July 3, 2016 Approaching God by Pastor Josh Sheldon

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July 3, 2016 Approaching God Leviticus 10:1-11 Pastor Josh Sheldon

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Okay, we'll come first from the Old Testament, chapter 6, verses 1 through 8.
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And then we'll go to Acts, chapter 4, verses 3 to 2, and chapter 5, verse 11.
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So the first verse, the first reading is from the Old Testament, Micah, chapter 6, 1 through 8.
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That's on 799 in your Black Pew Bible. And the second scripture will be 912 in your
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Pew Bible. So when you have found Micah, chapter 6, verse 1, if you are able, please stand for the reading of God's Word.
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This is the Word of the Lord. Hear what the
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Lord says. In centuries before Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. Will the
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Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of water? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
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He has told you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your
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God? Amen. Now we turn to page 912,
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Acts, chapter 4, verse 32. Acts, chapter 4, verse 32.
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Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul. And no one said any of the things that belonged to him was his own.
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But they had everything in common. And with the great power of the apostles were given their testimony to the resurrection of the
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Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them.
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For as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles' feet.
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And it was distributed to each as had any need. Thus Joseph, who was called by the apostle
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Barnabas, which means the son of encouragement, a Levite, a native of Cyprus, sold the field that belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.
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But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property. And with his wife's knowledge, he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet.
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But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart so wide with his spirit and keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?
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While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?
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Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.
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When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard it.
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The young man rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him. After an interval of about three hours, his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.
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And Peter said to her, tell me whether you have sold the land for so much. And she said, yes, for so much.
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But Peter said to her, how is it that you have agreed together to test the spirit of the
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Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.
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Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young man came in, they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.
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And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.
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You may be seated. Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us your precious word.
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Fill us now with your Holy Spirit that we may understand it better through Pastor Joshua's preaching.
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Fill Joshua's heart with holy boldness to declare with confidence the mighty truths found in your word by your
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Spirit. Impart in your people the love for you, for your Son, and the redemption that your
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Son promised for us on the cross. In his name, amen. Perhaps it's the first brand new car you've ever had, and it's just right.
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Everything is just so. And you're just waiting, driving in terror, shaking as it were as you go along, wondering when you're going to drive too close to a bush that is overextended on the highway, or somebody in the parking lot's not going to be really careful when they open their door and they're going to swing too far, and put that teeny little nick in your brand new car.
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What we're going to speak about this morning is not a nick in a new car, but a nick in a new work of God.
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I wish to speak this morning about how we approach God, about God's view of how we come to Him, our preparation, our demeanor, our attitude.
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What is it we do, and how does God look upon it when we stand before Him?
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As the scripture says, we this day, this place, do by the
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Spirit of God. As we so often say in this place and pray that we come to God, we go boldly to the throne of grace, because of the blood of Jesus Christ, we are in His presence.
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How do we do this? How do we come? How do we regard this work that God did, which a few thousand years ago was a new work in making the church, based upon the death and the burial and the resurrection of the
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Lord Jesus Christ, that new work? How do we now come? What lessons do we take in how to approach
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God, this new shiny vehicle, if you will, that He has given us?
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And how do we then regard it? If you turn, please, to the book of Leviticus.
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Our text this morning will be Leviticus chapter 9, verse 32, to the 11th verse of chapter 10.
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That's on page 88 in the Pew Bible in front of you, if you're using that to follow along. I said verse 32, excuse me,
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I meant verse 22 in chapter 9 there. Not a car, but a new work of God.
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Not a new piece of furniture where we're wondering if the movers are going to get it into the house without any error and any mars coming upon that new finish or anything like that.
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We're speaking of a new work of God. As I read here, we have this history of Israel, and the tabernacle had just been made.
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Of course, before that, the golden calf had just been worshipped, and God sent Moses down, and the golden calf was taken down and pounded into dust and gotten rid of.
