The Unfaithful Minister, p.2

Well, grab your Bibles and let's go to the old part of the book. If you go to Matthew and go back one. book you'll be in Malachi. And we are going through Malachi verse by verse, chapter by chapter. We're in chapter two.

And we are looking at. The unfaithful ministers. In this section, chapter 2, verses 1 through 9. The prophet Malachi. Speaking for the Lord.

It's bringing a Ponyt. Forceful. Word to the unfaithful priest of his day.

Now this day is the time of return from exile. Most of the Old Testament prophets are preaching pre-exilic. But now Malachi is one of two prophets that preaches to Israel after they've come back to the promised land. Rebuilt the temple, rebuilt the city walls, and rebuilt their society, so to speak. But they've been very disgruntled, the people have.

They've been disappointed in God. They knew about all the promises of a coming Messiah. All the promises of his rulership and the peace and prosperity and blessing. He would bring And they thought when they got back from exile, all of that would fall in place, and it hasn't. You know what that's called?

That's called, they had the idol of unmet expectation. You ever been there? You start something, get in on something, start a new job, new relationship. And you haven't really said it, but there's something back in your heart you think. I'll get this, or I'll get that.

I'll have this position or that position, whatever it is. And then it doesn't happen, and you get bitter, and you get angry. You get a bad attitude. Because you expected something that didn't happen. That's why we should always have goals and we should work toward things and be enterprising and have the initiative, but.

Always leave the results to God. Say, Lord, whatever comes of it. Praise your name.

Well, that's not where they were.

So they are badly backslidden and badly disgruntled. They keep disputing with God about God saying to them how special and how blessed. They have been and he has been to them. And so we see this repetition over and over. And now again, we come to chapter 2, and we see the prophet Malachi speaking for God, giving a blistering word to the unfaithful.

And clearly ungodly priest of this day. Verse 1, chapter 2. And now this commandment is for you, O priest. If you do not listen, if you do not take to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts. Then I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings.

And indeed, I've cursed them already because you are not taking it to heart. Behold, I'm going to rebuke your offspring, and I will spread refuse on your faces, refuse of your feast, and you'll be taken away with it. Then you will know that I've sent this commandment to you. Modern paraphrase of that is I'm going to get your attention. I'm going to make a believer out of you guys.

Last half, verse four: that my covenant may continue with Levi. Says the Lord of hosts, Just give a comment right there. God says, I'm going to do a work here in the priesthood. I'm going to do a work on my ministers to clean you guys up. To purge some of you out and purify some of you, so I can continue with my covenant promise.

To use. the Levitical priesthood. But I can't use it the way it is now. I'm going to have to get it cleaned up. You do understand God cleans up everything He uses.

That includes you and me personally. That includes his church. There's no such thing as an individual or a congregation that belongs to God that is not regularly experiencing some humblings, some purifyings.

Some purgings so that God can keep using us. And that should be our prayer. God make us usable. Check on my attitude. Check on my disposition.

Check on my viewpoints. Check on my behavior. and help pulling me back to a usable state.

So God says, I've got a plan to keep my covenant, of course. God always keeps his covenant promises. But he says, if I'm going to keep using Levi, I'm going to have to clean you up. All right, let's move on. Verse 5, my covenant with him, this is Levi and the earlier priest of his lineage.

To be a priest, you had to be of the tribe of Levi. God believed in nepotism. My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him as an object of reverence.

So that he revered me and stood in awe of my name. Verse 6: True instruction was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found on his lips. And he walked with me in peace and uprightness. And he turned many back from iniquity. For the lips of the priest should preserve knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth.

For he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. In other words, this is the way it used to be early in the priesthood. This is the kind of things a faithful priest ought to be doing. It ought to look like, but that's not what you guys are doing. Verse 8.

But As for you, You have turned aside from the way. What the law, the scriptures required. And you have cursed. Many to stumble, or cause rather, many to stumble. By the instruction, you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts.

So I also have made you despised and abased before all the people. As you are not keeping my ways, but you are showing partiality. in the instruction.

So we've already talked about Roman numeral 1. The Lord corrects and threatens them. We'll look at it just briefly and then go to new material.

So these are priests which have abandoned scripture. They're not functioning according to definite article the way. The priests were never to rule on their own authority. They were under the authority of Scripture. What a powerful parallel that is for modern pastors.

