could also imply that all the things you pray for, just the opposite is going to happen.

Because you're under a curse now.

You're under God's curse for doing wrong. In fact, he says in the latter part of verse 2, look, he says, yea, I've cursed them already.

It's already begun.

The curse has already begun.

The opportunity to repent is really passing quickly.

That window is closing quick.

The opportunity to repent, to get it right.

And it's because you don't lay it to heart.

You don't take to heart the Word of God, the cautions of God.

People hear without heeding what they hear.

So, let's look at how far this curse would extend.

Verse 3.

He says, I will corrupt your seed.

I'm in Malachi 2.3.

Behold, I will corrupt your seed.

I will corrupt your seed.

Now, the word corrupt means to spoil or destroy or ruin. And their seed could be their harvest.

It could be their crops.

It could be all of their increase.

One commentator says, well, their seed means their strength. So, God was going to curse their strength. Well, maybe that's part of it, but I don't think that's the whole sense of it.

I believe it has to do with not only with their seed, harvest, income, finance, and so forth. I believe it also has to do with their offspring, as he speaks a curse of judgment even upon them, because he seems like he's going to cut off the priesthood, is what the threatening is. And look what else he says in verse 3.

I'll spread dung upon your faces.

Even the dung of your solemn feasts.

Now, the idea here is the feast, whenever they brought sacrifices to the Lord, they brought these animals, they were sacrificed on the table.

Now, whenever an animal is killed, and that's what they did, they slaughtered them right there on the altars. Whenever they were killed, well, everything that's in the animal's bowels comes out at death.

That happens.

Dung would be accumulated and then carried out.

It was considered unclean.

The animal's dung was carried out and burned outside of the camp because it was considered an unclean thing.

It just accumulated there under the table where sacrifices were made.

In Numbers, in fact, there's several Old Testament passages that deal with it.

But in Numbers 19, verses 5 to 7, you don't have to turn there, but you can write those verses down so that you can read them later.

The idea was that if you touched it, you became unclean, too.

So the dung was unclean.

If you touched the dung, you became unclean, also.

Imagine this now. Here's the priests.

Now, they're already accused of, I guess, arrogance, being pompous, being proud, and so forth. And Malachi is saying, you know, thus says the Lord, I'm going to smear dung on your face.

Don't you think God knows how to humble people?

If they had any pride of countenance whatsoever, God's threatening here to spread dung upon their faces.

And look at this.

He says, it's even the dung of your solemn feasts, and one shall take you away with it.

Here's the idea.

I'm going to humiliate you. I'm going to publicly humiliate you.

I'm going to bring you low.

I'm going to thoroughly, totally bring you down in every kind of way, manner, shape, or form.

And when the men come for the dung to take it out, then they're going to see your dung-covered face, and they're going to carry you out with it. And when they throw it on the dung heap, they're going to throw you on the dung heap. That's the idea.

They're going to carry you out with it, because just like they come for the dung in the wheelbarrow or whatever, they're going to carry you out with it and throw you in the dung pile with it, because I'm going to totally do away with you. That's the idea.

You're just as unclean as the dung.

God says, I'm going to put you out with the garbage.

Pretty strong language. I mean, we smile at it and so on, but you know what it tells me? Again, this just keeps ringing in my ears.

God is zealous for the cleansing of his temple, for the purity of his temple, for the purity of his house.

And it's true in the Old Testament.

It's true in the New.

God is zealous for the purity of his house.

He's still zealous.

This will humble the priesthood, that's for sure.

I'll spread dung upon your face.

Then he mentions in verse 4 a covenant that he has with the priest.

Now, this isn't an odd thing because there's really no mention in the Old Testament of a specific covenant that God makes with Levi.

But I do believe I know what he's referring to here.

In verse 4, he says, You'll know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, says the Lord of Hosts.

Verse 5.

My covenant was with him of life and peace, and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and he was afraid before my name.

