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Matthew McKellar, Professor of Preaching and George W. Truett Chair of Ministry at Southwestern Seminary, preached from Malachi in SWBTS Chapel on November 13, 2025.
On April the 11th of 1970 astronauts, Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise were to be a part of the third moon shot. Specifically, it was Apollo 13, and they had a great lift off from Cape Canaveral. And if you’re a student of history, you may recall that two days later, on the 13th of April, there was an explosion, an electrical explosion, that crippled one of the main parts of that vessel that’s careening through space. And you may recall that there was a major, major concern about the survival of those astronauts. And etched in my mind is that famous statement that astronaut Jim Lovell communicated. And it was these words, Houston, we have a problem. I thought of that when I looked at the book of Malachi. Because I think if you go back 2500, years before Apollo, 13 to the fifth century BC, there was a severe problem in ancient Israel. And here’s what that problem looked like. On the one hand, you had this covenant God Yahweh, who is was shall always be everlastingly faithful, perfect track record. He remains faithful. In fact, there are six oracles. Literally the word means burdens. Six burdens in the book of Malachi.
Did you know The first of those oracles? The first of those burdens is the Lord Himself reminding his wayward covenant people that He has loved them in the past. He is loving them now. He will love them because that is a part of his character, he will remain faithful. The problem is the people, repeatedly, over and over again, were unfaithful. And so that’s really the thrust of the message of Malachi. It’s a message about covenant fidelity and about covenant infidelity. If you look at the successive oracles in the book of Malachi, after the Lord declares his love, then you find Malachi as the Lord’s Messenger. By the way, in 47 of the 56 verses of this book, you have the Lord speaking through Malachi in first person. Isn’t that fascinating? The Lord has a direct message for his people, and he addresses, in these oracles, priestly laxity. He addresses the problem of marriage and divorce and inter marriage with foreign nations. He addresses the giving of the people, the stewardship of the people, and their tendency to take God for granted. They are robbing God. And you have this repeated formula. The Lord makes a charge. It’s like a courtroom setting. And then the people say, wait, wait, you’re talking about us.
That couldn’t be. They throw up their objection, then the Lord completely refutes their objection and shows them how they are out of line, out of step with his will for their lives. Well, I want us this morning to zero in on the second Oracle. It is actually the longest of the six oracles. It starts in chapter one, verse six, and continues all the way through chapter two, verse nine. I want us to look at the second part of that Oracle, Malachi two, one through nine, and address something that I think is critically important. Everybody in this room is either in ministry or you are preparing for ministry. And so I think these verses and the challenge that the Lord offers has a certain timeless communication for us. Now you might say, Well, I’m not a I’m not a priest. Of course, you’re not an Old Testament priest. I’m not an Old Testament priest. But these people in their day were the representatives of the living God, right?
You and I are representatives of the living God. In 2022 in April in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Wendy Rappaport went into surgery so that she could have what she thought was the removal of an infected spleen. When she came out of surgery, a scan showed that her infected spleen remained, but her left kidney had been removed. It was a classic case of medical malpractice, and as I’m sure you know and might expect, that litigation continues to this day. Today, Wendy Rappaport has been classified as a stage. Five kidney disease patient largely because of a doctor’s error in a hospital in 2022 you know? And I read that, and I think about that, wow, what a what a tragic thing, medical malpractice, somebody’s life is affected physically forever. But then I think about something that’s far more serious and far more sobering than that, not the issue of medical malpractice, but ministerial malpractice, it is quite possible for you and for me to speak and say in God’s name what God has not said, and that is a tragedy of tragedies, because we’re not we’re not dealing simply with people’s physical existence, we’re dealing with their eternal and supernatural destiny.
So let’s think a little bit about ministerial malpractice. Now I mentioned in this oracle, the longest in Malachi, chapter one, verses six through 14. Essentially, the Lord says, I want to call you out. You’re a bunch of derelict priests, and you are offering defective offerings. You are my representatives, and you are out of bounds with my will. And then you are leading the worship of the living God among the people, and you’re offering blind and lame and defective sacrifices. In short, the Lord says you’re going through the motions and you’re mailing it in. That’s what was happening in ancient Israel. Well, in that setting, these people, these leaders, are ripe. I think you would agree for rebuke. And that’s exactly what happens. First of all, in the first four verses of chapter two, you have Yahweh, the covenant God. You have him exposing what’s going on among the leadership. And now, O priest, this command is for you. Notice the conditional nature.
