God's Rebuke of Sinners

[Read Malachi 2:1-16]

I came across an interesting story in the Bible this week. It’s a story that I have heard many times before, but I missed one significant portion of this story. 

I’m sure many of you have heard the story of Balaam, right? Most famously, Balaam is known for his donkey. Balaam was hired by one of Israel’s enemies to place a curse upon God’s people. While Balaam was riding his donkey to curse God’s people, an angel stands in the way of the donkey. As Balaam becomes angry, he begins beating his donkey until the donkey speaks to him. That’s probably the most commonly known part of this story. However, eventually, Balaam stands on a hillside over Israel, but cannot curse them. He can only pronounce blessings upon Israel. This obviously bothered the king that hired Balaam to curse Israel. The story ends with Balaam going back to his home. 

Yet, there’s more to the story when looking into Balaam and the other places he’s mentioned in the Bible. Right after we read that Balaam when back home, we read this, Later on in the book of Numbers we read this, “While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel.” (Numbers 25:1–3, ESV). Now, that doesn’t seem to have any connection to Balaam until we read this later in the book of Numbers: “Moses said to them, “Have you let all the women live? Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the Lord.” (Numbers 31:15–16, ESV). By the way, twenty-four thousand people died from this plague that God sent upon his people for this act.

Now, here’s what’s interesting. What do you do when you’ve been hired to curse God’s people, but are prevented from cursing them? You develop a plan so that they bring a curse upon themselves. What do you do when someone hires you to decrease the population of a group of people, but you are prevented from doing so? You develop a plan so that they bring a curse and a plague upon themselves that causes twenty-four thousand of them to die. And what was his plan? He told the Moabites and the Midianites to send their women into Israel and begin marrying their men. Then, as God’s people married women who worshiped foreign gods, they were led astray to worship those same gods as well, which resulted in their unfaithfulness and a curse from God that wiped out twenty-four thousand people before Phineas took dramatic action to end the curse. That’s how Balaam got the job done for Israel’s enemies and led God’s people astray.

Now, why am I talking about this when we’re in the book of Malachi? Well, the same thing is happening again. And, to be honest, it’s a tale as old as time. What happened to Solomon, the wisest man who has ever lived? He was led astray by his wives who worshiped foreign gods. What happened in Ezra and Nehemiah? The people were led astray by wives that worshiped foreign gods. Now, it’s happening again. 

And as Malachi sees this happening again, he asks a powerful question, “Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?” (Malachi 2:10, ESV). Built into this question is another question. Not only is he asking, “Why are we faithless to one another?” but he’s also asking, “Why are we faithless to God?” Malachi is pointing out the absurdity of the faithlessness of God’s people. He says, “Don’t we all have ONE Father? Then, why is it so hard for us to listen to him and obey him and trust him? Isn’t it God who created us in the first place? Isn’t it God who made us a people from NOTHING? Isn’t it God who blessed us and made us a blessing? Isn’t it God who delivered us from slavery in Egypt? Isn’t it God who fed us in the desert? Isn’t it God who gave us the Promised Land? Isn’t it God who delivered us from exile? Isn’t it God who has given us EVERYTHING—like life and breath and everything? Since all of those things are VERY CLEAR, why in the world is it so hard for us to be faithful to him? Why are we faithless to the God who has been unbelievably faithful to us? Why are we continually leaving and forsaking the God who never leaves nor forsakes us?” It’s craziness! It’s absurd. Yet, we see it over and over and over again throughout God’s Word. And, when we’re honest with ourselves, we see it over and over and over again in our own lives. Why are we so faithless?

And underneath these questions is another question, “Why can’t we just trust the God and Father who has given us everything? Why can’t we listen to him? If he tells us to do something, why don’t we listen to him and trust him? If he tells us not to do something, why don’t we listen to him and NOT do those things? Has God proven himself unreliable or untrustworthy or unfaithful? Has God given us any reason at all to not listen to him?” No. If anything, we’ve proven over and over again that we can’t trust ourselves and our own opinions. But God has always proven himself to be faithful and true and reliable. So, why don’t we listen to him? Why are we so faithless?

