Alright, let's open our Bibles
back to Malachi chapter 2. Malachi chapter 2. Now, I'm going to continue through
the first 10 verses of Malachi chapter 2, which I started this
past Wednesday evening, concerning the subject of the curse of the
broken covenant, the curse of the broken covenant. Now let's
read the first two verses, which I covered by way of introduction,
and see what this is talking about. This is God's message
through the prophet Malachi to the priest of Israel. And he
says, and now, O ye priest, the priest of Levi, or what we call
the priesthood of Aaron, who was of the tribe of Levi. He
says, this commandment is for you, specifically for the priest. Now remember the priest were
to be the leaders, the spiritual leaders and teachers of the people. They had their duties around
the tabernacle and around the temple, later on the temple here.
They had, you had the high priest. The high priest was a picture,
a type of Christ, the high priest of the church, a high priest
of God. And then the other priest were
subservient to him, they were their picture of the church.
We who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ and called
into his kingdom who are made priests, kings and priests unto
God. Kings in the sense that we have
the authority of the king of kings. That's why he's called
the king of kings. A lot of times you read that
passage, I think it's in 1 Timothy chapter six, I'm not sure, I'd
have to go look it up. But we think he's the king of
kings and we specifically usually apply that to just earthly kings.
Well, he is sovereign over all things. But the king of kings,
he's the king of his kings. Those who have been made kings
and priests under God. And that's his people, the redeemed
of the Lord. And the other priest typified
the church. the people of God who have a
right to enter the holiest of all by the blood of Christ. Now
this is the Levitical priesthood here under the old covenant.
And he says in verse 2, if you will not hear and if you will
not lay it to heart to give glory unto my name, there's the three
things required for worship. Spiritual hearing, spiritual
submission, faith in Christ, laying it to heart, and worship
glorifying his name, saith the Lord of hosts, that's the invincible
Lord of a great army that cannot be defeated, I will even send
a curse upon you. This is what it was for breaking
that law, it was a curse. The Bible says, Galatians 3.10,
cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. You heard that. And to
be guilty of one is to be guilty of all, the book of James tells
us. That's why there's no salvation for a sinner in this covenant.
You see, that's the broken covenant. And all it means for a sinner
is cursedness. That's why we need a covenant
of grace, another covenant. In many ways, this covenant,
in many elements of it, it was conditioned on the nation, conditioned
on the people, conditioned on the priest, and they broke it.
Now why did they break it? Because they're sinners. Would
we have done the same thing? Yes, for all have sinned and
come short of the glory of God. Don't ever think that you're
better than this bunch. I'm not ever to think that I would do
better. Don't go through the Bible reading it with the not
me syndrome. Oh not me. Oh yes me. We're sinners and we need salvation
by mercy and grace in Christ. So he says, I'll send a curse
upon you and then he says, I will curse your blessings. Now that's
the curse of the broken covenant. Even the good things, the privileges
that God gave them became a curse to them. And you remember last
Wednesday I equated that with people having the Bible today.
Look at how many Bibles are printed and sold and in homes. And people
read and memorize and study, write commentaries. I've read
commentaries Where they miss the message of the Bible. They
miss Christ. And that great privilege becomes
a curse. That great blessing becomes a
curse. Because without Christ there's nothing for us. But a
curse. Isn't that right? Without his
blood to wash away my sins and his righteousness to give me
a right standing before God. It's all curse. This Earth's
curse. I didn't write this down but
I think it's in the Book of Deuteronomy, but it talks about a man who
is cursed because of this broken covenant. He's cursed when he
sits down, he's cursed when he stands up, and he keeps on listening. He's cursed, cursed, cursed.
And so he says, yea, I've cursed them already because you do not
lay it to heart. They'd just come out of captivity
125 years before, but they were still under that curse. Verse
3, he says, behold, I will corrupt your seed. Some say that this
refers to their children. And what he's talking about is
their children would be just like them. We're all born of
Adam. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God because
we're all born dead in trespasses and sin. And others say, and
I believe this is the mainstay of this passage here, the context,
that it's talking about the seed they put in the ground for their
harvest. They were going through a famine
at this time. And that was a curse of God. You see, their maintenance
and their prosperity in the land of promise was conditioned on
their national obedience, meaning the leaders and the majority
of the people obeying the terms of the covenant. Now that doesn't
mean keeping the Ten Commandments perfectly, because nobody can
do that. Christ showed that to the rich young man, you remember.
