The Study of Malachi | Lesson 3

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Heavenly Father, thank you so much, Lord, just for our time that we already got together in small group, thank you for the discussion that was had. Lord, I pray that you meet with us right now, Lord, as we open up your book, as we read your word aloud. I just pray, Father, that you illuminate it for us, that you give us those eyes to see and ears to hear as we read the scripture aloud in a heart to respond.

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Even at another level, now that we've met in small group, talked about it, studied it on our own at home, I just pray that this brings a whole new layer to what you're saying in this part of Malachi and the story. We love you, we praise you, be our teacher, in Jesus' name, amen.

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Okay, so let me open up to Malachi two, verses one through 10. I'm gonna read that for you, okay? Follow along if you have your Bible.

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And now, O priest, this command is for you. If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them because you did not lay it to heart. Behold, I will rebuke your offspring and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it. So shall you know that I have sent this command to you that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the Lord of hosts. My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave that to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity for the lips of the priest should guard knowledge.

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And people should seek instruction from his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.

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So I make you despised and abased before all the people inasmuch as you do not,

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sorry, I lost my place because I was reciting it by memory.

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What verse am I on? Thank you.

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But you have turned aside from the way and you have caused many to stumble by your instructions. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts.

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And so I make you despised and abased before all the people inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction. Wow, did y'all learn a lot in small group?

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How did y'all like this week? Was it Barbie said, you stepped on our toes a little bit.

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Especially that part about garden, the power of the tongue.

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That one was a very convicting day. All right, so when I read this whole passage in its entirety in Malachi, there is one thing that really stands out to me that I feel like the Lord is really trying to help us to grasp and to understand about him.

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Did you see where he was talking about covenant?

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Covenant. The one truth that I want us to take away is that God is a covenant keeping God.

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That is one truth that we really need to take away from today.

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And the word covenant was something that was very foreign to me when I started studying the Bible. I didn't know what it meant. I didn't understand it. The word covenant is used in the sense of cutting.

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Okay, a compact it says, because made by passing between two pieces. So when you look up that Hebrew word covenant, that's the description that you get. I'll read it one more time. It's the sense of cutting, a compact, because made by passing between two pieces. Some of you are like, what is she trying to say with all of this? Well, I want to, I took a whole study on covenant.

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Old Testament actually means old covenant. New Testament means new covenant.

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And covenant is all through scripture.

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It's not always referenced as the word covenant, but there's a picture of a covenant being placed.

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When it says because made by passing between two pieces, generally the idea is in the Old Testament, when you would look at someone making a covenant, a solemn binding agreement with another,

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death would occur in an animal. A sacrifice would be made. In order to ratify a covenant, blood would be shed. And so the passing through two pieces of flesh is almost like you're signing your name on a contract, saying what I promise to you, what I vow to you, if I break that part of the covenant, basically you can put me to death like this animal. That I solemnly bind this agreement to you until death. Marriage is a covenant, until what? Death. Covenant is not foreign in biblical times. That was very commonly used in other parts of the world. The Bible actually speaks of seven different covenants. I'm gonna just go over a few of them because I want us to grasp, what's the truth I want us to grasp today? That our God is a what?

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Covenant keeping God. He's a covenant keeping God. So some of them in the Old Testament, you have four of them that were made with the nation of Israel. You have the Abrahamic covenant, the Palestinian covenant, which is the land covenant. You have the Mosaic covenant and you have the Davidic covenant. So that's four covenants. The other three covenants are the Adam covenant, Noah's covenant and then the new covenant, who is the new covenant,

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where's the bloodshed? Jesus Christ himself is the new covenant.

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So just bear with me just for a minute as I kind of take you through a couple of places where covenant is talked about. So you can see what he's trying to do in Malachi's day. Why is this taking place? Why are the priests being addressed? And why was this curse upon them?

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It all ties to the covenant.

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The Adam covenant, it could be told in two parts. You have Eden and you have Adam. So the Edenic covenant, I'm gonna read a scripture and look what's happening here. This is found in Genesis 1, 26 through 30. Let me read it real quick. Then God said, "Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth and every tree with seed and its fruit. You shall have them for food and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. So this part is a promise. It gives them direction, it gives them a promise, it gives them a purpose. And then in Genesis 2, 16 through 17, it says, "And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you shall surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." What does that say?

