Title slideWill you listen?
Malachi 2:1-9
1 “And now, you priests, this warning isfor you. 2 If you do not listen, and ifyou do not resolve to honor my name,”says the Lord Almighty, “I will send acurse on you, and I will curse yourblessings. Yes, I have already cursedthem, because you have not resolved tohonor me.
Malachi 2:1-9
3 “Because of you I will rebuke yourdescendants[a]; I will smear on yourfaces the dung from your festivalsacrifices, and you will be carried offwith it. 4 And you will know that I havesent you this warning so that mycovenant with Levi may continue,” saysthe Lord Almighty.
Malachi 2:1-9
5 “My covenant was with him, a covenant oflife and peace, and I gave them to him; thiscalled for reverence and he revered me andstood in awe of my name. 6 Trueinstruction was in his mouth and nothingfalse was found on his lips. He walked withme in peace and uprightness, and turnedmany from sin.
Malachi 2:1-9
7 “For the lips of a priest ought to preserveknowledge, because he is the messenger ofthe Lord Almighty and people seekinstruction from his mouth. 8 But you haveturned from the way and by your teachinghave caused many to stumble; you haveviolated the covenant with Levi,” says theLord Almighty.
Malachi 2:1-9
9 “So I have caused you to be despisedand humiliated before all the people,because you have not followed my waysbut have shown partiality in matters ofthe law.”
It’s amazing because teachers
positively and negatively impact us.
A good teacher can really change
your life; so can a bad teacher. A bad
teacher can teach you some things
that you’ve got to spend the rest of
your life unlearning.
In our day of technology, we have at
our disposal more teachers and
teaching than at any point in the
history of the world. So, this means
that students need to be discerning,
is this a good teacher or a bad
teacher, and that teachers need to be
working out of a love for God and a
love for people, and not just
themselves where they’re using the
people and using God, but they’re
loving God and loving people.
So our instruction today is going to
be a lot about teachers, and you’re
going to learn about good teachers
and bad teachers. Good teachers
uplift God and help people; bad
teachers upset God and harm
people.
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It’s important for us, as we come to
the Bible, to not just understand the
content of what is being said, but
understand the context in which it is
said, so that we have not just the
words, but the tone and the facial
expression.
And here’s what happens: topical
preachers tend to pick a tone that
they’re most comfortable with and
then teach sections of the Bible that
are in that emotional category.
Just because God has strong words
doesn’t mean he doesn’t love us;
they’re strong words from a loving
Father.
The God of the Bible tends not to
use this tone all the time or for
everyone, but he reserves it most of
the time for men, particularly men
who are leaders. So, God turns up
the volume for male leaders.
The Bible here is connecting our
heart and our ears, that listening
requires both, that the truth comes
in, and it needs to sink in.
Oftentimes, the resistance to the
truth is not that we don’t understand
it, but it’s that we don’t like it. And
he says there will be a consequence
for their family, that their children
will be cursed and rebuked. Cursed
and rebuked.
For many of you, there are areas of
your life God can’t speak into
because you don’t want to change?
You’re not listening.
What God wants to do with the
leaders is get them to change and
then be agents of change to go teach
others what it’s like to change. But
the leaders won’t change and they
don’t want to tell others to change, in
part because that leads to conflict.
They’re demonstrating this by having
conflict with God. God says, “I want
you to change and help these people
change.” That’s what leaders are
supposed to do.”
And they say, “God, we don’t want
to change and we have conflict with
you, and we’re not going to tell these
people to change because they’ll
have conflict with us.
If your life is committed to resisting
change and avoiding conflict, you’ll
end up where they are. And now it’s
infecting and affecting their children.
Their children now will be cursed
and rebuked.
Why is God so upset? Why is God
so angry? Why is God trying to get
their attention? Why is his volume
raised? Why is his tone intense?
Because he loves, because he’s
concerned, because it’s reached a
point of crisis.
As leaders, we live under this burden
of responsibility. All leaders should
live under that burden of
responsibility, and they are not, and
it’s harming their family.
He talks about a covenant. God says,
“I made a covenant with the Levites,
the priests, the leaders.” And a
covenant is this: God blesses us and
gives us burdens. The burdens are
obedience that is going to be
difficult. It’s going to
come with a price.
God blesses and gives us burdens.
The blessing here is, “I’m going to
bless you and your family,” but the
burden is, “You’re going to be my
messenger. You’re not allowed to say
what you want. You’re not allowed to
say what you think. You need to
echo me.”
All right, the prophets are exiled,
they’re outcasted, they’re hated,
they’re murdered. There’s a burden
with that. The blessing is, “I’ll take
care of you and your family.” The
burden is, “You need to be my
messenger.”
They wanted to renegotiate their
deal, and you can’t do that in a
covenant. It’s not a contract; it’s a
covenant. And their deal was this:
“All right, Lord, how about we say
whatever we want and you still bless
us? Deal?”
The answer is no.
You need to know that Christianity’s
a covenant, that God has a
relationship with his people on his
terms, and you don’t get to be an
exception to the rule,
, getting all the benefits and blessings
like eternal life, and none of the
burdens and obligations of walking
with him faithfully. It’s an all-or-
nothing deal.
They wanted to receive all from the
Lord and give nothing to the Lord.
God says, “No.” The consequence
for breaching the covenant was God
threatening to wipe feces on their
face.
”
”
God says, “I see your heart, and it’s
disgusting. You’re not loving me;
you’re using me. You’re not loving
people; you’re using people. And the
people are confused because they
can’t see your heart.
All they see is your face, so I’m going
to take the contents of your heart
and smear it on your face so that the
people see you as I see you.”