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And then God started up His revelation again, this plan of redemption, the exact details, the schematic, if you will, for every part of the tabernacle, the priesthood, how they're going to come to God, what the meaning of their coming to God is, who it is they represent when they come to God, all this had just been revealed.
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And what we have here is, we'll begin with the initiation of the priesthood.
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Chapter 9, verse 22. "...and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar, and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces."
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And just so we set the context correctly, understand that the priesthood had just been consecrated.
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After the golden calf, God resumes revealing His plans for how man shall come before Him.
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Every jot and tittle of the protocol has been revealed, and the tabernacle has been made with every detail, every spoon, every laver, every bull, everything done to the exact specifications of God.
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And we read over and over that they did just as the Lord, through Moses, commanded them.
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It's all just right. And then they made the vestments for the priesthood, and God gave the instruction for how the priesthood should come before Him and how they represent the people, or stand between the people and God, interceding, that first typology we have of what
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Jesus Christ eternally does. Is that important? This has just happened.
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And Aaron makes this initial sacrifice, consecrating the beginning of this priesthood, and this whole ministry, and God has just consumed the sacrifice, and the people saw
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His glory. And then we read in chapter 10.
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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
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Lord, which He had not commanded them. Some translations say strange fire instead of unauthorized fire.
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It's just as good a word. I sort of like strange better, because it's not supposed to have been there. It was strange to the commandments that God had given.
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It was strange even to the obedience that Israel was experiencing during this short period.
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And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, This is what the
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Lord has said, Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.
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And Aaron held his peace. And Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uziel, the uncle of Aaron, and said to them,
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Come near, carry your brothers away from the sanctuary and out of the camp. So they came near and carried them in their coats out of the camp, as Moses had said.
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And Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, Do not let the hair of your heads hang loose, and do not tear your clothes, lest you die.
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And wrath come upon all the congregation. But let your brothers, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning that the
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Lord has kindled. In other words, can we stop for just a moment there at verse 6? This is an amazing thing that God through Moses says.
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He says to Aaron, Do not mourn that your sons have died. Your two sons have just died.
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No, the object of your bewailing, your mourning, your sorrow, your grief, should be that the
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Lord had to do that. That fire had to come down from the Lord to defend His holiness.
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Bewail that, not the death of those who impugned that holiness. These are amazing words.
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And do not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting, lest you die. For the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you.
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And they did according to the word of Moses. And the Lord spoke to Aaron, saying, Do not drink no wine or strong drink, you or your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die.
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It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean.
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And you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses.
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No sooner had Aaron, the first high priest, blessed the people, no sooner had fire come down from God to consume the sin offering, the burnt offering, the peace offerings, the shouts of the people, their worship is still ringing in their ears, the smoke is still rising from God's consumption of the sacrifice, they're still on their faces before God.
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And with all this, not even yet a memory, we have these two young priests,
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Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's sons and their destruction before the
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Lord. And so we see a pattern here that is depressingly familiar.
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God begins a new work. He reveals himself in a new and startling way. His glorious holiness is on full display, and so His grace in allowing sinful men to approach
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Him is all the more magnified. And yet, immediately, these two come in, in a wrong way, in such a wrong way, in such a way that stirs
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God's anger that they die immediately before Him. Much worse than having that nick in a brand new car.
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I did a quick search. You know, when I was a teenager, one of the cat's meow cars was the
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Ferrari Daytona. How many of you remember the Ferrari Daytona? Not many.
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It was a two -seat sports car made by Ferrari back in the early 70s. It had a V12 engine.
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It was just beautiful. They didn't make very many of them. A convertible goes for well over a million dollars.
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If you owned one of those, and you drove it for the first time, and it got an awful scratch in it, that's not even a hint of what this scratch is to God as this new work that He has revealed, this consecration of the priesthood, the tabernacle, all these things.
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We have this pattern that is so common in the Scripture, especially in Israel's history here in their wilderness wanderings, where God shows a new work.
