Unauthorized Fire | Leviticus 9-10

welcome to the together on mission podcast where we seek to be with and we seek to be like jesus as we begin our conversations each day with jesus through scripture prayer and meditation and then we continue that conversation with him for the rest of our day your host is travis twyman the pastor at the inland vineyard church in corona california in this season of the podcast we'll be traveling through the old testament where we will be examining some of life's greatest characters that have changed the course of history in our series summer of stories good morning and welcome to the together on mission podcast it is kelvin that is on that is leading your podcast today it's a pleasure to be your host today and the title of the podcast today is unauthorized fire that's the name of the podcast unauthorized fire so we have been venturing through the old testament covering some of the stories and some of the characters who have played a part in the lives of the children of israel or in the bigger story of god the god of creation and we're going to be talking about two rather strange characters in the old testament today by the name of nadab or and abayu and some of you may have heard of them but these brothers are somewhat of a mystery in scripture like many others but maybe not a mystery for all people but i found them to be a mystery and although their timeline is extremely short they left us with many things to ponder and i believe that that was god's intent in sharing this part of history with us in this story so here's the question for today the question of the day who is the person in your life who has a hard time following the rules or when you think of yourself why do i have a hard time following the rules or who likes to do things their own way don't think too hard or too long i'm sure that you probably have already thought of that person okay you've got it okay well that was kind of a trick question because chances are that person that you're thinking of would probably think of you as well and they're probably right but not in a negative way but i would consider myself an outright lawbreaker but i can still do things i assume my own feelings and my own preferences and my preferences may certainly you know they might be like yours and they might not be like yours but that's the whole thing about preferences uh they end up you know they're personal and they or they can be personal but following the rules now that's a little bit different you know they would be in contrast to one another and i may want to you know do something like leave the shopping cart in the space of the parking spot probably because i'm i don't want to carry it back but i have the idea that i want to leave it for someone else and leave it for someone else who's there but on the other hand you might be much better than i mr or mrs studious and you probably want to take that car back to the buggy section like the rest of the world does or maybe you're not so studious and you have your own preference and you like to do things your own way even though there are some rules and you like to give yours away to someone else either way when rules and expectations are set in any relationship or any system whether it's business or consumer relationship public services or the public in general people who are dating each other and especially married couples they all have preferences they all have some sort of rules and regulations that we go by and you know when my wife and i were dating me knowing and understanding what her preferences are and where they're actually in my best interest to know them and to understand them and vice versa and a coach a coach needs to know the preferences of the athlete so that they can utilize them to their fullest potential and with all these types of things that we need to understand are ways that we're in working in a system and there's preferences there's regulations and we need to understand how we operate in them and just like an athlete doesn't follow the rules of the regulations properly the coach doesn't know how to utilize them or might have to even pull them out of the game so like just to see the contrast of you know wanting to do things your own way but we're all set in the system whether you're in a game or in the game of life we have government we have rules we have policies we have legislation so before we go too far we're going to be reading from leviticus chapter 10 today and we're going to be reading about two characters in this summer story summer series of stories of characters nadab and abihu and so first of all these two these two sons are two of the four sons of aaron the high priest now so i'll give you some background moses has led the children of israel out of egypt at this time he's received the ten commandments from god on mount sinai and they received instructions for making the garments building the tabernacle and all the accessories that god needed and commanded them to build and he also instructed all of the offerings to moses and to the people so that they knew exactly what they were to do when they dishonored god by their actions and when they failed so or not necessarily failed but when they made a mistake so there was burnt offerings and grain offerings and sin offerings and guilt offerings even community offerings which were obviously the better one the lord had all of the bases covered for them as they say and they even had offerings for the sins that you committed unknowingly so all of these things were covered and they were laid out to all the children of israel and to the high priest so we're in chapter nine the priests begin their ministry and this is right after the rules and all the information that they've been given so moses and aaron perform all the duties that they were instructed to all the offerings and they blessed all the people and we're going to pick up the story in leviticus chapter 9 verse 22 and it starts then aaron lifted his hands towards the people and blessed them and having sacrificed the sin offering the burnt offering and the fellowship offering he stepped down moses and aaron then went into the tent of meeting when they came out they blessed the people and the glory of the lord appeared to all the people fire came out of the presence of the lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar and when all the people saw it they shouted for joy and fell face down that's leviticus 9 22-24 now we're going to do a little jump here to leviticus 10 and we're going to start at chapter 1 and verse 1 sorry aaron's sons nadab and abihu took their censers put them in fire and added incense and they offered and they offered an authorized fire before the lord contrary to his command so fire came out from the presence of the lord and consumed them and they died before the lord moses then said to aaron this is what the lord spoke of when he said among those who approach me i will be proved holy in the sight of all