Book of Malachi - Ch. 2, Vs. 1-9 (03/26/2023)

All right, well, we have a lovely home crowd today. We've got quite a few out there online.

Let's see who all we got. We've got the Christophers, of course. We've got a

Carpiaxer out there, the McKees, Severinos. We've got several listening in. So it may be small here in the building, but that's perfectly fine.

In fact, it may even be preferable to those of us who are up here.

So I don't mind at all. A nice, forgiving crowd is never a bad thing. That's right.

That is true. Well, now I'm nervous again, John. Thanks. No, that is a good thing for sure.

Well, it's been a little bit since I've been up here. I took a break from our verse by verse study in Malachi so that we could move.

I was nervous about whether or not how much time I'd have to get further into the study during the moving things of that sort.

So Dave was kind enough to take over for a number of weeks, which aside from me being able to move, I was excited about just so that we could get into the

Psalms again. But now Dave is out this week. He and dad are actually, they were in Denver doing a live event together, which was cool.

And so he is out. So I'm going to be picking back up in Malachi if I can figure out where we left off last time.

Let's see here. Let's go ahead. You can go ahead and turn to Malachi chapter 2 because we'll definitely be starting there.

And I might just, I'll probably just breeze through. Yeah, I'll start here. I'm just going to breeze through the first few verses that we've already covered just for the sake of review.

The last time I was here was on the 19th of February. So a little over a month ago. So we can definitely cover some ground, excuse me, that we've already looked at.

And then we'll jump into some new material here. So again, we're in Malachi chapter 2. All right.

So it actually started in chapter 1. We've been in this section, which has been covering the sins of the priests specifically.

And I believe we were in that the last time you guys were here and I was doing Sunday school, starting around verse 6 of the first chapter.

It starts talking about the priests a lot. Well, we got to chapter 2. So it was a new chapter, but still in that same categories, in that same section, specifically talking about the sins of the priests at that time.

Got some chats. Let me just make it perfect.

Just wanted to make sure we weren't having any tech issues I wasn't aware of. So new chapter, same topic.

And then hopefully if we get through enough material here, we'll actually get into the third section of the book of Malachi in a little bit.

So I'll just kind of, again, breeze through some of the verses we've already covered, starting in verse 1 of chapter 2.

And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If ye 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.

And then this is an interesting part. Yea, I have cursed them already because you do not lay it to heart.

So this is where we learned that even up to this point, everything we've read up to this point, rather, a curse has already been upon the people at this time.

That's important to note because we already knew, through some of what we talked about in our introduction several months ago at this point, as well as just kind of their attitudes in general, they have a lot of hardships going on at this point in time.

And you might ask the question, why would they be going through some of these tough times economically, obviously spiritually, and they were under the rule of a foreign nation still.

They were having a tough time. Well, now we find out they've been under a curse. And so it may have something to do with the fact that, they weren't acting quite the way they should have been even prior to this book beginning, this prophecy beginning.

And so now they are reaping what they sowed, which is they weren't obeying the commands of the

Lord, just to put it simply. And for that reason, they were now under a curse, or we learned that they have been under a curse from the

Lord himself. In the first verse there, when it says this commandment is for you, we learn what that commandment is in the second verse.

It says to give glory unto my name, that the Hebrew word for glory there is the same for honor. So they are commanded here to honor the

Lord's name, to glory his name, but they weren't doing that up to this point. Where was the glory?

They essentially were doing the exact opposite of what they had been doing. I'm sorry, they were commanded to do the exact opposite of what they had been doing in all the previous verses up to this point.

And then we, again, this is a little bit of review. We went in and read a full, practically a full chapter in Deuteronomy, basically talking about why they would have been under this curse in the first place.

The Lord literally laid out, if you do this, you're gonna be blessed. If you don't do this, and then he went on for a number of verses explaining that this is what would happen.

So they should have been expecting it the whole time. Let's see here. So then we'll pick it back up in verse three.

It says, 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.

So the priests here were warned of a rebuke that would essentially fall on their seed, their children for many generations as well, their offspring, and of course, the threat here being the removal of the priests from their position and their responsibilities that they had in the first place, which of course was meant to be a very honorable thing.

