Let's pray Father in heaven. We are often hard of heart and hard of hearing So may our hearts be good soil and give us ears to hear your voice And may we be not only hearers but doers of the word in Jesus name a man We come this morning back to the book of Leviticus Leviticus chapter Ten so we've been in this little section within the book of chapters eight nine and ten dealing with the priesthood We've seen the ordination of the priesthood and then the installation or you might call the inauguration of the priesthood in chapter nine Which Tom preached last week and now to this sinful innovation Now innovation is usually a good word, but when it comes to God's commandments and worship It's not so good as we'll see the Viticus chapter ten Now nae dab in a by who the sons of Aaron each took his Sensor now just pause right there. It's a word. We don't usually word, but use but censor picture if you've been to Maybe a high church Anglican or a Catholic church at some point and they have these fancy little things that hold incense and perfume and maybe you've seen a priest doing this That's what a sensor is. It's a contraption that holds the incense that the priests are going to bring Took its sensor and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized You see the foot known DSV strange Fire before the Lord which he had not commanded them and Fire came out from before the Lord and Consumed them and they died before the Lord Then Moses said to Aaron this is what the Lord has said among those who are near me I will be sanctified and before all the people. I will be glorified and Aaron held his peace And Moses called Mishael and El Zafan the sons of Uziel the uncle of Aaron and said to them Come near carry your brothers away from the front of the sanctuary and out of the camp so they came near Carried him them in their coats out of the camp as Moses had said The Moses sit to Aaron as early as our in it them are his sons Do not let the hair of your head hang loose and do not tear your clothes lest you die and Wrath come upon all the congregation, but let your brothers the whole house of Israel be wailed the burning that the Lord has kindled And do not go outside the entrance of the sense of meeting lest you die for the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you And they did according to the word of Moses The Lord spoke to Aaron saying drink no wine or strong drink You are your sons with you when you go into the sense of meeting lest you die She'll be a statute forever throughout your generations You are to distinguish between the holy and the common and between the unclean and the clean and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statues the Lord has spoken to them by Moses And then we read in the next paragraph of further instructions to partake of this Offering and eating of the offering and Moses thinks that they've done something wrong Verse 16 now Moses diligently inquired about the goat of the sin offering and Behold it was burned up and he was angry with Eleazar and Itham are the surviving sons of Aaron saying why have you not eaten the sin offering in the place of the sanctuary Since it is a thing most holy and has been given to you that you may bear the iniquity of the congregation to make atonement for them before the Lord The whole that's blood was not brought into the inner part of the sanctuary You certainly ought to have eaten it in the sanctuary as I commanded and Here in Sidamoses the whole Today they have offered their sin offering and their burns offering before the Lord and yet such things as these have happened to me If I had eaten the sin offering today with the Lord have approved and when Moses heard that he approved Whether we realize it or not we all have a way of making sense of the world No one just sees the world we are constantly Interpreting the world we are always interpreting even our own experiences We don't simply have things happen or witness things, but we interpret what happens and what we see So if you wake up as many of you probably are at this time of year as I have often you have a scratchy throat You have a sore throat. You have a cough What is it? Paulin because we just live in a cloud of pollen for several weeks or months or ever and Is it that's or do you have a cold or is it COVID or is it some disease however you interpret that? scratchy throat Lens to a certain level of concern or not you can have the same experience different interpretation when I was visiting My dad in the hospital months ago as one in one of the particular times when things were looking bad He had a very big cough and my mom would be concerned that he had such a Massive cough and it's it's sort of rattled and shook him and then the doctor said no actually do you hear that cough? It's a wet cough. It's breaking up things inside the lungs That's a good cough now the cough sounded the same and it sounded bad But somebody else gave us a different interpretation to say no, that's a good thing If you hear One of your small children scream if you hear a small child scream in this service It's a good chance it's one of my children But if you hear one of your children scream doesn't doesn't the in the context help you interpret? So if it's dark and it's the middle of the night and you hear a child in your house Ah That gives you one sort of fear in panic if you look out the window you hear the same scream and She's jumping on the trampoline with a big smile on her face. You interpret the same scream very