HONOR THE LORD’S NAME
MALACHI 2:1-10 - November 7, 2004 - 2nd Sunday of End time/Last Judgment
1"And now this admonition is for you, O priests. 2If you do not listen, and if you do not set your heart to honor my name," says the LORD Almighty, "I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to honor me.
3"Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will spread on your faces the offal from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. 4And you will know that I have sent you this admo-nition so that my covenant with Levi may continue," says the LORD Almighty. 5"My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. 6True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin.
7"For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek in-struction--because he is the messenger of the LORD Almighty. 8But you have turned from the way and by your teaching have caused many to stumble; you have violated the covenant with Levi," says the LORD Almighty. 9"So I have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law."
10Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us? Why do we profane the covenant of our fathers by breaking faith with one another?
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Dearest Fellow Redeemed and blessed Saints in the Lord:
Today we are going to be reminded to study the word honor. So we might ask ourselves what is honor? There are different definitions and different synonyms. To our minds we might probably think first of all about the First Commandment. This commandment says we are to fear, love and trust in God above all things. This is what our Lord wants as we honor God’s name. Believers are to respect and re-vere the name of the Lord because of what he has done for us. It is a serious matter. Even the Lord him-self says: “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols””(ISAIAH 42:8). Isaiah was reminding the people, as he reminds us today, that the Lord’s name--The Lord Almighty--as we heard it a number of times in our text, is the Lord God of the heavens and earth. Our Lord does not want his praise or his honor to go to anyone else. Today in these words in the book of Malachi this prophet reminds us to HONOR THE LORD’S NAME.
Followers of God do this: I. in believing hearts and II. with faithful lives.
I. IN BELIEVING HEARTS
The historical setting: The children of Israel had come back from their Babylonian captivity. They were delivered back to Jerusalem, which lay before them in rubble. This was a different captivity from the Egyptian captivity. The Babylonian captivity came years after the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. This came after the Lord had brought them to the Promised Land. During those years in the Promised Land, God’s children had forgotten the Lord God. The kingdom of Israel had split. The north-ern kingdom of Israel was utterly defeated. There were no survivors left. The tribes in the northern king-dom were scattered to the ends of the earth. The southern kingdom of Judah was taken away to Babylon. Then we have the prophets of Daniel, Ezekiel who spoke to them. And now they are back in Jerusalem.
In today’s text the Prophet Malachi reminds them why they left; why the Lord’s justice came upon them. “And now this admonition is for you, O priests. If you do not listen, and if you do not set your heart to honor my name,” says the Lord Almighty. Malachi is reminding them once again to listen. He is reminding them once again to honor the name of the Lord in their hearts. This is the word of the Lord almighty. They have already experienced what the Lord does in his justice. He shows mercy, but he also shows judgment. Malachi writes: I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. And I’m sure they looked around and saw Jerusalem destroyed. I am sure they looked around and saw the temple torn down and they realized the Lord had indeed cursed their blessings. That Promised Land was not looking so promised anymore. He says: Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to honor me.
Malachi is saying: you know you just spent years as slaves in a foreign country, and now you are back. Remember to honor the name of the Lord. The results would be drastic if they did not. He says: because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will spread on your faces the offal from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it. They would bring their sacrifices to the temple altar. The intestines and the insides, the offal, would be taken out to be discarded outside of the city. The Lord said, but if you keep disobeying, if you do not honor me, you are going to be like the entrails of the sacrifices which are not acceptable to God and which are carried off and dumped outside the city. All that the Lord wanted was that they would remember him and honor him in faithful hearts.
It had been done before. “And you will know that I have sent you this admonition so that my covenant with Levi may continue,” says the Lord God Almighty. From the tribe of Levi came the priests. And the Lord had made a covenant with them. As they would remain faithful to his word, he would re-main faithful to them, and shower upon them blessing, upon blessing. Aaron and his descendants had done a good job. Malachi continues: My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him -- and he listened. Sometimes when we look at the Old Testament, when we look at the Old Testament priests, we think that the only thing they had to work with was God’s Law. But here the Lord reminded his people it wasn’t just the Law, it was all of God’s word contained his covenant of life and peace. Why would they reject it? Why would they give it up? Why had they forgotten the Lord in the Promised Land? They had faithful hearts, but their hearts had turned to give honor to idols and other to false gods.