You gotta know, they probably enjoyed the position that they were in, even though they obviously weren't keeping with the responsibilities that came with it.

And of course, the Lord here is essentially telling them he's gonna totally humiliate them. He's gonna spread dung upon their faces.

In fact, it's gonna be the dung of the very sacrifices that they bring forth during their solemn feasts and whatnot, and so we talked through that.

Let's see here. In verse four, it says, and ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you that my covenant might be with Levi, sayeth the

Lord of hosts. And this part gets really interesting because now he's starting to remind them, look, you are totally off the rails here and you have been for quite some time, yet, you know, let's bring this covenant that I had with you, with your ancestors specifically, not just the people of Israel, but specifically the tribe of Levi into remembrance here for a little bit.

He says in verse five, 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.

So we'll kind of just pick it up here. I think we got through like maybe verse six last time, but I'm gonna go ahead and just pick it up right here and cover a little bit of what we hit on at the very end of our last lesson, again, about six weeks ago at this point.

So I think that is perfectly fine. And this is just interesting to me. So the priests have been messing up.

They've been doing some really bad things and they have just been failing left and right in terms of, again, their responsibilities for the position they were in.

And the Lord is obviously rebuking them. In fact, he's already threatened total humiliation at this point, as we read in the last verse here.

But before it is going all in on the rebuke or all in on the humiliation and enacting some of the disciplinary actions, which is kind of what we're getting at in this at the end of the section here for the way they were acting, he reminds them of this very special covenant he had specifically with Levi.

Again, these priests, they're all descendants of Levi, right? And so all of the tribes of Israel obviously had a covenant collectively with the

Lord, but he had a special one with this group because of what their responsibilities, of what their job was.

It was totally unique among the tribes. So he says in verse five, again, my covenant was with him, referencing

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

So the covenant with Levi is now discussed a little bit in more detail here. The tribal name, of course, Levi is used.

It's representing kind of the collective descendants of Levi who made up the priestly class or the priestly tribe of Israelites.

But the phrase in verse five, when it says of life and peace, there's a footnote or not a footnote, but a cross -reference in my

Schofield Bible that took me to a specific place in Numbers that we read last time. We're gonna go ahead and read it again though.

Where that phrase of life and peace, it seems to be referring to a very specific event where this covenant that he's talking about took place.

So go over to Numbers chapter 25 for a second and let's rehash this a little bit. Again, we looked at it last time, but I would like to look at it one more time just to have a clean segue into the rest of the material here.

Numbers 25, starting in verse 10. So this verse in Malachi seems to be clearly referring to this little story here.

And this is really interesting stuff. What we're about to read is essentially why the

Lord is saying like, look, I have this covenant with you. You deserve death, literally, according to passages we've read in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, for the things you guys have been doing, but this, and then let's see what this is.

Starting in verse 10. And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest.

So this is the grandson of Aaron, the first high priest. It says, he hath 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 say, behold, I given to him my covenant of peace. This is what Malachi 2, verse five was referencing.

And he shall have it in his seed after him. Okay, so now he's making this covenant with Phinehas, or Phinehas, I don't know which one it is.

I didn't think to look that up, but this guy, this grandson of Aaron, he's making this covenant with him because of his zeal for the

Lord, but he is extending it to the seed after him as well. Even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, again, because he was zealous for his

God and made an atonement for the children of Israel. So all the stuff that was going on in Numbers, which as we know,

I mean, there were murmurings against Moses and Aaron. There were, these were the stiff necked people, right? The wilderness wanderings, the evil generation that wasn't even going to get to see the promised land because of all that they had done.

All that was happening. And to the point, including worshiping, you know, false gods and all this stuff, to the point where the

Lord was ready to basically, you know, just consume them, as it says.

You know, wipe them off the face of the planet, start over or something. You know, from our viewpoint, the

Lord in real time, we know he knew the whole plan, but we also know he's a very personal God.

This is Jesus, you know, prior to his first advent that is in real time watching his people just totally go against his word and everything that he gave to Moses to give to them to the point where he was jealous and he was about to consume them.