If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart, you’re mailing it in. You’re going through the motions. If you will not take it to heart, to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts. You might want to underline that phrase, Lord of Hosts. Yahweh Sabaoth, 23 times. In this short book, you have references to the LORD of hosts, the Lord of Armies. It’s a picture not only of military mind, but of rulership, that God owns and possesses all might and all authority, and he can move and work as he desires when he desires, where he desires, unlimited in authority and power, omniscience, omnipresent, omnipotence, all of it, he’s great. What does the Lord say? Then I will send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed him because you do not lay it to heart. Do you notice that repetition? Take it to heart, lay it to heart. Take it to heart, lay it to heart. Then look at verse three. Behold, I will rebuke your offspring and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it. So shall you know that I’ve sent this command to you that my covenant with Levi may stand.
That is to say, The Lord makes his covenant, originally the Abrahamic covenant, and the priest, the priestly ministry, the Levites, in the place of worship, they carry out the ministry of that covenant. And the Lord, God says, I’m going to bring a curse upon you. I’m going to expose you. It’s a case of exposure. I’m rebuking you. And that word rebuke is strong. It doesn’t mean just correct. The Lord is saying I’m not only going to correct this, I’m going to correct it by stopping it. And what a powerful thing that the Lord in this part of the Oracle shifts from monolog, from dialog to monolog, and he says to them, I’m going to curse you, literally. I’m going to banish you from the place of blessing. You will be expelled. And then in a rather graphic thing, you know these, these minor prophets, they’re very graphic.
And essentially, what the Lord says, you are spiritually defective, you are spiritually unclean. And so that everybody will know that you are spiritually unclean. I’m going to expose your ceremonial uncleanness when animals were offered at sacrifice. Part of the stipulations in the Book of Leviticus was that the refuge, the awful, the excrement, you might say, of these, of these sacrificial animals, was taken outside of the camp. Am taken out of the temple, and now the Lord, seemingly, it seems, gives a new intensification to the idea of a facial treatment when he says, I’m going to take that excrement and I’m going to smear it on your faces. Now, can you imagine the Almighty, LIVING GOD thinking that about the way you and about the way I worship. And so please don’t say, well, that’s just pretty gross. That’s just pretty look. This is what the Word of God through the prophet is communicating. There is such dullness, there is such there is such a lack of focus, there’s such a lack of appreciation of the greatness and the power of God that the Lord is going to expose what’s there. He will not allow his reputation to be trifled with indefinitely. Well, that’s the exposure. I’m glad we don’t have to stop there. Notice what the Lord does.
It’s a case of beautiful rhetorical flourish, inspired by the Holy Spirit. Look at verses five through seven. We move from exposure to expectation. It’s like the Lord says, You preach. You guys had one job. Here’s what I want you to do. And he outlines it. And it’s beautiful. Look at it. My covenant with him was one of life and peace. That is the covenant was to be implemented, carried out and in those worship services, in those worship settings, with those priests, it was to convey life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe my name, true instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. Now look at that. The Lord says, if you’re my representative, it’s a timeless thing too. There’s a lot of things you need to do, but here is the very foundation. Three things.
Number one, Revere, reverence me. Understand that you’re a creature. Understand that I am the creator. Notice that reference on fear, the reverence of God, a sense of fear, an abhorrence of dishonoring or displeasing him, understanding that I have access to God through His mercy and through the merit of his kindness. But I don’t forget he is great, He is mighty, he is perfect, He is holy, and all of those things that he is I am not Revere. The second word would be, instruct. Instruct. You know, I think we need to recapture the idea of Old Testament, law. Sometimes we see law and we think, Oh, I’m a New Covenant Christian that doesn’t relate to me. But that word law, essentially, is translated Torah. It means instruction. We communicate the very words that come out of the mouth of God. And what are those words? Well, they’re this revelation.