The idea is that Levi reverenced God and was zealous for God, and he feared God, and I gave him a covenant of life and a covenant of peace. The problem is, we can't find any reference to a covenant that God makes specifically with Levi. There is a covenant of life and peace that he makes, however, with one from the tribe of Levi that we think that that's got direct reference to.

It was a fellow by the name of Phineas. Now, with Phineas, he makes a covenant in Numbers chapter 25, and here is a very interesting verse that I do want you to look to with me.

Numbers 25, let's look back here for a second, and I want to show you this covenant.

I believe this will bless you. Here's a descendant of Aaron, a Levite, and it appears that this covenant that the Lord is referring to in Malachi 2, that it's got to do with this covenant he makes with Phineas in chapter 25 of Numbers. In verse 1, notice this.

I'm in Numbers 25, verse 1.

Israel abode in Shittim.

The people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. Now, it didn't take long for the people of Israel to corrupt themselves and to fall into immorality. Here they are doing things that they shouldn't have done.

They're now taking women from the heathen nations, the Moabites, and verse 2, they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods. And the people did eat and bow down to their gods. And he's talking about his people.

Israel was invited to participate in the pagan celebrations, the pagan sacrifices to the gods, the pagan holidays, and so on and so forth. And Israel just went right into it. They just, that's great, let's do it.

And so they did.

Verse 3, Israel joined himself unto Baal Peor.

And God was happy because of the unity.

God always did love unity, didn't He?

No, God was angry. His anger was kindled against Israel because they didn't keep their worship pure. Now they're embracing idolatry.

Now they're embracing paganism. Now there's an amalgamation of the two, the pagan and the godly.

God always hates such amalgamations.

The Lord said unto Moses, Take, listen to this now, take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.

Cut their heads off and hang it on the wall. All the leaders who are not only committing these things, but when the leaders do it, they cause the people to do it.

Moses says to the judges of Israel, slay ye every one, his men, that were joined to Baal-Pior.

God loves unity, doesn't He?

He just loves it when we amalgamate ourselves with the pagans and the heathen.

Verse 6, Behold, while this is going on, behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianite-ish woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.

Now look at this.

God is pronouncing judgment. God is saying, I want these men who have committed these abominations slain.

I want their heads cut off.

I want their heads hung on the wall.

I want all these people who join themselves to be vile pure. I want them slaughtered. God is pronouncing tremendous judgment for the whoredoms that the people were committing with the women from the foreign nations, the pagans, and so on.

And as all of this is going on, people are weeping. They're broken because of the judgment that's taking place. And while all of this is going on, here comes some guy with the Moabitess, with a millionish woman.

Here he comes.

He's got the woman. He comes right in front of Moses, right in front of the door of the tabernacle. He goes into his tent with this woman.

He's committing whoredom right in front of him.

Takes her into the tent.

Well, verse 7, When Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand, and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel and the woman, through her belly, so that the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.

God had sent the plague upon them.

Thousands, 24,000, died, and Phineas stayed the plague by his act of zeal. He took a javelin, and he killed both of these people.

Now look at verse 11.

Verse 10, the Lord speaks to Moses and says, Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.

Wherefore, now look at this, say, behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace.

Now God's going to make a covenant with Phineas.

Remember, we were reading in Malachi 2 about this covenant of life and covenant of peace that God said he had with Levi.

Actually, the covenant was made with Phineas.

And he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood because he was zealous for his God and made an atonement for the children of Israel.

Well, it's a rather sober passage, and it has to be the covenant that God is referring to back here in Malachi 2.

This covenant that he makes with the priest, with Phineas, so that the priesthood would continue through their lineage, through the tribe of Levi, and they would remain in possession of the priesthood down through the centuries.

Malachi 2.5 says, It's a covenant of life and peace.

And I gave it to him for the fear, or for the reverence, wherewith he feared me. Well, there are many passages in the Bible that promise blessings, health, peace, life, and so forth for those who fear God, love God, honor God, obey God. Proverbs 3.2, For length of days and long life and peace shall they add unto thee.