differently if She's surrounded by brothers and sisters yanking on a toy a different sort of scream same noise Same sound you interpret. We are always Interpreting so we all wear glasses some of you literally like me wear glasses to help you make sense of the world We call it sometimes a world view that term is a bit dated But it speaks to something important that we don't just have the world. We view the world or To use a different kind of analogy think of a bicycle wheel You know, no there are spokes on the wheel that connect to the center What's at the center? So a way of looking at the world another analogy is they what's at the center of that wheel What is it that connects all the spokes? What's the starting place from which all true knowledge flows? What is at? The center and I'm not even asking me Particularly deep sophisticated philosophical epistemological question, but really just asking what is at the very center of Your existence. How do you look at the world? Who gets to call the shots? Who provides meaning? Who is the one who interprets your reality? There really only a handful of ways that people can answer that question. What's at the center of the spokes? What's at what's the hub there at the wheel? A lot of people even if they say they're a Christian really really the center is the individual My happiness my fulfillment my self-expression my sense of right and wrong my actualization my enlightenment That's how I interpret what's good? What's bad? What I should do through myself? for others perhaps Those outside of the West Might have some group identity at the center. That's not me as as a self, but it's my family It's my tribe. It's my ethnic group or it's the states or it's my political party They determine how I interpret my reality or Some people say well everything is at the center because we're all part of some energy field or some force and we're all cut up in the same being Or some people would say well, there's nothing there's no spoke. There's no center It's just randomness. You're just bouncing atoms and there is no center, which is still a kind of center Of course, we ought to know as Christians that God is the center Before all things Outside of everything yet everything holds together in him true knowledge starts with him if we are to understand the world Our place in the world the purpose of the world how we are to serve in the world what reality really is we must put God At the center now you all know that your Christian. Yes, good right God. Mm-hmm true. Can we be done now? No, not yet This is one of those passages That re-orient us and it forces us to examine Whether we really believe that God is God most everyone here in this room Believes in God most everyone in this country believes in some kind of God, but this passage is It's a bit offensive to us it forces us To consider the reality Whether God is truly for you The reference point the lens through which you see yourself you see family justice righteous disobedience and everything else There are three lessons about God in Leviticus 10 We must learn if he is to truly be at the center of that wheel Lesson number one the holiness of God is Not to be trifled with less than number one the holiness of God is Not to be trifled with Now we've seen in this progression chapter eight nine and ten now to the end of this unit dealing with the ordination the installation the inauguration of the priesthood No sooner had Aaron's offering been accepted in chapter nine the fire of God's presence consume the offering Acceptable offering no sooner in fact on the same day Aaron's son commit their tragic and fatal sin We're introduced to these two sons in verse one nay tab and abayhu the oldest of errands for sons the other ones Eliezar in islamar mentions later They're petulence They're disobedience and we are not meant to feel sorry for them Here's how the world gets us to Change our views on things to be really nice if the devil was just straightforward and he just gave us an official Catechism and said no more with the Westminster shorter chasm. I want the devil shorter catechism here take it believe it But of course he's in he masquerades as an angel of life and in one of the ways But the world gets us to believe wrong things actually two ways one By what we laugh at and two what we feel sorry for I like to laugh Laughter is good, but if you can the world can get you laughing at It's laugh at each other okay to poke fun at our own foibles to laugh at things that show our humanity all of that There's plenty of things to laugh about But when we start laughing at sin as some light and trivial thing No longer seeing it as an offense to God or when the world can get us to sympathize with the wrong people We've all had the experience of watching some movie and the way that it pulls at our hearts string And you don't even realize that well this protagonist in the movie is making all the wrong decisions And they're they're not honoring promises or vows They're not obeying they're not being true to anything But their own sense of self and desires and yet you find yourself because the story is told in such a way You go, yes, you didn't do that live you be you find your own truth And though we would know better if someone presented it to us like that we sympathize And so in this passage there's a danger We feel sorry for nae dab and a baihoo, but we shouldn't Their sin was blatant disobedience Now why were they killed We're told that they offered unauthorized fire Strange fire what