It is a struggle. It always will be a struggle. Our hearts by nature of the sin that is in us doesn’t produce goodness. Our hearts by the nature of the sin that is in us does not produce faith. Instead the Lord reminds us of that struggle that you and I have as believers. Christian faith is a struggle because as believers you and I know what is right and we know what is wrong. We know that in sin lives in our hearts. Listen to the words of Jesus when he describes our hearts: “For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly” (MARK 7:21,22). The Lord reminds within our hearts lies all these things. And they are just lurking there, waiting to come out. We are reminded as the Lord reminded Cain before he killed Abel, sin is lurking at the door.
What are we going to do? Well we are not going to trust in ourselves, because then we are always going to fall short of the glory of God. We realize that when we see our sinfulness and our utter deprav-ity, that we cannot help ourselves out of eternal damnation. On our own and by ourselves we cannot help ourselves out of a sinful situation. But the Lord helps us! He gives us his strength and power. He changes our hearts. In Ezekiel we read: “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh” (EZEKIEL 11:19). So it is, the Lord by his grace and through the power of his word and sacraments (baptism, Lord’s Supper) that he changes our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. God’s children are given living and beating hearts and believing hearts.
Therefore because of all that our Lord has done for each one of us, we honor the Lord’s name. We honor the Lord’s name with believing hearts by not trusting ourselves, but trusting in God. When we look at our sinfulness, and when we look at our failings and our human flesh, when we look at our weakness, we are reminded that our righteousness comes from God. We are reminded that our strength comes from God. We are reminded that our help comes from God. Psalm 51 tells us: “Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (PSALM 51:9,10). We sing these words of this Psalm and some of the following verses after the sermon. Create in me a pure heart! God can do it. God does do it. And God will do it.
Then we want to continue to HONOR THE NAME OF THE LORD I. with believing hearts. We honor the name of the Lord II. with faithful lives.
II. WITH FAITHFUL LIVES
Now when you look closely at these words of Malachi we realize that he does address them to the priests, those who were the religious leaders of the day. But we also realize as we will soon see, that these words are also spoken about and to God’s people. He talks about this covenant of life and peace that was given to Levi, to the tribe of Levi, to the house of Levi and all of his descendants. And what does he say? "My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for rever-ence and he revered me and stood in awe of my name.” The Lord had promised life and peace. The priests realized God’s gift to them, and they revered his name. They stood in awe of being in service to him. Malachi says: True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. Of course this came from believing hearts. The instruction here, in the Hebrew, is known as the Torah. We may hear that from time to time. The Torah included first 5 books of the Bible -- the Law of God given to Moses for God’s people. Malachi says that Torah, instruction was found on his lips. He spoke the word of the Lord. And as they spoke the word of the Lord nothing false was found there.
Today’s text continues. The priest doesn’t just believe and then speak but also: He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many from sin. And so it was that for many generations a priest came and offered the sacrifices of the people. They preached the word of the Lord. And the people lis-tened and they turned and repented time and again. As the Israelites wandered in the wilderness we know of many times that they turned away from God Many time they also turned back to God. Sadly when they got into the Promised Land, they were turning from God so much that they did not turn back. Finally, the Lord takes them away and they are captives in a foreign land. The Lord also brings them back to the city of Jerusalem.
Malachi continues: For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction (= the Torah) because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty. Not any false God, they would not help. But it is the word of the Lord Almighty. And then he says, but you have turned from the way, and by your teaching have caused many to stumble. You have violated the covenant with Levi says the Lord Almighty. Malachi presents these two things. He says you can walk in the way of the Lord and do what is right. Or you can turn away and forget about the Lord. The bad part about forgetting about the Lord is the Lord is going to forget them-forsake them. The Lord will not forget them, but he may forsake them for a time. This is what had happened. Malachi says: So I (the Lord) have caused you to be despised and humiliated before all the people, because you have not followed my ways but have shown partiality in matters of the law. Israel was no longer a great nation. They were no longer the possessors of the Promised Land. Instead, once again they were slaves, once again they were prison-ers. This time they lived in Babylon until the Lord brought them back.