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"You shall not eat of." So this was a command that was given to him. So this particular covenant that he is making, blessing, they were created for blessing and for life, and but there was a command that they had to follow to receive that blessing.

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And so you have this, that's the Edenate covenant. And then you have the Adam covenant, Genesis 3, 16 through 19. Now they're all together, but they're just divided into two parts. But then we're going to ratify the covenant by blood in just a minute. In Genesis 3, 16 through 19, it says, "To the woman," because we know what happens, right? They eat of the forbidden tree, right? They fell and sin entered the world and everything changed. And in Genesis 3, 16 through 19, here is the curse that's coming upon because of why? Because of their disobedience. "To the woman," he said, "I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children, your desires shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.

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And to Adam," he said, "because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground," why? Because of you. "In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles, it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken,

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for you are dust into dust you shall return." So although these curses are severe and inescapable, a wonderful promise is given.

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God in this Adam covenant

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actually references the first gospel. When he says in Genesis 3.15 that I'm gonna send a seed that's gonna come from the woman, that's gonna crush the head of the serpent. So you have this promise that's given regardless of their disobedience, but the consequences of their disobedience is cursing upon the land and upon all of the living creatures.

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Here God promises the one born of a woman and would be wounded in the process of destroying Satan.

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The seed of the woman is none other than Jesus Christ. So that's a promise. And so in the midst of the curse, God's gracious provision of salvation happens in Genesis 3.15. So you're like, okay, well, Amy, where's the blood? Where's the ratifying of this covenant? The covenant was ratified when God took an innocent animal

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and that's the first death that occurred in the garden. So you see the same thing happen all through scripture that is the shedding of the blood and innocent on half of the guilty is the way to God. And you see him ratify this promise

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when he clothes them, he takes an animal, a perfect animal that he made that was without blemish, that was out defect and he clothes them and sends them out of the garden.

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So he sends them out of the garden actually to protect them from Eden, from the tree of life and living in that state forever. So that's the very first covenant that takes place. God has blessings for obedience and cursing for disobedience.

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Now the Noah covenant, that is an unconditional covenant. So there's a couple of unconditional covenants and a couple of conditional covenants. The covenant with Noah was an unconditional covenant that was made. I wanna read to you a scripture and then we'll jump over to Malachi here in a second. I wanna go through a couple of more with you first. So in Genesis 9, eight through 17, it says, then God said to Noah and his sons and him, behold, I established my covenant with you, there's that word, and your offspring after you. And with every living creature that is with you, the birds and the livestock and every beast of the earth with you as many as come out of the ark, it is for every beast of the earth. So this covenant is for who? Every beast of the earth. I established my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh be cut off by waters of the flood and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is after you for all generations. I have said a what? Bow, the rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God

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and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth. So you get it, sometimes it's actually mentioned covenant, but when you see a binding solemn agreement between others and blood is shed, there is a covenant.

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So another unconditional covenant was with Abraham.

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Okay, this is just a small verse I wanna reference for you. In Genesis 12, one through three, it says, now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land I will show you. And I will make for you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and in him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So God makes this unconditional covenant saying that all the peoples of the earth would bless through you and Abraham is the lineage of Jesus Christ. He's referring to the promised Messiah that's gonna come in the New Testament. So this covenant, a picture of this covenant was circumcision.

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That's what happened in Abraham's time. That's why God got so upset when Moses didn't circumcise his son as a sign of a covenant that he was gonna honor with Abraham, that he set as an example through Abraham. So you have the Mosaic covenant, which is what's going on in Malachi's day. The Mosaic covenant, that was a conditional one. Okay, so the unconditional ones are like the Abraham one because regardless of what happens, he's still sending the Messiah. Even if they don't honor their covenant, the Messiah is coming and he is going to cut covenant, the new covenant on the cross for us. But then you have this conditional covenant in Moses' time and the covenant promised a blessing for obedience again and a cursing for disobedience. If you were to look at Deuteronomy chapter eight, actually take your Bible and turn there.