This is as bad as it gets. A priest was
to stay clean, pure, ritually-speaking,
so they could be in the presence of
God.
Malachi 2:1-98 But you have turned from the way andby your teaching have caused many tostumble; you have violated the covenantwith Levi,” says the Lord Almighty. 9
“So I have caused you to be despisedand humiliated before all the people,because you have not followed my waysbut have shown partiality in matters ofthe law.”
A teacher of God’s word is to be
imparting life and nourishment to
people. This is why Jesus looks at
Peter after his resurrection and says,
“Peter, feed my sheep.” Peter’s
feeding is teaching.
The teaching of God’s Word is to
be nourishment and sustenance that
people would grow in Christ’s
likeness. That’s why Paul tells a
young man to teach sound doctrine,
and the word there is literally
“healthy.”
The reason why God is so frustrated
is this: Imagine a mother who
changed her child’s diaper and then
fed it to the child. There’s no
nourishment in it.
The kid’s going to get sick and
eventually die. Some spiritual leaders
are like that. They feed people
nothing but waste, and it causes
people to get sick, spiritually
speaking, and to die.
It doesn’t matter necessarily who is
teaching; it matters what’s being
taught. As long as the Bible’s open
and it’s about Jesus, we want you to
eat well.
Malachi 2:5-7
5 “My covenant was with him, a covenant oflife and peace, and I gave them to him; thiscalled for reverence and he revered me andstood in awe of my name. 6 True instructionwas in his mouth and nothing false wasfound on his lips. He walked with me inpeace and uprightness, and turned manyfrom sin.
Malachi 2:5-7
7 “For the lips of a priest ought topreserve knowledge, because he is themessenger of the Lord Almighty andpeople seek instruction from hismouth.
“What does this say about the Lord?
How I live my life says something
about the Lord.” We’d say he lived
coram Deo, or “in the face of God.”
Malachi is a man of character as well.
He fears God, and he loves people.
They can’t look at him and say,
“You committed adultery. You ran
off on your wife. You’re no better
than us.” No, no, they can’t throw
any of that at Malachi because he
wasn’t a perfect man, but he was a
man of character.
Clarity, meaning you know what
they’re talking about.
It’s fine to be a good communicator,
but you need to have good content.
The bottom line is, you’ve got two
options:
You close your ears, you harden
your heart, you live in your sin, you
stand before him, and you spend
forever in the conscious, eternal
torments of hell.
Or you open your ears, you soften
your heart, you confess your sins,
you receive him as Lord and Savior,
you close your eyes in death, you
awaken to see him face-to-face and
to be with him forever in heaven.
The Bible teacher’s job is not always
to be liked, but to always be clear.
It says of Levi, quote, “He walked
with me in peace and righteousness.”
When the Bible uses the language of
“walk,” this is a lifestyle, walking with
God.
Eugene Peterson calls this “long
obedience in the same direction.”
All right, a true teacher of God’s
Word can’t have a reverse gear.
They’re like, “I love Jesus, and now I
don’t, and I’m walking with Jesus,
and now I’m not.” Like, you’ve got
to keep going forward.
Like Billy Graham, consistency.
What’s Billy Graham been talking
about his whole life? The cross of
Jesus Christ, Sin, Jesus, and
salvation.
Some of you get enamored by what
is new and you get bored with what is
eternal.
It says, “Levi turned many from
inequity.” This takes courage. What
this means is sin—and here in this,
most doctrinal problems are actually
sexual problems, historically, even in
our own day.
What it is people want to have some
sort of sex that God says no to, and
all of a sudden they will couch it as
theological problems.
Be courageous for the glory of God
and the good of others, not for your
own power base.
Every good Bible teacher points you
to Jesus Christ.
A good Bible teacher understands
that the Scripture is for us, but it’s
not about us—it’s about Jesus. Any
time that the Bible is open and Jesus
is not proclaimed, the Bible was not
rightly opened.
Malachi is all about Jesus. You’re
going to see it in the next few weeks
and you can read ahead. Malachi 3,
“The Lord you are seeking will
come to his temple.”
Then this is God’s final word for
about 400 years. What he’s saying is,
“Get ready for the coming of Jesus!”
And we’re in the same position.
They were awaiting Jesus’ first
coming; we’re awaiting his second
coming.
We’re waiting for Jesus Christ to
come again, to judge the living and
the dead. They were waiting for him
to come; we’re waiting for him to
come again.
And they kind of got bored, and
they kind of got tempted, and they
kind of got indifferent, and they kind
of got settled in, they kind of got
wearisome.
He’s trying to get them up from their
circumstance and get their eyes and
our eyes fixated on the horizon of
opportunity in our future. And then
Jesus Christ does come, and then we
realize why God was so frustrated
with the priests.
The priests were a temporary
placeholder until the coming of Jesus
Christ, our great High Priest, and he
comes to mediate between men and
God. That’s what priests do. And he
does it as God becoming a man.
So, the whole point of the
priesthood was foreshadowing the
forthcoming of Jesus as our
mediator, teacher, sacrifice.
As Hebrews says, our great High
Priest. And these priests are taking
advantage of this opportunity and
they’re corrupting this ministry that
ultimately belongs to Jesus.
The ministry belongs to Jesus. The
problem with the priests was they
thought it was their ministry. It’s
Jesus’ ministry. They couldn’t do
with it as they wanted. They needed
to do with it as he wanted.
Faithworks Christian Church is not
our ministry. It’s Jesus’ ministry. It’s
not your ministry; it’s not our
ministry. It’s his ministry. They lost
sight of that. They lost sight of that,
and as a result, they were not ready
to meet Jesus at his coming.