But this guy here, again, the grandson of Aaron himself, at this point, you know, he was a priest,

Phinehas, his zeal for the Lord is what turned the Lord away from that desire to consume his people, to consume the children of Israel in his jealousy.

And because of that zeal, not only did he not consume all the people, but he made a special covenant with basically the priests from this point forward, a covenant of peace, as he says, of an everlasting priesthood.

So we have a couple of things going on here. First of all, unlike the priests at the time of Malachi, Phinehas here actually revered

God. He had a very special fear of the Lord, which is what, of course,

Malachi, fast forwarding in history is trying to point the priests back to, you know, perhaps the

Lord is bringing up this story through Malachi, through the prophet Malachi to remind them, look, this is how you guys were supposed to be.

This is kind of, this is a model of how all of you are supposed to be a reverent, loving fear of the

Lord, which of course they had totally lost at this point. And that's been illustrated quite clearly in everything we've read up to this point.

Now, the reference of verse five, again, it's according not only to my

Schofield cross -reference over here, but pretty much every commentary that I've looked at are all linking verse five to this story in numbers that we just read about Phinehas and his reverence.

It doesn't necessarily limit that covenant to that man, that individual man, but rather using him as an example of kind of the standard that is set, that was set, and even once lived, not just by him, but of essentially all the priests in his position.

And we have examples of that, of course, at Sinai, you know, when the golden, a whole thing with the golden calf was going on.

They were all in trouble, but the priests turned, you know, the Levites turned back to the

Lord and remained faithful to him after the fact. And they were disciplined, but not as severely as the other people that just went all in on the false god.

And there were other examples where the priests, you know, turned back to the Lord, remained faithful to him.

And we also know that, you know, this covenant extends beyond just Phinehas here, because it says, you know, you shall have it and your seed after you.

And so, you know, it's not necessarily limited to Phinehas, but it was originally directed right at him, again, because of his zeal.

So this is another great example, just quick side note, of how powerful a person can be.

Certainly many people, when, you know, they set themselves straight, put their focus back where it should be, which of course is on the

Lord. You know, this is what revival is supposed to be about.

And the actual, you know, great revivals that have taken place even in our country, of course, the two great awakenings being examples, it was what happened to Phinehas, but on an even larger scale.

And, but what an awesome part of the story is that look at what can happen, even if it happens with just one person.

Now, obviously Phinehas being a high priest, you know, he was in a position where he carried a lot of influence, not just with the people, but with the

Lord. And because of his position, that zeal from the human viewpoint totally changed the trajectory of where the people were going.

And so that's kind of a cool little side note, is the power of when our hearts are turned back to the

Lord, what that can lead to. It literally led, again, from the human viewpoint to the essentially salvation of all the following generations of priests and through them also the other tribes, because all of them looked to the priest as their messengers of God, of course, which we also learn here in Malachi.

And so that's really, really interesting stuff there. And so again, we get this story in verse five of chapter two of Malachi here, and he's pointing the priest back to this guy, but reminding them that the covenant extends to them as well.

So that certainly was not by accident. The Lord spoke this to them through Malachi for that very reason.

So picking it back up in verse six here, Malachi chapter two, it says, the law of truth was in his mouth.

We're still talking, he's still referencing the story about Phinehas in the numbers here. The law of truth was in his mouth and iniquity was not found in his lips.

This is a really powerful phrase here. He walked with me in peace and equity and did turn many away from iniquity.

So not only did this kind of revival, if you want to put it in terms that we can connect with a little bit, not only did that happen with Phinehas, his zeal manifested itself in such a way that it was a total game changer for all of the people, not just him, but it led to these things as results of that.

Again, the law of truth was in his mouth and iniquity was not found in his lips. So this again was the standard that the

Lord was bringing back to the attention of his priests here in Malachi. Total opposite end of the spectrum. Absolute opposite end of the spectrum from where Phinehas was at this point and where all the priests were now here in Malachi.

And of course, this is how they should have been operating the whole time. Phinehas, his speech was, as this verse is telling us, it was in righteousness.

