Faithful to the Covenant: Malachi 2:10-16 | How Spiritual Compromise Creeps In

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Have you ever considered how small compromises can lead to major spiritual consequences? In Malachi 2:10-16, God rebukes His people for their unfaithfulness—both in their relationships with one another and in their marriages. What started as minor compromises led to a full-scale spiritual decline.

This passage is a wake-up call, reminding us that faithfulness to God is not just about religious rituals—it extends to how we treat one another, how we uphold the sanctity of marriage, and how we guard against the creeping influence of idolatry.

📖 In this sermon, we explore:

📌How faithfulness to God extends to our relationships (Malachi 2:10).

📌The danger of spiritual compromise and foreign influences (Malachi 2:11-12).

📌Why marriage reflects God's covenant love (Malachi 2:13-16).

As a Confessional Presbyterian and Reformed church, we emphasize Christ-centered preaching and scriptural fidelity. Our desire is to equip believers to grow in their faith and live faithfully before the Lord.

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📢 “Want to reflect deeper on this message? Read the devotions for this sermon: 5 Devotions on The Hidden Dangers of Spiritual Drift

📖 Click to Show the Transcript of this Sermon

When a community's water supply becomes polluted, more than likely this isn't something that happens overnight. The water starts out pure and clean. It can be trusted by the people who consume it. Likely the water was established as a good source of water going back several generations. But over time, New industrial manufacturers probably moved into the community. Lots of new things happening, a lot of new things to keep eyes on.

And maybe there was a small crack at one of these manufacturing plants. And it went unnoticed. And it caused contaminants to seep into the ground and eventually go into the water supply. And initially, no one would notice. Because it's only trace amounts. But over time, it would make people sick. And by the time you notice that the water is poisoned, thousands, maybe even more, of people have consumed it.

Well those results, the result of that, would be very devastating to the health of the community. What started out as very little suddenly becomes a great danger. And this kind of slow and creeping threat can be dangerous in so many different ways. In fact, it's the kind of danger that we see described for us in what we read there in Malachi 2 just a few moments ago.

As we move through the first two chapters, we have seen that the spiritual life of the priests in Malachi's time and the lives of the people of Israel as a whole have been contaminated by their unfaithfulness to the commands of God. The sacrificial system had been polluted by the priests bringing blind and lame animals for the sacrifices instead of bringing the first and the best. They had compromised the covenant and that way of God relating to his people, by treating one another in terrible ways. And also by bringing in foreign worship. And as we read this morning, breaking the sacred bond of marriage.

All these things were going on. And yet the people still thought they were following God. They were doing all the right things. checking all the right boxes, everything that they needed to do to maintain their spiritual identity externally. But their hearts were contaminated by spiritual poison. It had seeped in. And through the voice of the prophet Malachi, we see God calling them to wake up before it's too late.

Now as we see whenever we come to the words of scripture, these words are not just for the people that the prophet Malachi was originally writing to. These words are holy scripture because they're written to the people of God in every time and every place. And so I think it would be helpful for us if we consider some questions, some personal questions, as we make our way through these verses this morning. So how have we allowed spiritual compromise to slowly seep into our lives? Have we remained faithful to God and to one another, or have we let worldly influences come in and pollute our devotion to God?

Well, the first thing that we see going on in this passage today is that our faithfulness to God extends to our relationships, and we're going to see this as we start out with verse 10 today. So I just suggested a couple of questions for us to consider. And Malachi asked some questions of his readers as well. Have we not all one Father? Well, the people Malachi speaks this word to know themselves. They know the answer. They know who they are. They know that they are the people of God. They know they are called out ones. They know that he has chosen them from all the peoples of the earth.

And they know that if they are his people, then they are family. He's their father, therefore they're siblings. They should care for one another. He is the God who created them, and yet we are told that they're faithless to one another, that they profane the covenant that has stood throughout the generations. You see, God stood in relationship to his people by the means of covenant, right? And he was faithful to that covenant, even though the people were consistently unfaithful to him.

And throughout Scripture, marriage is consistently used as imagery to show God's faithfulness and humanity's rebellion. And we actually saw this a few weeks back when we were in Revelation. The idolatry of the people of God is adultery. Their idolatry is adultery against the one who has wed himself to them. And this is true of the words that Malachi is saying here as well. This is the imagery he's calling on. But here we see that their unfaithfulness to God is shown in the fact that they're not faithful in their relationships to each other and not holding to the commands of God that were given to them regarding marriage.

Now before we progress through this passage some more, it's important that we refresh our memories on the significance of marriage once again and the role that it plays in the covenant now and then. It is a one flesh union of man and woman. God brought Adam and Eve together so that Adam would not be alone. They complemented one another. And through this union, they were to be fruitful and multiply. And from that union eventually would come the one who would crush the head of the serpent.

And even though there would be a specific family line on which the promise of that Messiah would come, The command to be fruitful and multiply was not just for that one family line leading to Jesus. It was for all the people of God. All the people of God are commanded to multiply, to grow the people of God, to grow the family of God, to pass on the faith through the generations by producing godly offspring. Now marriage is something, therefore, that we are to hold in high esteem. And we're called to protect it and not defile it because it is ordained by God.

