By grace you have been saved. It is the goodness of God, Paul said, that leads to repentance. Because that goodness also brings with it reason from the scriptures. And we'll come to some of that.
So, my point is: we're not looking to judge, we're looking to. Learn from the material we have before us, and that alone will make us much stronger and useful to God. Spiritual blessings and judgments. They have a single source. And it is our Lord.
This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Leviticus. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. But for now, let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Leviticus chapter 10 with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio.
When we come to the book of Leviticus, I think At least in my thinking, I come to learn about approaching God. not by ritual, but attitude of heart. I want to obediently Approach him according to the commandments, the revelation of God. And in this book, we learn a lot about right and wrong approaches to the Lord. In service, particularly in service, because it is a book about the priest and the Levites, and they were all about serving.
And we come expecting the holiness of the Lord. And in chapter ten. What we are going to get is how not to approach the Lord. A hard lesson this chapter. On not adding unauthorized anything to what God has done.
And so we come to the first verse. Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, Each took his censor. and put fire in it. Put incense on it. and offered Profane fire before Yahweh, which he had not commanded them.
Now Continually We have read and Moses commanded, or as the Lord commanded, some 21 times in just the first nine chapters.
Well, these guys are doing what the Lord did not command. And the continuity between Leviticus 9, where the priests are ordained and consecrated, and what takes place here in Leviticus 10 indicates that these events are connected, they occur. at a single occasion. At the activation of the priesthood that we covered last session. If you look at chapter 9, the last verse, verse 24, and fire came out from before Yahweh and consumed the burnt offering.
and the fat on the altar When all the people saw it, they shouted, shouted and fell on their faces. And while that fire came out from the Lord, on the altar to accept the priesthood. And bear in mind, Moses had already used this altar with Man-made fire. This is fire sent from heaven. And now the priesthood is activated, and Moses will not be doing the offering anymore.
Aaron and his sons will be. And where it says, each took his censer and put fire in it. Put incense on it. So they have this little urn, like, and they. take some coals of f uh of burning coals and they put it in this little vessel.
Then they put the incense on top, and of course, the incense starts to burn and give off its fragrance. They are two steps towards death. At this point, Where did they get that fire?
Well, as I mentioned, Moses had already used the altar. And not only that, That means there were other fires going on, the boiling of the flesh, the frying of the cakes, the baking of the cakes that were part of the offerings.
So there were these little auxiliary fires going on around uh the the the brazen altar. And they evidently grabbed fire from one of those places where the pots, the skillets, the pans were all. Used part of the daily ritual in the offerings. They would have these going on. We get that in chapter 6, that the priest.
They would have to also offer These meal offerings, grain offerings, with the oil and on the pan, and that's where the fire would come from, and that's where they grabbed it. more than likely, and offered profane fire before Yahweh. the profane there is uh meaning not Yahweh fire. That came down. We read about in chapter 9, verse 24: fire not made in heaven.
And therefore, the word profane zor in the Hebrew meaning foreign. In fact, the word is used to speak of foreigners, strangers in the land. And so this was foreign fire. It wasn't from the God, it was from man. And they made the fatal mistake of supposing any fire can be added to God's fire.
That Mistake. has been carried out Again and again, even in the age of the apostles to this very day. I don't know why so many churchgoers and their pastors think. that emotionalism, for example, is inspired. When it's it's not the Holy Spirit, it's them.
Many times it just is so easy to prove, they're just drawing attention to themselves. They're not helping the causes of the king. They're interfering, but they feel it. You can't question that sacred cow in many circles. People are very defensive of their feelings.
Just hurt them and find out how long they remember that moment. People will take that to their grave. Remember that time you ordered vanilla, you gave me chocolate? I was shattered. I think, well that was eighty years ago.
Anyway Don't they know about the restrictions, the rules, the precepts, the judgments, the accountability of God? Do they care? that there are restrictions. Remember the seven sons of Siva. They decided they were going to cast out demons in the name of Jesus, whom Paul talks about.
