Nadab and Abihu

Introduction

Read Leviticus 10:1-20

We need a little history of Nadab and Abihu. What are the facts of their lives?

The holy God of Israel had set them apart to serve as priests.

Their family pedigree was rich.

They had extensive preparation.

They had fresh ropes and sashes. A turban on their head with the breastplate boasting, “Holy to the LORD.”

Blood from their ordination was crusted on their ears, thumbs, and toes.

They had just seen the fire that came out from God and consumed the burnt offering.

Pastor Garett Kell offers this thought, “The ordination of Nadab and Abihu lasted longer than their ministries.”

Even after hearing all that God had for them, the offered a fire that was unauthorized or “not in the way that God described.”

We must keep God’s commands and reverently fear Him for His holiness.

Explanation

What was the strange fire? Did they use the wrong incense? Did they come at the wrong time? Did they enter the Holy of Holies? Were they drunk? Were they ritually unclean? The quick answer is… we don’t know. There is a lot of speculation.

Why did God kill them instead of warn them? Sometimes, throughout the Bible, God does something drastic that gets the attention of everyone. It often happens in times that God is doing something new, and the offender threatens what God is doing. Examples include:

Nadab and Abihu

Uzza touching the ark.

Ananias and Sapphira threatening the Lord before His goodness.

Also, God can do with our sin what God wants, because He is God.

Someone told R. C. Sproul that God was cruel because there are 22 sins in the Mosaic Law which may be punishable by death. Sproul replied, “On the contrary, this is a drastic and lavish mercy, because in the beginning all sins were capital crimes.”

God never does wrong by taking one’s life. He is God, and we have forfeited the gift that He gave us.

What can we learn from this instance?

A. Interesting fact: Compare the instances that fire comes from heaven.

While the fire of Nadab and Abihu is up for speculation, God’s fire was not. The same fire that came from the presence of God in celebration of the obedient priestly response consumed the unrighteous priests.

Fire from heaven occurs 12 times in the OT. Six times, fire was beneficial. Six times, fire was in judgement.

B. The worship of God should never be characterized by carelessness, especially by those who have a spiritual leadership role.

i. There are no small sins.

This does not mean that all sins have the same consequence. You murder someone and you tell a lie - those are different consequences.

But each sin is equally able to condemn us.

ii. How we worship matters.

I think this means that we need to be careful about how we worship individually and corporately.

We want to worship the Lord individually with our entire hearts.

We also want to worship the Lord corporately with all of the Word.

iii. We need a better priest.

Nadab and Abihu are everything you don’t want in a priest.

They minimized their sins and made up their on roles for worship.

Invitation