So, you are perverting things by doing what you feel is right, by what you think is best, instead of following the dictate. Of the law. You've caused many to stumble, he says in verse 8. You've corrupted the covenant I made with your forefather Levi. Verse 8 again.

He tells them that you're not honoring my name, and from your heart. You're dishonoring me and dishonoring my name. The priest had stopped long ago striving to be Bible saturated. They thought we could just be generally biblical. We kind of know what God wants, and so we can kind of do our own creative things to make this work best.

And, brothers and sisters, I'm getting ahead of myself, but we see that all over the Baptist and evangelical landscape today. They reduce God's work down to let's get people saved. And from that platform and that justification, they justify leaving the scriptural method. Leaving biblical guidelines and truths just as long as, quote, they can get people saved, end of quote. But here's the problem.

Getting people saved has never been the most important thing. It's mightily important. It should be on our hearts all the time, but it's not the most important thing. The most important thing is to glorify God. And he's glorified when people are saved his way and by his power.

Because, by the way, they can't be saved any other way. As Spurgeon used to say, if God is not going to save them through the old gospel, He's not going to save them at all. You're going to be a lot of people in hell who jump through a lot of hoops that a lot of creative, crafty ministers told them to jump through. I desire one thing and one thing only: to leave you radically, wholly, and desperately with Christ and Christ alone. Nothing I can put on.

No shenanigans, no shows, no creativity, no cleverness, no amusements, no entertainments. Christ. You might not be thankful for that now, but on your deathbed, you'll be thankful for that. You won't want to see a show on your deathbed. You want to know, do I know him?

Is he real to me? He makes himself known primarily through his word. And the primary means of that is the preaching of his word.

Well, I keep getting off on sideline issues. But that's a good sideline issue. These ministers were not following the text. They were not following the scriptures in the way they functioned as priests.

So God sends these threats against them. He said, I'm going to curse you. I'm going to curse your blessings. I'm going to curse your offspring. In effect, my spirit is going to be removed from you guys.

And your ministry is vile and disgusting. It's so vile and disgusting that you thought you could do my work your way. That disgusts me so much, God says, that I'm going to smear dung on your faces. And when they take the carts of dung up out of the outer court of the temple where all those animals to be sacrificed were, when they gather up all the manure, I'm going to gather you up with it and throw all of it out. That's what I think about what you're doing.

Now, what do you think God thinks about the New Testament church today that doesn't follow the scriptures and gets clever and cute and creative with what they do in church instead of following what the book says? Is it not more accountable on this side of the cross? And even with these men faced.

Well That's God's Correction and threatened. that we've already seen.

Now we go to new material. And so powerfully clear is it as we look at these scriptures in this portion of the text. That all of the Bible is one book. It's just a wonderful truth here for you and I in this age, and that is, Romans 2. The irreducible traits are marks of a faithful minister.

He's Corrected and threatened the unfaithful minister. But he's bringing before them also.

Now, this is what a faithful priest. Or for us today, a faithful minister of the gospel should look like. All right.

So he's going to go back and he's going to reference the Levitical fathers. He's going to go all the way back to Levi and those priests in those first generations, I guess you would say. They weren't perfect, but they were faithful men. And now, many, many years later, when Malachi is prophesying, what God's saying is, you ought to go back and learn from your forefathers. They tried to be faithful.

They tried to be true. But there is an application for what a faithful minister is for all ministers of all time in this text. But sort of a foundational thing before I'll give something of the outline here, notice what it says in verse 5. By covenant with him, referring back to your forefather Levi. The first priest, you might say.

was one of life and peace.

Now, the biblical scholars are all over the place, and all of that that might mean. What does it mean? That he gave them this ministry of life and peace.

Well, I think obviously it means at least this. I think it means much more. But it means I wanted this to be a long-term thing. A generational thing. This is to go on for a long time.

That Levi, the descendants of Levi. would be the priest that would serve my people for me. But secondly, peace that you would have a peace with me and before me in your ministry. But I think from the construction of the text, it's got to mean also. Because we know this is true from the balance of biblical truth, Old Testament and New Testament.

The priests ministered life and peace to the people. By working with their priests, following the word of God, God would forgive their sins and continue to maintain a relationship, a peace between them and God. That's a powerful, powerful truth. And what a powerful picture of the New Testament gospel preacher. Where are you going to find life and peace?

