Leviticus 10:1-3

Read Leviticus 10:1-3

And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.  The fire of the Lord consumed them. And they died.  This is one of those passages in Scripture that doesn’t seem to fit in our image of who our God is.  Nowhere in this passage do we see a God ready and willing to pardon the sinner.  We do not see the long haired hippy version of Jesus skipping through the flowers with His disciples that is so often portrayed today in the church.  Where is the God who is love?  Where is His grace and His forgiveness? The fire of the Lord consumed them and they died. There was no second chance, no slap on the wrist, no mercy.

So let us now examine these verses more intently.  We are immediately introduced to two men, Nadab and Abihu.  However this is not the first time we meet them in the Words of Sacred Scripture.  We first learn of them in Exodus 6:23.  They are introduced as the two oldest sons of Moses brother Aaron.  As the sons of Aaron, they were part of the Levitical priesthood and were trained as such. Exodus 24:1-3 says: Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. Moses alone shall come near to the LORD, but the others shall not come near, and the people shall not come up with him.” Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.”  These men were trained from their birth on how to serve the Lord, keeping His ordinances. From a young age, a Levite would have known how to serve YAHWEH as was demanded.  The Levites ministered to God day and night.  They administered all the sacrifices and kept the Tabernacle, even keeping watch over it during the night. Deuteronomy 18:1 tells us this, the Levitical priests, all the tribe of Levi, shall have no portion or inheritance with Israel. They shall eat the LORD’s food offerings as their inheritance.  These men were not allowed to own land.  They had NO inheritance with Israel.  They also could not hunt or gather food on their own.  They instead relied solely on the left over food from the sacrifices made to God. Let us make no mistake about it, the only job these men had was to minister before the throne of El Shaddai.

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it. The story now opens with the sons of Aaron approaching the throne of the Almighty.  They approached the throne of the Living God.  Revelation 4 sets the scene: After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal. And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.  This is the throne YAHWEH, the Sovereign Lord.  But the Bible describes it elsewhere;  In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”  Oh what a scene!  Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of hosts; the WHOLE earth is filled with His glory.  In the presence of the Shekinah glory of God, Isaiah cries out in agony, and condemns himself.  In the Old Testament, there are two kinds of statements that a prophet would bring to Israel; either one of weal, which meant good news or one of woe which symbolized condemnation.  As a prophet, Isaiah knew this full well, and yet he calls condemnation on himself when he is brought face to face with the glory of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  In His presence before His thrown Isaiah is broken hearted and dejected.  He falls down and cries out in agony as the Seraphim fly above the Master’s throne calling out praises to the Ancient of Days.  The temple shook and the robe of the Lord filled the temple.  Even the Seraphim, who minister to God’s throne day and night, still must cover their eyes in His presence.  This is the picture of the throne of Jehovah that the sons of Aaron were approaching.  Woe to us if we do not recognize the glory of God seated on the throne.  Let us understand that as the sons of Aaron entered the Holy of Holies, they came face to face with the same God we see in Isaiah, this fierce God of power and might. 

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them.  The sons of Aaron now approached the throne of the Almighty and offered up a fire not authorized.  In order to truly understand this grievous violation of the law of God, we must look at it in context.  We have already established that the Nadab and Abihu were in no way strangers to the law, or the proper way of worship.  For years they had been trained in the proper way of worship.  From a young age, they were trained to reverence the Lord.  They were not ignorant in the way the Lord had commanded to be worshipped.  But they approached the throne of the Sovereign boldly, and did what they were deliberately told not to.  They offered an improper sacrifice, not only on behalf of themselves, but on behalf of all of Israel.  The Levitical priests were given the gargantuan task of interceding before the Lord on behalf of all the Israelites.  When Israel transgressed, the priest would go into the Tabernacle and offer a sacrifice to atone for the sins of Israel.  This was no small task, and by going before the Lord and offering a strange fire the sons of Aaron were sinning before the Lord not only on behalf of themselves but also on behalf of the whole nation.