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He reveals Himself in a new way, and immediately there's a rebellion, a disobedience. You know, in Numbers chapter 17, you don't have to turn there, but in verses 1 -12, there's
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God answering a rebellion that had occurred against Moses and Aaron. And you recall,
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God tells Moses to have all the staffs collected. Here's Aaron's staff, or rod, and all the fathers of the family bring theirs, and they present them to the
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Lord, and the next morning they find that it was Aaron's staff that budded. It showed forth buds and blossoms, and there were ripe almonds on it, showing what?
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First of all, that the rebels' staff belonged to those who were condemned by God for their rebellion, and that the priesthood initiated by God through Aaron was the way to life and abundance, life in Him.
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That's a new revelation of God, if you will, as He shows His pleasure upon the priesthood, and all it's going to mean when it finally comes to its fruition in Jesus Christ.
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It's that important. But what happens right after that in their history? The very next thing that happens is
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Moses disobeying God. You recall when he was told to speak to the rock to give water to Israel, and when he stood before Israel, instead of speaking to the rock, it's an amazing thing, tell the rock, tell a rock to give forth water.
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But for all the people, Moses, you're supposed to talk to a rock, and instead he hid it with his staff.
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Well, God still gave forth the water, but hear what he said immediately after that to Moses. After this new work of Aaron's rod budding and showing forth the abundance of God, this happens, and God says, because you did not believe in me to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.
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These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the Lord, and through them he showed himself holy.
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Through them he showed himself holy. A theme we're going to see over and over again.
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Think of King Uzziah, whose record of accomplishments is almost unequaled in all the chronicles of the kings.
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In 2 Chronicles 26, verse 6 through 15, we read about how he prospered at war and how
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God helped him to victory, how the Ammonites paid him tribute. His fame spread far and wide.
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And on goes this list of amazing and unrivaled success right up to verse 15, and then verse 16, where we have this work of God in this king, this glorious king, this pristine king, if you will.
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But when he was strong, he grew proud to his destruction, for he was unfaithful to the Lord his God and entered the temple of the
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Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. And for this offense, he died a leper, the most unholy of diseases given to the king who stood to impugn
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God's holiness. Isaiah's great vision of God in Isaiah 6, with the seraphim calling out, holy, holy, holy,
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Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory, that came in the year that that king died.
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In verse 4, we read, the house was full of smoke. What is that? That's the incense rising up.
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What Isaiah thought to offer is given there its full weight, because that incense spoke of heaven, of God's presence, of his glory, of his holiness.
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Just one more example of this. I really want to drive this point home. In Acts chapter 4, verses 32 to 37, we read of the unbridled enthusiasm and purity of the early church, how they shared everything together.
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This is what Ken just read to you. They enjoyed this rich and this warm and this pure hospitality together.
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They listened to the apostles give witness to the resurrection of Jesus. And then Barnabas comes and he lays his proceeds of a sale at the feet of the apostles, and in the very next chapter, immediately after it, sort of like Leviticus 9, with God consuming the burnt offering, showing his pleasure in what he had been offered.
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By consuming them completely, showing his glory, and immediately Nadab and Abihu come in with their strange, their unauthorized, their illegal, if you will, fire.
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And is that not just what has happened here in chapters 4 and 5 of Acts? That with the purity of the church still shining forth, these two come along.
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Ananias and Sapphira. And it was read to you what they did. And we're all familiar with that story. We won't go into it again.
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It's this pattern that occurs so many times. What happened in Leviticus 10 was much the same as there.
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God had revealed himself, his redemptive purposes through the priesthood. He had just confirmed his pleasure in how his orders had been carried out.
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And immediately these two minted priests impugned the very calling that they'd been given.
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And note well what they did wrong. Note well where they went wrong. Among those who are near me,
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I will be sanctified. And before all the people, I will be glorified. As we go into this text deeper and deeper, we need to let this scripture examine us.
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We need to let its scrutiny burn through and ask ourselves, what is on my mind and more importantly in my heart when
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I come before God? Do I even realize when I sit here in this pew, in this day?