Through Jesus. Where are you going to find Jesus? Through the gospel. How are you going to get the gospel? God probably means the preaching of the gospel.

That's where we find life. Eternal life, spiritual life, and peace with God, i.e., the forgiveness of our sins.

So that's a powerful picture right there of how the ministers of the ancient world ministered. And in principle and in spirit, it's the same is true for ministers of our day.

Well, let's outline some things here right quick. Because here we have these irreducible traits of a faithful minister. Number one, he must be God called. He must be God called. We see in our text that God took the initiative.

And said, Levi, you and your descendants will be my ministers among my people. God called them. There was any kind of a competition or an application or some special virtue about Levi. No, God said, I am calling you. and your descendants to this ministry of priesthood.

before my people. It's the same way in the New Testament. If you're going to be a pastor of a church, primarily the preaching pastor of a church, you've got to know God. called you. Trust me, you will not make it.

If you do not know, God put me here. Can't be mama called. You can't be deacon called. You gotta be God. Called.

It's mysterious in a way. But I remember in my own heart, after I was converted, I would go to sleep at night reading and studying my Bible, which was radically opposite of everything I'd done before my conversion. And getting such peace in that and It was just within a few weeks, if maybe a few months at the most, that this thought came to my mind: you're either going to get compensated for doing this or you're going to starve to death because you can't do anything else. There was nothing else that interested me. God calls you.

It has to be a flame in your heart. I remember the story of old D.L. Moody. D.L. Moody was this flaming evangelist.

God used D.L. Moody in a great way. And when he was converted as an older boy, he went to the board of the church. And they had to interview you and present you in a business meeting for membership. And they said, well, you need to wait.

And D.L. Moody basically went back to them and said, You better call another meeting and you better decide this thing because God saved me and I want to be in the church. And I want to preach.

So there is a righteous, I guess, appeal. That you would have if God's called you to preach.

Now, obviously, Paul. All Shows us this balance. You have to be under the authority of church leaders before you go out and preach on your own, of course. Paul knelt with Barnabas there at the church at Antioch, and they prayed over them. And the Spirit of God led the leaders and the church to bless them to go out into the ministry.

So every preacher needs to do that. And once I learned that as a pastor, I fully yielded to my elders and my senior pastor as to what I did and when I did it and how long I did it. I'll never forget when he said one day, well, you're going to go to graduate school. You know what I did? I enrolled in graduate school.

It was a monotheistic conversation as such. There was no dialogue. But I I I liked being under his authority. And any good pastor needs to start out under the authority of another. Number one, he must be God-called.

Number two, he must love and honor God from the heart. This thing is heartwork. You can't just be called to the ministry and learn how to be effective. And I ran into that so much. As a young minister, where I would find fellows who are second, third, and fourth generation in Baptist work, and they just knew how the machine ran.

They knew how the bureaucracy functioned. They knew how the system functioned. And I would be concerned because I would think they know how to run the machine, but do they love God?

Now none of us love him like we ought to love him. And I'll be honest with you. I can run a machine. I can make something go. I could build things and cast the vision and motivate people if I was lost.

But God couldn't use any of that in me. until he got to m where I loved him more than any of the other things. any of the successes I might could perform. He's got to love God. Notice how God brings this out in our text.

Look at verse 5, if you will. My covenant with him, with Levi, was one of life and peace. And I gave them to him as an object of reverence. I think the highest idea there is: I gave Levi and his descendants a revered place. They were objects of reverence as God's priests and ministers among the people.

And then the last phrase, so he revered me. He loved me from his heart. And he stood in awe of my name. My name means the composite characteristics of who God is. And so he's saying, Levi and the early priests loved me from the heart and revered me from their hearts.

And that's the way a man of God must be. And by the way. A love for God is always evidenced. By a love for his word. Our Modus operandi must be not what works, not what is effective, not what draws a crowd, but what saith the scripture.

That's a heart of love for God.

Well, number three, a third irreducible trait is he must preach the word. Look at verse 6, if you will. The instruction was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found on his lips. Just another way of saying the instruction means the word. He ministered the word of God.

