God's sanctuary was not to close because of a death in the family. I have seen churches closed because of a Super Bowl Sunday. I did call fire down because I thought that was one of those exceptions. I mean, who who would do this? Who would say worship is secondary?
Then I've seen churches close on Christmas. The very day we celebrate The incarnation of Christ. We stop the assembly from worshiping as an assembly. 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. And now, here's Pastor Rick in the book of Leviticus, chapter 10, with this edition of Cross-Reference Radio. 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 gonna 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 learned his lesson. He said, Man of God, please.
I got a family, and I had 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? 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 The name of Christ. Religious enthusiasm outside of God's Word is deadly, and that's the lesson. This 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, well, 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 three 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 doesn't want more fire to come down.
He's devastated that this happened, and he's hot. Because that's how Moses was. Moses had a temper. And it 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 of 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 your day is 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 of 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. And it's unacceptable. And whether the child is an adult or not, we've had both. Obnoxiously voicing their wrath For daring to uphold Scripture. You know, were it not for double standards, some people would have no standards.
May that not be us.
So, my point is still a very real thing, but here Aaron gives us, he gives us a lesson on how to handle this. The man was crushed. But not his faith. Uh only by the power of God. Verse 4, then Moses called Mishael El Zafan the sons of Uzzael, the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, Come near, carry your brethren from before the sanctuary out of the camp.
Well, these are cousins of Nadab and Abihu, and they are Levites, and the Levites were sort of assistant priests. Their whole duty was to assist the priests, but there were restrictions.
So these two men were they either died Just before entering the sanctuary. In the sanctuary Or When they came out, We're not told. And as we mentioned, there's a lot of information left out of Leviticus. Even concerning the rituals and rites, and you go nuts if you try to get it, be too serious about organizing it, because you just don't have enough information. If that weren't the case, These two men would have died also.
So Numbers 18, speaking about the Levites, they shall attend to your needs, the priest, and all the needs of the tabernacle, but they shall not come near the articles of the sanctuary. and the altar, lest they die. They and you also. God is very serious when He set this up. He says, I'm going to make you different from everybody else, and I'm going to get that 400-year influence in Egypt out of you.
So Either they were slain again before they entered or as they came out, or they received. An unrecorded special ordination from Moses. For two trips to wherever these two bodies were.
So they took them out, and these only two men, and there's two dead bodies, and it takes two to take them away. We'll come to that a little bit more in a moment.
So using Levites Allowed the two surviving priests, well, the three surviving priests, Aaron and his other two sons, Eleazar and Ithamar. They would have been defiled if they touched dead bodies, and then the show would have stopped. There would have been no more offerings. And so, Moses, of course, Moses, he just knows what to do with all of this. He's not running to consult God.
He knows. It's been imparted to him. And we'll see that unfold. Verse 5: So they went near and carried them by their tunics out of the camp, as Moses said. This detail stood out to somebody.
They carried them by the tunics. You would think under the shoulders and maybe by the ankles, right? But it's said by the tunics they were struck down while on duty in their brand new priestly uniforms, and somebody. noticed it. Of course, Moses is part of the somebody, but there likely were others too, and it would not be unreasonable to think that when Moses went back to recount these things, that he asked, did I see that right?
Verse 6, And Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar, the sons, do not uncover your heads, nor tear your clothes, lest you die, and wrath come upon all the people, but let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which Yahweh has kindled. Verse 7, you shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die. For the anointing oil of Yahweh is upon you. And they did according to the word of Moses.
So Moses knows what to tell them. And uh They were not to show Any outward sign of personal grief or morning, God knows that They're devastated by this. There are a lot of lessons here. And later in Leviticus 21, we're going to get to hard rules put upon the priests. Remember, the title is.
The disciplining of the priesthood. God's sanctuary was not to close because of a death in the family. I have seen churches closed because of a Super Bowl Sunday. I did call fire down because I thought that was one of those exceptions. I mean, who who would do this?