He said, I've kept them from my youth up. Christ showed, no
you haven't. And to seek salvation by your keeping the Ten Commandments
is foolish. That's why the disciples said,
well, if he's not saved, who is? And they, the indication
was what he said, that which is impossible for man by deeds
of law shall no flesh be justified in God's, is only possible with
God. Only Christ kept the law perfectly. That's why he's my righteousness.
That's why he's your righteousness. And so they were being punished
by God for their sin. He said, I'll spread dung upon
your faces, even the dung of your solemn feast. That refers
to the actual refuse of the sacrifices that they brought and which they
would separate and throw out. He wouldn't present it to God,
but what the Lord is saying here, he says, and one shall take you
away with it. What he means by that, it's going
to cast you away. In other words, you're going
to be cast away with that refuse, with that dung, because what
you're presenting to God, what were they doing? Remember, they
were presenting blemished sacrifices to the Lord. That was sinning
with a high hand, to present a blemished sacrifice. An imperfect
sacrifice to the Lord. You can't come to God with a
blemished, imperfect sacrifice. Now again, that's why we must
have Christ. The perfect, incorruptible, sinless
Lamb of God. He's the only sinless, perfect
sacrifice. Christ is. That's why we can't...
You present before God anything less than the perfection that's
found in Jesus Christ in his obedience unto death, his precious
blood, his great perfect righteousness imputed. And that's dung to God. Paul wrote about that in Philippians
3. Remember, we read that. He said, I counted all but loss.
He said, even dung that I may win Christ and be found in him. And then he says in verse four,
and you shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you.
You're going to know this is God's word. You're not going
to, you're not, in other words, he's saying, you're not just
going to look at Malachi and say, Malachi, you mean old prophet. How could you say such things
about it? You're going to know this is the word of God. This
is God's word. I sent this commandment unto
you. And he says, you're going to know that my covenant might
be with Levi. Now, he goes back to the origin.
Now, what he's doing here, beginning in verse 4, he's giving them
a reminder of how this whole thing started. What it was based
on, how it was set up in a covenant with Levi. Now, the covenant
of Levi is the old covenant. The reason he calls it the covenant
of Levi is because the priesthood was the center and the foundation
of that covenant. Just like, think about it this
way, the priesthood of Christ The high priesthood of Christ
and the duties of his priesthood. Now what were those? Well, he's
our representative, he's our substitute, he's our surety,
he's our sin-bearer, he was made sin, died on the cross. and came under the wrath of God
for the sins of his sheep, laying his life down. He drank damnation
dry. Daniel 9, 24, he finished the
transgression. He made an end to sin. He brought
in everlasting righteousness. All of that, he was fulfilling
the conditions of the everlasting covenant of grace as our great
high priest. And his high priesthood and his
fulfilling all the requirements, all the conditions, all the qualifications,
all the stipulations of that covenant of salvation for his
people, God's elect out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation,
that's the foundation and the center of that covenant. Well,
the priesthood of Levi was the foundation and the center of
the old covenant. And I showed you that, remember
we read in Hebrews chapter nine, for the priesthood being changed,
there must be a change in the whole law. You couldn't change
the, listen, if the priesthood changed, the whole law changed
because they were so connected. But he calls it the covenant
of Levi here. He identifies it that way because
he's speaking to the priest in terms of the covenant and showing,
going all the way back to the beginning of how this thing got
started. And you can see that. I'll read
you some passages here. You know in Exodus chapter 27,
for example. And we could go to quite a few
passages here, you all know that. When this old covenant was instituted
at Sinai and God gave instructions to Moses to give to Aaron, he
said, you appoint Aaron, that's the tribe of Levi. It's what
Moses and Aaron were both members of the tribe of Levi. And he
says, you appoint Aaron, you mark him out and his family.
And like in, for example, in Exodus 27, verse 20, he says
here, and thou shalt command the children of Israel that they
bring the pure oil olive beaten for the light to cause the lamp
to burn always. He's talking about the lamp stand.
