A Sacrifice for God
by Stephen Bastin
Perhaps
they were drunk. Perhaps they just
did not care. It must have seemed
such an ordinary day to Nadab and Abihu. God
had chosen their father to be the high priest.
They assisted him in the duties that God had commanded on Mt. Sinai.
Every
day someone had to take incense into the holy place and burn it there on the
altar which Bezalel had made. All
instructions were in the laws delivered to Moses on Mt. Sinai.
The
incense was to be mixed in a particular way.
Fire to burn the incense was to be obtained from the altar that stood
before the tabernacle. God had
clearly specified the source. No
other fire was mentioned, only the fire from the altar.
On
the day in question, Moses tells us what happened.
“Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans,
and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire
before the Lord, which He had not commanded them.
And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and
they died before the Lord.”
That’s
it. Wrong fire.
Two dead priests. God
strictly enforced His holy will. He
made an emphatic statement. Changes
to His commandments for worship will not be tolerated.
That
story is not told much in church anymore. No
one seems to want to think about God in that way any more.
Most would prefer an image of God that is more like a pleasant, smiling
grandfather who indulges His grandchildren and would never even consider
disciplining them. Some would even
go so far as to suggest that there are two different gods.
One, in the Old Testament, who breathes fire and brimstone and the other
in the New Testament who is forgiving of everyone and every offense.
Sorry,
but the God of the Old Testament is the Father of Jesus Christ and He is still
around. What the Bible says in the
Old Testament about God, it still says. He
is a God of love and a God of fire. For
those who reject His word there is fire. For
those who accept His word there is love and forgiveness.
Simple system. We need to
accept everything that the Bible teaches about God.
In
Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, he made a comment about the Old Testament
scriptures: “For whatever was
written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through
perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
The Old Testament is not the law that we are under, but the examples
teach us how to respect the laws (in the New Testament) that God has given to
us.
The
story of Nadab and Abihu is not an isolated instance of God’s punishment.
From the beginning, God has punished disobedience.
Adam and Eve were banished from the Garden of Eden.
Cain was banished from the presence of other people.
The whole world, except for Noah and his family, perished in the flood.
Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with fire and brimstone.
Do you get the picture?
It is not a “pretty” picture.
It is a picture that accurately portrays the character of
The
story of Nadab and Abihu is important because it illustrates an important
principle. They were punished, not
for disobeying a plain instruction, but for ignoring what God had said in favor
of their own invention, the “strange fire” that they offered to God.
There
are many who suppose that whatever they feel like offering to God will be
acceptable to the Lord because they feel good about it.
In the story of Cain and Abel it is evident that God may choose to accept
or reject an offering. In the case
of Cain we are not told what the commands were concerning the sacrifices to be
offered. We only know that Cain’s
offering was rejected. God chooses
what He likes and what He does not like in worship.
No one else’s opinion counts!
In
the case of Nadab and Abihu we know the details.
They ignored the command of God to take fire from off the altar and
instead offered “strange fire which the Lord had not commanded.”
Much
of modern worship is simply the invention of people today.
There is nothing in the New Testament to justify the kind of
“entertainment” atmosphere that pervades many assemblies that claim to be
worship. People up front are the
entertainers and the congregation is the audience.
That leaves God on the outside looking in.
The
New Testament church did not assemble bands and choruses to “lead” them in
worship. They offered “a sacrifice
of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.”
Jesus
taught an important lesson to a Samaritan woman whom he met at the well outside
her village. When he was asked about
the proper place to worship, Jesus told her that the time was coming when there
would be no particular place where God would be worshipped.
Instead, he said, “God is a Spirit and they who worship Him must
worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.
Instead
of an ornate temple, glittering with gold, Christians would meet in out of the
way places. Sometimes they even met,
it is said, in the catacombs of Rome among those who had been buried there.
Their
worship was simple. They prayed to
the Father (not to saints, idols, or images representing things created by the
Father). They sang psalms, hymns and
spiritual songs (unaccompanied by pianos, organs, guitars or brass bands).
They partook of communion (both bread and fruit of the vine).
They listened to the apostles’ doctrine.
They took up collections for the poor and for others in need (including
missionaries like Paul).
When
one worships in Spirit, the worshipper is enthusiastically involved in giving
praise to God. His heart and soul
are in tune with God.
When
one worships in Truth, the worshipper is careful to offer only that which God
has authorized in His word as worship. The
Old Testament sacrifices, burning of incense, lighting of candles, priests in
robes and instrumental music never had a part in the worship of New Testament
Christians.
When
we worship in the way the apostles worshipped we know that our worship will be
acceptable to God. When we invent
our own ways of worshipping, beware of a Holy God who will not tolerate those
who ignore His ways.