Unholy Fire

Date: 2021-10-17

Audience: Grass Valley Corps

Title: Unholy Fire

Text: Leviticus 10:1-20

Proposition: Unholy cannot exist in the presence of Holy

Purpose: Be Holy so you can teach others to be Holy

Grace and peace

October theme – The Return of Horror Stories

Story of middle school class test: page of instructions

- First instruction – Read all instructions, then complete them.

- Second instruction: Use pen to write name on top of page…

- Mutilated paper before reading last instruction: Ignore all instructions but the first one and turn in your paper.

- Why is it so hard to follow directions?

When God established his covenant with Israel after leading them out of slavery in Egypt, he tried just talking to the people.

· 10 commandments enough to make most wet themselves

Ended up establishing written laws and having the people build a Tabernacle – fancy tent version of a temple – mobile, like the Israelites were at the time.

Then he established a group of priests to be his representatives – Aaron, the older brother of Moses, was to be high priest and his sons – he had four of them – were the key priests. Their sons after them would each take up the positions in turn. The whole tribe of Levi was tasked to help them.

I kind of want to walk you through the whole thing, but it took me the better part of the last week to learn the story from front to back myself, so I’m going to just sketch in the highlights for you. But you can read it for yourself in Leviticus chapters 8 and 9! And please do, and ask me any questions and we’ll seek out answers together, because I love that.

In Chapter 8 a pattern which began in the book of Exodus is specifically shown: God tells the people to do something, then they do it exactly as he said.

God says that the whole community needs to gather for the grand opening of this new religious tent, so Moses does what God says and gathers them.

Then they go through the steps of consecrating the Tabernacle to be used as a place of worship. Moses says, “This is what the LORD commanded,” and then they do exactly what God commanded.

Aaron puts on the formal clothing of his position, just as the LORD commanded.

They anointed the tent and the furniture and the altar and Aaron and Aaron’s sons and the formal clothing that Aaron’s sons put on – all “Just as the LORD commanded.”

Then they sacrificed a bull, just as the LORD commanded.

Then they sacrificed a ram, just as the LORD commanded.

Then they divided the blood and splattered it on Aaron and his sons and the altar. And they put a bread offering on top of the meat and the blood on the altar – again, all just as the LORD commanded.

Are you getting a picture?

They are carefully doing exactly as God commands.

And all the parts of what they are doing are connected.

What was the point of this fancy tent? It was to be the place where people – ordinary people – would come to meet with God. So the place needed to represent God – it needed to be set apart to be used in this way and no other. It needed to be holy.

That’s what “holy” means – set apart.

This place was set apart as a place to meet God. It wasn’t for anything else. All the furniture and altars were part of the experience. They were there to help remind people that this was no ordinary place and any encounter with the Living God was extraordinary as well.

The blood was a symbol of life – people knew life is in the blood. Get rid of someone’s blood, they aren’t alive anymore, right? So, if God is the source of life, then God is in the blood, at least symbolically. And the blood of a sacrifice was meant to remind people that the choices they make will either bring them closer to God and the life he gives or will take them farther away from the source of life, and when you go away from life, you are heading towards death, right? Because it’s always one or the other.

The blood on the clothes and on the priests wearing the clothing was a reminder as well. A reminder that they were representatives of God on earth. They were to be symbols of life being given or restored. They were symbols of God’s activity on earth.

Sharing the sacrifice with the priest in the Tabernacle was to symbolize sitting down and sharing a meal with the LORD. It was taking your place in God’s family. And the blood was a symbol of the life provided by God establishing this place and a link from the place to the people in the place. In a weird, gruesome, crimson and obvious way, the people can now see their God linked to this sacred, set apart place and the sacred, set apart priests.

Just as the LORD commanded.

In Chapter 8, verses 33 and 34, Moses says: 33 You must not leave the Tabernacle entrance for seven days, for that is when the ordination ceremony will be completed. 34 Everything we have done today was commanded by the Lord in order to purify you, making you right with him.[1]

Or, in many translations, to make atonement for you.

Atonement – big church word. Any time you hear it, you should just slow it down when you say it to understand what it means. Atonement – At one meant.

Atonement is a making right of a relationship so that the people involved will be able to be as one.

Ordination, by the way, which is what Moses called this ritual they were undergoing, is another big church word. A literal translation is to “fill” or “fill the hand.”

This ordination of priests involved their relationship with God being made right as part of their being filled with the things of God. Starting with the sacrifice that had been made, because as the LORD tells them to stay here in the Tabernacle for the next seven days he also tells them that the meat and bread from the sacrifice are their food.

So they have been made holy – set apart. Then their relationship with the LORD was set right, and now they are spending seven days filling themselves with God’s food and God’s presence. Why? Because that’s what God told them to do.

35 Now stay at the entrance of the Tabernacle day and night for seven days, and do everything the Lord requires. If you fail to do this, you will die, for this is what the Lord has commanded.”[2]

There’s a story from the Fourth Century BC which introduces us to a king named Dionysus and a servant named Damocles. Damocles saw the king’s great power and wealth and was very envious of his position. The king arranged for him to rule for a day, but had a large sword hung, point down, over the throne, suspended by a single strand of horse’s hair. He wanted Damocles to know that being king wasn’t all about the riches. There was also a constant worry of the dangers which might overtake him or his kingdom.