Who would say worship is secondary? Then I've seen churches close on Christmas. The very day we celebrate The incarnation of Christ. We stop the assembly from worshiping as an assembly. God's sanctuary was not to close.
Because of death in the family. They were still to be there for the people in sanctuary service. And Moses made sure they didn't touch the body so that the service could continue. And we're going to get to that. They're going to have to still make the offerings, all the work that's involved.
Part of this, why they could not demonstrate their grief Outwardly, was so that there would be no hint That God was cruel. in his judgment. It wasn't God's fault. In fact, God would have been at fault to let this continue. It was Nadab and Abihu committed the crime in God's house and provoked.
This situation and merited the full punishment. Upholding God's commandments does not make God guilty. And that's the same in the church. When the church makes its decisions on behavior, whether it's a heresy or a moral behavior, They're not guilty for upholding, it could be wrong.
Sometimes, I mean, I know of many stories. where, man, what did the pastor say? That's crazy. That's not biblical. Or that's I think that's poor judgment.
But the person that sins is still the guilty party. And Nadab and Abihu had only themselves to blame, and his family had no right to hint again that God somehow was overbearing in his judgment and it was unduly severe. And so God puts an end to that right away through Moses.
So to be dissatisfied with God's actions. That's one thing. To parade your dissatisfaction is another thing. And I don't use the word parade loosely. I mean, we may voice it, our frustration.
But this is infectious. And it shows up again, Numbers 11, verse 1. They start getting onto that parade about complaining of God. Just today, I was in a store and I heard someone frustrated and said, Medeke did me wrong. Yeah.
It's like just voicing their frustration. It's like, I can help you with that. Give me $50. That would have made me a scammer, right? Anyway, anyway, they want.
Going to be allowed to spin this around. He says, But let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which Yahweh has kindled.
So the people were permitted to mourn. But the priests were not. Later, the prophet priest, and Ezekiel was a priest. Yeah. He was restrained.
From public signs of Grief, Ezekiel 24.
Now, this is at a time when God is going to judge the Jewish temple. He's going to have it destroyed. And at the same time, Ezekiel's wife is going to die.
So we pick it up, Ezekiel twenty four, verse fifteen. Also, the word of Yahweh came to me. This is Ezekiel writing. saying, Son of man, Behold, I take away from you the desire of your eyes with one stroke. Yet you shall neither mourn nor weep, nor shall your tears run down sigh in silence.
Make no mourning for the dead bind your turban on your head, and put your sandals on your feet, Do not cover your lips, and do not eat man's bread of sorrow. What his wife was to him the prophet The temple was to Yahweh. the desire of his eyes. And he's taking the temple away. And he's taking the prophet's wife away.
And I don't want to say that as though God has executed her. That's not. It it happened at the same time, and God in his wisdom knew it was going to happen. He's going to do something with it. God works with resources.
The Prophet's personal Feelings, here's the lesson. are beside the point. The point is that Ezekiel's sorrow was donated to ministry.
Well, you've got to be in ministry long enough. to get a glimpse of these kinds of things. The sacrifice involved. And for Ezekiel, it was all about. Upholding the righteousness of Yahweh.
He being a priest, knowing a corrupted priesthood means a corrupted people. What does a corrupted church mean? What does it mean when a church is departed from Scripture? And puts their defective rainbow outside for everybody to see. Corrupted.
Priesthood corrupted people. Corrupted society. and everyone's scratching their head, wondering why morals are falling apart.
Well, verse 8, Then Yahweh spoke to Aaron, saying, Do not drink wine, verse 9, or intoxicating drink, you nor your sons with you, when you go into the tabernacle of meeting, lest you die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations.
Well, we've come across this dying quite a bit just in this chapter. God is saying, I want to enforce My position with you. on pain of death, Well Closely following the events. That just took place with his two sons, Aaron, not Moses, is charged. to have the priests abstain from strong drink in ministry.