Malachi gives two examples of faithlessness amongst God’s people at this time. He begins with the priests—the leaders and teachers of His people. And he contrasts his priests with the way they were supposed to function. Let’s look at that first. 

God says, “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 them 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 a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.” (Malachi 2:4–7, ESV). God is describing the covenant he made with the priests in the beginning. He says it was a covenant of life and peace and He gave those things to them. He gave them life and gave them peace. God says it was a covenant of fear—proper, Godly fear—and the priests feared him. It was a covenant of awe, and the priests were in awe of him. These priests walked in peace and uprightness. They walked with God. They gave true and pure instruction to God’s people. They guarded knowledge and people sought them for instruction because they were messengers of the Lord. And, they turned MANY people away from their iniquity and sin and brought them into righteousness and peace and awe. It was a beautiful thing. 

Yet, here’s how God describes the faithless priests during Malachi: “But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts, 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.” (Malachi 2:8–9, ESV). They’ve done the opposite of what God has called them to do. Rather than walking with God, they’ve turned away from God. Rather than instructing and building up God’s people with wisdom and knowledge, their teaching has led people astray. Rather than turning MANY people away from their sins, these priests have caused MANY to stumble and fall further into sin. It was a terrible thing. 

They didn’t trust God or follow God or believe God. That’s why they didn’t do the things God told them to do. That’s why they were faithless. And that’s also why they were under a curse. God says to the priests, “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 do not lay it to heart.” (Malachi 2:2, ESV). God actually tells them that he’s not just sending a curse upon them, but a curse is ALREADY upon them and they haven’t even noticed. That’s how far they have fallen. God is actively cursing them—actively disciplining them—and they don’t even recognize that it’s happening. 

Here’s God’s curse upon the priests. It’s extremely graphic. He says, “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.” (Malachi 2:3, ESV). Those are harsh words. They are harsh enough that it makes us cringe a little bit to even read them. Imagine how many animals come to the temple to be sacrificed and imagine how much dung those animals would produce. God says that he’s going to take that dung and rub it in their faces—not only to humiliate them for their unfaithfulness but also to make them unclean so that they can no longer do their job. Not only that, God says that they will be taken away with the dung. They will be hauled out of the city and thrown on the dung heap. It’s as if God is looking at the priests and telling them that they are only good enough to be thrown in the manure pit behind the barn. Why? Because they have refused to listen to and trust and follow their God. They were faithless. 

And what happens when you have faithless leaders? You get faithless people. One commentator this week said, “When the spiritual and religious leaders of God’s people do not comply with the elevated demands of their calling, a moral decline takes place, generally manifesting itself in, among other things, various malpractices concerning the marriage life of the people.” (Verhoef, 263). I’ve sometimes called this the “mirror principle.” If you are a leader, the people who follow you will often be a reflection of you. So, if you are living a faithless life, the people following you will also be faithless. I call it the mirror principle because often leaders will be complaining about all of the bad things going on in the people they are leading, and if they looked in the mirror, they would see most of those same problems within themself. 

So, since the priests have been faithless we read, “Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem. For Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god.” (Malachi 2:11, ESV). How has Judah been faithless? How has Judah committed an abomination? How has Judah profaned the sanctuary of the LORD? They have done it by marrying daughters of a foreign god—another way of saying, they have married women who worship other gods. 

What’s interesting is, I’m sure some of your initial reactions are probably, “Well, that’s pretty strong language, isn’t it? I mean, it’s not THAT big of a deal, is it? They were just marrying people who weren’t Israelites. They were just marrying people who didn’t believe the same things as they did—or worship the same God as they did. Come on. Sheesh.” I think that reaction only shows how far we’ve fallen ourselves. I’m sorry if that hits too close to home, but I still think it’s true. God said, “Do not marry foreign wives! Do not marry women who do not worship your God!” And our reaction is, “Well, that’s a stupid rule!” Come on! Really? What about God would make you question him on this? Do you not trust him? Do you not believe him? Do you not think he is smart enough to lead you properly? What on earth would cause you to question the God who created the universe AND created you? 

