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LIVING WITH A HOLY GOD WHO SEEKS HIS OWN GLORYLeviticus 10:1-20INTRODUCTION This last week I watched a brief video clip on the internet of Oprah Winfrey explaining why she has abandoned Christianity and has embraced a more “tolerant” spirituality. She grew up in the Baptist church and relates how, in her late 20’s, she was sitting in church listening to the pastor give a sermon in which he was exalting the greatness of God. He was describing, as only African-American preachers can do, the glory of God’s omnipotence and his omniscience and his omnipresence. Then as he came to the application part of his sermon he began to talk about God’s jealousy for the glory of his own name. Oprah says that when the preacher said that God was jealous something struck her as not right. She could not conceive that a being as great as the one that this preacher just described would be jealous of her. An all-powerful and all loving being is going to love us no matter what. His benevolence is so great that he does not care how we define him or worship him. From that beginning she has gone on to embrace a spirituality in which no one is rejected but all are loved by god as each individual defines or describes him or her or it. It is passages like the one before us this morning that show the stark contrast between true Christianity and the majority religious opinion in the United States, which Oprah so completely embodies. In this passage we are witnessing the jealousy of God for the glory of his own name. This extreme reaction of God against the seemingly small infraction of Aaron’s two oldest sons appears to most of our modern sensibilities as an unjust overreaction. How can being burned up be a just punishment for offering the wrong kind of incense? Yet it is passages like this that help us to truly understand the good news about Jesus and why the religious system that Oprah and all those like her promote is wrong. The God who exists is a person who has likes and dislikes and who is actively paying attention to the world that he made and that he rules over. He has expectations. He treats human beings with perfect justice. He does not treat us as if nothing we do or say matters at all. Everything we do and say matters to God as this passage makes so clear. In v. 3 Moses tells Aaron why God killed his two oldest sons. The literal wording goes like this: “Among those who are near me I will be holy; before the face of all the people I will be glorified.” The reason God did what he did is because of his commitment to the glory of his own name. This is the same language that God uses at the Red Sea when he tells Moses that he is going to harden the heart of Pharaoh and “be glorified by Pharaoh and his army and his chariots and by his horsemen.” How was God glorified? God’s greatness was seen and admired and treasured by all of Israel as they watched the Egyptians be destroyed by God in the Red Sea . God was glorified by what he did. Immediately after God’s doing this they had a worship service in which Moses led Israel in singing a song that said in part, “Who among the gods is like you O Lord? Who is like you majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?” God’s goal in the universe is that he will be holy and that he will be glorified, that is, that the glory of his holiness will be seen, admired and treasured by his people. This is not just an OT concept. How does the Lord’s Prayer begin? “Our Father, in heaven, hallowed by your name.” What does that word “hallowed,” mean? It means, “might your name be holy”. Jesus taught us that the first thing that every Christian is to ask God to do, the first priority of every believer is that God’s name be seen and admired and treasured as holy. God is holy and he wants the whole universe to know and admire his holiness. Jesus says to us that we are the light of the world and that we are to let our light shine so that men will see our good works and “glorify our Father who is in heaven.” God wants the glory of his holiness manifested and worshipped. It is his motive for everything he does from creation to consummation. God does not do this because he is like some vain woman who cannot tolerate being ignored. Rather, God does this because he is love. He delights to do good to others. The greatest good that God can do for any creature is to give himself to that creature. Our greatest happiness is when we see, admire and treasure the glory of his holiness. Out of his infinite love God is determined to give to his people himself. It is because this is his goal that God saved Israel out of Egypt and gave them his law on Mt. Sinai and has established the tabernacle and the system of worship led by the priests as we have seen in this book of Leviticus. It’s the point we saw last week. At the end of the week long ordination of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood and after they begin the sacrifices for the people what happens? God shows up and manifests the glory of his holiness by burning up the sacrifices on the altar. So God is now among his people so that his people will see, admire and treasure him in the glory of his holiness. MAIN POINT God aims for the glory of his holiness to be seen, admired and treasured