Dung on Your Faces
Introduction: The High Cost of Cheap Worship
We live in an age that has domesticated God. We have made Him manageable, predictable, and, above all, polite. We approach worship as consumers, looking for a spiritual product that meets our felt needs. We want blessings, but we have forgotten the Blesser. We want the benefits of the covenant without the obligations of it. We want a God who will affirm us, not a God we must fear. And so, our worship becomes casual, our preaching becomes therapeutic, and our leaders become managers of a religious non-profit instead of messengers of the living God.
Into this comfortable, lukewarm environment, the prophet Malachi arrives like a man kicking in the front door during a dinner party. He is not polite. He does not care about our feelings. He speaks for Yahweh of hosts, and he brings a message of searing, holy confrontation. The problem in Malachi's day was not a lack of religion. The temple was operating, the sacrifices were being made, the priests were on duty. The problem was that it was all a sham. It was hollow. It was rotten from the inside out. The priests, the spiritual leaders of the people, were despising the name of God by offering Him their leftovers, their garbage, their lame and sick animals. They were going through the motions of worship while their hearts were a thousand miles away.
And God's response is not to offer them a friendlier worship service or a new program. His response is a threat of such shocking, visceral, and humiliating judgment that it ought to make every pastor and elder in the land tremble. This is not a message for the faint of heart. This is God declaring that when His appointed ministers lead the people in contemptible worship, He will not just reject the worship; He will rub their noses in the filth of it. He will turn their blessings into curses and make them as vile in public as their worship is in private.
The Text
"And now this commandment is for you, O priests. If you do not listen, and if you do not set it upon your heart to give honor to My name," says Yahweh of hosts, "then I will send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; and indeed, I have cursed them already because you are not setting it upon your heart. Behold, I am going to rebuke your seed, and I will spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it. Then you will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that My covenant may continue with Levi," says Yahweh of hosts. "My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him as something to be feared; so he feared Me and stood in awe of My name. Instruction of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found on his lips; he walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many back from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth; for he is the messenger of Yahweh of hosts. But as for you, you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by the instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi," says Yahweh of hosts. "So I also have made you despised and low before all the people, just as you are not keeping My ways but are showing partiality in the instruction."
(Malachi 2:1-9 LSB)
The Curse on the Priests (vv. 1-3)
The indictment begins with a direct address to the spiritual leadership.
"And now this commandment is for you, O priests. If you do not listen, and if you do not set it upon your heart to give honor to My name," says Yahweh of hosts, "then I will send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings; and indeed, I have cursed them already because you are not setting it upon your heart." (Malachi 2:1-2)
God's charge is not against their doctrine, at least not initially. It is against their hearts. The phrase "set it upon your heart" means to take it seriously, to resolve, to be intentional. Their failure was a failure of attention and intention. They were not giving honor to God's name. The name of God represents His character, His reputation, His glory. To honor it is to treat God as God, to acknowledge His infinite worth. The priests were failing at the most basic level of their duty.
And the consequence is terrifying. God says He will "curse your blessings." This is a profound reversal. The very purpose of the priesthood was to be a conduit of God's blessing to the people (Numbers 6:23-27). But because they dishonored the source of all blessing, the blessings they pronounced would turn to ash in the mouths of the people. Their ministry would become toxic. Their prayers, their sacrifices, their benedictions would all become instruments of the curse. In fact, God says, He has "cursed them already." The rot had already set in. The judgment was not a future threat; it was a present reality. When worship becomes a performance, the blessing has already departed.
Then the imagery becomes brutally graphic.
"Behold, I am going to rebuke your seed, and I will spread refuse on your faces, the refuse of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it." (Malachi 2:3)
God's rebuke will extend to their "seed," which can mean both their offspring and their agricultural produce. Their future is cut off. But the central image is one of ultimate humiliation. The "refuse" is the dung, the offal from the intestines of the sacrificed animals. According to the law, this was to be taken outside the camp and burned completely (Exodus 29:14). It was the most defiled part of the sacrifice. God says, "You offer me contemptible worship, so I will take the most contemptible part of your offerings and smear it all over your faces." This is divine, poetic justice. They treated His altar with contempt, so He will treat their persons with contempt. They will be publicly shamed, marked by the very filth of their own corrupt service. And they will be "taken away with it," swept out with the garbage, fit only for the dung heap.