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Deuteronomy 28.

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Now this is several places in scripture,

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but I'm just gonna look at some of it because I want you to see the blessing that comes for obedience and the cursing for disobedience.

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So God says to the people, this is after he brought them out of the land of Egypt,

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he was bringing them to a place of promise, the land, they were gonna go and enter into. And he says, and if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. I'm in verse two now. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you. I mean, to the point that it overtakes you, that's what kind of blessing that he desires for you. If you obey the voice of the Lord your God, bless shall you be in the city and bless shall you be in the field, but blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Bless shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Bless shall you be when you come in and bless shall you be when you go out.

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So you have a continual, like you can keep reading about the blessings, but for obedience, for walking in God's statutes, for walking according to the law,

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according to his precepts, blessing comes, blessing. And it's clearly laid out. And he doesn't just mention it here, he mentions it in several places. And then what's the very next part of this chapter?

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Cursing, cursing for disobedience. Listen to verse 15. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God, or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I commanded you today, then all the curses shall come upon you and overtake you. So the curses will overtake them, not the blessing.

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Curse shall you be in the city and curse shall you be in the field. Curse shall you be with the basket and the kneading bowl. Curse shall be the fruit of your womb. The fruit of your ground. The increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Curse shall you be when you come in and curse shall you be when you go out. And you can keep reading about all of these cursings. So I want us to think about that in the Old Testament, like with these covenants. So he had the covenant in the garden, and then he had Abraham and the, well Noah first, and then the covenant with Abraham. And now he's having the Mosaic covenant, and he's trying to get them to see that he's a covenant keeping God, regardless of what they do, he's going to honor his side of the covenant. And what does the covenant say? Cursing comes for disobedience.

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He's honoring his covenant. So where's the blood?

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And I'm glad you asked.

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In Exodus 24, this is after they came out of Egypt, Moses is standing up on the mountain, and he's literally sprinkling blood on the people.

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He's cutting covenant between God and the people. And it says in Exodus 24, three, it says, "Moses came out and told the people "all the words of the Lord and all the rules, "including all of these," all of the Old Testament,

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"and all the people answered with one voice and said," this is what they said. You ready for their end of the covenant?

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"All the words that the Lord has spoken, we will do."

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We will do. So that's their promise. That's their solemn binding agreement that we will obey, we will obey. In Exodus 24, eight, it says, "And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people." This is so foreign to us, but y'all know, do y'all ever play the pinky promise game? Like that was a big deal, right? That promise, that promise. This is more than a promise. This is until death. And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, "Behold, the blood of the covenant "that the Lord has made with you in accordance "with all these words." So you see this picture of God cutting covenant with the people and blessings will come for obedience and cursing will come for disobedience. So he gives this command to the priest in Malachi's day. So flip over to Malachi.

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Let's go over there real quick because that's where we really are, that's it. But this is the fulfillment of the covenant.

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Why are they under this curse? Why is all of this happening to them? Because he says that cursing has already happened

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because why? They were not honoring the Lord. They were not walking in obedience to God. So we see the priests and the people were under a curse because of their lack of reverence for God. The Bible teaches us that he disciplines those that he loves though. So this cursing isn't like a judgment on them. It's more of a call to repentance of them.

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He is disciplining those that he loves and they were being disciplined to grab their attention and awaken them from this apathetic stupor that they were in. They were very complacent and just kind of going through the motions of being a priest and bringing in whatever offerings they thought that were okay and fit for offering.

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And we see in scripture that it's blemished offerings that they were bringing in. So God desires for his covenant to stand. That's what he, the first passage I read to you about Malachi, he says, this is happening to you so that my covenant with Levi will stand. My covenant with him was one of what? And that's what we're gonna focus on the rest of our time. This covenant that he desired for the people, he wanted the blessing part of the covenant. He wanted to bless them, but he can't bless them. He cannot bless their blatant disobedience.

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And scripture says that this covenant was one of life and peace. That's the first part. He's like, he says that my covenant with Levi may stand, it was one of life and peace.

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So the first time that we see that word life in the Hebrew, it's referenced in the Bible in Genesis.