therefore…I. He destroys all who despise his holiness (vv. 1-5) Things are going so well through Leviticus 9. God and man are living together in harmony and peace. The people are joyfully worshipping God and he shows his pleasure in them and their obedient worship by consuming the sacrifices on the altar of burnt offering with a flash of fire from his visible glory in and over the Holy of Holies. It appears that these former idol worshipping slaves are finally getting it and can look forward to a long and happy relationship with the God who made everything and who is Lord over all things. But then, sometime on that eighth day after God showed up in fire, Aaron’s two oldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, put “strange” or “unauthorized fire” on their censers and approach the Lord in the tabernacle. What do we know about these two young men? In Exodus 24 these two oldest sons of Aaron were among those few people who were invited up onto Mt. Sinai to “eat a meal with the Lord” to confirm the covenant along with Moses, their dad, Aaron and the 70 elders of Israel. They have seen God’s glory up close and personal. Nadab, as the oldest son will become the high priest when Aaron dies, which he knows. They’ve been instructed in all the rituals and procedures of the tabernacle and have just completed the process of ordination. Just a few verses earlier we were told that Aaron and his sons, including these two, “did everything just as the Lord commanded through Moses.” What happened to these two men? First of all, we do not exactly know what it is that they did wrong. The text only tells us that whatever they did was “contrary to God’s command.” They did something that God told them not to do. Perhaps the incense they put on the fire was not of the correct mixture; maybe the coals of fire they put on their censers did not come from the altar of burnt offering like they were supposed to; or they were doing something that only their dad, the high priest was supposed to do; or they were trying to incorporate some part of the worship associated with one of the “strange” gods from among the pagan nations surrounding Israel. We simply are not told what was wrong with what they did, other than they acted contrary to God’s command. While this act of rebellion does seem unexpected in some ways, yet if you have been reading the Bible from the beginning, their act does not appear quite so surprising. Just think with me of a few of the times a very similar thing has happened. There’s the Garden of Eden with God living in perfect fellowship with perfect people who have everything they need and what happens? They decide that they know better than God and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and so are kicked out of the garden and the world falls into the misery of sin and its curse. What happens after God wipes out all of humanity except for believing Noah and his faithful family? They get off the ark, offer sacrifices to God and God promises never to do that again. Then Noah gets drunk and one of his sons commits an act of unmentionable sexual perversion, which leads to God cursing the human race again. Then most recently there is God saving Israel out of Egypt, destroying the Egyptian army in the Red Sea, giving them daily bread, showing up on Mt. Sinai and giving them the law and what happens? Aaron leads a worship service to a golden calf. Not only have we seen this happen before but this isn’t the last time this happens either. The rest of the Bible is full of these same kinds of stories where God does these amazing things for people and things seem to be going well and bang, somebody decides they have a better idea than God and rebel and bring all sorts of trouble upon themselves and others. Even in the NT, right after Peter preaches a couple of sermons and there are over 5000 converted to Christ and all these new Christians are sharing their wealth with one another so that there are no needy people among them, what happens? Annanias and Saphira, the husband and wife who want to be viewed as generous while not being generous are killed by God for lying and hypocrisy. This is the same song, just a different verse that began with Adam and Eve. Human beings, in the face of God’s amazing kindness and goodness refuse to obey him. We despise him and his laws. This is exactly what the apostle Paul says every human being does in Romans 1. Like Nadab and Abihu we all know through creation that there is a great and glorious God to whom we owe everything and whom we ought always to worship and give thanks. But instead of being impressed with him we are impressed with the pleasures of creation and so we love created things but not our Creator. What possible reason did Nadab and Abihu have for disobeying God? All God has done is be kind to them. He rescued them from slavery. He has provided for them in the desert. He has given them the enormous privilege of living in his very presence, of having authority over the worship of the God of heaven and earth. He has commanded Israel to provide for their material needs. What do they do? They spit in God's face. They despise him and his commands. They treat him as if he is a nothing and a nobody. This is the highest form of betrayal and treason. This is like the