Of course, he worshiped God. He revered God. He obeyed his laws. And as we're told here, had a particularly intimate relationship with the

Lord as well. And again, that phrase that's so cool, it says, he walked with me. Now that phrase implies something, it implies a very intimate relationship.

Another phrase that we could compare that to that's often used throughout the Old Testament is various people, not just the priests, but even some prophets, certainly a lot of Israelites in different positions walking after the

Lord, perhaps implying that they're trying to basically get their lives in order.

And if you look at the context in certain passages where the phrase walked after the Lord is used, but in this case, it is walked with me.

He was walking with the Lord. And again, it implies that Phinehas, but again, that extends to all of the priests around his time, which is why this covenant was made in the first place.

They had this strong, intimate relationship with the Lord. Think about the importance of that being in a position of spiritual leadership like these guys were.

And the Lord is telling them that. He walked with me, but you're not is again, another implication here.

Now, I read this, we're reading through this and it's interesting just in and of itself, because we know what this is eventually gonna lead to.

And we've talked about it several times. This is going to usher in the age of the

Pharisees essentially. So we know what's coming and that's interesting in its own right. But if we want to apply this, extrapolate it out to us now, it's so interesting to read how this is going down.

You have just the kind of the domino effect here of the priests having all of the standards, all of the laws, all of the promises of blessing, if they just obey the

Lord, all of that is right there. They have it all. And yet they are willfully, deliberately not doing those things.

And then consequences come along with it. And they're having some issues on a national scale, whether it be economic, whether it be morally, certainly spiritually.

And they're in somewhat of a crisis here. And yet they act like they don't understand why. Again, they were reaping what they sowed, but they still are acting with, as if they're ignorant of these things, even though they had all of it in writing.

Obviously the books of Moses and more. Think about the parallel now though.

Okay, so we are certainly in the middle of a number of crises here, morally, economically.

It's interesting, naturally. I mean, my dad has been tracking all of the volcanoes erupting around the world and earthquakes happening left and right.

It's all kind of, it's kind of crazy. Not that that's specific to the US, but just kind of an odd coincidence.

But we are dealing with all these things and we have all of these, certainly moral crises going on around us. And look at our spiritual leaders, generally,

I'm generalizing for sure here. I know we still have a number of awesome spiritual leaders across the country from coast to coast, but the number sure does seem small, at least based on what we can see.

And look at the rest of them. Look at the rest of the spiritual leaders. It's exactly what's happening here.

Go ahead, John. Yeah, sure. Right.

Yes, sure. Sure. The blessings part is particularly interesting.

Let's see here. Yeah, I mean, because of their heart's condition, because of the attitudes they had at this time, it lays out specifically the blessings being part of that curse, which is a big deal because the blessings, and we covered this a few weeks back, but the blessings aren't necessarily restricted to the priests either.

They had some special blessings being the priests. Obviously, the Lord was their inheritance.

It's like he was looking out for them in a special way. So they had some special blessings themselves, but the blessings, obviously, for all the

Israelites were imparted to the Israelites through these guys, through the priests. And so when the blessings are cursed, it's affecting not just them, but the whole nation again.

So because of the spiritual leaders that we find ourselves with today, look at the fabric, let's just say the spiritual fabric or moral fabric of our society.

Perhaps it started with them like it did with the priests here. And I think you could make a pretty solid argument that that's certainly the case.

Yes, we are all held responsible as individuals, as followers of the Lord. If we are going to call ourselves

Christian and use his name to back our testimony, we better have an actual testimony that reflects him and not just saying it for societal gain.

So we have an individual responsibility for that and to live a righteous life.

But our spiritual leaders have a very big mandate to be our examples and to be our leaders.

And so, yeah, it's kind of crazy. So as we go through this, I mean, yeah, it's kind of funny.

It's like, okay, this is happening with the priests, big deal. But if you really hone in on the parallels, the similarities between not just the priests, we're about to get to the people here just a little bit, assuming we'll get that far.

The parallels are uncanny. And so we're seeing unfold in real, as we go through this study, we're seeing the actions and the consequences unfold that again, the similarities are pretty uncanny in terms of what we're seeing around us today.