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Does your preacher even realize when he stands here and presents to you God's word, who it is who's with us, whose holiness it is that we speak of?
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Do we really believe that God by his spirit is here and with us?
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May God's word here and now tear us open by its searching scrutiny. May it force us to answer whether we approach
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God in a manner that is suiting to his purpose any better than Nadab and Abihu did. Are we any less deserving of fire coming down from the
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Lord and consuming us than were they? Let's look at this text and we understand first what their sin is.
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What did they do wrong? Why did they deserve to die so soon, so quickly, so dramatically? What was it they did that was so horrible as to die then and there?
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Now two immediate answers First, they lit the incense, something meant for their father, the high priest.
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And second, they lit it with fire from the wrong place. It was unauthorized fire which he had not commanded them.
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They were the wrong two to do it. It was the wrong place to get the fire to light off the incense.
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Now this may seem minor to us. Are you wondering to yourself, are you thinking in the back of your mind, what's the big deal?
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They light incense. Aren't they high priests? Is there no flexibility here at all with God?
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Wrong coals, wrong time, wrong priests, but what's the problem? Is not
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God still being glorified? But see, it wasn't minor at all. It wasn't a small infraction at all.
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He says, I will be sanctified. It can be translated as I will be shown as holy. I will be displayed as holy.
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The people must see me as holy. He struck and said, I spoke to the rock.
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You did not show me as holy before the people. And for that offense we think, okay, but he still got water to come out of the rock, didn't he?
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No. That's the reason he didn't go into Canaan. But he went up on the mountain.
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He saw the people go in and he died there. He was not allowed to set foot on that land because of that very thing.
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And the offense was the same This is the core and most precious of all of God's attributes.
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I will be shown, I will be regarded by these precepts I've just given you in the tabernacle and by the priesthood and their protocols.
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I will be shown as holy. It is for people to see his holiness. It is a demonstration of all that that God is.
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It's so that people will see what God is about. It's like baptism.
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It's a living parable of the gospel itself. The Lord's Table, which
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Lord William will take this afternoon. Again, the visible presentation of the gospel itself.
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These things are important. I will be shown as holy. If the priesthood stood for anything, the priesthood stood for God's holiness.
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Aaron even had a signet on his forehead. And do you remember what it read? It said, holiness to the
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Lord. And then we might still be thinking, but it was just incense.
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It was just incense, right? And we can answer back with the scriptural authority, no, not right, not right.
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To understand, we need to take a short tour of the tabernacle to see how important this was. The tabernacle was encompassed by a curtain fence all around.
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And just inside, when you came in the first gate, there was a bronze altar where the ceremonial washings took place.
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And then was the tent of meeting. And that's divided into two. The holy place and then the most holy place, or the holiest, or the holy of holies.
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They all mean the same thing, the most holy place. And that had a lampstand and the table of presents.
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And at the end of this area was the altar of incense. And that stood before the entrance to the holiest, the holy of holies.
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The altar of incense was there. And the smoke arising from there, we understand from Revelation 5 .8
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and 8 .4, it's actually the prayers of the saints rising up to God, being in His very presence.
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That's the last thing you encounter before you go into the holiest place. And in there is the
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Ark of the Covenant, covered in pure gold, symmetrical, representing the perfection of God.
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As we think of this, remember we're trying to figure out about the incense. It's the incense, but this is what the incense leads to.
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The Ark of the Covenant is in that place where the incense is the final thing you encounter before you go in.
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Hebrews 9 tells us what was in there. The Ark of the Covenant was covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna, which
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God budded, we spoke about that a few moments ago, and the tablets of the covenant. Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat, the manna, which is
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God's provision to His people, the budding staff, God's confirmation of the priesthood, the tablets of the covenant,
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God's covenant with His people, the charter that even makes them that people. Now as we think about this, we know of course that none of this had or has any meaning unleaded in Jesus Christ, because everything in there, every procedure of the priesthood had to point forward to Him and His final eternal accomplishment and completion of all that.