Well, you know, there's just promises all over for serving the Lord.

Now, verse 6 is a really interesting verse here in Malachi 2.

Verse 6 seems to be Malachi reminiscing about better times in the past when there was a faithful priesthood.

He says, The law of truth was in his mouth. Iniquity was not found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity.

For the priest's lips should keep knowledge.

They should seek the Lord in his mouth. For he's the messenger of the Lord of hosts. I believe verses 6 and 7 here are two of the most important passages in all the Bible, dealing with the duty and responsibility of the ministry.

In fact, verse 6, he speaks here about the nature of a true minister. He's holy in character. He fears the Lord.

He speaks about how he fears the Lord.

Verse 5, you know, as Phineas did, he fears the Lord. They live a godly life.

Look at this, what he says in verse 6.

He walked with me. Now, you know, God doesn't say that too often about anybody, them walking with him. He says it of Enoch.

Enoch walked with God and was not, because God took him.

He says that of Noah.

But other than that, he doesn't speak of anybody else specifically walking with the Lord.

I think Micah speaks of those who walk humbly with their God.

Do you know how that is required? Yeah, what is required of you to do justly?

Have mercy. Walk humbly with the Lord.

That's right.

Praise God. That's what he's called us all to do, to walk humbly with the Lord.

But he speaks here about the priesthood.

Yeah, walking, walking with me in peace and equity.

You know what I read?

That Jonathan Edwards, he preached at a little church in Massachusetts for 20-something years. And when he died, they put a plaque in that church in his honor, because he was the pastor there, the minister there for all those years. And guess what was on the plaque concerning Jonathan Edwards, verse 6.

Now look, you couldn't get more honor than this.

...talked with me in peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity. Well, I'll tell you, you just, you can't have anything better than that said about you.

Not by any stretch of the imagination.

But the law of truth was in his mouth.

That law of truth, that's the word of truth, the word of God.

That means they were incorruptible in doctrine, they believed the right thing, they taught the right thing.

That's what the ministry should do.

They spoke the truth.

Verse 6, iniquity was not found in his lips, so they weren't perverse, they weren't liars, they weren't deceivers. They walked with God in peace and equity, that is justice and so on.

And look at the latter part of verse 6, they did turn many away from iniquity.

In other words, they exerted a godly influence on other people.

And boy, what a testimony. We want to have that testimony.

We want that to be said about us.

We want that to be our epitaph.

Let that be on our headstone, should we die before we fly.

Let it be said of us, the law of truth was in his mouth, that iniquity was not found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and equity and did turn many away from iniquity. No higher commendation could be given to anyone than those words.

Verse 7, Malachi's description of what the true priest should be.

The priest's lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the law at his mouth.

In other words, he was to be an instructor.

People should look to the priest for knowledge and understanding of the Word of God and the things of God.

He should be a storehouse of knowledge.

People should be able to seek instruction at his mouth.

He should speak the Word of God with purity and power, for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts. You know, they were supposed to be instructors, teachers, storehouses of knowledge and of the things of God, the Word of God. They were supposed to have a message.

They were messengers from the Lord. They should be that.

Messengers. They weren't called to be comedians, clowns, entertainers, showmen, gimmick men.

They weren't called to be performers.

They were called to be messengers, instructors, teachers. That's their calling.

Now, with all of that in mind, that's the calling of the true ministry.

Look at verse 8.

He says, because he contrasts that.

Here's what the true minister is to be.

And then he says, but you.

Look at the first two words in verse 8. Now he's talking again to the priest there. But you.

See, here's what a true minister should be.

The former priests were righteous and just.

But you.

The former priests were faithful.

But you.

The former priests feared God, served God, hungered after God.

But you. The former priests, they knew the Word of God.

They were instructors in righteousness.

But you.

Well, not you.

That's the idea. But you are departed out of the way.