So it's super practical in that sense. So the priest had, it says, he walked with me talking about Phinehas, but extended to the priests at that time.

This is why that covenant was made. They had that intimate, close relationship with the Lord. Take that away.

And again, extrapolate this to our time today. Take that relationship away between the Lord and the spiritual leaders, the pastors, the elders, whatever you wanna call them, priests, bishops, all of the above.

And you're left with what is happening to these priests here. So let's look at verse seven now.

And that is officially where we left off last time. So this is, we're kind of just moving right on into the newer portion here.

Verse seven says, for the priest's lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the law at his mouth.

So the priests were supposed to be teaching the law at this time. I mean, that kind of goes without saying, just a quick verse.

You don't have to go there. I'll read it really fast. But Deuteronomy 33 .10 says, they shall teach Jacob thy judgments, in Israel thy law.

They, talking about the priests here, shall put incense before thee and whole burnt sacrifice upon thine altar.

Obviously, it goes without saying, but obviously the scripture makes it clear as well. The priests were supposed to be teaching the law here.

Phinehas was doing that at the time of the numbers passage we read a little bit ago. And the

Lord is reminding them, the priest's lips should be keeping knowledge. They should seek the law at his mouth. And verse seven continues, for he is the messenger of the

Lord of hosts. And so they had a very specific duty and they were not fulfilling that in any shape or form.

They were not only an example, they're supposed to be the very messengers of the Lord to deliver essentially his, yeah, to deliver his word among the people and in that being through the law.

And they weren't doing that. So as teachers, each priest was to be a messenger. However, since they were not giving true instruction, in other words, the law, as it puts it in verse seven there, they were now being rebuked by the prophet.

And we talked about this in our introduction, but ironically, the name of Malachi means my messenger. So they're being rebuked by this prophet with a very intentional name, being my messenger.

And they're being rebuked because of the fact that they were not living up to their title, which was also to be messengers of the

Lord themselves. They weren't doing it. So now the Lord is having to send Malachi to do it for them and to put them in their place.

Verse eight says, but ye are departed out of the way. Excuse me. Ye have caused many to stumble at the law.

So again, total opposite. They were supposed to be bringing the law forward and reminding the people how to stay in the straight and narrow.

And of course, at this time, the law was obviously still in total effect and what they were all supposed to be, including or making a part of their everyday lives, obviously they were doing the opposite.

They were making many to stumble at the law. Ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi. So the very covenant we just finished reading about has been corrupted by these guys, this specific generation of priests here, sayeth the

Lord of hosts. So the teaching that they were doing, because they were obviously doing something and we've kind of covered this a little bit as well.

Sure, they were going through some motions, but even the motions they were going through, the sacrifices they were offering were defiled, for example.

Here, the teaching they were doing was actually causing many of the people to stumble because they themselves had strayed so far from the law.

And of course, more importantly, from the Lord himself, they were no longer walking with him, like it put it in a couple of verses ago.

So when you start straying away from the Lord and who knows how they were teaching it, how they were delivering the law at this time, it obviously wasn't correct because it was doing it.

Again, it had the exact opposite effect that it should have had. Rather than being messengers to the

Lord, and again, I'm sorry, to the people, and again, keeping them kind of on the straight and narrow, so to speak, it was doing the exact opposite.

They're making them stumble. And so think about, again, fast forward to today and think about all of the false teachers around us that hundreds of thousands, millions of people around the world are looking to for their spiritual advice and guidance that are totally twisting the word.

Oh my goodness, I just listened to this crazy, I don't know if any of you, do y 'all ever listen to Apologia Radio?

Have you ever heard of that, Zach? Okay, y 'all have? It's pretty solid stuff. There's a church called

Apologia, I guess just church. I don't even know where it is, in Arkansas, maybe? I can't remember, but Arizona, that's right.

And let's see, what's the guy's name? It's James White and then

Jeff Durbin? Okay, these guys, they're really solid.

I just now kind of discovered them. From everything I've heard, it's been really solid.