Look at verse 8 again. And Yahweh spoke to Aaron, Usually it's Moses. But these were his boys. And the prohibition. Is it random?
Or is it connected? Why is it here in chapter ten? Is it just Moses randomly put it there? Or be did it was it because Does it suggest that Nadab and Abihu were under the influence of alcohol when they grabbed the strange or the profane fire? You would say, well, why would God, after the fact, close the barn door?
The horse is gone.
Well, that doesn't make God wrong. They would have known. The consequences of alcohol goes back to the days of Noah. That's recorded in their own scripture. In the wilderness, Wine was scarce, and And the only place they really could get it would be Through trade with the Local people or trade routes that they came across.
Remember, it's two million people, it's a sprawling amount of people. Deuteronomy 29:6, God points out that there was not much wine amongst the people. You have not eaten bread, nor have you drunk wine, nor similar drink, that you may know that I am Yahweh your God.
However, We get to chapter 23, and again, it's not in sequence, Leviticus. It starts out out of sequence with the burnt offering preceding the sin offering when the sequence is actually the other way around. But there's no such thing as getting to the sin offering if there's no devotion to God in the heart.
So in chapter 23. We find out they had wine enough for the drink offering.
So they did have wine. But I don't think anybody was running a still. I don't think that would have been tolerated. But they did have The priest had it. or else they couldn't do the drink offering.
And that the remainder of this chapter is joined to these events. All of this suggests that they were under the influence of alcohol. You cannot be too dogmatic about it. But I think that that's where all the fingers are pointing. And regardless of Nadab and Abihu, the warning is made clear for all the future.
Servants of God on this level. It's clear, a clear warning to those devoted to sacred service. Don't be under the influence. Alcohol stirs up the lower passions, it clouds the judgments, it removes the inhibitors.
Next thing you know, you're doing things you never would have done. Alcohol or substance. damages the soul's ability to watch against poor judgment. I would strongly Encouraged a youth to go to your grave as an old man or old woman, saying, It never touched my lips. Except that time the thermometer had it on.
They don't even use them anymore, but the older saints, you know, your mom would stick the thermometer in the alcohol and shove it in your lip. Your mouth's gonna take your temperature. Am I the only one? But verse 10. Or they burn a needle to pick out a splinter, anyhow.
Verse 10. That you may distinguish between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean.
Well, that's the very thing they didn't do. And it's the very point of the lesson that you may distinguish.
Now, remember, this does not go away for the New Testament church. Verse 11. And that you may teach the children of Israel all statutes which Yahweh has spoken to them by the hand of Moses.
Well, their priests should be under Scripture's influence, not alcohols. The priests were to be teachers, the Levites, too. And wine may cheer the heart, but it would dope up the head. Years ago, I remember going to work. I think this was either Brooklyn-Queens border.
It was early in the morning. And I'm putting on my overalls over my Jeans out in the street and working out the back of my car, working on the overhead trains there. I know I told this story before, but it's worth telling again. And there were five teens, two boys and three girls, and they were probably 16, 17. And they're sitting on a porch early in the morning, and they all had a jug of something.
And I'm getting dressed and putting on, you know, the straps and my coveralls and is irritating me.
So I walk over to them and I say You know Nobody took the first drink and said today I'm gonna be an alcoholic Today I'm going to start to lose control over my life. It just happened. It started out innocent. I just want to test it. I just want to try it.
So I gave them my speech about what every youth should avoid in their youth And they were so cooperative in their face. They were they all their faces sagged down. It's like, did God send this guy? And they were just devastated. They didn't say anything, and they sort of sulked away with their shoulders down.
Dragging their bottles. I should have followed them and threatened to kill them if they didn't throw the bottles away, but of course that would have been unacceptable. And I always wonder, you know, whatever happened to them. And I always remember the words I said that no one woke up and said, today I'm going to be an alcoholic. And yet, there's no shortage of them.
Mm-hmm. 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.