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Jesus is the true manna, the Ark had manna in there to remind Israel of their constant provision from God.
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Jesus said, It's Jesus.
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The Ark of the Covenant is to hold the testimonies of Jesus Christ. He's our true high priest.
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Hebrews 4 .14, since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens. Jesus, the
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Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. He is our covenant with God. Hebrews 7 .24,
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Hebrews 21 .22, The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind. You are our priest forever. This makes
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Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. To get there, to get to this
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Ark with all these symbols, these types of the coming
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Jesus, to get there, you had to go past the altar of incense. The smoke would cover up the smell of the burnt animal flesh.
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Exodus 30 verse 10 tells us it is most holy to the Lord. The high priest has to stop there before he goes into the holiest place where once a year he atones for the sins of the people.
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You see, Nadab and Abihu were not killed for merely violating a procedure or protocol. They sullied everything the tabernacle stood for.
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By their casual, presumptuous, disrespectful, thoughtless, maybe even inebriated approach, they despised the blood of Jesus Christ to whom all this pointed.
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They treated God's testimony of the coming of his beloved son as a profane thing.
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You know, as we think about this priesthood and priests who would behave this way, we can think forward to the book of 1
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Samuel, Eli and his sons and how they profaned the priesthood and their duties and how they brought shame to the priesthood and by that, shame to God himself.
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How awful that was and how those men were all destroyed by God because of that. We could think for a moment in Israel's history and say, well, no wonder so many in Israel missed the point.
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Missed the point of everything God had revealed in the tabernacle and the priesthood and the sacrifices and what they were supposed to mean and the conscience within that they were supposed to prick.
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No wonder they missed the point when priests would act like that. And we could even say, no wonder so many do today.
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No wonder so many people looking in on the church in this tabernacle, if you will, miss the whole point of the gospel.
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That there's a God that we worship and he is awesome and he is mighty and he is loving and he is sovereign and he is all powerful.
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He has a gravitas we can't even describe. And yet what do so many see when they come into churches?
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They see churches gather together, they have fun, give lip service to the Holy One of God, which is
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Jesus. They see sandals, they see shorts, they see clothes that you wouldn't wear to go see your boss. Maybe today you would.
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Now I'm a little older than a lot of you out there. I've told you before in my day and as I'm dressed right now, this was casual
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Friday. Seriously. When you went out in the hallway to go to the restroom, you had to put your coat on.
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Even on casual Friday. On Monday through Thursday I had to wear a suit. It was a very strict dress code.
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That's like another world for many of you but that's the way it was. But what do we see today in so many churches?
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I have nothing against sandals and shorts. Like I am.
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I'm not even implying that. I don't want you to take that home as an application of this. It's a matter of the heart.
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How do you come before God? Remember what Jesus says? Everything proceeds out of our mouth. Every action we take, every thought we think comes from the heart, from the inner man.
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What is in our heart about the God we come to worship in our preparations? Don't put your dress code to anyone.
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I have nothing against the way anybody is dressed. Don't take that as an application. I ask us based upon this text and in Nadab and Abihu it wasn't the way they were dressed.
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It was their attitude. It was their demeanor. It was their disrespect of God. I'm sure they were dressed perfectly.
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I'm sure they had every vestment in place exactly as it was supposed to be. But how do we approach
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God? Better than Nadab and Abihu? We're dressed to be the application here.
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But let's just imagine for a moment that we won a lottery and we were going to have a meeting with Jerry Brown, our governor here in California.
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Set politics aside. I don't know, I don't care what you think of him and anything he's signed into law.
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That's not the issue. You wouldn't just saunter in there. You wouldn't walk up, slap him on the shoulder, say, hey bud, what's up?
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No, you would dress. You would be the occasion and the office that you're visiting.
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You would be circumspect. You'd show deference.
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I think at least Romans 13 would expect that. Notice that Nadab and Abihu were killed.
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And even though this text says that they were consumed, their bodies were still there at the end.
