Feb. 22, 2026

Saints & Sinners

Malachi

February 21 & 22, 2026 

Primary Text: Malachi 2:10-16          

1)  An Oracle 

Malachi 1:1-3:  An oracle: The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.  “I have loved you,” says the Lord.  “But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’  Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?” the Lord says.  “Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals.”  

DQ 1) What did it mean that the Lord loved Jacob but hated Esau?

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2)  Disrespectful Sacrifices

Malachi 1:6-10:  “A son honors his father, and a servant his master.  If I am a father, where is the honor due me?  If I am a master, where is the respect due me?” says the Lord Almighty.  “It is you, O priests, who show contempt for my name.  But you ask, ‘How have we shown contempt for your name?’  You place defiled food on my altar….  When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong?  Try offering them to your governor!  Would he be pleased with you?  Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty….  “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar!  I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord Almighty, “and I will accept no offering from your hands.” 

DQ 2) Why was offering blemished sacrifices such an offense to the Lord?

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3)  A True Priest

Malachi 2:1-7:  “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, “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….  And you will know that I have sent you this admonition 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.  For the lips of a priest ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction—because he is the messenger of the Lord Almighty.”  

DQ 3) What was the covenant God made with Levi? 

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4)  Broken Faith

Malachi 2:10-16:  Have 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?  Judah has broken faith.  A detestable thing has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem: Judah has desecrated the sanctuary the Lord loves, by marrying the daughter of a foreign god….  Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears.  You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands.  You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.  Has not the Lord made them one?  In flesh and spirit they are his.  And why one?  Because he was seeking godly offspring.  So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.  “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the Lord Almighty.  So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith.  

DQ 4) Why does God hate divorce?

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