And to make things worse, they were not only marrying foreign women, they were divorcing their wives in order to marry those foreign women. We read, “Because the LORD was witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant…For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the LORD, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts.” (Malachi 2:14,16, ESV). This is an extremely difficult passage to translate from Hebrew into English. That’s why you’ll see quite a few different variations of this when you look at different translations. Many of you probably know this verse as saying, ““For I hate divorce,” says the LORD, the God of Israel” (Malachi 2:16, NASB95). Whether that’s the actual translation of this passage or not, it is definitely the tone of it. God is not happy with his people who are divorcing their wives—the wives God has united them with—in order to marry foreign wives who will eventually lead them astray. It’s like a double kick in the face to their God. 

And to make it worse, we read this: “And this second thing you do. You cover the LORD’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand.” (Malachi 2:13, ESV). While they are faithlessly walking away from God—doing whatever they want to do, rebelling against him, divorcing their wives, marrying foreign wives—they are pretending like everything is all hunky dory. They are still going to the temple and “worshiping.” They are still making their sacrifices. They are still going through the motions, all the while they are actually spitting in God’s face. And, to make it all worse, they are weeping and weeping and weeping because God will not receive their sacrifices. And they are complaining to God because he won’t accept their sacrifices. They are moaning and groaning about it BUT they refuse to repent of their faithlessness and turn back to God so that he would accept their sacrifices. They don’t want to do that. They want to do whatever they want to do while pretending to worship God. And God is not having anything to do with it. 

That’s why this entire passage ends with this warning: “So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.” (Malachi 2:16, ESV). Watch yourselves. Keep a close eye on yourselves so that you don’t become faithless like Judah and the priests. You have to keep a close watch on yourself because you won’t naturally be faithful. That’s not your natural tendency. Your natural tendency will be to drift/slide into faithlessness. So, for that not to happen, you need to guard yourselves. 

But he says something more. He doesn’t just say “Guard yourselves…” He says, “So guard yourselves in your spirit…” (Malachi 2:16, ESV). We are to guard ourselves in our spirit because that’s where our sinful actions originate—that’s where faithlessness originates. It comes from deep within us. It comes from our hearts. It comes from our souls. Faithlessness begins with allowing our hearts and desires to head in a different direction—a direction contrary to God—for a little while, eventually our lives and actions follow. Faithlessness begins with a little questioning here and there—questioning God’s laws, questioning God’s Word, questioning God’s love. From there, things go south in a hurry and you quickly find yourself living a faithless life that leads to destruction. It begins by saying in your heart and soul, “Well, that’s a stupid rule! That’s a stupid… I can’t believe God would actually say… I don’t care if God says… I don’t care what God’s Word says…” That already is faithlessness because you are not having faith and trust in your God. You don’t trust him enough to listen to Him. You don’t have faith enough to follow Him where he leads you. 

If you find yourself being convicted by this message—maybe you see a little of yourself in the priests or the people of God, maybe you’ve failed to love your spouse, maybe you’ve been tempted to marry someone who’s not a Christian—there’s only one way to respond, although you’ll be tempted to respond in a few different ways. You’ll be tempted to respond by ignoring that nagging feeling deep down in your soul. You’ll be tempted to walk away from God and say, “Well, if that’s what He wants, I don’t want any of it.” You’ll be tempted to ignore the conviction and feeling and just keep living the way you’ve been living. You’ll be tempted to weep and weep and moan and groan and feel guilty about it. None of those are the right answer. None of them. 

The only proper response—the only response that will bring you true freedom and blessing—is to repent—turn from your faithlessness—and embrace Jesus Christ in real, true faith. When you do that, you will be washed and cleansed from your past failures and your current faithlessness, you will be redeemed and restored into a new man, and you will be filled with the Holy Spirit to begin living a faithful life of following Jesus Christ and listening to whatever he tells you. That’s the only way to true obedience and the only way to live a life of blessing in this world. You can’t do it on your own or in your own strength. You can’t pull yourself out of that pit. You need to remember the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You need to trust in them by faith alone. Then, you need to walk by faith in Jesus Christ as you obey your God and Father.