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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
“And you will know that I have sent you this warning so
that My covenant with Levi may continue,” says the Lord Almighty. “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. True 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.”
Malachi 2:4-6
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be
to God.
In yesterday’s devotion, the first from the second
chapter of Malachi, we found the Lord admonishing the priests who were accused
of not listening to God and turning away from Him, providing false direction to
the Israelites and thus causing them to stumble. Basically, God summed up His
displeasure by charging the priests with violating His covenant with Levi, the
progenitor of the priestly tribe.
Note here that it was the priests who broke the covenant,
not God who always perfectly keeps and fulfills His promises. This is important
for us to remember as we continue to look at the Lord’s words regarding the
priests and the Levite covenant in today’s passage. Look again at these words
here:
“And you will know
that I have sent you this warning so that My covenant with Levi may continue,”
says the Lord Almighty. “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. True 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.” Malachi 2:4-6
So what is this Levitical Covenant, the agreement God
made with His priests, all about anyways?
Well, you have to go back to the days of Jacob who we
covered in the opening devotion of this book. You will remember that Jacob’s
name was changed to Israel and then he bore twelve sons who would become the
heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. The third of those sons, born to Jacob
and Leah, was Levi and as we said earlier, he was the founder of the tribe sanctified
and set apart to serve as God’s mediators between Him and His people.
Well, if you look at the family tree of Levi, you will
learn that Moses and his brother Aaron were a part of the tribe of Levi. And if
you look at Aaron, you will find he had a son named Phinehas who was center
stage in handling a matter while performing his priestly duties. Look at this
passage from the 25th chapter of Numbers here:
While Israel was
staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite
women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate the
sacrificial meal and bowed down before these gods. So Israel yoked themselves
to the Baal of Peor. And the Lord’s anger burned against them.
The Lord said to
Moses, “Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in
broad daylight before the Lord, so that the Lord’s fierce anger may turn away
from Israel.”
So Moses said to
Israel’s judges, “Each of you must put to death those of your people who have
yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.”
Then an Israelite
man brought into the camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and
the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the
tent of meeting. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest,
saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand and followed the
Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear into both of them, right through
the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach. Then the plague against the
Israelites was stopped; but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000.
The Lord said to
Moses, “Phinehas, son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the
priest, has turned My anger away from the Israelites. Since he was as zealous
for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal. Therefore
tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. He and his descendants will
have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor
of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.” Numbers 25:1-13
In this chapter, we quickly get to the crux of the issue
at hand with the Israelites, sexual immorality, an issue that you know was a
common sin for them throughout their history, In this instance, the scriptures
tell us that the Israelite men were having sexual relations with Moabite women
who in turn enticed their mates to offer up sacrifices to pagan gods,
specifically the god Baal. Their actions drew the Lord’s anger and He called on
Moses to impose the death penalty on any men who had “yoked themselves” to
Baal, an order that Moses delegated down to the judges.
Note here that the priests are not mentioned or tasked
but that didn’t stop Aaron’s son, Phinehas, from taking action when an
Israelite man decided to be bold, bringing a Midianite woman right into camp in
plain sight of everyone. Basically, the man was sending the message that he
could do whatever he wanted to do, no matter what God had commanded within the
law. Phinehas would show him and the woman that they would not get away with
their transgressions for after the couple entered a tent, Phinehas followed and
plunged a spear through them both. The priest’s quick action served as atonement
for the Israelites, stopping God’s anger against His people as well as the
associated judgment.
God couldn’t have been more pleased with Phinehas, so
much so that He made a covenant of peace with the Levite priest as a reward for
his zealous efforts in honoring God and upholding His law.
What did the covenant include?
We read where God vowed to allow Phinehas and his
descendants to have a lasting priesthood and indeed that priesthood did
persevere through the ages, right up to the days of Malachi where the priests
were doing anything but honoring God with their actions.
So would God break His covenant as a penalty for the ways
the priests were dishonoring Him?
The answer is “no” because God Himself stated that He
desired that the covenant continue. He wanted the priests of Malachi’s time to
repent, turn from their sinfulness, and adopt the qualities that made Phinehas
special in His sight, qualities which included reverence and truth, peace and
uprightness. He longed for His priests to turn others from sin, not lead them
into it.
It was a timely word, one intended to get the priest’s
attention and turn them back toward the right direction, back to the place
where their work would be pleasing in the Lord’s sight, a place where they
would keep their end of the Levitical Covenant.
Friends, through this message, God is reminding us that
He stays ever faithful to His promises and He expects us to do likewise. And we
know He didn’t break His promise of life and peace through the priests because of
our Savior Jesus, His Son, who He appointed as the last High Priest ever
needed, the One who was reverence and truth personified, the only One who ever
lived in perfect peace and righteousness, the One who served as the last
initiator of atonement for all mankind.
God did indeed continue His covenant, the One He made
with Phinehas, and took it to new eternal heights through His Son.
Won’t you give thanks for His eternal promises that spanned
the ages to save you this very day?
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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