The Covenant Standard (vv. 4-7)
God does not issue this threat in a vacuum. He grounds it in the covenant He made with their ancestor, Levi. The purpose of this harsh judgment is actually restorative: "Then you will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that My covenant may continue with Levi." God is not trying to annihilate the priesthood, but to purify it.
"My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him as something to be feared; so he feared Me and stood in awe of My name." (Malachi 2:5)
Here is the foundation. The covenant with the priesthood was a gift of "life and peace." But it was not an unconditional gift. It was predicated on fear. Not a cowering, servile terror, but a reverential awe, a holy respect for the name and character of God. Levi understood this. He stood in awe of God's name. This is the starting point for all true ministry. Without the fear of the Lord, a minister is just a man with a title.
This internal attitude of awe produced external fruit in the ideal priest.
"Instruction of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found on his lips; he walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many back from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth; for he is the messenger of Yahweh of hosts." (Malachi 2:6-7)
Notice the characteristics. First, his teaching was true. "Instruction of truth," the Torah of truth, was in his mouth. He did not invent his message; he delivered God's message faithfully. Second, his life matched his lips. He "walked with Me in peace and uprightness." There was no hypocrisy, no unrighteousness on his lips. Third, his ministry was effective. He "turned many back from iniquity." True teaching and a holy life are God's instruments for genuine conversion and repentance. A priest is a guardian of knowledge and a messenger, an angel, of Yahweh. He is a mouthpiece, not the source. His job is to receive the word from God and deliver it faithfully to the people.
The Covenant Corrupted (vv. 8-9)
After setting this high and holy standard, God brings the hammer down on the priests of Malachi's day.
"But as for you, you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by the instruction; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi," says Yahweh of hosts. (Malachi 2:8)
They failed on every point. Instead of walking with God, they "turned aside." Instead of turning many from sin, they "caused many to stumble." Their instruction, their torah, was no longer a light to the path but a stumbling block in the way. A corrupt minister does not just fail to do good; he actively does harm. He makes the path to God more difficult. He corrupts the very covenant he is supposed to administer.
And the result is a direct and fitting judgment from God.
"So I also have made you despised and low before all the people, just as you are not keeping My ways but are showing partiality in the instruction." (Malachi 2:9)
Here is the cause and effect, laid bare. Because they did not honor God, God has dishonored them. He has made them "despised and low before all the people." The respect they craved is stripped away. And why? Because they were "showing partiality in the instruction." This means they were tailoring their teaching to please men. They would apply the law strictly to the poor and the powerless, but would look the other way for the rich and influential. They were picking and choosing which parts of God's word to emphasize based on who was in the pews. A man who fears the face of his wealthy donors more than he fears the face of God is a man who has corrupted the covenant. And God promises that such a man's ministry will end in public disgrace.
The Perfect Priest and His People
This entire passage is a blistering indictment of a failed priesthood. And the failure of the Levitical priesthood serves one ultimate purpose: to show us how desperately we needed a better one. The covenant of Levi was corrupted by sinful men. It was temporary. It was a shadow pointing to the substance that was to come.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the perfect High Priest. The fear of the Lord was His delight (Isaiah 11:3). Instruction of truth was always in His mouth. He walked with the Father in perfect peace and uprightness. And He is the only one who can truly turn men back from iniquity. He did not offer a lame animal; He offered Himself, the perfect sacrifice, once for all. He did not have refuse smeared on His face, but He bore the spittle and the shame of the cross for us. He took the curse that we deserved, so that the blessings of God could flow to us unhindered.
But the warning of Malachi still echoes for us today. For under the New Covenant, the church itself is called a "royal priesthood" (1 Peter 2:9). Every believer is a priest, and our pastors and elders have a particular priestly duty as undershepherds of Christ. This passage is a solemn warning to every pastor who softens God's truth to keep the peace, to every worship leader who values emotional experience over biblical fidelity, and to every Christian who offers God the leftovers of his time, his money, and his heart.
If we do not set it upon our hearts to give honor to His name, our blessings too can become a curse. Our churches can become hollow shells, our witness can become a stumbling block, and our worship can become a stench in the nostrils of God. The call is to repent of our casual, consumeristic faith. It is a call to return to the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. It is a call to receive the instruction of truth with gladness, and to walk with Him in peace and uprightness, so that we might be faithful messengers of the King.