The only thing I know about them that I don't agree with myself at the moment is that they don't believe that the

KJV, they think the KJV is the least accurate of English translations. Obviously, I personally think the opposite.

But aside from that, everything I've heard them talk about has been super solid. They do a ton of debates around the country from everything from, they've debated

Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims. They've done debates on Calvinism versus other schools of thought on the

Lord's sovereignty and several other things, like dozens and dozens of debate topics they've done and have done so really well.

What I was getting at, though, talking about just the false quote -unquote teachers, false spiritual leaders around our country that make people stumble by twisting the word, they just finished debating this guy named

Brandon Robertson, I think is his name. He's a gay pastor in,

I guess, New York or somewhere like that, and doesn't believe in the inherency of the word.

First of all, he doesn't think any of the Old Testament is inspired or actually the word of God, and there are portions of the

New Testament that he says aren't either. I mean, it's as gross as you can imagine as far as heresy goes.

And they're debating this guy, and man, they put him in his place, which was awesome to hear, but it's so disturbing to hear his side of it, even though it's obviously like you hear it and it makes you sick to your stomach, and you're like, well, thank goodness these guys are handling it, and obviously they have a large audience, which is cool, and they're setting the record straight.

But to know this guy has a large congregation, think about the number of people that he is causing to stumble using the name of the

Lord because he proclaims to be a follower of Jesus and that his teachings are at the crux of his ethic and his blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it's all lies, but he gets people to believe that, and he's causing them to stumble, but doing so in the name of Christianity, in the name of being a pastor, a spiritual leader, well,

I mean, well, first of all, perhaps, I mean, well, yes, actually, yes,

I definitely agree. I'm trying to think about this in a number of ways. Well, number one, he's a textbook apostate.

Number two, the congregation, they're gonna be there for a couple of reasons, perhaps, maybe more, is they'll either be there because they have itching ears and they like his message and their conscience is seared and they're living the most, the grossest lifestyles you can imagine, but they like being able to say they go to a church that is inclusive and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So you have those people, and they will experience the wrath of being in that position willfully. Maybe there are some people in that congregation that think that, that are so baby, like so new that they think that they're still looking and they don't yet realize that this guy is an apostate and a heretic.

In the end, they will go through wrath in the sense that it's not gonna make their lives any easier until they realize it and get out of there.

Is that kind of what you were talking about? Yeah, it's not the final wrath. Yeah, I know what you mean. Like, they are dealing with, they're reaping what they sow.

They're dealing with the real time kind of punishment and lack of blessings. No, if they are sheep, of course not.

No, no, no. Yeah, and what my point was like, maybe, maybe there are either lost sheep in there that are getting close to their salvation day.

And then at that moment, at that very moment, the Holy Spirit could immediately start drawing them out. Or they are so new, so baby, like within the

Latin, maybe they got saved so recently that they just haven't yet realized the situation they're in, but the

Holy Spirit will absolutely pull them out of there. No question about it. I mean, and who knows, it could even be 100 % of the congregation are all just goats.

And they're just there because they have itching ears. They wanna be able to say they go to an inclusive church because there's societal gain for that and all that kind of stuff.

Point being, they stumble. Yeah, so I do 100 % agree with what you're saying there,

John. And so we, again, we have real time, modern day examples of this happening and the priests were making it happen at that time as well.

Twisting the law, twisting the word of God causes people to stumble rather than to stay on the straight and narrow.

Pretty crazy stuff. And so they weren't walking with the

Lord, obviously was a big kind of the main domino that fell that caused that chain reaction there.

So the priests, again, because of these things, they were now despised and humiliated before all the people. Remember a few verses ago, the

Lord saying, I will spread the dung of your solemn feasts upon your faces because of the way that you are dragging my name through the mud, essentially.

And as harsh as this sounds, this is really crazy here. Everything up to this point, the rebuke and what the

Lord says he will do against some of the disciplinary actions that he is enacting for these priests that are just so terrible.

As harsh as it sounds, it was actually really, a really light punishment, relatively speaking, because their actual penalty, well, let's see what it should have been.

Go back to Numbers again, verse 18. I'm sorry, chapter 18.