And you know, in this whole context here, what he's talking about
is how to build the tabernacle. And he says, in the tabernacle
of the congregation without the veil, that is on the outside
of the holy of holies. And here's what he said, which
is before the testimony. The testimony was the Ark of
the Covenant. And he said, Aaron and his sons shall order it. Aaron and his sons. Not anybody
else now. Aaron and his sons. Aaron the
high priest, his sons the priest of Levi. And Aaron and his son
shall order it from evening to morning before the Lord. It shall
be a statute forever unto their generations on the behalf of
the children of Israel. Not meaning that those earthly
elements were going to be forever and ever and ever. But what they
meant, what they stood for would be forever and ever and ever.
That's the everlasting aspect of that. It's what it taught.
And then in Exodus 28 in verse one it says, and take thou unto
thee Aaron thy brother and his sons with him from among the
children of Israel, appointed from among the children of Israel,
that he may minister unto me in the priest office, even Aaron
and then his sons Nadab and Abihu and Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's
sons, Aaron the high priest, his sons the subservient priest. and thou shalt make holy garments.
And then he goes in talking about Aaron's wardrobe and how they
should make it. Over in the book of Numbers,
it's repeated. I won't read this whole thing,
but it's talking about the same thing. Verse five, the Lord spake
unto Moses, Numbers chapter eight, take the Levites from among the
children of Israel and cleanse them. And that was an actual
physical washing. Now, it didn't cleanse the heart,
I mean, you can take a bath every, three times a day, every day
of your life and it will not cleanse your heart, but it was
a ceremonial cleansing here. It was a, you might even say
this way, symbolic. Because the priest of Levi were
cleansed before God and they had these ceremonial washings
that could not put away sin now. You know, you can't put away
sin with a Brillo pad. That's not gonna do it. But it
symbolized the washing, spiritual washing, that all the true children
of God, who are made kings and priests under God by the grace
of God, go through by the blood of Christ. That's what it symbolized.
That's what it pictured. And he tells you, you mark them
out, and you cleanse them. You sprinkle water, purifying
them, all of these things. all of this over in verse verse
10 have numbers 8 says thou shalt bring the Levites before the
Lord and the children of Israel shall put their hands upon the
Levites and it says that's an anointing that's a ceremonial
anointing that's a physical act that they did it didn't have
listen there was no spiritual power there There was no salvation
there. See, in order to understand what
Malachi is saying, as well as all the prophets, we have to
understand why that old covenant was given. It was never given
by God or intended to be a covenant of salvation. John 1, 17 says
this, the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. That law was never given as a
covenant of salvation. There was no eternal salvation
in that covenant. There's no spiritual cleansing
from sin in that covenant. The blood of bulls and goats
could never take away sin. There was no righteousness established
in the priesthood of Levi for the children of Israel as a nation.
It said if that priesthood could have made the worshiper perfect,
then there'd been no need for Christ to have come. If we could
be made righteous, justified by an earthly priesthood, then
Christ would not have had to have come. And to seek salvation
and forgiveness and righteousness in an earthly priesthood is to
deny Christ. That's the problem Malachi's
addressing. And Levi addressed it too, he
says. But he says in verse 11, and
Aaron shall offer the Levites before the Lord for an offering
of the children of Israel that they may execute the service
of the Lord. So there were services then. Now go back to Malachi
chapter two, you see? He says in verse four, and you
shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my
covenant might be with Levi, saith the Lord. Now that refers
to the establishment of the Levitical priesthood and its original purpose. Now what was it for? It was to
teach and to lead the people in the ways of the Lord. The
covenant was given to show them their sin. I say show us, it
does as we read it, but we were never under it. You know, you
were never under the Old Covenant. You might have thought you were,
but you weren't. That Old Covenant ended when Christ said, it's
finished. That was it. It waxeth old, it's taken away. But it was given to them to expose
their sin. We have the Word of God, even
by the power of the Spirit, to expose our sin, too. We're convicted
of sin. We see our sins and our depravity
and our ruination in Adam. and the fact that at our best
we cannot be justified, saved, forgiven. We cannot do it by
our works. But they had that covenant given
to them as a nation to expose their sin and to show them their