Sadly, when God’s people have to face God’s judgment, then other nations say: is that the kind of God they have? Why doesn’t their God take better care of them? That is all people see-- the outward and not the inward. And that is what the Lord is talking about today. And so he comes to these rhetorical questions at the end of our text. Verse 10 says: Have we not all one father? He reminded them they were still Abraham’s seed. The promise that was made to Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob, was made to them the covenant of life and peace. And who was their God? Did not one God create us? The Lord almighty, didn’t he do this? Reminding them that not all was lost, not all was hopeless, and God was still with them. Finally Malachi says: Why do we profane the covenant of our Fathers by breaking faith with one another? We ought to also seek true instruction to turn to the covenant of life and peace, and not break the faith.
When we look back at God’s judgment upon his nation Israel, it can easily tremble to see what God would do to those who are his own. God reminds us that we might also tremble as we come to the end of the church year and we hear what God is going to do to those who are not his own. The Lord is also going to treat them with justice. But their destiny is destruction, eternity in damnation for every un-believer. We are reminded of the importance of remaining true to the truth of God’s word, his instruction and his Torah -- the law and the gospel. But what happens? This is not a popular stance to take today; in a sense, to be stuck in God’s word – according to the world. People look at God’s Word as a rut, too restrictive. They consider the Bible as an out-of-date and irrelevant book. But you and I know differently because God has worked faith in our hearts. Still many turn away. Why is that? Well Paul describes it. He describes when the world is coming closer to the ends times: “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 TIMOTHY 4:3). The next verse goes on to say they will follow myths instead of the truth of God. Now we have heard that and seen that. And we wonder ourselves. How can people believe in myths rather than the simple truth of God’s word?
People want to hear what they want to hear. We are going to talk about that today in our Bible study. When we look at creation, some look at that as a parable, as a myth. How could that happen? The flood- it didn’t happen. But the Lord says it does--and we believe it. The Lord tells us very clearly that he sent his Son to die for our sins--and we believe it. That is His gospel. In our day and age because people are so anxious in helping themselves, and doing it for themselves they often change God’s free gospel into a law. Some say: If we obey we will get into heaven. If we do what is right certainly God has to bless us. We hear that time and again. The Lord doesn’t have to bless us at all. But the Lord does bless us! He blesses us because he loves us. And God loved us first. The Gospel comes to us free. The Gospel comes to us in spite of our sinfulness. The Gospel comes to us out of God’s great love. Paul describes it in Romans: “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ’The righteous will live by faith”’(ROMANS 1:17). We do not live by works. We do not live by wealth or power or our own honor. But we live by faith. Christian faith is faith that the Lord graciously works in our hearts.
We now return to the point that believers honor the Lord’s name with faithful living. We honor the Lord’s name putting our trust and love in him above all things. We already heard that list of the things that come from a sinful heart. But for you and I, our sinful heart has also been changed from that heart of stone into a heart of flesh. You and I now possess a believing heart. It is a heart then which also produces good things, not just bad. Now we turn to the list in Galatians: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (GALATIANS 5:22,23). Paul says that all these things come from a believing heart. All these fruits of the Spirit are seen in a faithful life. We might want to examine one of the fruits of the Spirit each day and practice improving that fruit in our day-to-day living. In doing so, we learn to honor the Lord’s name with faithful lives.
Again we live in a day and age when we don’t hear that very much. People want to honor their own name. They may even want to honor someone else; but, mostly themselves. Therefore the Lord re-minds us today the importance of honoring the Lord’s name. We do it as a gift of God because God gives us believing hearts. Then we also do this as thanksgiving to God because from those believing hearts flow our faithful lives, that we might show others that we honor the Lord’s name. And the Lord has called us to that purpose hasn’t he. He has made each of us today to be the children of that tribe of Levi. We are God’s priests today to carry out the message of salvation. In 1 Peter the Lord reminds us: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may de-clare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 PETER 2:9). So the Lord doesn’t distinguish like he did in the Old Testament of only certain priests who were set aside for his work. Today ALL believers belong to and are members of the royal priesthood. Even more, believers are also considered a holy nation, a people belonging to God. Add to that that every believer is given pur-pose for faithful living that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. May each of us honor the Lord ‘s name. For it is the Lord who gives us believing hearts so that we may live faithful lives. AMEN. Pastor Timm O. Meyer