But in modern times, marriages often just seem as a contract for the mutual benefit of those who are involved in it. And then, when it's no longer needed, if it's just a contract, we can tear it up. We can toss it aside. But marriage is a covenant that should be held in the highest of esteem. And what we find here in Malachi 2 is that the people had taken what God had given them, that truth of God ordaining marriage, and they had forsaken it. And we find strong words here. In verse 11, we read that they had been faithless And that an abomination has been committed.

And this makes it clear that this is no small thing here, right? An abomination is usually used for an idolatrous religious practice. So often, the adultery... And the sexual immorality that we read about in the Old Testament was connected to pagan spiritual practices. It's important that we remember this. Because many idols of the time were fertility gods. And so you can understand why there was a connection and what they did in the worship of these pagan gods. I'm not going to get into the details, but you know what I mean. That was an abomination.

This is what the worship of the Baals was about. I know we didn't teach you that in Sunday school when you were little, but it was not rated G, okay? That's why we didn't talk about it, but that's what's going on. When you read about the worship and his forsaking self to the Baals, it is deeply connected with pagan sexual practices. And so this isn't about... When we read about not... going after foreign gods. This isn't just about not liking the foreign people or not aligning yourself or marrying a foreign person. It's about connecting them to these foreign gods.

What we need to understand here is that when they go after this worship, when they go after these practices, it's not just something that they do. It's that they've gone after other gods. They've devoted themselves to idolatry. Remember, there are multiple examples of Gentiles coming into the covenant community of Israel. This isn't a racism thing. In fact, just go through the genealogy of Jesus and you can find A few examples of Gentiles being brought into the covenant off the top of my head. Rahab was not a Jew, but she came to faith and she is in the line to the Messiah.

This isn't about the genetic code. It's about faithfulness to Almighty God. It's about devotion to the true God. But what was happening here? was about more than just going after foreign women. It was that when they did so, they were pursuing the foreign pagan gods. They were forsaking the one who had called them out to be his people. And so what Malachi does is he calls for anyone who does this to be cut off from the tents of Jacob. In other words, they're banished from the covenant community.

They're participating in this idolatry, and yet they profane the sanctuary by thinking they can live in this immorality, in this idolatry, but still participate in the worship life of the people of God. Now, I find this interesting that they don't seem to get this, that there's a problem here. they blatantly violated clear commands of God in offering unclean offerings and by forsaking their marriage covenant. But still, we read that they covered the altar of the Lord with tears.

Now notice that they're clearly still talking about priests here because they're able to shed tears on the altar. The average person doesn't go to the altar of God and offer a sacrifice. These are the priests. These are the people who should know better. So as we read this and see that they're covering the altar of God with tears, we might think, wow. They're feeling remorse here. They're sorry for their sin and they have come to repentance. But that's clearly not the case when we read this.

This is like when you catch a child in some sort of wrongdoing and they completely lose it. The waterworks start. They're all totally upset. But when you look at them, you can see that those tears are not because they're feeling remorse. They are crying because they aren't getting their way. Or maybe they're upset that they got caught and they fear the consequences. That's what these tears are like. They're not getting their way. The sacrifices aren't being accepted.

So again, Malachi uses a question regarding why God is not accepting their offerings. Well, it's obvious. It's because the Lord has seen their unfaithfulness. He has been witness to the breaking of the covenant that they made before him. They weep and they groan at the altar, wondering why God doesn't accept their offering with favor. But the reason is clear. This isn't muddy here. It is clear. They have been faithless to the wife of their youth.

This is not that they are not perfectly keeping some tiny little detail of some obscure ritual or tradition as priests. This isn't because they did something wrong in the order of the sacrifice. What they are doing is purposeful. And in their adultery, they have not only forsaken the promise that they made to their wife, but the covenant that was made before God. In doing so, they have been chasing after false gods. And so our passage for today closes up and we're reminded of the importance of these unions that they have forsaken.

And we read that God made them one. And this is a clear call back to the ordaining of marriage in Genesis 2. We know this passage. Not only is it at the beginning of the Bible, so we've probably read it several times, but this is language. This is a text that is often used at wedding ceremonies. We know this. The man and the woman, Adam and Eve, become one flesh. They are united together.

And we see emphasized for us that this is not just a physical union between We see that the Spirit is involved in this union and Malachi lets us know what God was after with this union. You can see it up there. Godly offspring. They were to come together. They were to have children and raise them in the faith. To pass on the promise of God from generation to generation to generation to generation.

And we have to remember that it's important that we understand that this was not just the purpose for Adam and Eve or for the people of Malachi's day. The command to be fruitful and multiply and the emphasis of teaching the faith to the children of the covenant is for all the people of God in every era. And this is a great calling for us. This is how God ordained the church to grow and to expand and go into the whole world.