And this is what their punishment should have been for the things that they had been doing up to this point, defiled sacrifices, making people to stumble, profaning his name, not giving him honor.

Numbers 18, starting in verse 29. I want y 'all to keep something in mind for a second.

This is Numbers 18. This is seven chapters before we get to the covenant made with Phinehas.

That's gonna be an important note to remember in a second. So here's what their punishment should have been. Out of all of your gifts,

I don't know if I said the verse yet, it's 18 .29. Out of all of your gifts, ye shall offer every heave offering of the

Lord of all the best thereof, even the hallowed part thereof out of it. Therefore, thou shalt say unto them, when ye have heaved the best thereof from it, then it shall be counted unto the

Levites as the increase of the threshing floor and as the increase of the wine press, and ye shall eat it in every place, ye in your households, for it is your reward for your service in the tabernacle of the congregation.

So again, he's setting the stage here for how they are to approach these offerings to the

Lord. And then in verse 32, this is the main verse here. And ye shall bear no sin by reason of it.

When ye have heaved from it the best of it, neither shall ye pollute the holy things of the children of Israel.

Okay, so these are all the things that the priests in Malachi have done now.

What is the consequence? Lest ye die. So the actual penalty for the things the priests have been doing at this time should have been death on the spot.

However, okay, so does God just not keep his word because he just said you should die if you do these things.

And now here we are, fast forward to Malachi. They did all of them plus some, and they're still alive.

And instead, they're just being rebuked very soundly. It's still a little bit different than death. So is the

Lord just not keeping his word? No, he's not going back on his word.

Because again, if you fast forward seven chapters in Numbers, the priests and the people also did not do these things that the

Lord laid out and he was about to consume them. So he was about to enact this thing right here, this promise, you will die if you do these things.

He's about to consume all of them. But the zeal of one man, of course, in a position of high authority, spiritual authority, being the high priest, because of his zeal, it stayed the

Lord's wrath to extrapolate your thought, John, to the extreme, his wrath up to death.

And he renewed a covenant with the priests from that point forward. And that is the reason why these priests in Malachi are now just being rebuked and humiliated.

I mean, they're getting punished to a great degree. I mean, they're, again, the dung being spread on their faces, their sacrifices, all these things.

They're being humiliated, they're being punished big time. It's not quite death though. And so it should have been, had that covenant not been renewed with Phanehas, or the tribe of Levi, rather, through him because of his zeal.

So, I mean, this is intense stuff. And the reason why you even bring that up and say, well, they weren't dead though.

Well, the thing is, the point is that they are doing things that were worthy of death. They're not being killed by the

Lord himself because of a covenant, and the Lord will not break that covenant. But we know before that covenant was made that these things were worthy of death.

And so, we can't really make light of the sins, the degree of the sins that these priests were doing at this time.

And it's pretty crazy stuff. Because of the renewed covenant, again, that God made with the

Levites, after this punishment was put into place, they were instead merely, although, again, it was still very sound, made contemptible, they were rebuked, they were made contemptible, they were humiliated before their people.

And of course, that was a pretty great punishment in and of itself, while it might be one step prior to death itself.

Verse nine, and this ends the second section of Malachi, which is, again, all about the priest's sins.

So, back to Malachi chapter two, verse nine, it says, therefore, have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, which is what we were just referencing a second ago, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.

So, they were twisting the law to make it say whatever they wanted to. They were making people stumble because of it.

Because of all these things, plus everything that we read previously, they are made contemptible and base before all the people.

That is the consequence of the priest's sins. So, while it may not have been death, it was still a very, very sound and harsh punishment for sure.

So, let's just kind of summarize the second section here, and we'll save the next section.

We'll just start with a clean slate next week for section three, which is now the sins of the people collectively, not just the priests anymore, but everyone.

So, if we want to look at the parallels there, it brings it even closer to home for those of us who aren't spiritual leaders, put in a position of spiritual leadership like the priests were, or like the pastors, elders, et cetera, et cetera are today.

So, we'll get to that next week. But let's just quickly summarize section two here, and then we'll close it out for today.

We're given clear examples of why God's people were put under a curse from his very hand at this point in history.

