When Shepherds Fail - Malachi 2:1-9

The other day I was laughing because, as most parents can attest to, when you leave a group of young children alone in a room for any amount of time, it doesn’t take long for things to descend into total and complete chaos. Things quickly morph into The Lord of the Flies. If you remember, that’s the book where children are stranded on an island and, without any real authority or leadership, things spiral quickly into chaos and eventually violence.

And the truth is wherever there is a lack of leadership, things tend to head in a negative direction. That’s obviously true for the church as well. As the church officers go, often, so goes the church. There are always consequences for poor church leadership. The attitudes and convictions among those entrusted with spiritual oversight inevitably shape the tone and direction of the entire congregation.

That’s why James says that those who teach will be judged with a greater strictness. There’s a weightiness, a seriousness, a heaviness to come with being in a position of spiritual authority. In the Old Testament, the priests were not anonymous religious robots; they were supposed to protect public worship—they were entrusted with maintaining the holiness of God’s name among His people. When they were faithful, they led Israel into the presence of the living God. But when they became careless, indifferent, or self-serving, they led Israel away from the Lord. 

We see this repeatedly throughout Scripture, when leaders lose sight of who God is and what He's done for them, it affects the whole community. When truth is handled loosely, doctrine begins to drift. And what often begins as small compromises among leaders eventually becomes widespread rejection of the Lord among the people.

That is the burden of the passage before us in Book of Malachi 2:1–9. God is not only addressing the behavior of individual priests—He is exposing the spiritual consequences of their leadership.

And that’s what we’re going to wrestle with this morning: When those entrusted with leading God’s people in worship become apathetic, they inevitably lead His people into sin and error. Typically, the slide isn’t instantaneous. It usually takes place slowly over time. Which is why in these nine verses we first see the Lord give a warning (vv. 1-3), second, we see the Lord remind the priests of the standard (vv. 4-6), and lastly, we see that real consequences are their indifference (vv. 7-9).

The application is obvious, isn’t it? This isn’t just a problem that people in the Old Testament dealt with. This remains a danger to this day. Church leadership is absolutely critical for a church’s health. If there’s weak leadership, then the church is going to be weak. 

None of this is lost on me. I feel like this is a sermon directed at myself, the elders, and the deacons that you get to listen in on. But I don’t think that this is a message encouraging you to hold our feet to the fire, because the reality is, you shouldn’t have to do that. If you constantly feel like you’re having to hold your church’s leadership accountable, then you’re probably at the wrong church. You should be at a church where you genuinely feel like the church officers are trying to honor the Lord in how they lead in every facet, but especially in worship. 

The Warning (vv. 1–3)

Because that was the problem in Israel. Their worship had become insincere, apathetic, and indifferent, primarily because of the weak leadership of the priests. Which is why the Lord says to the priests, “this command is for you!” 

The Lord tells them the command: if they refuse to listen, if they continue to offer worthless, meaningless, half-hearted worship, then the Lord will send curses on them. “If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart.”

The Lord goes even further by telling the priesthood that He’s going to humiliate them by, “spreading dung on their faces.” That’s pretty graphic and nasty isn’t it? But of course, the Lord is making a specific point. 

Because we’re told in passages like Exodus 29, Leviticus 8, and Leviticus 16 that certain remains of an animal sacrifice were supposed to be taken outside of the camp and burned, specifically the refuse, like the dung. Because it was considered “unclean.”

And so the Lord is effectively saying to the descendants of Levi, who were the priests, this tribe of men who had been set apart for holy work—He was going to make them unclean. In a symbolic way, He was going to smear the parts of the offerings that were supposed to be destroyed because they were unclean on their faces. 

After all, there were great privileges and benefits to being a priest in Israel. They were respected. They were well taken care of. They got to lead the people in worship. Those were some of the blessings of being a priest in Israel. But the Lord says that he was going to “curse your blessings.” In other words, rather than being honored, they were going to experience shame, rather than having a Godly influence on the people, they were going to cause them to stumble.

And like I said earlier, this is something restricted to the Old Testament people. Think about how many well-respected pastors or elders who commit one grievous sin and it all evaporates. It wasn’t all that long ago that Steven Lawson was preaching at every big, reformed conference.

One minute he was incredibly well-respected and the next his name is associated with shame. The influence that he once had is totally gone. And who knows what impact his sin had on his church. 

When church drifts it often begins with small compromises that lead to big issues. Those small compromises often result in division, confusion, a weakened witness, or even the collapse of a ministry altogether. 