So if we’re going to represent the living God, we have to have this fear of him, and what follows after that is we want to communicate what he says, not primarily what we want to say. I lament the fact that in so much of modern preaching today, what we hear is self exposition instead of scriptural self exposition instead of scriptural exposition, you listen to a sermon, and at the end of the sermon, you know the preacher’s hobbies, you know where he likes to eat, you know what he talks about at his dinner table, but you literally know little or nothing about the biblical text. Now I’m not against a good personal illustration. The Lord can use that. But I’m saying, as representatives of the living God, whether you teach a Sunday school class, lead a Bible study or preach on Sunday morning, your primary obligation is to instruct people according to the revelation of the living God, to revere Him and to instruct and notice the last thing for the lips of a priest should guard knowledge. It’s a matter of preservation. I tell my students every semester, look, if you don’t leave my class loving Jesus and loving his word more than I am a miserable failure. And I think that should be true, and is true of anyone who steps into a classroom or behind a lectern or teaches a Bible study or does anything, our goal is that people would love the Lord their God more, and love his word more, his vehicle of Revelation. And so there is that matter of preservation.
So the people seek instruction from the mouth of the Lord’s Messenger for. He is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. And then notice what happens in verses eight and nine. This is fascinating. The Lord says, I’m going to blow you up. I’m going to expose you for what you are. I’m going to remind you of your first job and your assignment, but I’m not going to let you off the hook. I’m going to specifically specify where you’re in violation. Look at it, but you notice that dramatic focus, emphatic there. But you you have turned aside from the way you’ve strayed. You’ve caused many to stumble by your instruction. So you see the progression you yourselves have strayed from the revelation of God, and as a result, you cause the people you should be directing to stumble, don’t you. And look how it continues to progress, progress. And you have corrupted, literally, you have brought ruination to the covenant of Levi we might say the Lord is saying you’re busted. You’ve violated what I want you to do. You’ve turned astray, you’ve gone astray, you’ve caused people to stumble, and you have sabotaged the very purpose and intent of the covenant of Almighty God. And so what does the Lord say, I will make you despised, and obeys before all the people, in as much as you do not keep my ways. And you can almost hear the people say, How have we not kept your ways? And the Lord says, Because you show partiality in your instruction. Literally, you are face receivers. You fear the face. You fear men more than God. You fear people more than God, and so you doctor up the revelation of God, and you dispense it according to social convenience.
Who’s got the most money, who’s got the most social status, who lives in the right place, who can get you somewhere. And so you compromise the precious truth of Holy Scripture, but you have strayed, you cause people to stumble, and you sabotage the covenant of God. Now I don’t know if anywhere in Scripture we see a clear presentation of God, what God wants His representatives to do and what they should not do. So what’s the point here? I think it’s this for those who represent the living God, because the Lord remains faithful, okay? Because the Lord remains faithful, your job, my job, all of us who represent Him, this is our obligation. We are to model His faithfulness to other people. It’s that simple? Or is it that simple? Because I’m standing here before you this morning, and I am a marred minister, and you are a marred minister. There’s not a minister in this room that’s not marred by sin. What is the answer? I love what one of the Puritans wrote. He wrote, Christ in his offices is perfect, a prophet as revealer of priest, as reconciler of King as ruler. And so what do people who, by nature, are marred ministers? What do we do? What is the solution? What is the remedy?
And we get it in chapters three and four of Malachi. It’s the remedy of a perfect priest. There is an overture, a pointing forward to one in the spirit of Elijah, that would be John the Baptist. And then there is a reference to the Lord’s messengers. They are messengers of the covenant. But then in chapter three, and also in chapter four, there’s reference to a particular Messenger, and the description only fits one who is a greater than any human ruler, a greater than David. It is Messiah. It is Jesus. It is the Christ. What do we read about him in chapter three? He is the messenger of the covenant, and he shall purify the sons of Levi that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. How do you and I offer anything to the Lord when we’re marred and diseased with our own sin? And the answer is through the perfect provision of the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at Malachi 42 the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. Makes me think about the fact that this is the last revelation that people received for almost 400 years. Us. And then things pick up again in Luke 178 and what do you have? The sunrise shall visit us from on high. Makes me think about the song we’ll be singing in a few weeks. Hail the Heaven. Board Prince of Peace.
