The issue of honouring God is a crucial one. In Malachi 1, when He's talking to the priesthood, He said: “sons honour their father, and servants honour their master. If I be a Father, where's My honour? If I be a Master, where's My respect?” He said: you guys dishonour and disrespect Me. They said: how do we do that? He said: in the offerings, because you bring the weak, the blind, and the sick. You've got to remember that when we come, whether our giving is financial, or praise and worship, the core of it is: we must respect and honour the one we're coming to, and give Him the honour, give Him the best, not give Him something half-hearted, not give Him something which is unsatisfactory to Him.
In Malachi 1, He says: try pulling that stunt with the leader of the nation and see if he'll be happy with it. He says: I am a great king. Don't bring your half-hearted, blind, sick sheep and offer them to me, and say you're doing a good thing. He said: what you're giving reflects a heart that dishonours and despises Me. This is a crucial reason that the sons of Levi lost their priesthood, and it also leads us to why someone else got it. There's also a second reason that they lost it. It's all to do with dishonouring God, and honouring themselves, and the second one was: selfish ambition, and self-promotion.
Ambition and self-promotion, what do they mean by that? What did they do? Well, people came, and wanted to worship God. They wanted to honour God, so they came, and they brought their offering, and their offerings depending on what they were able give. It's not important how much you can give, it's the heart that's behind it that counts. They came, and they gave; and these sons would see what these people have, and they'd take the best for themselves. In other words, they exploited the giving, to make themselves prosper. This goes on a lot in the church today! Thankfully, it doesn't take place where we are. We've got great leaders, who honour God, and would never think to use God's resources, and God's people, to further their own ends; but this is what it’s saying they did.
They dishonoured God; took the best for themselves, and they used their position to advance themselves. This happens, and of course this is one of the great scandals in the American church right now - the exploiting of the things of God, to take money off people; offering them false hopes. The third thing that they did was: immorality; sexual immorality. They dishonoured God by violating the women who came to worship. Putting it another way, they abused their position of power. Having been given responsibility, and power, they hurt the people that were under their care; and God saw it, and called them all to account; and they lost the priesthood. Not just them, but all the future generations lost it. It's just incredibly serious.
There's a whole study around all of that, but I just want you to see that there's a shift between the old covenant and the new; and there's a reason for the shift: the failure to honour God, in fact dishonouring Him, and exploiting the role in ministry for their own ends and own purposes. The change in that priesthood means the loss of millennial inheritance, of that priesthood. The Bible uses the story of Eli and Zadok as a prophetic picture of the priesthood in the millennial age. You find Zadok mentioned in a couple of places. We find him mentioned 1 Kings 2:35; when Solomon became the king, he put then Zadok as priest in the place of Abiathar - that's when Zadok came in.
I encourage you to read around there. There was a lot of skulduggery going on, but Zadok remained faithful to God's appointed king. In the story of Eli's sons, they dishonoured God, as their king. They dishonoured God in their offerings, in their morality, their life, their attitudes, everything; but Zadok, he honoured God, and honoured God's selection. The Bible talks about the transition, and it starts to then talk about the millennial impact of this, and so when we go into Ezekiel 44, I want you to see the prophetic picture in here as well. In the Old Testament, they had a natural temple, and natural sacrifices, so when he's describing what he sees, he's describing it through the natural. You've really got to see beyond that, to the supernatural.
Ezekiel 44:10 – “The Levites who went far from Me, when Israel went astray, and who strayed from Me after their idols, shall bear their iniquity. Yet in spite of this… (and He's saying there's consequences for holding idols in your heart) …they shall be ministers in My sanctuary, as gatekeepers of the house and ministers of the house; they shall slay the burnt offering and sacrifice for the people, they'll stand before them to minister to them. Because they ministered to them before their idols, and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity, I have raised My hand against them, said the Lord, and they shall bear their iniquity.