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They weren't consumed the same way just a moment before the peace offering and the sin offering and the burnt offering had been consumed, which means completely taken up by God.
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Their bodies were not destroyed, but their life was. Because the sin offering, the burnt offering, the peace offering, when those were consumed, what did that show?
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God's acceptance. God's pleasure in them. It showed that God was pleased with it.
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He was not pleased with Nadab and Abihu. Their offering was not acceptable. Their bodies had not been consumed by the fire.
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They were killed by the fire. The bodies were carried out. They were still in their clothes.
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They held the jackets, as it were, to carry them out in them. Now it's interesting as we look at this and think of our approach to God, how often
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God voices his displeasure in the offering of sacrifices that he ordained.
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We see this in Psalms. We see this with the prophets. And it ought to shock us when
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God says, your burnt offerings are detestable to me. I don't delight in your sacrifices.
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We're saying, how can that be? God's word commanded them. How can he not be satisfied when he receives what he commanded?
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I'll just read one example. There's so many we could have. Hosea 6 .6, for I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
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What's he speaking of here? Romans 9 .32. It needs to be mixed with faith.
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All that doesn't come from faith is sin. What's the problem with all these sacrifices that God is saying he's not happy with?
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As a matter of fact, he's angry at receiving. They're not mixed with faith. It's just a procedure.
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I'm just gonna toss it out to him because he says I must. That sort of thing. Back to Nadab and Abihu, these are procedures.
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They maligned his holiness. They maligned his glory. And remember what he said.
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Among those who are near me, I will be shown to be holy. And before all the people, I will be glorified.
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Nadab and Abihu's errors are really legion. Incense was to be offered by the high priest. In their impatience, they remind me sort of of the prodigal son who went to his father and said, give me my inheritance now.
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It will be pointed out to you that what he's saying is, Father, I wish you were dead. I wish you were out of the way so I could have the resources of my inheritance now and live life my way.
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And Nadab and Abihu are sort of like that because it was their father's duty.
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The high priest, Aaron, it was his duty to offer the incense, not theirs. And by presuming this, they were sort of with their prodigal saying
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I wish you were just out of the way because we know what we're doing and we're not doing anything.
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They came in violation of the express command in Leviticus 16 .2 to not just come at any old time.
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The sanction against wine and strong drink in verse nine when Moses told Aaron, do not come having had wine or strong drink in you when you come to this place.
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And that implies, remember I said they might have even been inebriated. And that's why we think that.
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That's only a possibility. Their whole approach was disrespectful and wrong. We have that. They may have been drunk which is why immediately
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Aaron's told don't you do this. Lest you die. I wonder did they ever even, did they even stop to sanctify themselves?
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Did they stop as Lord willing we do before we come to church on Sunday? Before we meet with brothers and sisters in the
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Lord Jesus Christ? Do we stop and sanctify ourselves by prayer? Ask God by his
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Holy Spirit to show us our sin? Ask God to remember the blood of Jesus Christ and therefore to give us forgiveness when we repent?
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Did they stop for a moment and think of what they're doing? Do we stop before we come in the doors?
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There's nothing special or holy or glorious about this place. It's just a building where we meet in comfort and security.
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What's holy about it is the God who dwells amongst us. The Jesus Christ who binds us together.
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Do we just saunter on in? Like Nadab and Abihu do?
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Or did? Or do we stop and sanctify ourselves by prayer? Ask God to prepare our hearts to receive his word.
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To know him better. To glorify him. He says
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I will be shown as holy and then immediately he said I will be glorified. These two are together, his holiness and his glory.
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These two together besmirched by the young priest's presumption. If God's holiness is his most intrinsic attribute, his glory is his most jealously guarded one.
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And where is his glory most displayed? But in his holiness. And is not his holiness the very wellspring of his glory?
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So we need to be aware and careful of our attitude as we come into God. God searches the heart.
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Jesus says that Jesus Christ says twice in the Gospel of John that he knew it was in a man. In another place he says because he knew all men.