It was very emotional for them. It got more emotional when they got that beat down from the man that was possessed with the demons. You you cannot just bring strange things in. and expect God to bless them. And so serious.
That These two men were struck dead. Uh their consecration as Prece. did not protect them. They were not shielded. They did not get a pass.
God is notorious. For Doing pronounced things in the early stages, And then say, Well, you know what? I put it out there, I made it official. I'm not going to keep doing this every day. And you know so Phyron and Ananias are one example.
So uh Um As a movement. We Come back now to verse 1, which he had not commanded them.
Well, that makes it a presumptuous crime. offering man's fire on top of God's, Uh it was not That uh They were committing Idolatry That would have been A damning crime. but they were disobedient none the less. And it was not again, the fire was not taken from the altar where God had put his fire on top of man's fire. This was something that they did.
And so this incident interrupted Uh The ceremony. The interesting thing is, the ceremony is going to continue. The offerings will continue after their deaths. Their deaths will not discontinue. The service the commandments of God.
And as I mentioned prior to this, we kept reading it until it almost became white noise, the commandments of the Lord, as Moses commanded, as God as Yahweh commanded Moses.
Well, now we see the consequence of doing it without command, as is clearly said here in verse one, which he did not command. They were offering incense upon the incense altar. which just added to their crime. Uh they were not charged. with profane incense.
Apart the profane incense, it was profane fire. That was where the crime was.
So of course, there was the incense that belonged to the priests for the use at the temple and nowhere else.
Well, they got that part right. They took the great the right incense from Exodus chapter thirty. as we know that fire is a great metaphor for inspiration. And they were not inspired by God, they were inspired by themselves for whatever reason. Their act was calm.
Contrary to the commandments of God. And when we read in the New Testament, all scripture is given by inspiration of God, as God breathed, is inspired by God, is put on fire by God. then we can understand that This is an ongoing Uh lesson. and a beneficial lesson for the believer.
Source material for scriptures. is vital. and consistent with the metaphor. From where do you get your scripture? This is why, for example, the Gospel of Thomas, as it is called, is not part of the inspired word.
There have been flaws discovered in it that do not match the rest of the Scripture, and that would be true.
Now there are other documents that are good material for reading. They may be historical, like the Maccabees is good historical information, but it's not inspired by God. It would be strange fire. profane fire to include such articles Along with the the articles that are inspired in Scripture.
So in addition, they seem to have passed. passed by washing at the lava. Before they would enter into the sanctuary, they would have to wash. This was prescribed in Exodus chapter 30, verses 20 through 21. Uh that also was uh a capital crime.
Were the priests to go into the sanctuary without first stopping at that labyrinth? They were to be. Cut off.
So with all the rules in the law Just wasn't enough for some. Israel was taken out of Egypt and God said, I want you to be different. I'm going to give you laws, and there are going to be a lot of them, and they're going to distinguish you from everybody else. And still, many of the Jews wanted to grab what the Gentiles were doing and bringing that in too. The sum just became all out.
full-blown apostates.
Well, we have that in Christianity. We have over 31,000 verses in our Bibles.
Some eleven hundred over eleven hundred Chapters. And still for some. That's not enough. Sixty-six writings is not enough. They gotta go find other stuff.
That contradicts the scripture. And that of course is profane fire. And these are lessons that we can point out to people who do these kinds of things. I want a deeper relationship. We'll get deeper into the word, but don't go looking into prophets.
Profane fire and bring that in and try to act like it's okay. And this accounts for much of the heresy that belongs to much of Christian history to this very day. The emergent church, whatever it is today, is loaded with this behavior. The scripture is not enough for them. They're very intelligent and they are emerging into this postmodern.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Who cares? Verse two: So fire went out from Yahweh and devoured them. And they died. before the Lord.
Right there in church, equivalent to make it parallel to what we have today. An outbreak against their disobedience as priest. is not a judgment again. As idol worshipers. And I bring that up.