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So when God creates everything, in Genesis 2.7 it says, then the Lord God formed the man of dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils what? The breath of life, the breath of life. And the man became a living creature. So this covenant that was with Levi and the Levitical priesthood started out with life, with life, to be filled with life and peace.

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And then not only just life and peace, that tranquility, that peace with God, right? Because we are in fellowship with God when we're walking in obedience to him. You can be out of fellowship with God when you're blatantly being disobedient toward him.

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So you have, it says it's a covenant of fear. That's that word we talked about in this more group, fear.

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Fear, we also know as reverence, right? I love the definition that was given

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in one of the articles that I read. I think this was got questions. But it says fear is honor and respect that is deeply felt and outwardly demonstrated. Isn't that good? Okay, so there's a two parts to it. It's gotta happen here before it can happen outward. So you have an inward change displays an outward behavior. So the first time the word fear is used in the Old Testament, you ready?

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Genesis 3.10.

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And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden,

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and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself." Now, I think it's really interesting. I actually did a whole kind of study where we looked at fear throughout all the way, Old Testament and New Testament.

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And God, when we walked with him in the cool of the day, there was no fear. We had nothing to be afraid of because we saw him rightly for who he is. We worshiped him, we walked with him in the cool of the day. There was not sin in the world. It was complete paradise. And guess what? When we get to heaven and we get to see him face to face, we get to stand up right, right? We get to stand up right and be like him. So there's not fear then, and there's not fear in the end. It's all in between. But this is a mark of a true Christian, is fear, reverence. Because what happened in the garden is they rightly saw God and their depravity. They saw their nakedness. They saw that there's a vast difference between that God that created us that we walked with in the cool of the day and now in our sin nature. And they hid theirself because they did not want to be exposed like that. In author scripture, you see this sign of reverence, really, and I share this in small group this morning, you see the people fall prostrate before him. But in the New Testament, this is what's beautiful, is Jesus, when he comes on the scene and he begins to start talking to people that are falling prostrate when he's transfigured on the mountain, right? What does he say to his disciples? He touches them, he says, "Fear not, fear not." But it was an act of reverence, an act of humility, and an act of awe. And that's the next thing that we see with this covenant that he desires for them to have. This covenant, they're under a curse because of their disobedience. But he's like, "I want you to look at the covenant of Levi. "This is the covenant, the part of the covenant "that I want to bless you with, life and peace. "One where you fear me, you revere me. "And you also stand in awe of my name." That's the first thing. They stood in awe of his name. It's an awesome respect for God.

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So we see in Levi, in the Levitical priesthood, when they were walking in obedience with God, they were in awe of him.

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In Psalm 33, 8, it says, "Let all the earth fear the Lord.

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"Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in," what? "In awe of who he is." So fear and this awe factor, they go together, right? So you have, when we recognize God for who he rightly is, we're in awe of him. We were talking also earlier this morning about how those moments come and go for us in our human nature. And our, you know, because our sin is not eradicated yet. We're gonna have moments that we turn our eyes away from him. And when we turn our eyes away from him is when we have those moments that we're not in awe of him. And we allow other things to influence our decisions and our way of life. You know, because sometimes I'm like, "Oh, but just can't we stay in the worship center?" You know, but at some point, our arms come down and we stop singing and we're distracted by something or someone. And that sense of reverence can easily be removed if we're not careful. So I wanna read to you out of God questions, this little article that I looked up, what does it mean to have reverence for God? It says, "The idea of reverence for God started with God." Isn't that interesting? He says, "In the Old Testament, "God taught the Israelites how to show proper reverence "in giving them all of the laws "that related to purity, holiness, and worship. "Sinful humanity doesn't know how to worship a holy God "with reverence and all, so he spelled it out for them.

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"His presence dwelt with Israel in the Ark of the Covenant. "They were not able to even touch the Ark of the Covenant "as it was a matter of reverence.

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"The Holy of Holies inside the tabernacle "also required the highest level of reverence.

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"Whoever disobeyed God, God's command "about entering the Holy of Holies," what happened to them?

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They died instantly.