The point Malachi is making is your forefathers, the early priests, were faithful here, but you guys are not faithful. We find a clear And powerful exhortation to preaching the word. Of course, in the New Testament, we have consistent parallels to this. And 1 Timothy 4. Paul writes to Timothy, who's now pastoring the church at Ephesus, and he talks about Timothy preaching the word and teaching the word, that he was to take pains with those things.

And another occasion, he said, Timothy, be absorbed with your teaching and preaching. Literally, the Greek means to be up to your ears in it. Dr. Seal, that means you can't do everything else if you're going to be up to your ears in properly preaching the word. Other things may have to go.

Now, trust me, especially in those first 20 years or so, I did a lot of things other than just preach. There was never a children's event, a youth event, a college event, a senior adult event. Matter of fact, at times during Christmas, Pam and I, on a Friday or Saturday, we'd go to three different Christmas parties. Because I was taught you got to do everything. And I found out within a few years, I'm either going to die or I'm going to have to stop some of these things.

And um I thank God for our elders who basically said we're going to get more help and we want you to concentrate on preaching the word. You do other I still do other things, of course, but that's the primary thing. Take pains with it, Paul said. Be absorbed in it, Paul said. Be up to your ears in it, Paul said.

He must be committed to preach the word. Whatever else might go, that cannot go. And I can't thank you enough. I can't tell you. After 45 years of ministry here, How blessed I am this week.

in studying the words prepared for each. It gets a hold of me before it gets a hold of you. It rebukes and humbles me before it rebukes and humbles you. And by the way, I think that's the purpose of God. It's not just an academic exercise.

Well number four. He must live right. You must live right. Look at verse 6 again in the last part. And he walked with me in peace and uprightness.

That's Levi and the early priest. He walked with me, and that means he lived right.

Now, the contrast is the priests of Malachi today, we're not living right any longer. They were embracing evil and musing, and these exorbitant prices they would charge people for the animal sacrifices they would come and the exorbitant commissions they would charge for exchanging money so they could give a temple tax with a shekel and not with a Roman coin. And on and on, we could go, and how they were not walking with God. That doesn't mean a minister's perfect, absolutely not. But it means that he's striving, and the purpose and the pattern of his life is clear that he's trying to live right.

And he's doing this primarily out of his love for God. not the fear of losing blessings. That is a fear. But your chief motivation cannot be a fear that God's not going to bless me. Your chief motivation's got to be, I love God.

Parents, can I give you an exhortation there? Sure, we want our kids to turn out right. We want our kids to turn out good. But we don't do certain biblical things so our kids turn out good. We do certain biblical things concerning our children because we love God first.

And the kids will pick up on that, by the way. They will know the difference. Between them being raised so that your reputation's okay. versus them being raised in a certain way because you love God. Make sure they know it's because you love God.

They lived right. Number five. His followers are godly. If you want to know the effectiveness of a pastoral ministry, Don't look at whether or not they wrote great commentaries. Thank God if they're able to do that.

I've been blessed by pastors writing commentaries. I'm thankful for them. But that's not the final analysis on whether or not they were a great pastor. Look at their church. Examine the lives of those under their ministry.

Would it be generally true, there's always exceptions, there's always disappointments, but would it be generally true that those people under his ministry are more godly today than they were last year and five years ago and 20 years ago? Notice how the text teaches this for us. Uh, down in verse six again, the last phrase, and he turned many back from iniquity. Your early forefather. Father Levi is And your early descendants of Levi were men who are known to faithfully administer the word of God, and many people turned from wickedness and iniquity and begin to love God from their hearts under their ministry.

Well, hurrying on, number six. Talking about the irreducible traits of a faithful minister, they guard sound doctrine. They make it the. Look, they're not dogmatic about sound doctrine. They're bulldogmatic about sound doctrine.

Brothers, I was talking to an accountant earlier. And I said, I don't know how you guys do what you do. I said, man, when it comes to theology and doctrine, I'm just obsessive. It ought to be right. Eternal souls are on the line, it's got to be right.

But when it comes to my bookkeeping, if I'm $20 short, I just praise the Lord and go on. I feel like I'm getting close enough. I hope I'm not. Maybe I'm a bad example. I don't want to be.

But there are just some things that just I can't do it. I talk to Frank Spires all the time about my accounting, and I say, Frank, look, you have to fix this mess. I don't know what's going on. I don't want to know, I don't want to learn it. I want to be right.