exactly was their sin? It may have been that they took their sensors these vessels for burning incense and instead of taking holy sensors The one set apart for the worship of the tabernacle. They just took any old sensor Or it could be that instead of taking fire from the altar They just went to their own neighborhood campfire. So it could have been the wrong sensor or the wrong fire It may have been that they went into the wrong place Incense and fire was a mixture prescribed for the day of atonement and we read more about this in Leviticus chapter 16 Verse one the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron when they drew near before the Lord and died And the Lord said to Moses tell Aaron your brother not to come at any time Into the holy place inside the veil before the mercy seat that is on the ark so that he may not die So that instruction in chapter 16 seems to indicate that at least part of what they did wrong as they just Mosy their way When they had no business entering behind the curtain into the most holy place when it was not their time It was not their place and they went in and they offered their unauthorized fire It may have been the wrong kind of incense. That's it is 30 verse 9. You shall not offer unauthorized incense on the altar It may also have been in perhaps on top of all of this or underneath all of it They may have been drunk. Why do I say that? Well because back in chapter 10 we have the curious Conversation that the Lord has to Aaron in verse 8 and in verse 9 drink no wine or strong drink Well, why is this coming out of nowhere? While a son is the Lord speaking to Aaron. This is the only time verse 8 is the only time in the book of Leviticus Where the Lord speaks directly to Aaron all the other times he's speaking through Moses This is a big deal God wants to give a very specific set of instructions to Aaron and here It has to do with drunkenness and so it seems as God says that the priests must be able to distinguish between the holy and the common verse 10 between the young clean and the clean That perhaps they dab in a baihoo were were stone-cold drunk They were tipsy they didn't get the right thing and they wandered off into the wrong place So whatever was strange about the fire Whether it's one of these things are all of these things they knew better Some combination of having the wrong sensor the wrong Incense offered at the wrong time in the wrong place in the wrong way So so this was not just an oops moment There we've already seen there are sacrifices for unintentional sins. This was not an oops These are two men Who knew better? They were among the privileged few who were allowed near the Lord when he descended upon Mount Sinai They had just been ordained as priests in a week-long ceremony. They were to be teachers of the law They knew what was required of them so to put in our parlance This is this is not a middle schooler who just became a Christian This is a pastor who's been through seminary been ordained been chosen knows exactly what is required of him First day on the job Kicks back a fifth. Is that a thing? I don't know what's a Get drunk Wanders in to the Holy of Holies. No, this is not some innocent mistake We're meant to see this stark difference between chapters eight and nine and chapter ten We don't have time to read it But do you remember in chapters eight and nine over and over we have this refrained and they did as the Lord Commanded Moses over and over and they did such and such as the Lord Commanded Moses as the Lord commanded And so surely it's striking in verse one when they offer an authorized fire which he had not Commanded them. Oh And you remember chapter nine Chapter nine is verse 24 and fire came out from before the Lord and Consumed the burnt offering and the people saw it they shouted and fell on their faces chapter 10 verse one and two is the mirror image of What happened in chapter nine verse 24? Chapter nine the fire comes out consumes the burnt offering the people rejoice with awe And now Fire comes out from the Lord and instead of consuming the burnt offering it consumes the two oldest sons of Aaron And the people fear this judgment Was final and it was decisive now it's God's grace that he doesn't always act like this But this judgment was death just like it was in the garden The instructions were clear and these were men who knew better and they had drawn near to God They had been given a place of great privilege in responsibility. It is always true and here I'm speaking perhaps in particular to the men in his church who serve as officers The closer you are to the holy things of God the closer you must attend to your own holiness I Think of that with fear and trembling. I hope a good kind of fear and trembling in my own life I think sin is serious for anyone I think it's if I as a pastor of this church of course I sin every week we all do sinned in some colossal way It would it would read down to the shame of the name of Christ and Hurts and affects so many people the more people you influence the more people depending upon you the closer you are to holy things The more you ought to attend to your own holiness This violation was so obvious so egregious so immediate it had to be dealt with Like a general who has just been drilling his troops and drilling his troops and then commissions Certain officers over the troops and then on the very first day of engagement These newly formed officers two of them go off and they get drunk and they wander around and they