How can people follow you?

You're not walking in the light yourself.

You're not walking in the truth yourself.

You've departed out of the way. You've departed from God's way.

You're now pursuing your own way, going your own way, doing your own thing.

The implication is that they left the truth.

They left the way, the truth, and the light.

Now they're doing their own thing.

They got into deception, falsehood, error, and so forth. And then he says this. You've caused many to stumble.

Look, instead of turning many from iniquity, like verse 6 speaks of, he says you've done just the opposite. You've caused many to stumble at the law. I would assume that it was to do with their fault because of their false teaching and because of their example.

I guess eternity alone is going to be able to measure the full extent of the perverse influence of corrupt ministry. But not just corrupt ministry, but those who are supposed to be Christians, and they do wrong, live wrong, act wrong.

You know, we influence people. Let me tell you, people are watching us.

People watch us.

We don't even know they watch us sometimes, but they're watching us.

Neighbors, family members, loved ones, other people in the church, people watch us.

Because we're supposed to be the Christian.

We're supposed to be the example.

They watch how we act.

They watch how we react to adversity. They watch how we deal with problems.

They watch how we talk. You know, at your most careless moments, you know, they're listening.

People watch. And we can have a powerful influence for good or for evil on people's lives.

That's why the priest here, he says, you have caused many to stumble.

Now, if verse 6 is the highest honor that could be paid to any man, then verse 8 is probably about the worst thing that could be said to anybody.

Just imagine if the prophet of God or if the Lord just spoke this to you and said, you have caused many to stumble.

We don't want to hear that.

I'd like to hear verse 6.

Lord, let us hear that.

But verse 8, I don't want to hear that.

You have departed out of the way.

You've caused many to stumble.

And then he says, you have corrupted the covenant of Levi.

Now, nothing could be worse than breaking covenant.

There's nothing worse than that breaking covenant.

In a marriage relationship, nothing's worse than breaking covenant. And in our relationship with God, nothing is worse than breaking this covenant.

A covenant of justice, of equity, of righteousness, of faithfulness. God is faithful when the covenant is broken. It's not on God's part.

It's on our part.

He says, You've corrupted the covenant.

There is no graver charge.

There's no wrong more greater than that of breaking the covenant. And then he tells them in verse 9, Therefore, here's the fate that's in store for them.

He says, I've made you contemptible and base before all the people.

They would be abased before the people.

God would bring them down.

God would humiliate them.

God would embarrass them.

He says, According, as you've not kept my ways, but you've been partial in the law. And here's the last charge he brings against them. The very last thing he mentions in verse 9, on top of all the other charges that he's already leveled against them, they were also partial in the law.

And what does that mean, partial in the law?

Well, it means that they were showing partiality towards the rich and the influential people.

These ministers were apparently being influenced.

They were being used and manipulated by the people with money, the people with power, the people with influence in their congregation or in their community. Now, you know, that was commonplace then and it's commonplace now.

He says, you have been partial in the law.

It's a sad, sad state when the ministry won't speak out against sin or error for fear of offending the rich and influential in the congregation.

If you've got a man in your church who puts a lot of bucks in the offering, but he's an alcoholic, maybe a deacon or maybe just a Joe member, but he's a tither, I mean, he comes to the church and, look, he puts bucks in the offering, and he's there virtually every week, but you know, he's an alcoholic. The temptation is, don't touch on the sin of drinking, because if you do, you're getting mad.

He ain't coming back.

And if you don't come back, you know, all that money that he puts in every week, well, you're going to miss it.

And then you won't be able to get that raise you were looking for, or you won't be able to get those additional benefits you were hoping to get, or maybe the vacation you were hoping for, whatever, you know, you start losing members.

Because that's a bad thing, the church frowns upon you losing members.

In fact, if you want to be voted in the following year, or if you want to stay on as a pastor, then the idea is you want to always be gaining members and never losing them. If you're losing them, then they're going to find another pastor.