need of another covenant, an unconditional covenant. See,
they were under the curse of a conditional covenant. That's
what they were under. And if you and I had been living
back then, that's what we'd have been under. Because we're no
better than them in the eyes of God as far as righteousness,
as far as salvation and sin. We're just like them. All have
sinned. None righteous, no not one. None that doeth good, no
not one. So that was to show their need
of another covenant and that other covenant would be fulfilled
by a Redeemer, a Messiah who was already promised even before
the covenant of law was even given and established. It was
given in the beginning. Adam fell. God pronounced it
out. He preached it out. the seed
of woman. He established the sacrifices
to picture the blood of the Lamb that would bring salvation, that
would bring forgiveness, that would bring righteousness to
sinners. He established that as the way
to worship God. That was the way you were to
call upon the Lord. You know, they talk today, they
say, well, whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved. How do you call upon the name of the Lord? Back in
the old covenant, it was through sacrifice. Same today, except
we don't slaughter animals. We have the Lamb of God. And we call upon His name by
bringing the sacrifice, presenting, pleading the blood and the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how we do it. And you
don't call upon the name of the Lord without that covenant, without
that sacrifice. See, calling upon the name of
the Lord is not just looking up in the air and saying, Lord,
Lord. Matthew 7, 21, not everyone sayeth unto me, Lord, Lord. shall
enter the kingdom of heaven. It's not just breaking down and
crying with tears. Look over in Malachi 2 and look
at verse 13. I want to show you, we'll get
to this next time, but I want to just show you this. He says,
and this have you done again, covering the altar of the Lord
with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that
he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with
good will at your hand." They were crying, they were weeping,
they were crying out. Now, let me tell you something.
Sincerity was not their problem. Lack of sincerity. You see, tears
and weeping and just crying out will not put away our sin. That's
what that covenant of Levi was all about. You need a priest,
a high priest, who's qualified, who's appointed of God, qualified,
able, and willing to stand in your place. And you can cry all
over sin a thousand years and it will not put it, tears won't
put it away. Crying out won't do it. It takes the Lamb of God who
taketh away the sins of the world. And so that's what that covenant
of Levi is all about. Now look at verse five of chapter
two. He says, my covenant was with
him of life and peace. Now, there was physical life,
physical prosperity and peace in the nation as long as the
leaders of the nation and the majority of the people adhered
to the stipulations of the covenant. Moses told them that in Deuteronomy.
He said, I set before you blessedness and cursedness, life and peace.
Alright? As long as you kept that covenant.
Now understand this now. Their keeping of the covenant
does not mean that they were a perfect bunch of people who
never sinned. That's not what it meant at all.
If that was, they were goners before they even started, as
we all would be. The Lord never said if you keep
the Ten Commandments, you'll have life and peace. Now, he
told the rich young ruler, I meant this, now look, in Matthew 19,
he told the rich young ruler, if you wanna work your way, earn
your way into the kingdom of heaven, all right, keep the law.
Now that's an impossibility, that's why he told that fellow
that. He was showing him it was impossible. But there was, there
was a temporal, physical prosperity for the nation in that land.
But you go back and you read what's recorded in the Bible
of the 1,500 years of their national history under that covenant,
and you tell me how many of those years that that people as a nation
was in obedience to the Lord. Not very many. You think about it. You can think
about the glorious days of King David. You know, most of his
life he was on the run. He was a fugitive. But he did
rule and reign in Israel for a time. There was prosperity. They say Israel had its greatest
glory under David as a nation. They probably did. But you know
about David. You know about his great sin. You know about the
turmoil in his own household, the household of the king. The
palace was a place of sin and degradation and punishment and
chastisement. And David in the Psalms, he was
quick to tell you that his righteousness was not of himself but was of
the Lord. He said, his deathbed words,
2 Samuel 23, although my house be not so with God, he hath made
with me a covenant ordered in all things insure. And this is
all my salvation. He's talking about Christ. And
then you know about Solomon. There was a glory of the kingdom
under Solomon for a little while. But look what happened to Solomon.