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Speaking of the heart, the inner man. Do we hold
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God's glory and his holiness any higher than Nadab and Abihu did? Moses sings out this, he says,
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Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
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Glorious in his person, awesome in his deeds, holy in himself.
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And remember Isaiah 6. I referred to it before. He's holy, holy, holy. And the whole earth is full of what?
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His glory. He is holy and he is glorious and he is to be held as such.
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If there's a message we're to receive from God's holiness, if there's anything we should get from that, remember the priesthood comes in with that signet on the forehead that says holiness to the
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Lord. And their whole demeanor, their whole attitude, their body language, everything they do shows the people what?
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God's holiness. God's holiness as they do what? Bring the sacrifices that reconcile the people to God.
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There's a message that we're to receive from God's holiness. It's what? It's our sinfulness. What does the psalmist wonder when he considers the work of God's fingers in Psalm 8?
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He looks at the moon and the stars. What does he think of when he looks to the heavens? And it's all there in the first verse.
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He says, Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory above the heavens.
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And did we not just see how his glory and his holiness are wed together in those verses I read?
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He sees God's holiness when he looks heavenward. And in a moment of this supra, human lucidity, he thinks rationally about it.
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He says, The heavens declare the glory of God. The psalmist considers and then he says, What is man that you are mindful of him?
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This glorious God. What am I that you even consider me?
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When the psalmist says elsewhere that God condescends to even behold the things that are on earth. It's a condescension for him to even look down and concern himself with what goes on down here.
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What is man that you're mindful of when you care for him? When he sees God's glory, he can't imagine what could possibly move him to have anything to do with us at all.
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But he does have to do with us. He does. And why is that?
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It's because of his nature. It's because of who and what he is. God is love, but love cannot be in conflict with his holiness or any other aspect of his person.
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He does have to do with us. What am
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I that you are? Do we really prepare ourselves to come here and worship God any better than they did when they were condemned for doing it wrongly?
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How often do we besmirch God's holiness and his glory by our manner of coming before him? You know, the old expression is you have to wear your
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Sunday best or your Sunday go -to -meeting clothes. I ask, do you, when you get dressed for Sunday worship, do you even consider what you wear?
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I'm asking for a heart check. Are we considering the
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God who by faith we know we're going to encounter, not hope to encounter? Because scripture says
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Jesus Christ is being quoted here, where two or three are gathered together in my name.
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There I am in the midst of them. Do we believe that? Do we prepare ourselves to meet with him in that way?
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I've spoken so much about what I keep saying. That's what I'm talking about. That's not what
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I want you to take out of here. And so many of you are thinking right now, no, see, you got it wrong, preacher.
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God looks at the heart. He doesn't look at the outward appearance at all. And that's right, he does look at the heart. And some people don't dress up as well as others because they can't or they don't know how.
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I have no objection to any of that. I just want us to remember Jesus says everything we do, every act we do comes from the heart.
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It comes from somewhere. It comes from the inner man. It says something about what we think of the
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God we here encounter. We come to offer a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips, as it says in Hebrews.
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And this demands some level of preparation of prayerfully considering the holiness and the glory of him whom we deal with when we meet together.
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As Jesus Christ, we come to worship. Called in the scripture what? God's righteous one?
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The holy one of God? The holy one of God. And if we were going to meet with the president, again, all politics aside, we would prepare ourselves, would we not?
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Maybe perhaps read some of his speeches so we could ask an intelligent question. As I said with the governor, if we had that opportunity, we wouldn't just saunter on up, give him a thumbs up, say, hey dude, what's happening?
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We'd never speak to him that way. Goodness, we don't speak to each other that way. You don't speak to your supervisor at work like that.
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Maybe I'm outdated for a few decades on that. When I was in the office and we still had these dress codes, no, we wouldn't speak like that.
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Whatever the nomenclature is today, you wouldn't be disrespectful or casual. That's what
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Nadab and Abihu did. They took it casually. They disrespected
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God's holiness. They didn't display him as holy and glorious before the people.