start Shooting their guns and firing off artillery. What are you going to do? The trees in there that disobedience must be met with swift justice that general must show that they are not only putting their lives in danger they are putting all of their men in danger and So it is here the Lord to look if the Lord were to allow this blatant disobedience to go unchecked. This is not a not the occasion to say okay second chance for you guys No second chance for Nadab and Abihu Their trees and was met with swift justice Because the holiness of the Lord is Not to be trifled with and if they could not see that these men who had been so near to the holiness of God set apart For this holy purpose if they could handle the holy things so carelessly What sort of example would it set for the entire camp if the Lord's an an? Nevermind. It's all right The holiness of the Lord is not to be trifled with Number two Second lesson about God if he is to really be the center if we're really to put on God shaped lenses as we see the world The glory of God ought to be our chief concern The glory of God ought to be our chief concern the priorities in this passage are Remarkable and when you see them They're a little hard to swallow But they're here Look at what Moses said to Aaron in verse three This is what the Lord has said among those who are near me That means you're two boys Aaron. I Will be sanctified I'll be set apart. I'll be holy and before all the people I Will be glorified I'll think about this Aaron's two sons many of you have children you have sons No matter what the circumstances they were to be killed as an errands fatherly heart broken chatter And yet we have no record of Moses telling Aaron So sorry Or brother you must be devastated I Can't even imagine what you're going through all of those are appropriate things to say usually But not here Here Moses comes to his brother and Says I want you to hear what the Lord has to say to you Aaron You come near to the Lord He's holy He's to be sanctified. He's to be glorified and then one of the most sobering Sentences in all the Bible at the end of verse three in Aaron Held his peace. He had a lot. He wanted to say. I'm sure You know thinking he had a motion you see the father and he took it It's a good like a man like a holy man As if to say you're right Moses Perhaps choking back tears. You're right. My boys did not glorify the Lord they were near to him and They counted his holiness as a thing to be trifled with and the Lord has done what is right And you see what comes next Moses call some of the other leaveites carried the dead bodies outside the camp You see in verse six he said to Aaron to LA's are to it them are his sons So this is this is may dad and a by who their dad and their two brothers Don't let the hair of your head hang loose do not tear your clothes lest you die Let your brother the whole house of Israel be wailed a burning that the Lord has kindled but not you Oh, this must have been a hard word Yes, this is a sadness. This is a tragedy a death has happened Two men we all we all know we all see they've just were ordained priest yes Let the congregation mourn. Yes, there is a sadness here. There's a loss of life and it is a grief, but not you Aaron Not you LA's are in it's a mar Later Leviticus 21 says no one shall make himself unclean for the dead among his people except for as close as relatives His mother his father his son his daughter his brother or his virgin sister The idea was that the priest Just in general that could not be in mourning all the time making themselves unclean They had to be set apart, but it allowed for close family members. They could do the traditional mourning ritual For a brother a son they could that was that's the general principle, but here's the exception not now Aaron and his two remaining sons LA's are in it's a mar are told no letting down your hair No tearing of your clothes None of the traditional Symbols of mourning for nae tab and abayu let the rest of the nation mourn not you if you do You'll die and wrath will come out upon the people This is a hard word So I say this is one of those passages that makes us think is God really God in my life Or is he just a little piece of the pie in my trivial pursuit little pie there? Okay, I like I like God. I like sports. I like yeah, I'm on God to sort of make me a well-rounded person or it or is he everything You might feel welling up within you the very understandable sentiment God come on Did these are their brothers this these are his sons let them tear their clothes let them weep But God says here know It's God's way of saying and listen to this You want to be more broken hearted For their disobedience than for their death If you are to mourn Aaron if you are to weep at liaison are in it them are Let it be that you mourn their disregard for my holiness You mourn their failure to honor me as Lord you mourn that they have trifled with the glory of the Lord This is what ought to be most crushing to you Aaron Even more than the death of your sons This is a hard word there is hardly anyone in here who doesn't have That excruciating pain and if you don't probably will at some point If having a child a grandchild niece and nephew Uncle and aunt Someone you love one of your own kin Especially if it's a son or a daughter And they're not walking with the Lord They're making all sorts of decisions to go their own way To choose other than what the Lord has commanded and here's what happens and I've seen it and you've