Look, that's just the way it is, folks. That's just the way it is.

The pastor is a hireling in the average church.

Congregational form of church government has made pastors little more than hirelings.

If they don't perform, if they don't gain members, just like the congregation hired them, or the board hired them, or the deacons hired them, or whatever, they can fire them too.

And they'll find one who will put members in the pews.

So you don't preach things that are offensive.

Look, he says, you've been partial in the law.

Don't think this doesn't happen today.

It happens all too often.

Certain sins will not be addressed.

Things will not be addressed for the simple reason that people will leave the church. And you don't want to lose people, especially money people, because money people tend to be fickle.

They're going to go where they're going to feel comfortable and where their money can exert a little power and a little influence.

And if that's not happening, they'll be out the door.

They'll find a church down the road where their money will...

The pastor will pat them on the back and leave them alone, basically, as far as their lifestyle and so forth.

Well, at any rate, verses 8 and 9 are... Just as 6 and 7 were such verses of blessing for the faithful, verses 8 and 9, these are words we never want to hear.

You are departed out of the way.

You've caused many to stumble.

You've corrupted the covenant. You've broken the covenant.

And I've made you contemptible.

I'm going to bring you down.

I'll abase you, humiliate you, before all the people, because you've not kept my ways. And he says, you have been partial in the law, always looking favorably upon the rich and influential, and not giving proper justice or judgment or blessing or attention or whatever to those who don't have any standing in the community. It's a sad thing when the ministry only wants to hang around people who have money, and they won't hang around people who don't.

It's a sad thing when the ministry will curry favor with people who have influence in the community, or wealth, or riches, and the ministry has no time for the average John Doe member of the church.

That's a sad thing.

But it happens all the time.

I couldn't tell you how many times I've had people tell me that they couldn't even get through to their own pastor on the phone.

Couldn't do it. Now, it would be different if they were rich and famous.

The pastor would take their calls.

But because they're just John Doe, average commonplace laborer, been a member of the church for three, four, five years, and they can't get through to their own pastor on the phone, he won't return calls.

They can't even call him.

You can't deal with them directly.

Now, you can make excuses for that any way you want to, but folks, I'm going to tell you something's wrong when you can't talk to your own pastor.

But here's a danger for us.

Because it's easy to say, that's right, those wicked pastors and so on and so forth.

Think about this.

What about us?

Do we show favoritism?

Are we partial?

Do we avoid certain people because they don't have the same color skin we have?

Or because they don't run in the same social circles that we run in?

That they don't make the same kind of salary that we make? They don't drive a good enough car?

You know, James addresses that, too.

He addresses the church.

He says, you sin because you show partiality to people with money. And he rebukes them in the Book of James. The New Testament, he says, if somebody comes in to your church and they have on this goodly apparel and they're rich and famous and so on, man, you all flock to them.

You show them the best seat in the house.

You shake their hands.

You want to introduce yourself to them and invite them home for dinner.

Why?

Because he's a famous star.

He's a famous sports figure, athlete figure.

He's a politician, this, that.

The guy comes in who's rich and famous, everybody wants to meet him.

Everybody wants to shake his hand. Everybody wants to go to dinner with him.

But if he's John Doe, average member, nobody knows him, how do we treat them? With the same joy to meet him, the same desire to fellowship with him? James says, you do sin when you show partiality.

So you see, this is something that doesn't just apply to the priesthood in Malachi's day.

It's something we can all take to heart.

Well, hallelujah. We're going to stop there tonight and we'll pick up here next time.

Father, I pray that You would cause this word to take root in our hearts and that You by Your Spirit would apply it to our lives.

Help us all, Lord Jesus, to live our life in such a way that verse 6 could accurately be our epitaph.

That it could be said of us, the law of truth was in his mouth, that iniquity was not found in his lips, that he walked with me in peace and equity, and that he did turn many away from iniquity.

Let that be said of us.

Let it be said of us all.

Father, that we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Hallelujah.”