I want to be faithful. I want to have a clear conscience, but I'm just not into that. dotting every I and crossing every T on this thing like you account us. Thank God for countings. Amen.

Oh. I'll not say anything else about accountants, but never, nevertheless, thank God for them. But when it comes to doctrine. You want a pastor that's got a little obsessive compulsiveness in him. You want a guy that says, we're going to...

We're going to get on our knees and we're going to sweat these bullets. We're going to know the scriptures. What saith the LORD? And that's exactly what the text teaches us here. Look at verse 7, if you will.

The lips of the priest should preserve knowledge. Those priests were assigned. To guard, to preserve, to protect, to maintain. The main thing, the word of God, and its administration and application into the life of Israel. And he said, that's what the early priests generally were doing.

But you priest, when you would come to Malachi's day, had fallen away from that. The role of the priest was to guard the doctrine once for all delivered to Israel. And the early priests vigorously protected it. and vigorously taught it. And they were men that were under the word, they were men who were in the word, they were men who administered the word.

The word the law Was not revealed in any divine revelation to the priest. He did that with the prophets. The prophets received the divine revelation often. But it was the priests who were to maintain what the prophets had received. That was their role.

Titus 2:1, as Paul is writing to Titus about getting the churches on the island of Crete in order and straightened out, he tells Titus, in effect, to guard sound doctrine. Everywhere you go on the island, Titus, you're going to have to keep correcting and reshaping people's thinking as they get away from sound biblical doctrine. Bring them back, guard it. Guard it. And then lastly.

Number seven. He is sought by those who seek truth. An irreducible trait of a faithful minister is when a person gets serious and wants to find God. They say, I can go sit under his ministry and I'll find God. That should be the reputation.

Now, this is not anything exceptional. This is just Normal Irreducible traits of a faithful minister. Notice how it's worded there. Let's see in verse 7. Um For the lips of the priests should preserve knowledge.

And men should seek instruction from his mouth. It means the men who won't know the truth. are drawn to you. I had something happen to me many years ago. And it humbled me greatly, and it impacted me greatly.

We had a couple come to our church. They're probably in their 50s. And um this um This man was unconverted. And he felt like he had come to know Christ. Under my ministry.

And I was visiting him in his business not long after that. And I said, well, tell me about your background and how did you come to Grace Life Church? And he said, well, my wife grew up Pentecostal. And he said, that's where she kept wanting me to go, to go to a Pentecostal church.

Now, I'm adding words I don't think he used, but in effect, he said, but I'm not going to that holy roller church. I'm not being derogatory to our Pentecostal brothers and sisters and friends, but that's the way he viewed it. I can't go. That's too far out for me. And he said, I'll go to a Baptist church or a Methodist church, but I will not go with you to a Pentecostal church.

And so she goes to her Pentecostal pastor over in Florence. I do not know the dear man. And she said, my husband. Said he'll go to church. He told me he won't go to our Pentecostal church, but he'd go to a Baptist church or a Methodist church.

And that Pentecostal pastor that I do not know, and probably 98% of you don't know, told him. I told her, take him to Grace Life Church of the Shoals and he'll find God. And that's what he told me. And I thought That's good enough for me. It's wonderful if we have the greatest choir program, and I think we do.

I don't think you can touch our music program. When you put excellence and spirituality and doctrinal soundness, it's the best. I think we do an excellent job of children programs and youth programs and a thousand one other things. We try to do the things we do off with our building grounds in an excellent way. Not extravagant, but excellent.

But brothers and sisters, at the end of the day, we must be known as a place where you can find God. Men, the text says. should seek instruction. From his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. Roman number three.

Jesus The final Perfect priest. Who ministers life and preach? I didn't find this in any commentary, but Dr. Seal reminded me this week that on the Emmaus Road, when those two men came up, Jesus began with Moses and the prophets and explained to them everything from the scriptures about himself. He's all in this book.

And I believe you have to be spiritually deaf, dumb, and blind, and just not want to see it if you don't see a powerful picture of Christ in this text. And the more I meditated on it, the clearer it became. First of all, think about it. He says, the early Levite fathers ministered life and peace. Is there anybody that ministers life and peace like Jesus does?

He's the minister of life and peace. They were the type. They were the foreshadow. Jesus is the anti-type. Jesus is the substance of what they pictured.