And of course, evangelism and outreach are essential to that plan as well. I am not downplaying that at all here. But throughout the ages, raising covenant children in the faith is how the church has expanded and how it was established and how it went into the world. Now when I set out to do this series, I did not know that we were doing a baptism today. but I could not have selected a better text to preach on the day of a baptism if I tried.

I hope the baptismal vows that we took just a few moments ago are resonating with you as you think and as we think together on this passage. May we all think deeply about how we can do this in our homes. How we can do this in our church? How we can do this in our community? How can we actively be working together to raise godly offspring for the glory of God and for the expanding of his kingdom?

Have we been making disciples who know the faith and can pass it on or have we just been checking the boxes of what we think we need to do to fulfill our obligations? May the idea of this passage get deep down in us. That we might seek to fulfill the purpose that God has given us in the blessing of having covenant children to care for and raise in the faith. And inherent in that is the faithfulness that we're called to in marriage.

Malachi calls us to guard ourselves, to not let ourselves become lax in these relationships. We read that the man who does this covers his garment with violence. Now that's really an odd statement for us. Covers a garment in violence. Doesn't make much sense. But when we understand some biblical imagery, we can sort this out together. Marriage or finding a wife is sometimes portrayed as being covered with a garment. You have this blessing of a covering from God.

But what we read here is that when you violate the marriage covenant, you do violence to that garment. You essentially stain it, you ruin it, and instead of something you can wear as a covering with pride, It's no good. And it ends up in the metaphorical bin where you put your rags. And so the call from God here is to guard that. It says, do not be faithless. Hold this covering in high esteem. That is straightforward. And we know this. You know you have to guard these relationships.

And I think it starts with us holding a high view of marriage by understanding that this is a covenant with one another and with God that he ordained it for our good and for his glory. We all have things that we don't value very much. That we don't take much care of keeping track of. But there are also things that we love. Think of those things that we don't hold with much value. We might just leave those things lying around because we know they're not going to disappear.

We can leave it outside, not lock it up, because it really doesn't have any value. And maybe even if someone else sees value in it and steals it, we wouldn't miss it very much. I think we all have stuff we just leave lying around because we don't care much about it. But there are other things that we lock up because we know it not only has value to us, but we know the inherent value that it has to all people.

And you get my point, right? if we hold the God-ordained institution of marriage in high esteem, we will see value. We will know that it needs to be guarded. Marriage is not a throwaway contract we sign for mutual benefit so someone that we like a whole lot can have insurance with us through our work. It's not a social contract. It is a covenant. and it's a covenant not just before men, but before God.

And one way that we can be reminded of this is to remember what I pointed out earlier. Marriage is a picture of God's relationship to us. He has wed himself to us as his people, and he is faithful to us. He did everything to bring us to Himself, to wed us with Him. He has done it all. Christ came, He suffered, He died for us that we might be brought into this marriage relationship of His righteousness as His people.

And He rose again that this might not be just a temporary thing, but that death would be defeated and we would be united to Him for all of eternity. If we remember that, That that is the picture of marriage. It will help us to understand our human relationships as well. And in the midst of this, the best news of all of it is that despite our human weakness and our failure, that human weakness that's on display in what's going on in Malachi's time, we know that God is always faithful to us.

That's the big picture in all of this. Despite the people spoken of here in Malachi running after the idols of the pagan nations, we see that God is faithful. The people were covenant breakers, but God's a covenant keeper. He doesn't abandon them. He calls them to repentance. So as we close up, I want to return to that idea that I opened up with of the slow contamination that can occur in a water supply.

The marital unfaithfulness in the second example that we see here in Malachi is an example of how the people had moved away from God. It started out with them giving sacrifices that were not what God commanded. And now we see that it led to adultery and idolatry. A lame lamb or a blind lamb on this sacrifice altar, that doesn't seem like a big deal. But it led to the worship of foreign gods and all the deviance that was involved with those things.

They didn't realize their compromises had poisoned their spiritual lives until it was too late. And this fact makes this passage about more than just marriage, makes this passage about more than just raising our covenant children in the faith. It makes us aware of the fact that little compromises become grievous rebellion. And this passage comes directly to show us this truth.

And so if you come back to this passage, if you remember what we read this morning during this week, the challenge for us then is not to look at the idolatry of the people in Malachi's time and think about how grievous their sin was. But instead, use those thoughts of this passage to think about the details of our own lives. Where do we need to stop letting the spiritual poison seep in? What can we do? What can we cut off to keep the spiritual water supply of our lives pure?

Those are the questions we should come back to as we recall these words from Malachi this week. And as we do this, as we remember those things, as we ask these questions, praise God that he has given you the gift of the Holy Spirit because this would be a sign in us that he is at work in us to convict us of these things that have seeped into our lives.

Remember what I always say. Repentance is hard. It isn't easy. Being convicted is really painful, but God has saved us by his grace, and he also gives us grace to grow in faith, to move beyond these things, that we might be a people set apart, a people who are laboring for his kingdom, that he might be glorified in our families, that he might be praised in our church, that his glory might be seen in our community, and to the ends of the earth.

So remember His mercy and grace. And let His Holy Spirit be at work in you this week. Amen.

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