What Priests Are Supposed To Do

1
What Priests Are Supposed To Do
Themes in Malachi

• Malachi 21-9

2
Duties of the Priests

• Three areas of responsibility
• Officiating at the temple Leviticus 216
• Instructing the people in the law Leviticus
  1011
• Judging disputes Deuteronomy 178-11
• Influence on spiritual life of the nation

3
Sins of the Priests

• A shocking list
• Despising the Lords name 16
• Offering the blind, lame, sick, etc 17,8
• Treating the altar as contemptible 17,12
• Treating the Lords service a drudgery 113
• Refusing to take warning to heart 21,2
• Corrupting the covenant of Levi 24,5,8
• Departing from the way of the Lord 28,9
• Causing the people to stumble 28
• Showing partiality 29

4
Consequences

• I will spread refuse on your faces 23
• I will make you contemptible 29

5
Application to Us

• Covenant of Levi (28)
• Messenger of the covenant (31)
• Purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold
  and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an
  offering in righteousness (33)
• Our priesthood has greater honor
• Also greater responsibilities
• Are we doing any better with our priesthood?

6
What God Expects of Priests

• The lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and
  the people should seek the law from his mouth
  for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts
  (27)
• The priest is reverent (25)
• The law of truth is in his mouth (26)
• Injustice is never found on his lips (26)
• He walks with God in peace and equity (26)
• He turns many away from iniquity (26)
• But woe to priests (then and now) who
  causeothers to stumble at the law (28)

7
Conclusion

• If the Lords own people are irreverent,there is
  no greater irreverence!
• No hope for those who will not hear and will
  not take it to heart (Malachi 22)
• Adorn the doctrine (Titus 210)
• A willingness to be warned may be the difference
  between heaven and hell