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"The purpose of such strict rules was to define holiness "and impress upon mankind the necessity for reverence "in the presence of a holy God. "God is not to be trifled with," this article says. And then in the New Testament, I love this part, I also wanna share with you, "the reverence for God is demonstrated in our willingness "to voluntarily die to ourself and obey his commands." Isn't that good?

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So the first thing that we saw with this covenant with Levi is Levi stood in awe of his name. The second thing that we see is true instruction was in his mouth. That was a part of this walking in God's way and walking in truth and in life.

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You see true instruction is on this priest, his mouth. In Proverbs 10, 21, it says, "The lips of the righteous feed many." I love that, they feed many. "But fools die for the lack of judgment."

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So instruction is actually a precept. It's a statute when you look up that Hebrew word for instruction in Malachi, it's a law. So this covenant was one where God's word, his precepts and his statutes were a part of who this Levitical priest and the Levites were.

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It was in their heart and it flowed out of their mouth.

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In Luke 6, 45, this was part of your homework.

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You had to look that verse up, but it talks about how out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth will speak. So this isn't just whatever I wanna share with people or my idea or this is how I think you should handle this problem or that problem. No, this is truth. This is instruction, his precepts and his laws.

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The third thing that we see is this covenant with Levi, he walked in peace and uprightness.

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And I wanted to look up again, where else is that used? Where is this walked used in the Bible? The first place that it appears is in Genesis 2.14

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and I love this. It says Genesis 2.14 it says, "And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows."

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Okay, so that flows is the same Hebrew word as walked. East of Assyria and the fourth river is the Euphrates.

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So it gives you this idea that it's a manner of life. That that just like that river flows,

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that should flow out of us, this peace and uprightness.

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Have you ever heard the phrase, "Adorn the gospel?"

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I've used it multiple times. Adorn the gospel, so wear it. That should be an outward display for the world to see. Just like we get dressed in the morning and we look in the mirror and we wanna look our best, but not just by the clothes that we wear or our makeup or the way that we fix our hair, but we want other people to see in our lives what it looks like to belong to Christ and we should look like Christ in all that we encounter. In other words, you may be the only Bible

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that a person ever sees.

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Because we know people don't read today, do they?

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People don't. They'll just wanna turn on and listen. Sometimes they don't even like to listen to podcasts or things like that. They go about their day in and day out and they don't find any time to read. They're not gonna open this book.

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So sometimes we have to remember when we leave our home, our community that we're entering in, we may be the only Bible that they ever read.

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They should see the fruit of the Spirit on display in our life, the love, the joy, the patience, the peace, the kindness, the gentleness, the faithfulness, the self-control. The next thing we see is this covenant with Levi, he turned many from iniquity.

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So it's not only does he just stand in awe of him,

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but he walks in peace and uprightness and because he walks with this peace and uprightness and he has this fear, it has another effect on other people.

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And because of his faithful instruction on his lips and displayed through his actions, he actually kept people from stumbling and falling into sin.

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The next thing we see is guard knowledge. We got a few more.

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So he turned many from iniquity

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and the next thing that you see for this covenant with Levi and what it looked like with God is the priest or to guard knowledge.

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Okay, that word guard, it means to take heed.

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It means to hedge about and to protect.

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So it just makes me think of like literally like marching around. Y'all know we do that with our babies in our home, right? We want to march around and protect our home and our children and our marriage, hedge about, protect. But you know what it's saying to protect?

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It says knowledge, guard knowledge. Listen to what this means.

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Knowledge, when you look it up, it's cunning.

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That took me by surprise, cunning.

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It's gonna come full circle in just a minute. In Genesis 2.9, it says, and out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life, what is in the midst of the garden and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So this garden that he placed them in was for protection.

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And so you have this protection and this boundary that's set to not eat from what? The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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This instruction, this, I mean this knowledge that you're guarding is the cunningness. Who else is referred to as crafty and cunning?

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Satan.

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So you're to guard knowledge, you're to hedge about, you're to protect the enemy schemes from the people of God and from you from being deceived. That is this guarding knowledge. You are to know his ways. You are to study the word of God and be able to identify lies. Does that make sense? Because you can identify a lie if you don't know the word.