Because this sudden death by fire made in heaven is sobering. And uh Yeah. By fire, their offering was accepted in chapter 9. In chapter 10, by fire, their False offering is rejected. Because a disobedient priesthood means a corrupted people.
and a corrupted people. means a ruined witness. Consider Gehazi. who lied to name in to get the goods. Because Gehazai was a prosperity type guy.
And of course, he was smitten with leprosy. Elijah didn't find anything funny about that at all.
Well To suppose, coming back to my earlier statement about they not being idol worshipers. That to suppose that they went to hell because of this act would be unfortunate in one's Posture in the heart, position they take. You know, there are those that are just always looking for someone to be damned. and not looking for the grace of God in things. If they went to hell, it would not have been because of this, it would have been because they were did not believe in Yahweh.
Recall the later death of Uzzah, When he reached out to steady the ark, as a man he loved the Lord. The archive wasn't didn't belong where it was. On the cart. Uh but the They overlook that. and it cost him his life.
Even Sapphire and Ananias, if they're in hell, it will not be because they lied. it were because they were not unbelievers. And so, when you come across those Christians that listen to a verse that said, Something like uh He has forgiven you of all sin. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all sin. They say, Yeah, all except the ones that I've reserved over here.
So there's one sin that will not be forgiven. Uh God has one sin, it won't be forgiven, but I've got like 100 of them.
So we've got to be watch out for that because that is not a spirit of grace, and that will diminish your effective. Witness A disobedient priesthood means a corrupted people. A vicious Royal priesthood. means a sour witness. By grace you have been saved.
It is the goodness of God, Paul said, that leads to repentance. And because that goodness also brings with it reason from the scriptures. And we'll come to some of that.
So my point is: we're not looking to judge, we're looking to. Learn from the material we have before us, and that alone will make us much stronger and useful to God. spiritual blessings and judgments. They have a single source. And it is our Lord.
Yeah. And these incense Censors that they Uh we're using will be involved in other judgments. with the people in the wilderness with Korah and Dathan and Abiram, when they usurp seek to usurp the authority of Moses and Aaron, they will be told, Go get your censer and fill it with incense and come before the tabernacle, and they will be judged. Other judgments, including Numbers chapter 11. Were the complainers They yielded to intense cravings.
What does that mean? We all at some point yield to intense cravings and we aren't struck dead. They were struck dead. Because they were parading their complaints and they were corrupting the people and turning them against Yahweh and the leadership. When we get to the book of Numbers, we're going to deal with complainers that burn the house down on themselves.
The captains of fifties that came to arrest Elijah. You know, if I'm a man of God, let fire come out of heaven. And it did twice until the third guy, he learned his lesson. He said, man of God, please, I got a family, I got a mortgage to pay, and he received. What did he receive?
Mercy. And that's what I was going back to. We don't look to bring fire down. We look to but we don't excuse sin either. Sin is sin, judgment is judgment.
We're very serious about both of them, but we try to treat them as Jesus taught us when He said to His disciples, You don't know what spirit you're from. Looking to burn people up because they give me a hard time. The New Testament makes it clear that God still holds blatant, impenitent sin accountable, and that would be Sapphire and Ananias.
Now, one other note about this. Is that alcohol may have been involved? And we'll come to that in a little bit. But if I tell you the verses, you'll stop listening to me and start thumbing through it and then say, what did you say? Anyway.
The question arises, looking at this, we should look at verse 2 again.
So fire went out from Yahweh and devoured them, and they died before Yahweh. The question then arises. Where does the fire come from in my ministry? And my service for Christ, where does it come from? Yeah.
You know, we're told in the scriptures many false prophets have gone out. Test the spirits to see if they are from the Lord. Because there's still profane fire being offered. in the name of God. and attempting God's work Under natural stimulus, ordinary passions.
offers up An unacceptable fire. But I just felt it. Many, you know, that doesn't mean it's right. Does it match the scripture? Does it match the circumstances?
