Malachi 2:1-9

Many of the people in Malachi’s time were offering defiled sacrifices. God wants your sacrifice offered with good attitudes and your offering does reflect your attitude about God. The scripture shares one of the reasons the nation of Israel had the wrong kind of attitude in worship was because their priests were corrupt. What we don’t really know is the answer to the question, “Were the priests corrupt because of the people, or were the people led astray by corrupt priests?”


What does the priesthood have to do with me? 

1 Peter 2:5 “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ."

As believers in Christ you and I are a priesthood having the same responsibilities as those of old. God wants us to live the best we can and be a reflection of Him to a lost and dying world. That's why He wants holiness or righteous living by all those who represent Him from the pulpit or in the pew.


-Religion instead of righteousness. 

Verses 1-4 "And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart. Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feasts; and one shall take you away with it. And ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith the Lord of hosts."




The Lord speaks through the prophet with words that would definitely get their attention. He speaks of a commandment. This is the thing they knew best. The priests followed the law. After all, they had written most of them themselves. They knew what it said. So when they heard that there was a commandment for them to follow they no doubt thought, "Great, we can do this." We, in our perfect hindsight, can see how the priests missed it. 

Man cannot be saved by following commandments. We are saved by grace and not by works. We know also that Jesus’ command to us was to, “love one another.” 

These priests had a pride that was so engrained in them that they could never admit to being wrong and they missed the point. Pride often keeps us from being obedient.
 The office of priest was handed down from one generation to the next. The priesthood came through a covenant. This priesthood, who should have been blessed, was failing in several areas of their worship because: 

a. God was speaking to them through the prophets and the law, but they were not listening.

b. If they did hear, they didn’t believe it. After all, Malachi and all the others that came before him were just prophets. They were priests of God schooled in the matters of religion, but not righteousness.

c. They were not giving glory to God’s name. As a matter of fact, they were bringing reproach. What does this say to us today? As the church (A holy priesthood) we are called to hear God’s word, whether it is His voice speaking in our hearts or the word given to us to read. And then we are called to do what we hear. Proclaim His word. Live lives that are pure and holy before Him. Be an example of His holiness to those around you.


God said, “I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings.” I take that in two ways: 

a. God is going to curse everything that He has blessed them with. 

b. The blessings that they pronounce upon others will be cursed. 

Now why would God do that? Why would He hold others accountable for the sins of the priests? As a Christian, you are responsible to study the word, to rightly divide the truth, to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. You are responsible for yourself. You can be pretty sure that what I say to you from this pulpit is the truth, but you better check it for yourself. The corruption of the priests, then, affects those around them, those whom they have blessed, as well as their descendants. It now becomes a generational curse. Just as God’s blessing can be passed from generation to generation as in the priesthood, God is telling them that His curses can also be passed along. He is going to rebuke their descendants. The defiled offerings that they are offering up, He will throw them back in their face. Sacrificed animals still had waste in their systems, and the entrails were to be burned outside the sanctuary according to Exodus 29:14. Here, God says He will “rub their noses in it,” so that they will have to be taken outside the sanctuary. For what purpose? “Then you shall know that I have sent this commandment to you.” When you become a Christian, your life is no longer your own. You were bought with a price. You are a child of the living God. You’re expected to act like it.