MALACHI 2 - TEACHERS, WAKE UP!
Malachi 2
During the time of Malachi, Israel had recently come out of captivity. They experienced national and spiritual renewal, but the revival had worn off. The people of God were now offering half-hearted worship to the Lord. They had become spiritually lethargic, and so God sent his messenger Malachi to wake them up.
God wastes no time in correcting his people, and so he goes right for the priests, the supposed teachers of God’s law. “And now, O priests, this command is for you.”(v. 1). The priests had a sober responsibility before God to accurately represent him. The Bible is clear that not many should be teachers, for they will be held to a stricter judgment (James 3:1).
God had given the priests everything they needed to represent him well, namely his word, which God magnifies above his own name.
Yet, the priests stopped listening, hardened their hearts, and gave no honor to God (v. 2). Therefore, God brought forth his rebuke. Since Israel was under a covenant of blessings and curses, God said that unless they repent he would curse their blessings, rebuke their offspring, and spread dung on their faces (v. 3).
If the threat of poop being spread on your face doesn’t wake you up, I don’t know what will.
The priests were offering unclean sacrifices in the temple, and so God said he would make themunclean with the excrement of the unclean animals. Together the sinful priests and blemished sacrifices would be removed from the temple. God then reminds the priests of their position and calling through the example of Levi (v. 4-7).
God calls these teachers to once again:
Remember the covenant of life and peace
Fear God and stand in awe of his name
Give true instruction
Walk with God in peace and uprightness
Turn people away from sin
Guard knowledge
And serve as teachers to the people
Sadly, the priest had turned aside from this great calling, and we’re showing partiality in their instruction (v. 8-9). The priests failed to give God to the people, and so God was ready to remove their people, and expose their reputations.
This lack of spiritual leadership in Israel meant that men began to marry foreign women who worshipped other gods (v. 10-11). And with weeping and groaning they wondered why God wasn’t receiving their offerings (v. 12-13). God no longer regarded their worship because they were being unfaithful to him and unfaithful in their marriages (v. 14). God was seeking for men and women to be joined in marriage covenant with the binding of the Holy Spirit (v. 15). God was seeking godly offspring (v. 16). God was looking for faithfulness, but his people were being faithless (v. 16).
This all wearied the Lord!
The Lord gets tired of his people being faithless, especially when his people say that he approves of their faithlessness (v. 17). God is looking for true worshippers, who worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:23). God is seeking true teachers to show how one can be born again into a covenant of life and peace. God has shown himself in his word, and we need to wake up to the reality of it, and guard the truth of it. In the New Covenant, all true believers have become a holy priesthood and we are called to love what God loves and hate what God hates. May we learn from books like Malachi what it is that God loves, and what it is that God hates, and declare it with truth and love.