well-loved husband who has an affair with his wife's best friend; or the well-treated adult son who steals his elderly parent's social security checks to buy drugs; or the trusted and honored high ranking officer who sells military secrets to the enemies of his country; or like Judas betraying Jesus with a kiss. You can be sure that if you were to have talked with Nadab and Abihu prior to their offering of this "unauthorized fire" they would have given you good and spiritual reasons for doing what they did. If you would have accused them of hating and despising God they would have told you they were not hating God but loving him. Just like Aaron told the nation Israel when he built the golden calf and led a worship service, "Here are your gods who brought you out of Egypt," so these men would have claimed that they too were worshipping the true God. This is the way it is with human rebellion against God. We always have good reasons for not doing what God tells us to do. We have good reasons for not worshipping him and loving him as he commands. It's OK for me to be angry with my fellow church member and ignore her because she won't admit she was wrong in the way she treated me. It's OK for me to look at pornography because God gave me a stronger sex drive than most men and I'm just admiring God's creation. It's good with God for me to disobey my parents because they are too strict. None of my friend's parents think this is wrong and so I can do what I want and still be a good Christian. I can keep watching TV and not call my friend who is really sad because I'm really stressed out and need to relax and I don't want to seem nosy. I can spend no time with my children and yell at them when they don't do as I want because I'm the dad and they're supposed to respect and obey me. The real evil in all of this is not only do we justify our disobedience but we feel perfectly comfortable coming to church and worshipping God as if we're on the best of terms because Jesus died for us. This is exactly how Nadab and Abihu dared to approach God with their strange fire. Can't you just hear them talking to themselves, "I've just made all these sacrifices and gone through this ordination ceremony. I'm one of God's chosen ones and so I can do what I want and he won't care. He likes me just fine. I'm a priest after all." God met their unauthorized fire with his consuming fire of judgment. The same fire that came out and consumed the sacrifices on the altar of burnt offering, thus indicating God's approval and acceptance, now comes out in fury and consumes God's adversaries. Listen to how John the Baptist describes Jesus and his ministry in Matthew 3:11-12, "I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire." This same Lord Jesus Christ who baptizes us in the fire of the Holy Spirit signifying his acceptance of those who trust him also sends forth his fire of judgment to burn up the chaff, those who despise him and his salvation like Nadab and Abihu. I'm not saying the only people who can approach God are those who don't sin. I am saying, because this is what the Bible says, you cannot live in disobedience to God, not confessing your disobedience as sin but justifying it and expect a friendly welcome from him. God aims for the glory of his holiness to be seen, admired and treasured therefore…
II. Christ treasured God’s glory supremely so that we would treasure it supremely (vv. 6-11) I want to draw your attention to what God requires of Aaron and his two remaining sons immediately after he strikes down his two oldest boys. After Moses recruits Aaron's cousins to remove the burned bodies of Nadab and Abihu and to bury them outside the camp, which by the way, is another indication of God's judgment upon them, first he and then God himself have some words for these three remaining priests. First, Moses tells them that they cannot engage in the normal, public expressions of grief that were common to Israelite culture. They could not leave the tabernacle but must remain on duty as God's priests and continue to do God's work. The people of Israel could mourn for the death of Nadab and Abihu but not Aaron and his two remaining sons. It would be like any of us parents being told when two of our children were killed in a car accident that we had to keep going to work, we could not plan the funeral or take part in the funeral of our children. We have to keep living as if this great tragedy has not happened. Our relatives would have to plan the funeral and our children would be buried without our presence or participation. Why can't they participate? If they leave the tabernacle they will die and God will be angry with the entire congregation of Israel. God will kill them and either a part or the whole of the people of God because they have been anointed by God to serve him as priests. This requirement that the priests cannot mourn for their dead relatives is not just for this occasion but is a law for all priests for all time as is explained in Leviticus 21. The Law teaches that touching or being in the same dwelling as a corpse makes a person unclean, that is unfit to be in God's presence. When a normal Israelite becomes unclean in this way they are able to go through a process to become clean again. However, because the priest