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And they did this with intention. We'll close with a final thought on how important the incense was.
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This message wasn't really about incense, was it? It was about our approach to God, but incense was that foil, if you will, that showed forth
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Nadab and Abihu's heart condition. Because that's what they brought before God.
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I want us to think for a moment about the incense, just because it was so important to God that he killed them.
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That he showed himself as glorious and holiness in the death of these two because of the way they brought in the incense.
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We'll close just by a few thoughts on incense. And I'll go all the way forward to the first chapter of Luke's gospel.
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And beginning in verse 8, we read something very familiar during Christmas season. This gets read so many times.
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It's a wonderful passage. Luke writes this in Luke chapter 1 and verse 8.
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Now while Zechariah was serving as priest before God, when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the
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Lord and burn incense. You might, if you were a priest, as was
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Zechariah, John the Baptist's father. You might, you might get a chance to do this once in your life.
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To burn incense before the Lord. And we all know what happened next.
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An angel came to him and announced that his soon to be conceived son, which is the Baptist, was going to announce the soon to be conceived
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Messiah. And what was he doing at the time? He was offering incense.
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All the types and all the figures of the tabernacle were coming to their intended conclusion because Jesus was about to come.
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And this is announced to Zechariah the priest as he stood at the altar of incense, which was most holy to the
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Lord. Why? Because the sweetest aroma in creation was about to be born.
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Because Jesus Christ, God was about to inflesh himself in his son.
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And this is announced while Zechariah is offering what Nadab and Abihu presumed to do, but did wrongly.
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Do we see now the importance of it? Do we see now God's anger at these two?
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Because of what they did, what they impugned, the message that they, that they sullied?
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Well Jesus Christ is the one who brings us all to final conclusion, is it not? By him, by Jesus, we have access to God without fear.
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The sin of Nadab and Abihu is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ for us. There's no more altar of incense.
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And why is it gone? It's because it spoke of him and he has come. He's the sweet aroma that assuages
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God's wrath at our sins, which is what it was represented in the tabernacle of old.
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He, Jesus, he's the one who entered the holiest place by his own blood and sacrifice. None of us could survive the scrutiny that Nadab and Abihu underwent.
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We couldn't. But praise God we don't have to because Jesus underwent it on our behalf. On the cross he took the punishment for our presumptions, for our disrespects, for our failure to show
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God as gloriously holy. Because of him, because of Jesus, because of his place, says the author to the
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Hebrews, by a new and living way, without fear but boldly, and because of him. You ever put a first scratch on a car?
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Has God done a new work in your life, shown you Jesus Christ and the first thing you did was to stumble off the narrow path that he set you on?
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If your faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven. You will not be consumed the way
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Nadab and Abihu were. You will not deserve it. But because that sin, when we repent, is accounted for by Jesus Christ.
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The first scratch on the car can get fixed. The first scratch on your walk with God or your second or your hundredth, that too can be fixed.
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But not with money and not by going to a body shop. By faith.
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By faith in the precious blood of Jesus Christ which is more valuable than gold or silver. By him our sins are forgiven and when
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God cleanses you from all unrighteousness, it means that the car as it were, the car is all new and shiny and perfect again.
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Not repaired but returned to you as showroom perfect because of Jesus Christ.
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Through him we have access in one spirit to the Father. So Nadab and Abihu were supposed to point the people to.
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Just the preciousness of being a stand before God Paul says this was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our
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Lord in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him.
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Boldness and access with confidence to approach what? To approach whom?
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God. That's what Nadab and Abihu were doing. Approaching God but all wrong.
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You can approach God right in a way that pleases him. That's what our approach is by faith in the blood of Jesus Christ.
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I just close with Hebrews 4 16. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
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Let us approach God as a glorious and holy God and by faith in Jesus Christ know that we can do so without fear, without trembling, and with complete confidence not because of us because in the end if we're honest we're all
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Nadab and Abihu but because of Jesus Christ in whom we have redemption in whom we have forgiveness.