I’m sure you’ve experienced this at some point: you walk into a church and you just sense that the Holy Spirit has completely pulled his presence. There’s no vitality in their worship. There’s no power in the preaching. Everyone is merely going through the motions.

It reminds me of what happened in 1 Samuel, how Eli’s sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who were functioning as priests in Israel, were taking more than their allotted portion and sleeping with women in the tabernacle. But Eli was a weak and passive father and leader and turned a blind eye towards it which is why the Lord raised up Samuel.

When you see things going poorly in the church, it doesn’t take very long for you to begin to wonder, “where did the leadership go wrong?” 

When the Lord says He’s going to spread dung all over the priests’ faces He’s effectively saying that they will be publicly exposed. To use a similar modern expression, they’re going to have “egg on their face.”  

Because when sin is tolerated at the top, it rarely stays contained—it trickles down into the life of the whole congregation. What leaders overlook, the people will eventually normalize. What leaders excuse, the people will eventually embrace. And over time, what was once unthinkable becomes acceptable, all because those entrusted to guard the truth failed to act with courage and conviction.

And that’s why passages like this matter so much. They remind us that church leadership is crucial. Those who serve are called not merely to manage or organize, but to honor God with their lives and to lead His people in truth, reverence, and faithfulness.

The Standard (vv. 4–6)

Because there is a standard that church officers are supposed to uphold. Look at what we see in verses 4-6:

“So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the Lord of hosts. 5 My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. 6 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.”

Nehemiah who was a contemporary of Malachi tells us in chapter 13 verse 29, that, “...they have desecrated the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.” Now, Scripture doesn’t speak of a specific moment where the Lord ratified a covenant with Levi in the same way he did, say with Abraham.

But the point that the Lord is making here is that there was a clear agreement, a clear standard, a covenant that the priests were going to zealously guard and protect, not only the worship of the Lord, but their own personal holiness. 

That’s what the priesthood was supposed to look like—faithful men leading Israel in worship. They would have reverence for the Lord. Their commitment to Him would bring life and peace. They would offer true instruction. They would live upright, holy lives and turn from sin and iniquity. The priests were to be holy and set apart—that’s the broad covenantal agreement that Malachi references here. 

But instead of leading the people into spiritual life, they were leading them into sin. They were failing to uphold the standard God had given them. But notice that the priests hadn’t stopped conducting worship altogether. The problem was, they were cutting corners. They were passively allowing the people to bring blemished sacrifices because it was convenient. They were willing to uphold the Word of God.

And who hasn’t been tempted in this way. We know what the Word says, but it’s hard and letting this or that slide is much easier. The Lord reminds us that even this mentality has an impact on those around us!  The priests’ unwillingness to uphold God’s holy standard had an impact on all of Israel. 

Because neglect, indifference, and apathy is never neutral. That’s true in the church, that’s true for your family, and that’s true for your own soul.

When worship is neglected you’re not maintaining the status quo. You’re drifting. You’re slowly training your heart to treat God as less important, less worthy, less central. And over time, that drift compounds. What once felt essential begins to feel optional, and what once stirred your affections begins to feel like a burden.

The truth is, neglect doesn’t preserve spiritual life—it erodes it. It dulls your sensitivity to sin, weakens your love for God, and leaves you far more vulnerable than you realize.

And when those entrusted with guarding worship grow passive and neglect God’s Word, they open the door to compromise. Error can easily creep in where truth is no longer clearly taught and before long people begin to turn a blind eye to sin. And over time, what was once unthinkable becomes acceptable, simply because no one was willing to stand firm and guard what God has entrusted to them.

Someone has to be the watchman on the tower. Someone has to hold the line and you would certainly expect that from your church officers.  

The Consequence (vv. 7–9)

But look at what happens when those entrusted to protect God’s people refuse to do so. Verse 8: “But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction.” When the leaders turn aside it causes people to stumble. In fact, the Lord says they caused people to stumble “by their instruction.” We often don’t think of it this way, but compromise is instruction. When we give sin a “pass” we’re effectively teaching that it’s acceptable. 

There’s a church called City Church in San Francisco and it was initially planted as a PCA church. But over time, they decided that the PCA was too restrictive and that they wanted to ordain female officers. So, they left the denomination and continued to slide in a more and more unbiblical direction. And today, the church affirms homosexuality. 

It didn’t happen overnight. It was one compromise after another, after another, until the church affirmed everything that the world taught.

The priests were supposed to be messengers of the Lord. They were supposed to teach the holy things of God. But it was those very messengers who had corrupted the covenant. 

