The Holy Worship of the Living God

Leviticus 10:1-3 ESV

1 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. 2 And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. 3 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.

I am sure that we all have seen or heard of men who were called to the holy office of leading the solemn worship of the God of heaven and earth and have failed at taking their responsibility seriously.

Rather than take it seriously, they cut corners in order to make their “worship” more convenient for themselves and more attractive to the corrupt desires of those who attend the services that they lead.

We have seen them on television, heard them on the radio, read about them in books and in articles, we may have even sat in on some of their services.

And these are not only found in larger cities, in large churches filled with congregants, no, they are also found much closer than you may think, sometimes in churches smaller than ours.

But you see, the fact of the matter is that the God of heaven and earth, the God Who claims us as His very own, is a God Who is holy. And because He is holy, He then demands that the worship that we give to Him is holy worship.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not as though God needs us for anything whatsoever, it’s not as though God will not receive holy worship just because we don’t cooperate with Him. It is God Who makes our worship holy, but just because God makes worship holy, that does not mean that we will be found not guilty when we offer corrupt worship through a lackadaisical approach to our worship of God.

Though God makes our worship holy, it is still our responsibility to approach Him as He Who is holy, to regard Him as He Who deserves our very best, to clear our hearts and our minds of everything that may be clouding them and focus solely on the living God.

The proper worship of God and our responsibility to properly worship the Lord is what we are going to be looking at in our series of sermons this month as we look at what many consider to be an uncomfortable and unfortunate narrative found in the book of Leviticus, chapter 10, verses 1-11.

Back towards the beginning of the book of Exodus, we read of how the people of Israel had found themselves subjected to the most bitter servitude in the land of Egypt. But eventually God had worked through Moses to deliver His people Israel from the land of slavery.

Thus, God comes to a people already assembled together living in exile, a people with no real place to call home, and He calls them to go to a place that He Himself will establish as their home.

And as this people leave the land of exile and begin to head towards the place that God has established for them, they trek through the wilderness.

And as this people trek through the wilderness, God purifies them and establishes them as His very own people on earth. And as He purifies this people to be His very own possession, He then instructs them as to how they were to properly worship Him as their God.

Because God is pure, because God is holy, then the worship that His people offer Him must be pure, it must be holy. And what we see in the first 8 chapters of the book of Leviticus is God’s instructions as to how His people were to properly worship Him.

God was meticulously detailed in the giving of the Law, in revealing how He was to be worshipped, therefore, if one were to violate and stray from the correct mode of worship, the fault could most certainly not be laid at the feet of the Lord.

Proper worship was the individual’s responsibility, and the one who was to lead the people in the proper worship of God was the priest. The people would follow the example set for them by the priests, as they were the ones who would personally perform the holiest, most sacred acts of worship, namely, the sacrifices and offerings.

Now, when we arrive at our reading for today, we see that this is the inauguration of the system of worship that God had put in place. This is the initial worship that the people of Israel as a whole were to offer to God in the way that God had commanded them through the Law.

And because this was the initial worship that the people of Israel as a whole were to offer to God according to the Law, it was then especially critical that they got this worship right, not only because God demanded it, but also because this initial act of worship would set the precedence for the worship that would follow and for Israel’s reverence of God.

But though it was so critical to get it right here, we see right off the bat that those who were given the high responsibility of leading Israel into the proper worship of God, corrupted this worship right away.

We see this in verse 1 of our reading, where it says:

Leviticus 10:1 ESV

1 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.

We are introduced here to two individuals, Nadab and Abihu. And the text reads that these two were sons of Aaron, the High Priest of Israel.

And it says that Nadab and Abihu each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it. In other words, they were burning incense to the Lord, an offering that they presented to Him.

Now, that all sounds good, but right after saying that, the text says that they offered this incense with unauthorized fire before the Lord, fire which He had not commanded.

The fire that these priests were supposed to offer before the Lord, the authorized fire, is described earlier in the Law, in Leviticus 6:12, where it reads:

Leviticus 6:12 ESV

12 The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it; it shall not go out. The priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall arrange the burnt offering on it and shall burn on it the fat of the peace offerings.

This was the authorized fire, the fire that was to be kept continuously burning on the altar. It was with this fire alone that the priests were to offer their offerings and sacrifices with.

But if we look again at verse 1 of our reading and we see that these sons of Aaron burned incense as an offering to the Lord with unauthorized fire, we then know that they burned this incense with fire other than the fire that was to be kept continually burning on the altar.