And then we also look in our text, and we see that God made in verse 5 the early Levite fathers as an object of reverence. He gave them a revered position. Has anybody been given a higher revered position than the Son Jesus Christ? The Bible says in all things he must have the preeminence. That speaks of Jesus, he's the priest of ultimate reverence.

And then also it says here that he revered the Father, the last part of verse 5.

So he revered me and stood in awe of me. That's talking about Levi specifically, but it has to be reflecting on Jesus. Is there anyone who has ever lived his life so totally in reverence of the Heavenly Father? Jesus constantly taught them, I only say what my father gives me to say. I only do my father's will.

He sweat drops of blood in Gethsemane as he said, Not my will, but I revere you, Father. Your will be done. Only Christ. can fully fulfill this word. About these Old Testament priests.

Now, look at verse 6. We continue on. True instruction was in his mouth. Has anyone taught the truth better than Jesus? He is the.

Teacher of truth because by the way He is the truth. And then, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips. He said, Who finds any fault in me? That's what Jesus said. This is about Christ.

He's the ultimate, true, faithful high priest. None of the Levitical priests could do what he could do. None of them fulfilled this text in the full, like he can fulfill it.

Now In Acts 3:26, well, let's first of all look at this phrase in the last part of verse 6 in our text, and he turned many back from iniquity. Is there anyone who turns men back from iniquity more than Jesus? He's the only one that can change your heart. And radically turn your affections and then your behavior back toward God and away from iniquity. Yeah.

These Old Testament Levitical priests provided a service that was real. But it was imperfect and it was temporary. Did you hear me?

So we don't go to our text. And say, none of this means anything for anybody, but it points to Jesus. That's not true. It did mean something real for these people of this day, but has its ultimate fulfillment only in Jesus. Are you with me, church?

So here we have a picture of Christ here. Who's turning many back from iniquity? In the same way, but in a temporal and imperfect way, that's what the Levitical priesthood. was doing.

So Christ's priestly work It's real like their priestly work was real. But Christ, a Christ priestly work, was perfect. Theirs was imperfect. Christ's priestly work is eternal, and theirs was only temporal.

So the Old Testament priest Well, let me just read you the reference. If you look at Hebrews 7, 8, and 9, those chapters. And look at the exhaustive amplification and glorification of Jesus as the only and one true priest of God. Hebrews 7, 23 through 25, the former priest on the one hand, Existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing. If you put your trust in an earthly priest of any kind, you got a problem, they die.

Then you got to find another priest. Then he may die on you. You got to find another one. But Jesus never dies. Look at the verse up there.

But Jesus, on the other hand, because he continues forever. Holds his priesthood permanently. He's perfect. Not like the old ones. They're not perfect.

He holds his priesthood perfectly. Verse 25, therefore he is able to save forever. That's why we abhor the Greek Orthodox system and the Roman Catholic system that tells you you have to continually, continually, continually, continually, continually depend on the ministry of the priestcraft within their system in order to have a right standing before God. But we have a Savior who has once for all finished the work and reigns as our priest at the right hand of the Father. Am I making myself clear?

He's able to save forever. Those who draw to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

So these Old Testament Levitical priests, they Preserve life and peace among the people, but in a temporal and imperfect way. They maintain the worship, genuine worship. But in a temporal and imperfect way, the only one who can make you a true worshiper is Jesus. One day we're going to be a purified, glorified worshipers. They maintain the covenant relationship with God, but in an imperfect and temporal way, through Jesus, we have a perfect and eternal.

Covenant relationship. They were The performance they gave was the performance of flawed and imperfect men, yet they did prefigure Jesus, who is the perfect priest.

Now I want you to listen. I want you to give me your best mental ability. Listen. In summary. The Levitical priests sustained Israel's covenant with God.

Providing forgiveness of sins. In a real way, but in a temporal and imperfect way. But simultaneously, they were prefiguring the perfect final priest, Jesus. and what he alone could accomplish. Jesus is the true true Perfect high priest.

Who perfectly administers to us and for us both life and death. Peace. Think about all that's in the New Testament, about Jesus' ministry of administering life and peace to his people. For example, In 1 John 5, 11 and 12. God gives us eternal life in his Son.

In John 11, 25, I am the resurrection and the life. In John 10, 10, I give you abundant life. Romans 6:23, eternal life is in Jesus Christ our Lord. No Old Testament priest. administers life like he administers life.