We know they were cursed at the beginning of chapter two already. Number one, and again, they were cursed through the priests.

So, the priests here refused to honor the Lord as they honored their earthly fathers, or serve him as their master as they served their earthly masters, and they despised his name.

We learned that in verse six of this section. They offered, that's verse six of chapter one, they offered polluted and defiled sacrifices on the

Lord's altar. And at the same time, they found his quote, table as it puts it in the verse, or essentially his altar contemptible as well.

And we learned that in chapter one, verse seven. The Lord made comparison and told them that they wouldn't offer such sacrifices or meals to their heathen governors in verse eight.

So he's like, look guys, I know you wouldn't be putting a blind, lame calf that you slaughtered as a meal in front of your

Persian governor, but you're gonna do that on my altar, on my table? So he gave them that comparison verse eight of chapter one.

The Lord then makes it clear that he no longer accepts them or their offerings in verse 10 of chapter one before turning to, and that we spent several weeks on this verse.

In chapter one, verse 11, he turns to basically prophesying of the Gentiles someday coming in.

That being us in offering pure offerings to him. And literally, letting the priest know like, look, the heathen are going to be giving me pure offerings at some point in the future.

And you, my very priests, my very people aren't doing that. And then he rehashes a lot of their profanities before shifting to the curse that he put upon them at the beginning of chapter two, which we covered in brief this morning, and gives them a reminder that they especially have been a set apart people ordained to fulfill the roles that they were now refusing to fulfill as God's messengers that we learn.

I believe it was in verse five or verse four of chapter two that referenced them as messengers.

So they have put themselves in quite the position. And again, while we haven't yet gotten, while we haven't yet looked at how exactly this has manifested itself among the people collectively, and we'll do that next week as we begin section three, we know that it can't be good already because if the spiritual leaders go, again, the moral fabric of that nation is obviously going to be gone as well.

And that particular section, it began in verse six of chapter one all the way through verse nine of chapter two that we just read a second ago, just laying out one thing after another that they were not doing right.

And the disciplinary action that the Lord was going to be taking, and all of these things, which again will usher us right into exactly how this is affecting the people as a whole and what that turns into.

So pretty interesting stuff. Again, as far as practical application goes, the parallels could be more clear in terms of the way our nation is looking at the moment.

And that can be kind of a scary thing because just like with the Obadiah study we did, looking at the Edomites, how the heathen were to be punished for what they were doing.

Now we're looking at an example of how God's people can be punished when they start straying away. And we fall into that category here.

Yes, the way the Lord treats people of earth, the inhabitants of earth, changes throughout dispensations, but he doesn't change, as we all know.

And the very things that displeased him at this time displease him now. If we're going to disobey him, he's going to get upset, for example.

If he gives us clear moral imperatives or moral guidelines to keep and we refuse to do it, he's going to be upset.

And this is a story where we see clearly the level at which he will rebuke and punish his people when they do these things.

And we can take from that ourselves big time. And again, I'm generalizing here. I'm talking about us as a nation, and certainly we can make change from the human viewpoint by keeping his imperatives ourselves, our individual mandates, certainly collectively as a local church as well, which is a really powerful thing.

Obviously, Phinehas was able to totally change the direction the course of his nation because of his zeal.

So we could take from all of that for sure and certainly apply that to our lives today. So do y 'all have any other thoughts or anything before we close this one out?

It's been interesting. I'm looking forward to getting into section three next week because again, it just broadens the scope even more.

Well, I'll go ahead and pray and then we will dismiss. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you so much for this wonderful day you blessed us with.

Thank you for bringing us all together once again and just putting us in this position where fellowship is possible, edification, edifying each other, and of course, learning about you.

It's such a wonderful thing and I couldn't be more thankful for this church family that we have. Lord, I ask you to continue to be with us throughout the rest of the day.

Be with Brother John as he brings our sermon here just a little bit, brings our message. Be with the rest of the services as well and be with all of our loved ones, our friends and family that are currently traveling.

Bring them all back safely to us and all of us together safely this time next week as well. And we ask all these things in your name.