seen it and some of you are feeling this temptation and your own heart You want to find a way Because you so love you so love how could you not love your own kids? Is there a way that God didn't mean what God said? It's a way that maybe God's laws aren't the same as the churches thought they were for 2,000 years It's been said before and I've said it before That's so often blood is thicker than theology We have what we know God has said in his word and then comes along family and we find a way Okay, well maybe How many times I heard pastor Changes their views on Say marriage and sexuality because a child son or daughter has come out and making a different decision in their lifestyle Oh, it's painful And this passage is one of those passages that's going to force you to say is God really at The center people will change their long-held beliefs They will find ways to reinterpret to put on different glasses to know and find a way Maybe the Bible says what what I didn't think it said but 2,000 years the church has said one thing and I've always said one thing, but now Boy, I got a son or a daughter Maybe he said something else Many a father or a mother Would have chosen may dab in a by who Rather than the God that may dab in a by who had offended This this passage is not how most people look at the world To be honest, it's not how most professing Christians look at the world Too often it's it's not how I look at the world with God's glory as the blazing hot Center you have to ask yourself the question to whom Was the greatest injustice Done on this day Because our world will say surely is Aaron Aaron's sons were killed or they'll say nay dab in a by who all right We all make mistakes, but no this passage tells us the greatest injustice was done to God in this passage They send against God What are your priorities? What are you really? Concerned about you say well, can I just write this office as some extreme old testament passage? What about Jesus Another disciple said to him Lord let me first go and bury my father and Jesus said to them follow me Leave the dead to bury their own dead Some that Jesus was against funerals. We have lots of funerals here his point was simply if you have to make a choice I must take precedence even over the most important things and important moments and yes Even in over the most important people in your life. Jesus is not really your Lord if someone else is more important What's the very first thing Jesus tells us to ask in prayer our father? hallowed be your name And then orient us what's most important? God Your glory is our chief concern and Here's the final lesson God is to be worshiped with reverence and awe This is a classic text used to defend what's called the regulative principle Let's see idea that the only elements in a worship service Should be those that are prescribed either by command or by good and necessary consequence in scripture in other words God wants to be worship as he tells us he wants to be worship He doesn't leave it up to us. Why don't you come up with your best idea of how God should be worship No, this passage shows us. No God tells us and we ought to worship as he wants to be worshiped West mr. Confession of faith Says the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself and so limited by his own revealed will Then he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men or the suggestion of Satan under any visible representation or any other way Not prescribed in holy scriptures In Exodus the story of the golden calf that they said these are the gods that brought you out of Egypt They were saying look. We're still worshiping Yahweh. We just start coming up with a new culturally relevant way to do it God says no you ought to worship me How I told you I want to be worshiped with reverence and awe Now this strange ending to the passage You have this dramatic scene and then you have some weird instructions about alcohol likely because Nadia been a by who were intoxicated and then you have what seems to be a really anti-climax with some verses about Sin offerings and grain offerings and who ate what? Here's what's going on Moses tells LEA's are an it's a mar to eat the food that is left on the altar remember Some of the offerings of the five offerings the priests were to eat them up and others were to be burnt in their entirety and none for the priests But instead of eating it they burn the goat instead and so Moses is pretty concerned We can understand They Debb and a by who were just killed for not doing things according to the letter of the law and now Moses says air and what is Happening didn't we learn our lesson? Didn't you learn anything from they Debb and a by who do everything as God told you but then air and answers Moses in verse 19 and it seems that Aaron's points is With all that's happened today and with the fact that my two sons were killed which in some way Reflect poorly on me as their father and as the high priest How could I have eaten this offering I think Aaron's suggestion is I was not in a place of ritual purity and cleanliness as the priest to eat this offering So it was something of a of a gray area We don't want the lesson from chapter 10 to be that God has just always hunched over just ready at the most innocent little mistake any Christian makes to strike them dead That's not what this was this was a high-handed flagrant. They knew better sin And sometimes there are gray areas and this was one at the end of the passage And Aaron says I didn't think that