Is it a witness to Christ or is it a detriment? attach to The name of Christ. Religious enthusiasm outside of God's Word is deadly, and that's the lesson. This is exactly the crime they committed. They were enthusiastic.
Outside of the commandments. Are we supposed to sweep this under the rug and act like it's not in our Bibles? Are we supposed to try to say, oh, it's Old Testament? God rejects faith outside of Christianity. No man comes to the Father except through me.
Very simple. Very basic, very Very wonderful actually. I don't have to go look turning over rocks and leaves looking for the only true God. There is one true God and he will make himself known. Incidentally, these two men struck down are the nephews of Moses and Miriam.
We're told later in Chronicles they had no children.
So to summarize these two verses, God's fire, God's fire purified. Man's fire Remoses had been working. God sent fire from heaven. They mixed man-made fire with God's fire. And God didn't take it lightly.
Verse 3 And Moses said to Aaron, This is what Yahweh spoke, saying, By those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy, and before all the people, I must be glorified.
So Aaron held his peace. Do you hear in the voice of Moses anger, fear? And sorrow all at the same time. Maybe your dads might be able to relate to this a little bit faster than the moms. Maybe not, but sometimes when.
When there's a danger of my child, I get angry first. What did you do? And it's an Inquisition. Because I don't want the problem. And I think Moses, he doesn't want More fire to come down.
He's devastated that this happened and he's hot. 'Cause that's how Moses was. Moses had a temper. And they cost him early visit into the promised land. And so he says By those who come near me, that approach to God.
So, when you read Leviticus and you come to sections like this, we're conscious of this book about coming close to God. It started. In the life of Moses, At the bush, it burned. The approach to God was laid out right away. Take your sandals off.
Ground you stand on is holy. Don't just go walk out here with your sandals. And so it follows through the rest of the life of Moses. And of course, the holy men and women of God.
So the ritual of Consecration again. That the priests underwent for seven days. This is the eighth day. It did not shield them from accountability. Dull, that's sobering.
He continues in verse 3: I must be regarded as holy, and before all the people, I must be glorified.
Well, again, he learned that the first day there on Mount Sinai when the The Lord drew him to himself. Does it bother you? as a Christian to hear That the first role of the church is not evangelism. But adherence. Otherwise The blind lead the blind and both are hurt.
Both have to go to the ER. The church is supposed to know what she's talking about. She's supposed to know what she's doing. Christ did not just pick 12 disciples and send them out, he spent three years with them. Preparing them, and he wasn't finished.
There still had to come the day of Pentecost. When they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. When All the Bible studies are over. And when you're days on this In this life, in this world, are over and you leave it. The only thing that will be of exceptional value to you will be your adherence to Jesus Christ.
And so Paul I have finished the race, I've kept the faith. He saw others who did not.
So Aaron held his peace, Pity for the house of Aaron. One great pastor of many decades ago. Said about this. He said, Strangely solemn are the words. Aaron held his peace.
They were his own sons. But his relation to God was superior to his relation to them. and his attitude Was that? of submissive silence.
Well, Aaron's heart was broken. But not his faith. This is real stuff, and I'll give you an Just a couple examples in a moment, but Jesus said: He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Do you know this happens? Still, there are those that go the opposite of this amongst churchgoers today.
More than once. We have faced defiant parents. How dare you? Correct my child. When the child is committing blatant sin, when I say blatant, it's paraded, it's out.
We've got to deal with it as a church. Bye, too. Thanks for tuning in to today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. Pastor Rick Gaston is currently going through the book of Leviticus. We're glad you joined us.
We trust that you're gaining some valuable insights into God's Word as we go through this Old Testament book. Cross-Reference Radio comes to you from Calvary Chapel, Mechanicsville, in Virginia. If you'd like to subscribe to our podcast, you can do so by going to your favorite app store and downloading from there. For any additional information about this ministry, we invite you to visit our website, crossreference radio.com. Make sure to come back again for the upcoming edition in the book of Leviticus, as Pastor Rick has much more to share.
We thank you for being with us right here on Cross Reference Radio. Yeah.