He allowed his wives to draw him away from God and he allowed
them to set up their idols. And you know why he did it? To
keep peace at home. And what happened after Solomon
died? The kingdom was divided, northern kingdom, southern kingdom.
In the northern kingdom, whose capital was Samaria, they had
a temple there, every king in that land was an evil, wicked
king who did not do that which was right in the eyes of the
Lord, led the people in idolatry. In the southern kingdom, most
of the kings Most of them were evil, wicked, idolatrous kings.
There were a few who were said to be those who led the people,
who did right in the eyes of the Lord. You can think about
Uzziah started out that way, but he didn't end up that way.
You can think about Hezekiah. And Josiah, he was killed on
the battlefield of Megiddo. So it was a history of sin. That's our history. Isn't it? That's my history. As good as
I might try to be, my history is still marked with sin. My
present is still marked with sin. And whatever days I've got
left on this earth, they'll still be marked with sin. What do I
need? What did the covenant of Levi
mean? I need a high priest, I need a sin offering, I need salvation
by grace. That's what that's all about.
Look at verse five again. My covenant was with him of life
and peace and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he
feared me, Levi worshiped God. Aaron worshiped God. They respected
God. And he was afraid before my name. That means he had respect unto
the glory of the Lord. He wouldn't think about bringing
a blemished sacrifice to the Lord. That's what he's saying. Now, why did Aaron and Levi back
then, why did they do that? I'll tell you why. It wasn't
because they were better than everybody. It's because they
saw by the power of God that they needed a sin bearer. They
needed grace. They needed mercy. God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. That's why they did. And so look
at verse six. He says, well, the law of truth
was in his mouth. He spoke the truth. And iniquity
was not found in his lips. Now that doesn't mean that he
was perfect, sinlessly perfect. What that means is in the exercise
of the office of high priest, there was no iniquity found in
his lips. It's like preaching the gospel. When I preach the
gospel, the gospel's not iniquity. I'm a sinner. But the gospel
is not iniquity. If I point you to Christ, I'm
not pointing you to iniquity, Emma. I'm pointing you to righteousness
and holiness and forgiveness. And that's why I've got to be
so careful not to point you anywhere else. And that's what he means
by that. And it says, he walked with me
in peace and equity. Equity means justice. Anything
that doesn't balance out is iniquity. He did turn many away from iniquity. How do you turn people away from
iniquity? Well, let's all get baptized. No. Or let's all join
the church. No. No. Well, let's all go on
a missionary journey. No. Now, all those things might
have their place. And they do. But how do you turn
people away from iniquity? Exactly. You point them to Christ
and Him crucified and risen again. That's how I'm turned away from
iniquity. That's how you're turned away from iniquity. Look to Christ. Let's all look to Christ. Let's
all plead his blood. Let's all plead his righteousness.
Let's submit to him. That's turning people away from
iniquity. Look at verse seven. For the
priest's lips should keep knowledge. That means you guard it with
your life. That's what that keep means.
That means you guard it with your heart. This is a heart matter. This is an issue of salvation.
This is an issue of life and death. Oh, you won't let it go. I remember a dear, dear friend
and brother of ours in Cottageville years ago, right after we first
moved down to Georgia. He had emphysema. I don't know
if you've ever seen anybody die with emphysema, but it's not
a very pleasant thing to see. Because he was laying on his
bed. just writhing for breath, just gasping for air. I mean,
bubbles would come up in his mouth because he just could not
get that next breath. And it was just, I thought about
it then. I said, it's just a natural thing for a human being, a human
life, to grasp for life. He won't let go. It's just natural
to us. It's not because, it's not really
because we don't believe God. This man did believe God. He
was a dear brother. He loved the gospel. I can remember
going to Cottageville at Millside Baptist Church and preaching
to him and just seeing the look on his face when I'd preach Christ
and how peaceful and how happy and joyous it made him. And yet
when this old body goes down to die, just grasp for that air. And that's what this is like.
He will keep knowledge because that knowledge is our life. Ignorance
will not help us in this area. I don't care what anybody says.