the people i will be honored aaron remained silent when moses inquired about the goat of the sin offering and found that it had been burned up he was angry with eleazar and ithamar aaron's remaining sons and asked why didn't you eat the sin offering in the sanctuary area it is most holy it was given to you to take away the guilt of the community by making atonement for them before the lord since this blood was not taken into the holy place you should have eaten the goat in the sanctuary area as i commanded aaron replied to moses today they sacrificed their sin offering and their burnt offering before the lord but such things as this have happened to me would the lord have been pleased if i had eaten the sin offering today when moses heard this he was satisfied so you see what happened was nadab and abihu they constructed something on their own they had put together their own burnt offering that was different to what the lord had commanded and then they got consumed by fire and they died and then moses are sorry aaron's other two sons they were still part they were still the leaders and part of the priesthood as well and they were to perform their duties when the burnt offerings and other offerings were performed and do the tasks that they were to do for each offering but they were so frightened by their brother's passing that when they were to perform what they were to do which was honestly the easy thing they were just supposed to eat the offering because the food was considered holy and they were just too afraid to eat it because they thought if they did anything wrong that they would die as well and that's why when aaron was talking with moses he said today they sacrificed their sin offering and their burnt offering before the lord but such things as this has happened to me i've been in these types of confusing places or these confusing type of situations moses can you understand would the lord have been pleased if i had eaten the sin offering today so that's why when moses heard this he was satisfied because he understood that it was coming from an honorable place from aaron but after all that why would nadab and abihu be confused that was the process but it appears that the brothers had some preferences of their own they had some ideas of their own they had some rules of their own maybe they didn't like the fact that they had to play second fiddle to moses and aaron maybe they wanted the praise and the jealousy for them maybe they didn't believe this and everything had just seemed to have been some type of sorcery which would seem ridiculous but either way even if they didn't believe or at least followed the decrees that they were given it might not have ended in the way that it did for them but they had something in their minds that were different so that kind of makes me feel how we choose to respond and act in situations when the rules or the laws of the preferences haven't been established to are directly for us can greatly determine our ability to be faithful to god in his request of us just as in the request that we receive from our legislatures our legislators or our teachers or in our marriage and dating relationships when they hinge on our faithfulness to the person the place or thing whatever it may be even though this passage is somewhat mysterious in nature we see the reality of aaron's response to moses was genuine his two other sons seemed terrified at doing something wrong or disappointing the lord and that is altogether different to what they were taught but isn't that how we often feel we think that we see somebody who's honorable doing the right thing and then they do something that we see clearly shows that they were in the wrong and we're still afraid why even moses was perplexed that they didn't eat the sacrificed meat that they were intended but i'm of the opinion that they didn't want to offend the lord or do anything more wrong because that's in our human nature but when we're following the rules when we're living the life that god has intended us to live and when we abide by the lord's rules and the lord's preferences and not ours then we don't have anything to fear see we won't end up in the situation like the two other two brothers did and they were confused in their place and they didn't know what to do eleazar and ithamar they were they now were they now were gripped with fear and they were gripped with confusion because they were taught everything that most that moses dispensed and aaron dispensed to all of the people of israel especially the priests but they still didn't know what to do even though they knew what was right you see sometimes we need to bring things to the lord even in our confusion because i think that's when we are able to see where we fell wrong in the situation or where our confusion began as opposed to the lord's perfectly laid out plan that we didn't necessarily follow correctly when we bring things to god it eliminates the confusion because we know that god is not the author of confusion the enemy is and when the enemy finds his way to intersect the things that god asks us to do if we're not fully versed in what he's asked us to do whether it's a command that he's given us whether it's through his word or his teaching it could even be a vision or it could even be a dream like something that you've had when we're not clear on that and we allow the enemy to intersect and to cause doubt or to slightly change our mind or make us want to include our own preferences or our own feelings into the situation then we've lost our way and i don't think that god desires that to happen to any of us just like he didn't desire any of that to happen to aaron's sons he doesn't desire that for any of us he doesn't want us to start starting to launch or plan or even think of creating our own unauthorized fire so my prayer for all of us today you know my hope is that we all understand that we're not perfect we all have our own ways but we need to lean and rest in the ways of the lord because when we choose our own way we also lose our direction and we also lose our faith and our strength so let's take that with us today friends let's be encouraged to know that when we remain in the word when we remain in prayer we remain in having a life in relationship with the holy spirit we have no worry about encountering no strange fire just the holy fire from god that will sanctify us that will cleanse us and that will purify us from all of the things that cause us to offend the lord and offend ourselves by walking in ways that we don't desire to so let's blow out the unauthorized fire and let's just focus on the things of god that cause us great joy and satisfaction and that pleases him and it sends up a pleasant aroma to the lord a sweet smell of scent take care friends thanks for listening to this episode of the together on mission podcast we hope that you were truly blessed and encouraged by it today if you had 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