while serving as a priest in the tabernacle is not a "normal" person, he is "holy", that is set apart to God, he cannot come into contact with any unclean person or object while in the state of holiness. If he does, then God must kill him and then, because there will be no holy priest to intercede for the people who are in such close proximity to the Holy God, he will then begin to pour out his judgment on the people as well. We will be talking later about what God's aversion to uncleanness is all about. Right now, I want you to simply notice that the priests cannot participate in what is normal human behavior in order for them to fulfill their responsibility of protecting God's people from God's wrath. Next, notice that in vv. 8-11 God himself speaks directly to Aaron. This is one of only two times that God speaks directly to Aaron without Moses. That means this is really important stuff. What is so important that God thinks Aaron needs to know right at this moment when he has just killed his two boys and told him he cannot grieve for them? He tells Aaron that priests, when they are on duty fulfilling their functions as priests, are not to drink any alcoholic beverages. This will be true as long as the tabernacle stands and the priests serve God and the people. Verses 10 and 11 then give the reasons for why he forbids them from drinking when serving as priests. In v. 10 it is because it is the job of the priest to distinguish between the holy and the common and between the clean and the unclean. In v. 11 it is because it is the task of the priests to teach the people God's law. I'm not going to get into a discussion on the use of alcohol here because that is not the point of this text. The priests are forbidden to drink only when they are on duty as priests. The reason is so that they will be clear headed in order to not make the same mistake that Nadab and Abihu made in failing to indentify unholy behavior and so that they can clearly communicate God's word to God's people. I don't think it is accidental that the apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:18 puts alcohol and the Holy Spirit in the same verse when he says, "Do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery, but be filled with the Holy Spirit." What God is telling Aaron here is that priests need to have spiritual discernment in order to fulfill their responsibilities as priests who represent men to God and God to men. They need the wisdom of the Spirit, not the mentally and spiritually confusing influence of spirits. The emphasis is not on the sobriety but upon the purpose of the sobriety: priests have critical work to do in order for God and man to live together and this needs to take precedence over everything else. Nothing can interfere with or jeopardize their work as priests. Verses 6-11 appear to us as incredibly harsh and unsympathetic. Aaron has just witnessed the killing of his two sons. Rather than sympathizing with him in his loss God commands him not to mourn or leave his post and threatens to kill him if he does and then he talks with him about his job description! Can you imagine talking with a friend who has just lost his two sons in this fashion? What is going on here? God's glory and his salvation must be of greater importance to Aaron and his remaining sons than the death of his two oldest sons. Knowing God, being loved by God, living for the glory of God, pleasing God, living in God's presence is infinitely better than not having your two oldest sons dead. What we observe in Aaron and his two sons is that they do indeed prefer God to their sons and brothers. Look at the end of v. 7, "So they did as Moses said." By their obedience to God's command to not mourn and their listening to God's instructions for them regarding their priesthood they demonstrate that what the psalmist says if true for them: "Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you!" What we are observing here in Aaron and his sons is the devotion of our Lord Jesus Christ to the honor and glory of God above all things. The Son of God laid aside his rights to be treated as God when he became a man. He willingly lost all things, the affection of his family, the loyalty of his friends, the respect of the people he made, indeed his very life in order to know and please his heavenly Father. He treasured God and his glory above all things in order that he might obey his Father. In order to fulfill his responsibilities as our high priest Jesus died to his right to live a comfortable and respectable life on earth. But then also Aaron and his sons represent Christians. Listen to the way Jesus and Paul describe what it means to be a Christian: Luke 9:23-25 , "Then he said to them all: 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?'" Luke 14:26, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-- yes, even his own life-- he cannot be my disciple." Philippians 3:7-8, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ…" Our Lord Jesus Christ treasured God and his glory above all things and it is this affection that enabled him to be obedient to death, even death on the cross. He calls us into the same lifestyle. We cannot be Christians unless we also count everything loss for the sake of knowing Christ. When we trust Christ we are declaring that we can lose the whole world and yet have lost nothing because Jesus is better than everyone and everything else. We die daily to our right to many of the pleasures of this world out of our joy in possessing him and being possessed by him. God aims for the glory of his holiness to be seen, admired and treasured therefore…