There are preachers who promote ignorance. I tell you, the more
you don't know, the better off you are. No, sir, ignorance is
not bliss. Listen, Christ said this in John
17, I believe it's verse three or four. He said, this is life
eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ, whom thou hast seen. God said, when the Holy
Spirit brings a sinner to see his sin and to see God's holiness
and to see Christ, he said, they shall all know me from the least
of them to the greatest. If God ever teaches us the reality
of this covenant of Levi, this covenant, that covenant which
pictured Christ and his priesthood and what he accomplished, we'll
keep it and hold on to it for dear life just like we're gasping
for our last breath. That's how much it means to us.
And it says in verse 7, and they should seek the law at his mouth. I want to hear the word of God.
I don't want to hear the opinions of men. I want to hear from God. I want to hear that which honors
Him and puts me in my place. It says, for he's the messenger
of the Lord of hosts, Levi. Now what he's talking about,
he's not just talking about Levi the man here. He's talking about that covenant
of Levi. He's talking about that priesthood. Now, turn over to
Hebrews chapter 5 that Brother Joe read. That Levitical priesthood, the
high priest and all the priests, the tabernacle, the holy of holies,
the blood of the animal, the altar, everything, everything
about it was a message. It made that whole
thing a messenger of the Lord of Hosts. In other words, and
the Lord of Hosts meaning, again, the invincible God who cannot
be defeated. In other words, if you listen
to this message that is brought out, communicated through that
covenant of Levi, that priesthood that pictured the priesthood
of Christ, you cannot help but be saved. and be victorious. Nothing can stop, Satan can't
stop it. The law can't stop it, and I'll tell you what's more,
you can't stop it. I can't stop it. Because we'll
be saved in spite of ourselves. That's how Christ saves his people.
But look here in Hebrews 5, he speaks in verse 1, he says, every
high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things
pertaining to God. Now, he's a high priest of men. He's a representative of men,
but he deals in things pertaining to God. In other words, he's
not here to honor men, to accommodate men. He's here to glorify God. And it says that he may offer
both gifts and sacrifices for sin. The sacrifices, that's the
atonement offerings. The gifts are the thank offerings
that they brought. And he says, who can have compassion
on the ignorant and on them that are out of the way? And he says,
for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity. He himself was
a sinner. That man who was of the earthly
priesthood of Levi was a sinner himself. And it says in verse
three, and by reason hereof he ought as for the people so also
for himself to offer sins. When he went in with the blood
of an animal, it wasn't just for the people, but it was for
his own sins too. And then he says in verse four,
and that's why the priesthood of Christ is better. He didn't
go in for his own sins. He just went in for sins of his
people. And so it says, now our sins were his sins by imputation
now. Don't get me wrong. They became
his. He said they were his, Psalm 69, Psalm 22. They are his, but
by imputation. This one here, he's a sinner
himself. He's just like everybody else.
And it says in verse four, and no man taketh this honor unto
himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. So also
Christ glorified not himself to be made in high priest, but
he said unto him, thou art my son today. Thou art my son today,
have I begotten thee. And he, as he also saith also
in another place, thou art a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek,
another order. Christ was from the tribe of
Judah. Not the tribe of Levi. So he could not offer sacrifices
in an earthly tabernacle. He had no right to do that. Any
man who did that, who was not appointed as a tribe of Levi,
the high priest, would be struck down. But he was a high priest after
the order of Melchizedek. Now that's a type of an eternal
priesthood that goes on forever and ever and ever and never ceases.
Never changes. An unchangeable priesthood. And
you know down there at the end of that, he talks about those
who are unskillful in the word of righteousness. He said you
ought to be teachers. You've been in this thing long
enough, you ought to know better, he says. He says you have need of
milk and you can't take the meat of the word. Now listen, let
me tell you something about that. There's nothing wrong with the
milk of the word. The Bible says desire the sincere milk of the
word. We should want and desire the sincere milk of the word,
but we should not be in a spiritual state of dullness so that the
only thing we can take is the milk of the word. That's a bad
state to be in. And what Paul is teaching there
about the church in his day is the same thing Malachi is teaching
back here in Malachi 2. You ought to know these things
about the covenant of Levi. You ought to know these things
about the eternal priesthood of Christ to come after the order
of Melchizedek. You ought to teach the people.