And fire came out from before the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.  Fire came out before the LORD and consumed them.  Oh what a description!  Our God is an all consuming fire.  When Nadab and Abihu approached the throne of God and offered a mysterious fire, they felt the full wrath of the Lord poured out on them.  The Lord’s anger burns fierce against the sin of unrepentant sinners.  How dare anyone approach the Lord of Hosts and deliberately disobey Him.  When the sons of Aaron approached the throne Yahweh, before Him and all the nation of Israel, and offered an unknown fire, they felt the full ferocity of his wrath.  He did not hold back.  The same fury He poured out onto the wicked city of Sodom was felt by Nadab and Abihu. Nowhere in the text do we read that God only poured out as much rage as the sons of Aaron could stand, or what seemed reasonable to them.  No! He poured out His full and unabridged anger.  We must be careful not to remove ourselves from this fierce some story.  For those of us who are apart of Christ this is our fate, but not only until we are killed, our torture will last forever.  Revelation 14:11 tells us  "And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name." Forever will they be tortured, forever will they feel his wrath and anger poured out on them.  The same anger and fury poured out on Nadab and Abihu will be felt by those unrepentant sinners for all of eternity.  There will be no rest, no relief from this torture, ever.  Death stands ready to pounce on you at any second, and is only held back by the pleasure of God.  If you were given what you deserve, if I was given what I deserve, we would be burning in hell right now and for forever more.  God’s divine wrath would burn against us without ceasing.  We would cry out in great anxiety to the Lord begging like the rich man for even a drop of water on our tongue, but never receiving it.  Just as the smoke of Gethsemane burned without end, so shall our torment be. 

We must understand that we are born radically depraved and God hating.  The issue for those of you apart from Christ is not that you have sinned; it’s that you have done nothing but sin!  Those apart from Christ are described in Romans 5 as God haters.  All your life you have transgressed against a holy God and a just God cannot let sin go unpunished.  He must punish sin with the full fury of His wrath, and He will.  The fate of those apart from Christ is darker and more painful than anyone can begin to imagine.  You can do nothing to keep yourself from this fate.  The Scriptures tell us that our greatest works are like filthy menstrual rags.  There is nothing under the cosmos that we can do to work our way out of our fate.  All are lost and all deserve condemnation for their sin against the perfect holy God.  All of us live on the brink of this condemnation and if God but blink His eye we will be caught up and forever thrown into this pit of eternal despair

And yet there is hope.  There is one all encompassing hope.   One way to escape this condemnation and it is through the sacrifice of the Son of God.  God has given us, the most undeserving of sinners, a way to escape this condemnation.  He has sent His Son to die on the cross and take the full fury of God’s wrath, so that we do not have to suffer.  Christ came to earth and lived the perfect life to die for sin and save us from the fury of the Lord.  Christ has called us to come to Him, repent and be saved.  He is our only hope in this dark world, but be aware that following after God is not an easy path.  Christ calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow after Him. Today in our nation we are told that if we prayer a prayer and ask Jesus into our hearts, we will be saved and all our problems will be fixed.  This is the biggest lie in Christianity today.  Nowhere in Scripture do we see a command to pray a prayer.  Nowhere in Scripture are we told to ask Jesus into our hearts.  It breaks my heart to think about how many people who have prayed that prayer, will stand before the throne of God on judgment day and hear Him say depart from me for I never knew you.  Those people like Nadab and Abihu offer and improper sacrifice and will feel the fury of the wrath of God.  The message of Christ is much different.  He tells us to leave everything, die to ourselves and follow after Him.  We are called to lay everything down before him.  Everything.  Christ is not an add on to our lives.  He is not something to make our lives better.  NO! He is everything we have and everything we can possibly need.  Christ does not want to be first among many; He wants to be the only thing.  He is not just a way for us to escape hell.  If I knew that God was going to send all of you to hell, I would still tell you to glorify Him because He deserves it!  We were created with the sole purpose of glorifying God.  The Westminster confession tells us that: “Mans chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” To bring glory to Him!

So now the time has come.  We must now decide what to do.  We have been given today.  What a gift today is!  We have been given this second.  Those of you that are outside of Christ repent of your sins leave everything behind and follow after Christ. And know that the sign of your conversion is not that you prayed a prayer, but rather a fundamental change in your life.  The evidence of saving faith is not today, but in the days that follow. To those of you that are in Christ do what Paul has commanded you and examine yourself.  The mark of a believer is the fruits of the spirit.  Not one fruit, or two, or eight, but all of the fruits.  Those of you that are in Christ are a new creation, the old is gone and behold the new is here.  But be fully aware that not only is the gate narrow, but so is the road.  Our road is a lonely one, full of bumps and potholes, but it is the path of Truth! And of peace!  So seize this day for Christ, die to self and live in the splendor of His love and grace.

Let us close with the third verse of this story.  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. Aaron broken hearted comes before Moses and pleads for an answer, and Moses in what is a seemingly cold-hearted response reiterates what the Lord has spoken; ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.’  God will be glorified one way or another, through life or through death.  And Aaron held his peace.  Aaron shut up.  He had seen the Lord, and offered worship before His throne and now submitted Himself before the Almighty.  Aaron knew the Holiness of the God He worshipped.  He had died to himself and was following after the Ancient of Days.  May we follow in his example.  May we give it all to Him and gain more than we can possibly understand.