Hail the son of righteousness, light and life. For all he brings, risen with healing in his wing, mild he lays His glories by born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of Earth, born to give them second birth. So what I celebrate this morning when I look at the malpractice and the marred nature of any human ministry is that through Jesus, a hollow, heartless, hypocritical, miniature minister can be transformed into an individual who offers up a willing heart, a full throated praise and fear of the living God. So what is there for us then, as we apply this text, I think it’s very clear that our goal should be as ministers to close the gap, and by that, I mean there should be a growing conformity between what I profess and what I practice that by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the living Jesus, living in me, that gap is ever, ever close, close. Well, in order for that to happen, according to this passage, I think there are a couple of things that have to be primary in our attention, and the first of those is simply this, we must recapture a sense of the greatness of God. Now, I know that sounds trite, but I think, far too often in our culture today, it’s so sped up by digital media, all these things are bombarding our minds for attention, we got to recapture a sense of the greatness of God, and that begins going back to our instruction with elevating and celebrating the Word of God.
Listen to what RC Sproul said a few years ago. I think he’s right on. I think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no one believes that God invests his power in the Bible. Everyone is looking for power in a program, in a technique, in anything and everything, except where God has placed it His word you want to avoid ministerial malpractice study, pray, ask the Lord to open up his word to you. Dwell with the text until it dwells with you. Then open up God’s word and proclaim His greatness and His bigness and his mightiness to this generation. Because I can tell you, if people desperately need it, listen to the summary one author offers about the importance of preaching and teaching the greatness and the goodness of God and opening up the word. Listen to what he wrote on Sunday morning as I stand to preach, there are spouses who can barely talk. There are sullen teenagers living double lives at home and school. There are widows who still feel the amputation of a 50 Year partner.
There are single people who have not been hugged for 20 years. There are men in the prime of their lives with cancer. There are moms who have carried two tiny caskets. There are soldiers of the cross who have risked all for Jesus and bear the scars they are tired and discouraged and lonely strugglers. Shall we come to them with a joke? They can read the comics every day. What they need from us is not more bouncy, Frisky smiles and stories. What they need is a kind of joyful earnestness from the Word of God that makes the broken heart feel hopeful and helps the ones who are drunk with trifles sober up for greater joys. That’s the ministry that God has given us. And then the second thing is to prize what I will call the preciousness of God. I know it’s not cool for a man to talk about something being precious, but you know what? The Bible in first Peter talks about the precious promises of God. It speaks of what I treasure. It speaks of what I value. How do I avoid just mailing it in and going through the motions when I’m so weary and say with these priests, oh, it’s a weariness to me.
How do I avoid that I recapture a sense of the greatness of God, and I say to the Lord, as I fellowship with Him in prayer and as I open up his word Lord, I want to prize you as precious and treasure you above all. All things. I don’t have to tell you, we’re caught up today in a culture that is absolutely obsessed with the insignificant. And so it’s for us to reorient our time, our talent, our treasure, all of our attention so that we might invest in that which lasts for eternity and be obsessed not with the insignificance but with the significance of a sovereign Lord and ruler who keeps on loving his people. And I realize some days in doing that, things get really difficult and we’re weary and we’re broken. I was visiting with Dr Crowder earlier this week, and he reminded me of a great story about Thomas Dorsey, who wrote the great song, Precious Lord, take my hand. I didn’t know this. You may not either, but Dorsey wrote that song shortly after his wife and child died in childbirth. He couldn’t touch a piano for weeks, and he would just walk by. But finally, the Lord gave him these words that you know is precious, Lord, take my hand. And I love the last verse of that song. It says, When my way grows drear. Listen, if you’re in ministry long enough, you’re going to have some great highs, but they’re going to be those days when your way grows drear. Notice what he writes,
Precious Lord, linger near. How do I avoid How do I avoid ministerial malpractice? How do I have a ministry that magnifies and exalts King Jesus, the Christ of Christmas. How does that happen? It happens as the Lord Himself is precious to me, and I understand that the lifeline that sustains me is the nearness of my God. The Psalmist said, the nearness of God is my good. So you see, we move from malpractice to magnification, and it happens through the merit and through the mercy of the messenger of the covenant, because the Lord is faithful. Model His faithfulness in your own ministry. Let’s pray, Father, thank You for the Prophet, Priest and King. Thank you for the perfect priest, the minister without blemish, your Son, the Lord Jesus, who is our hope, who is our righteousness, who is our peace. And Father grant for your glory, we might, in the power of your spirit, be modern messengers of your covenant of grace, all for the glory of King Jesus. In His name, we pray amen.