You ought to keep and guard that knowledge and tell the people
the truth. If they bring blemish sacrifices,
you ought to stand up there and say, oh no, God will not accept
that. That doesn't picture and typify
Eternal High Priest, our Savior, and His sacrifice. Don't bring
that. You should know better. Look back at verse 8 of Malachi
2. He says, but you are departed
out of the way, that is the way of the Lord, the way of His Word,
the way of righteousness, the way of salvation, the way of
Christ. You've caused many to stumble
at the law. That word stumbled means just
exactly what it's like to fall into a trap. You remember over
in Romans 9 it talks about those Jews who were seeking to establish
a righteousness of their own by the works of the law and they
stumbled at that stumbling stone? That's what it's talking about.
Malachi's coming along here and he's telling the truth. What
do they do? They trip over. They fall into
a trap. The trap of their own self-righteousness.
He says, you've corrupted the covenant of Levi, saith the Lord
of Hosts. You've turned it into a legalized
system of works. You've watered it down. You've
compromised. You've corrupted it. Here you
are bringing blemish sacrifices. You don't know the meaning of
it. You don't know the spirituality of the law. You don't know what
righteousness really is and what God requires. And you don't know
Christ. That's the problem. So verse
9. 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."
Now there's something significant here. First of all, his making
them contemptible and base before all the people means that he's
going to expose them for what they really are. He's going to
show them up for what they really are. We don't know when. It may
have been during the time period between the Testaments. We know
that that's when the groups such as the Pharisees and the Sadducees
and the Essenes, you know, they all came up. and established
as a religion in Israel. And you remember what happened
when Christ came, he exposed them. He said, you're of your
father, the devil. He said, don't follow the Pharisees. He said,
it's the blind leading the blind. They all fall in the ditch together.
He said, they outwardly appear righteous unto men, but inwardly
they're full of dead men's bones, open graves. quieted sepulchers,
hypocrites. He said, they're zealous, they'll
encompass sin and land to get one convert, and when they get
him, all they do is make him two-fold more the child of hell
than they are. So, that's what he's talking
about here. But he says, you've not kept
my ways, that is the way of the gospel, the way of salvation
by grace. And what's the problem? You know, this is significant.
I want you to think about it. He says, you've been partial
in the law. You know what that means? They doubt in the law, in their
teaching, in their judgments, with respect of persons. That's
what that means. They've been partial. They'll
compromise for this one because look at who he is or who she
is. But they won't compromise for that one because he's a nobody
or she's a nobody. Now isn't that human nature?
Well, we'll follow this one because of who he is, but we won't follow
that one. I'm of Paul. I'm of Apollos.
I'm of Cephas. I'm of nobody. That's the kind
of thing that was going on back at human nature. You know, that's
probably just about the most common problem that people who
hear and claim to believe the gospel have, being respecter
of persons. Peter had to learn that lesson.
God is no respecter of men's persons. For all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. So he says in verse 10,
have we not all one father? Now he's talking about the nation
Israel. There's one father. And my friend,
under the new covenant, according to the terms of the everlasting
covenant of grace, if we're saved, it's all by one father. God the
father. through Christ the Son. Hath
not one God created us? That's who created us. We didn't
have any say in it, did we? He didn't ask us our opinion.
He didn't come to you and say, now where do you want to be born?
How do you want to be born? All that. He didn't say. No.
He created us. Why do we deal treacherously,
every man, against his brother? That's that partiality. I don't
know if they were taking bribes. Some say they were. They may
have been. I don't know. But they were partial in their judgments.
And he says, how did they do it? By profaning the covenant
of our fathers. I can hear it now. Oh, you don't.
You don't have to bring a perfect lamb. We know you. You've been in this thing for
years. We'll make an excuse for you. We'll make an exception
for you. Now again, maybe they were giving them bribes. Maybe
they weren't. Maybe it was just who they were. I don't know. But
I know this. They weren't honoring Christ.
They weren't honoring the Lord of glory. And my friend, that
means cursing. That's a cursedness, the curse
of a broken covenant. All right. Let's sing as our
closing hymn, hymn number 329, Sitting at the Feet of Jesus,
329.