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You can identify a lie if you don't know truth. You could be so deceived. And in the book of Hosea, we know that people are destroyed because of lack of knowledge. It's the lack of understanding and identifying things and knowing truth versus a lie. So the enemy is known for his cunningness and his craftiness. So it gives this idea that the covenant with Levi was one where Levi, the priest, protected himself along with others from the enemy and guarded others from falling for the lies.

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You know, because it's easy, let's just say Amalekai's day, for them to have two animals for sacrifice, okay? One is a good, unblemished animal. It's worth a lot in the marketplace.

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And then another one is lame and sick and maybe it was taken by war.

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And that really cost me nothing.

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So the culture would say, keep the better for yourself and give God the leftovers. That's what the culture would say. And it's okay, right? Because you're still taking the animal to the altar. You're still sacrificing it. It's okay, right? No.

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The word says bring an unblemished animal without defect. So these priests, they were just doing whatever, whatever they wanted or whatever the people thought would be best instead of guarding knowledge and protecting it.

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I think I have two more. The second to last thing is people seek instruction from his mouth, okay? So to seek is to search out and to strive after.

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So people see this displayed in his life, this life of peace and this life of reverence,

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this life that is fully blessed. And what do they, they seek him out or they seek her out. That's what we, we're called his priest.

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We, Christians are called his priest. And so people should look at our lives and desire what we have and desire to learn from us and to want our advice. And we're to be ready to give them true instruction, not just what we think or how we feel about a situation. Oftentimes we need to stop when someone asks for our advice and we need to pray and we need to say, I'll come back to you so I can rightly discern what the word of God says and give them true instruction. I've had it handled certain situations.

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And it says that we are to live our lives in a manner worthy of the gospel where others strive to be like we are.

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We are to look that attractive to others, not by what we wear, but by the way we conduct our lives. And the last thing that it says about this covenant with Levi is that he's a messenger of the Lord of hosts. So he is God's mouthpiece, just like Malachi was in this day. Malachi means my messenger.

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The angel of the Lord was referred to as a messenger in the Old Testament. We are his representatives, we are his mouthpiece.

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And it's one who is sent, like to dispatch as a deputy. That is the image that we are to take away of for ourselves even out of this lesson that in Malachi's day, they were corrupt. They had fallen into sin. They questioned the love of God. They were just doing things and going through the motions of life and worship. They were far from God. They were very apathetic. But when you see God tell them that, you know, basically that just like you take the excrement of your animal and throw it outside the camp and burn it, the same things happen into you. Why? Because you're causing many to stumble by your instruction and you are corrupting the covenant of Levi. God says that I make you despised in the base before all the people because you do not honor the covenant. So I hope you're able to see that our God is a covenant keeping God, regardless of what our obedience is,

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he is going to honor his covenant. He said cursing will come for disobedience and that's exactly what's taken place. But it's not to judge them in a sense, it's just to shake them up.

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It's to discipline them so that they can honor the covenant. Let's pray.

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God, we just love you and praise you. Thank you so much, Lord, for your word. Thank you for just the ability to look up these words and get a deeper understanding of what it means, Lord. And we're so grateful that you are a covenant keeping God, that it doesn't matter, I mean, it matters to you what we do, but it's not based upon, I'm thankful that the new covenant's not based upon

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my efforts or my action, that you sent your son Jesus to die for me as a free gift of eternal life. It's not based off of my merit, thank God.

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Because we fall short all the time, Lord. And I know these priests were falling short during that time and this mosaic covenant was a conditional covenant. They required, in order to be blessed, they required, you required obedience from them and they promised to give it. So I just pray, Father, that now that we live on the other side under the new covenant, that we will want and desire to give that much more, just out of a pure love for you and a pure reverence for you. Help us to stand in awe of you, help us to live a life that's worthy of the gospel, that we can look like you as we leave this building, that we can look like you as we enter our homes and talk to our family members, that we can look like you when we're at Kroger or at Walgreens or wherever you take us, Lord, in this community and beyond, that we will be attractive to others because we simply smile and we acknowledge people and we love well.

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I just pray, Father, that we will walk in obedience to the calling that we have on our life, which is walk in obedience to be worthy of the gospel. In Jesus' name, amen.