And then peace. In John 14, 27, he gives us his peace. In Romans 5:1, he gives us peace with God. In Ephesians 2:14, he himself is our peace. Hebrews 7, verse 2, he is king of priests.

And in Hebrews 8:17, he is priest forever.

So he is the Eternal Perfect priest. That the Levitical forefathers We're a symbol of, a type of. But he's the antitype. He is the substance of what they symbolized.

So now in closing thoughts. The seed or the germ of godly life and peace was in the old Levitical priesthood. But it came to full bloom in Jesus Christ. And I thought about this a long time. We talk a lot and we read a lot and we hear preaching a lot about Jesus being of the lineage of David.

And he had to be. The prophets prophesied, he'll be of the lineage of David. And Jesus was of the physical. And royal your lineage of David. David was the great king.

But David was not the greatest king. David was a type of Jesus. Jesus is A greater king. And Jesus is King of kings.

So, Jesus is of the physical and royal lineage of David. And it is equally true. That Jesus is of The spiritual and ministerial lineage of Levi. I've never thought about that. Until this past week.

Now, I kind of knew it, but I didn't really think about it. But as the Levitical priest We're priest. Even when they were faithful. Were flawed men, and they gave an imperfect ministry and a temporal ministry. Jesus' priestly ministry is greater than the early Levitical ministry.

He brought a perfect and eternal priesthood. That bears blessing for us for time and for eternity.

So as Jesus is of the royal or rather the physical and royal lineage of David So Jesus is Is of the spiritual and ministerial lineage. of Levi, the first priest.

Now, coming full circle to close the message, look at verse 4 again. He's corrected. He's Threaten these priests. We do know a few years l after this was written, Uh Governor Nehemiah, you might call him that. Cleaned up the priesthood, purged it, and purified it, did just what Malachi was threatening was going to happen.

But all of that was to the end of verse 4, middle of the verse. That my covenant may continue with Levi. Says the Lord of hosts. I'm going to keep my covenant. God has never gone back on what he committed in a covenant.

I had a covenant with Levi. And all his descendants. that through them I'll administer life and peace to my people. I would keep them. And I would bless them.

And therefore through them bless my people. But in effect, in Malachi, God is saying this. But I cannot tolerate The willful compromise and violation of scripture of this present priesthood. And I always finish what I start.

So I'm going to purify and I'm going to purge this priesthood. That I can bring my blessing on my people and keep my people with life and peace as I promised.

Now you do understand this, church. You do understand this. You have to have someone. To be a mediator between you and holy God. You can't go there on your own.

You have to have a priest. That's what a priest does. You have to have a priest to know God. You have to have a priest to know forgiveness. You have to have a priest to know his blessings, and you have to have a priest to have eternal life.

And I give you one. His name is Jesus. You don't need to go talk to any preacher. Any Cardinal? Any bishop?

Edie Pope. Joseph Smith Any priest in the Roman system or in the Greek Orthodox system, you don't need to talk to any of them. You go straight to the one true great high priest. Jesus Christ. And he is the one who is clearly typified.

in this ancient text. It's all one book. We'll close with this, Hebrews 7. 26 and 27. For it was fitting for us.

So much in that phrase. You got another 45 minutes. What about three or four minutes? It was fitting for us. The question of the hour is: who is us?

Two sides to that coin. Those predestined, elected, chosen, and foreordained from the foundation of the world, and those who believed on Jesus. They're the same people. If God's going to have a people. who will be his forever.

Who will know his cleansing and forgiveness? Who will know his blessing and closeness? Who will have the eternal life that only he can give? Then it was fitting. It was right.

It was needful. There were in our text, it was fitting for us to have such a high priest. If God's going to keep us. From eternity past through time and into eternity future. It was proper, necessary that is.

That we have a special kind of preaching. Matter of fact, The one and only true priest. Holy, are you looking at the text? Holy. Innocent.

undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. You know any Levites like that? No, only Jesus. Who does not need data like those high priests? To offer up sacrifices first for their own sins.

Jesus didn't have to offer any sacrifice for his own sins because he has no sin. And then for the sins of the people. Because he did this. Watch for all when he offered up himself. I can go home now.

What you do with it is between you and God.

Okay.