III. Christ shows mercy to his weak people (vv. 12-20) God is gracious to Aaron in the midst of this horrifying loss. The first thing to notice is that after he personally witnesses the burning up of his sons and hears Moses explain why it happened we are told at the end of v. 3 that Aaron was silent. What does his silence show us? The only other time this verb is used prior to this in the OT is in Exodus 15:16. This is part of the song that Moses sings after God destroys Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. He is describing how the surrounding nations will respond to the news of this powerful destruction of God's enemies. He says, "… terror and dread will fall upon them. By the power of your arm they will be as silent as a stone-- until your people pass by, O LORD, until the people you bought pass by." The silence of the nations is due to their terror at the power of God. This is also what Aaron feels. He is not silent because he is angry with God or sad about his sons but because he is terrified of God. We see this also down in vv. 16-20. You have to remember the setting of this entire event. Aaron and his sons having completed the seven days of their ordination have just offered the first offerings for the people. Among those offerings was a male goat for a sin offering. According to God's law in Leviticus 4 what happens in the sin offering is that the priests are to cook and eat the animal in the courtyard after burning the fat, kidneys and liver and applying the blood to the altar. However, Moses discovers that the two remaining sons, rather than cooking and eating the goat have treated it like a burnt offering and have burned it up on the altar. Moses is furious about this for good reason. He expects that God is going to do to these boys what he just did to the other two boys and then what will happen to God's worship? While Moses is chewing out Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's two youngest sons, Aaron comes to their defense. Look at what he says. First he says his sons, all four of them, offered the offerings that God required and yet he still killed his two oldest sons. What he says is this, "God is terrifying in his holiness. We did what we were supposed to do and yet by doing just one thing wrong God's wrath was aroused and he killed my sons. We are terrified of God and could not bring ourselves to eat the meat as required. Also, I am full of sorrow over the loss of my two boys and could not eat the meat out of sorrow. Would God be pleased if we just went through the motions of the ritual but our hearts were not in it? Would we be glorifying God and honoring him as we ought if we didn't do it with the right attitude?" Moses accepting of this explanation shows God's acceptance of Aaron and his sons as well. Though they did not technically obey God, their non-performance was not of the same order as that of Nadab and Abihu. It was out of a concern for God's glory that they did not eat. Horatius Bonar, a well-known Puritan pastor (as cited by Currid, p. 138) says, “Aaron’s service was not formality; it was a worship done in the spirit; and where the spirit could not accompany the rite, he left the rite undone. Herein he glorified God—he gave him the honor due unto his name! He felt that it was not worship at all if his soul was not engaged…” We see in Aaron a renewed heart that truly does care about the glory of God. However we also are witnessing here that God distinguishes between Nadab and Abihu and between Aaron and his two younger sons. God treated Nadab and Abihu exactly as they deserved. However, he is gracious and merciful to Aaron and the two younger boys. As he makes clear in vv. 12-15 by explaining the rules again surrounding the portions of the sacrifices they are to eat, God continues to treat them as his priests in spite of their failure to do as he commands and in spite of their close association with Nadab and Abihu. As we have repeatedly seen, God is able to be gracious with Aaron because he punished the one to whom Aaron pointed, the Lord Jesus Christ, in Aaron and his other two sons place. God forgives Aaron and his sons and sympathizes with his weakness because these three men belong to him through Christ whereas Nadab and Abihu did not. They were given no chance to repent or to explain but were justly punished whereas God accepts Aaron's admission of guilt and explanation. This is grace. So we again observe how God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy. His grace is truly free grace and thus it is grace that can be counted upon for all who are trusting in Jesus. We see in Aaron the evidences of this grace, a heart that wants to glorify God, a willingness to confess sin and then forgiveness granted by God for the sake of Christ. God aims for the glory of his holiness to be seen, admired and treasured therefore…
© Copyright 2008 John Swanson.
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