Until the last century, this kind of dual reality was called the Sword of Damocles. Now it is known as the Peter Parker Principle, because Spider Man distilled it down to the saying that with great power comes great responsibility. And that’s what these men should all be feeling while they are spending their seven days in the Tabernacle.

On day 8 they went to work, allowing people to begin bringing their sacrifices in. They do that because the LORD commanded it. Aaron and his sons do their part precisely correctly because the LORD commanded it.

God told them all that by following his ways, making the offerings he asked from them, presenting those sacrifices according to the formula he gave them, he would consider that to purify them and make them at-one with him. And we are told that everyone did as they were instructed.

But what if Moses and Aaron were just making it all up?

Could be, right?

They were God’s representatives, but they were human. What if they made it up or goofed it up?

Well, God made sure people could know that wasn’t the case. 9:23-24

23 Then Moses and Aaron went into the Tabernacle, and when they came back out, they blessed the people again, and the glory of the Lord appeared to the whole community. 24 Fire blazed forth from the Lord’s presence and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar. When the people saw this, they shouted with joy and fell face down on the ground. [3]

They could know that this was real, that this method of connecting to their God was right and approved and accepted and celebrated by that God because his presence was revealed to them in fire. Holy fire!

Not just a fire in a pit or even in a tent, but a blazing flame that everyone could see. Not one which sat, lifeless, flickering, in a grate, but one which blazed forth, very specifically targeting the portions of the offering which had been set aside for the LORD.

What is the goal of worship?

To enter into the presence of God.

Not only do the people feel that they are in the presence of the LORD, they see it, hear it sizzle as it consumes the meat and grain and blood on the altar, smell it as the incense mingles with the smoke of charred flesh and the tang of burning blood gently overlays the vaguely toast-like scent of bread subjected to heat.

This was the whole purpose of the Tabernacle and the priesthood! Tangible evidence of the presence of the invisible God!

And this was the point of this eight-day ordination ceremony: To fill the hands of the priests. To show they are capable and responsible to handle the things of God. To demonstrate that they can be trusted to do what God commands. They had been shown to be able to handle and represent Holy Fire!

But…

Then comes chapter 10.

Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu put coals of fire in their incense burners and sprinkled incense over them. In this way, they disobeyed the Lord by burning before him the wrong kind of fire, different than he had commanded.[4]

Or, in Hebrew, they brought zara (zah-rah), a strange and unauthorized fire.

God had manifested as holy fire.

This wasn’t that.

This was an UNHOLY fire.

To be holy is to be set apart. There was nothing set apart about what they brought.

Instead of doing “just as the LORD commanded,” they had decided to do something of their own.

Do you remember what God said would happen if they did not represent him the way they had been taught? If they didn’t do what they were commanded?

2 So fire blazed forth from the Lord’s presence and burned them up, and they died there before the Lord. [5]

“Burned them up” isn’t right. It actually says that he CONSUMED them. Verse 4 tells us their bodies were intact – they needed to be removed. Verse 5 says their clothes were unburnt – the men who were called to carry them did so by lifting the bodies with their clothing.

What did the fire of God consume?

Their souls.

Verses 24 from the last chapter and 2 from this chapter say the same thing in the same way: Fire came out from the presence of the LORD.

What if this is part of being in the presence of God?

What if it’s like a matter/anti-matter reaction?

Simply put: if a positron and an electron meet, they are destroyed. There’s a flash of light and they disappear.

Physics tells us there was an equal amount of matter and anti-matter when the universe began to exist.

So it all should have ceased to exist, right?

But it didn’t. For some reason, there is still matter – it has overcome the existence of anti-matter.

This isn’t a perfect metaphor, but what if unholy can’t exist in contact with holy? And, just like with Matter/Anti-Matter, unholy ceases to exist while holy continues on?

What if judgment is simply standing before God’s holiness and the unholy cannot exist?

What was the point of the whole seven-day ordination?

It was to purify the priests – to make them holy.

There was a sacrifice to atone for their sins.

There was a process of becoming holy, set apart.

They did everything God commanded.

They left behind what they were to become something MORE. So they could be filled with HOLY.

And in that way they would be able to help others enter God’s presence. Why? So those people can become HOLY/MORE also!

But Nadab and Abihu replaced the things of God with their own things.

Instead of bringing holy fire, they brought unholy.

And unholy cannot exist in the presence of holy. And so, having brought unholy and having become unholy, Nadab and Abihu were consumed like anti-matter is consumed by matter.

I know, this is big and hard to wrap your arms around.

John Calvin said, “If we reflect how holy a thing God’s worship is, the enormity of the punishment will by no means offend us. […] If God had suffered the sons of Aaron to transgress with impunity, they would have afterwards carelessly neglected the whole law.”

[1] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Le 8:33–34). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. [2] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Le 8:35). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. [3] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Le 9:23–24). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. [4] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Le 10:1). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers. [5] Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Le 10:2). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.