Now, why exactly they offered this offering with unauthorized fire is not known. But we don’t need to know why, because the fact that they knowingly offered this offering with unauthorized fire shows that they didn’t take their worship of God seriously. And because they didn’t take their worship of God seriously, that showed that they did not take God Himself seriously.

Well, God is One Who demands us to take Him seriously, and because these sons of Aaron did not take Him seriously before the whole congregation of Israel, God then revealed what He does to those who don’t take Him seriously, before the whole congregation of Israel.

We see this in verse 2 of our reading, where it says:

Leviticus 10:2 ESV

2 And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.

These sons of Aaron willingly offered incense using unauthorized fire, showing God that they scorned Him, that they thought little of Him, that they reckoned their worship of Him as unimportant. Thus, the Lord responded by giving them fire of His own.

Fire came out from “before the Lord”. Saying that this happened “before the Lord” signifies that God approved of what was happening. Thus, with this fire coming out from “before the Lord”, it shows that God approved of this judgment of His against these sons of Aaron.

And thus, the fire consumed them so that they died “before the Lord”. Once again, we see that term, “before the Lord” signifying that God approved of the effect of His judgment against them.

Now, how should we react when we read of things like this in the Bible? You know, sometimes we read of things like this in the Bible and it kind of disturbs us, and you know, it should disturb us, it should cause us to ask why this happened? And once we realize why this happened, we should be satisfied and content that it happened, recognizing that it is just.

Now, it doesn’t outright say it here in our reading, but we have to suppose that when this happened, Aaron also wondered why it had happened. He just saw his sons die right before his eyes, and so I’m sure that he questioned God and wasn’t very happy with what had just happened.

And thus, we see Moses, in verse 3 of our reading explaining to Aaron why this happened.

There were two reasons why it happened. The first reason that we see is found in the beginning of verse 3, where it says:

Leviticus 10:3a ESV

3a Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord has said: ‘Among those who are near me I will be sanctified,

Speaking through Moses, God tells Aaron, “Among those who are near Me I will be sanctified”.

Now, when the Lord speaks of those who are near Him, He speaks of the priests, for the priests are the ones who would make offerings and offer sacrifices on behalf of Israel. If these were to make these offerings on behalf of God’s people, and thus, as the Lord says here, be brought near to Him, then they most certainly were to take this task seriously and with the very utmost reverence.

For this reason, God says here that “among those who are near Me, I will be sanctified”. For one to be sanctified means to be set apart as holy. Therefore, what God says here is “because I am holy, I will be regarded and reverenced as holy, especially among those who make offerings and sacrifices on behalf of My people”.

Yet, as we have seen in this instance concerning Aaron’s sons, though they were priests, though they were near God, they did not reverence God, they did not take His worship seriously, they did not treat Him as holy. And because that did not happen, these sons of Aaron suffered a just judgment from God.

So, they perished because they failed to reverence the Lord as holy, but Moses gives another reason as to why they suffered in the next part of verse 3, where it says:

Leviticus 10:3b ESV

3b and before all the people I will be glorified.’”

This is obvious, for if the priests, who are the representatives of God’s people take the worship of Him as holy, then the people whom they represent will also recognize and reverence the Lord as holy.

But because these sons of Aaron did not take the worship of God seriously, that then sets the precedent for the rest of the people to not take the worship of God seriously.

Therefore, for the sake of the reverence of God’s name and even for the sake of the people’s good, these sons of Aaron were justifiably consumed and died before the Lord.

So, God has spoken through Moses to tell Aaron why He has done what He has done with his sons, and the response that Aaron gives to the Lord is indeed the most reverent response that one could give in this case.

We read of Aaron’s response at the end of this third verse, where it says:

Leviticus 10:3c ESV

3c And Aaron held his peace.

At hearing God’s reasoning, at recognizing the evil committed by his sons, Aaron held his peace. This means that he recognized that God was right, that his sons were wrong, and therefore, he had nothing to complain about… Justice has been served.

Beloved, our God, the God of Israel is just as holy today as He was when this narrative took place. And our worship of God is still to be taken just as seriously today as it was when this narrative took place.

Beloved, when we come to this house of worship, we aren’t just coming for a good time, or to visit with friends, no, when our time of worship commences, we approach the Living God.

And I personally believe that the reason for the lack of holiness, the lack of the presence of God in so many churches in our country today is due to the fact that in so many churches, we don’t recognize and reverence this time of worship as approaching the Living God.

Therefore, the lack of holiness, the lack of the presence of God in so many churches is in fact the judgment of God against those churches… and that judgment is just.

Let us not be like one of those churches. Let us approach the Living God in holiness, in reverence, in humility. And may we truly worship Him in spirit and in truth.

Amen?