Apparently, they were also showing partiality. 

The text seems to suggest that the priests were showing favor to the rich over the poor and powerless. But notice what the Lord says—He says that he is going to “make [them] despised and abased before all the people.” The priests thought that by elevating the rich over the poor they would also elevate their own status as well. But the Lord says, no your status will not be elevated in fact, your status will be brought low. 

But the bottom line is, they were more concerned with pleasing man than they were about pleasing God. 

James says something about the sin of partiality too. He talks about how wrong it is in the church to give the rich places of honor and the poor the place of shame. After all, we’re all one in Christ Jesus! There is neither rich nor poor. 

But more often than not, that’s at the heart of compromise—a greater desire to please man than to please God. It rarely begins with outright rebellion. It usually starts with a subtle shift: a reluctance to say what is hard, a hesitation to confront what is wrong, a quiet calculation about how something will be received. And over time, that desire for approval begins to shape decisions, soften convictions, and silence truth.

The fear of man has a way of clouding judgment. It convinces us that keeping the peace is more important than guarding the truth, that avoiding discomfort is better than pursuing faithfulness. But when pleasing people becomes the priority, honoring God inevitably takes a back seat.

And the danger is that this kind of compromise often looks reasonable, even loving on the surface. But underneath, it slowly erodes integrity. Because in the end, you cannot serve both—you will either shape your message to please people, or you will speak faithfully to please God.

And all of those things are reinforced when a minister twists the Word of God or plays favorites. A minister’s authority and credibility instantly erodes when he makes the ministry about anything other than simply being faithful to the Lord.

But even more sobering is the spiritual damage that this can cause. People were stumbling—confused about truth, misled in their understanding of God, and ultimately harmed in their walk with Him. And that’s the weight of this passage: unfaithful leadership doesn’t just fail privately—it multiplies harm publicly.

When leadership fails, and the church is left to deal with the fallout–it’s often so much more than a series of unfortunate events. It’s often a sign of God’s judgment. Just think about all the mainline denominations who have abandoned the gospel—they’re all in steep decline. People are leaving in droves. Do we really think that’s just random or do we believe that this is the result of God’s judgment for their abandonment of the gospel and commitment to His Word? 

There’s a real heaviness to this passage, isn’t there? Because if we’re honest, it forces us to reckon with something we already know deep down: there is no perfect pastor. There is no perfect elder. There is no perfect church. And there’s no perfect family. Even in the best of circumstances, even when things are healthy and strong, there are still weaknesses, blind spots, and failures.

That’s been one of the recurring themes of our men’s polity study. You can craft a system of church government that looks airtight, faithfully biblical on paper. You can have the right structures, the right safeguards, the right procedures. And those things matter—they are good and necessary. But the moment you infuse sinners into that system, things can quickly go in the wrong direction. Pride creeps in. Fear of man takes hold. Complacency sets in. And before long, what looked so strong in theory begins to show cracks in the foundation.

And passages like Book of Malachi 2 remind us that this is not a new problem. God’s people have always wrestled with imperfect leadership. Priests failed. Kings failed. Prophets failed. And still, God’s people are called to continue to trust Him and His Word.

So what do we do with that? Is the takeaway cynicism? Do we lower our expectations? Do we quietly disengage and say, “Well, this is just how it goes?”

No—quite the opposite.

These realities are not reasons to walk away from the church. They are reasons to press in more deeply to what God has actually given us. They are reasons to take seriously the teaching of the church, the Word of God, and the means of grace. Because if you place your hope in personalities, in leadership styles, or in church structures alone, you will eventually be disappointed.

But if your hope is anchored in Jesus Christ, you have something unshakable. Because while there is no perfect pastor, there is a perfect Shepherd. While there is no flawless priest, there is a perfect High Priest—Epistle to the Hebrews makes that abundantly clear. Jesus Christ does not fail in His leadership. He does not grow indifferent. He does not distort the truth. He perfectly leads, perfectly teaches, and perfectly intercedes for His people.

Which means the church’s hope has never rested on the perfection of its leaders, but on the perfection of its Savior. When the church inevitably fails we shouldn’t throw up our hands in frustration but rather we should say, “come quickly Lord Jesus.” 

So don’t let the imperfections you see cause you to withdraw. Let them remind you where your confidence truly belongs in Jesus Christ. So, lean into the Word. Pray for your leaders. Pursue faithfulness in your own life. And above all, fix your eyes on the One who will never fail His church, and who is even now at work, refining and strengthening her for His glory.

Amen. Let’s pray together.