it was my place With everything that had happened to eat in the sin offering and verse 20 says Moses heard And he approved and we can surmise that God approved Aaron had learned his lesson He had learned his lesson that we ought to do things From a position of purity as those who handle holy things Moses was pleased because Aaron had learned the deeper lesson here not just how to do things according to the Manusia of God's instructions, but namely he had learned the Lord is a righteous judge His glory is my chief concern his holiness is not to be treated lightly And so if I'm not clean on this day, I'm not going to eat this offering Moses approved and we can think so did God We ought to worship God with reverence and awe now some of us hear that and we think reverence and awe means A certain decibel level or maybe the music has to be slow or it has to be old or you have to Where very expensive clothes now you could do all of those things but reverence and awe is not a particular music style or particular decibel level a particular outfit It's a particular approach An approach to God with reverence and awe doesn't always mean formality Doesn't mean you have to be very dour in your expressions Why are you Presbyterians so sad because that's how we worship Doesn't mean that But listen it means a profound awareness The central theme throughout this book namely that God is holy and we are not No strange fire Can you think of a passage in the New Testament that sounds a lot like this unauthorized fire but puts it into a gospel key Literally is Galatians 1 8 and 9 when Paul says even if an angel from heaven if I or an angel from heaven should come and preach to you Another gospel Let him be what a nathema Let him be a cursed let him be cut off So without a tabernacle worship without temple worship in a literal way Paul applies the same principle now to the gospel says if I come to you with some strange gospel some unauthorized gospel Let me be struck down and a curse just like nae dab in a bihu So it's a warning for those who bring the gospel but it's also a warning For all of us who worship best place to finish as is often the case in Leviticus Is in Hebrews Let's do you think that this reverence and awe is just an Old Testament idea listen as we close to Hebrews chapter 12 verse 25 through 29 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking for if they did not escape When they refused him who warned them on earth much less Will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven at that time his voice shook the earth now listen here for the recurring language of shaking For the voice that shook the earth but now he has promised yet once more I will shake Not only the earth but also the heavens This phrase once more in the case the removal of all things that are shaken That is things that have been made In order that the things that cannot be shaken They remain therefore Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken And thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe For our God is a consuming fire Any other GeneXia's out there who can't help but read that verse and think of the third day song Yes, our God Here's a consuming fire. I sound just like that guy It's one of those first sort of Christian hits on the radio our God is a consuming fire than it says he melts down this cold heart of stone Absolute fun song absolute terrible exegesis This is not about God the consuming fire who lovingly melts down our cold hearts of stone To give us new life now this is about the terrifying God of consuming fire whose holiness is not to be trifled with and so let us approach with reverence And awe shaking did you hear all the language of shaking By his voice God's voice the earth shook Then it says by his voice also the heavens will shake so there's there's an ending that is coming But there is a kingdom that cannot be shaken so all these created things will pass away They will shake be dissolved destroyed, but there is a kingdom that cannot be shaken And here's though the word is invention here is what I think is the implication we're meant to draw His voice shakes the earth his voice shakes the heavens But there is a kingdom that cannot be shaken and who is that kingdom for
It's for those who stand before the Lord and they shake just a mile With reverence And awe Now here's the good news in Christ Hebrews tells us we can draw near With confidence The only way you come to Christ is that first there is Some fear oh God Who am I to come before you No, no, no, God you are the one who struck down need heaven to buy who oh God who am I with my sin? Who am I to come and look upon you and it's only when you have that heart before God that he says my son my daughter You come in the blood of Christ Draw near For as you have been shaking I have for you a kingdom that cannot be shaken Come now and worship with reverence and awe Let us pray Father in heaven surely you have worked to do in our hearts For many of us know what are the right things to say and to believe and yet when it comes to it We all struggle to have you really at the center See us Lewis said he believes in Christianity like he believed in the sun Not just because he could see the sun, but because by the sun he could see everything else And so because of you God we can see clearly everything else Forgive us Lord for displacing you from the center For approaching you casually Flippantly have mercy, oh lord And for Jesus sake Receive our worship in his name. We pray a man