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Chord Charts

God’s Holiness on Display

Pastor Mike O’Brien

One of the best ways of learning is by object lessons. Jesus, the greatest teacher of all time, often used object lessons when he taught. Most of us, I would presume, enjoy object lessons. But let me tell you when an object lesson is not all that fun: When you are the object!

This morning we are going to look at two amazing stories which come complete with object lessons. These stories are so hard for some to accept that many attempts have been made to explain them away. These two stories are vivid pictures of God’s wrath on the one hand, but also vivid reminders of God’s holiness.

We find our stories in the Old Testament. Some have attempted to suggest that there are two Gods—one in the OT and one in the NT. This has been done to try to explain stories like what we are going to see this morning. It is amazing how people have viewed God throughout church history. In our own country the golden era in terms of a proper view of God was the Puritan era.

In the great awakening the theme was “man is very bad and God is very mad.” Then the message came to be “man is not that bad and God is not mad.” Then in the 20th century came what is called a crisis theology, from the Greek word which means judgment. The idea was that we must take seriously the wrath of God. The pendulum always seems to swing to extremes. Now the theme is “man is good, and God is not capable of being mad.”

Some went so far as to say that God was angry in the Old Testament.

Story # 1: Aaron’s sons and profane fire:

Lev. 10:1-2

Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them.

So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.

Background

In the OT God had given the Levites the privilege of the priesthood; and thus they performed the various religious rituals. God also gave very specific instructions. Let’s look at a few verses to gain some background for this story.

Exodus 30:9

You shall not offer strange incense on it, or a burnt offering, or a grain offering; nor shall you pour a drink offering on it.

Exodus 30:34-38

And the Lord said to Moses: "Take sweet spices, stacte and onycha and galbanum, and pure frankincense with these sweet spices; there shall be equal amounts of each. You shall make of these an incense, a compound according to the art of the perfumer, salted, pure, and holy. And you shall beat some of it very fine, and put some of it before the Testimony in the tabernacle of meeting where I will meet with you. It shall be most holy to you. But as for the incense which you shall make, you shall not make any for yourselves, according to its composition. It shall be to you holy for the Lord. Whoever makes any like it, to smell it, he shall be cut off from his people."

So we see that God had made it clear that nothing strange could be offered. He was very specific with His details. These were not suggestions, but commands. Aaron was the High Priest. Two of his sons, Nadab and Abihu decided to be innovative. We are not given exact details, just that they offered strange fire.

You know if they had the web back then, they probably would have had their own website called innovativetemple.org. Today there are many church related websites having something to do with being innovative.

Let’s read again what happened:

Lev. 10:1-2

Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.

Now we might expect a little leeway since these were the sons of Aaron, right? No. God does not play favorites. God acts swiftly in what seems to be one of the most irrational acts of God ever recorded. There is no trial, just instant judgment. This indeed is a display of God’s wrath on the one hand. But on the other hand it is a display of God’s holiness. God’s holiness demands justice. This is what happened here.

I mentioned that many attempt to explain away these types of stories. I think part of the reason for this is our own guilty consciences. We realize that God could justifiably strike each of us down for something. We each have committed plenty of sins which could have resulted in the same judgment by God.

Now I want to make some applications from this story, but first let’s go back to the text and see what Aaron’s reaction is. I mean Aaron is the High Priest and this has just happened to his sons. What would his reaction be?

Look at v. 3:

And Moses said to Aaron, "This is what the Lord spoke, saying: 'By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified.' " So Aaron held his peace.

Why did God do this? In part to display His holiness. He said that He must be regarded as Holy.

Aaron sees his own sons being consecrated to the priesthood. Imagine how proud he was as their father. Then God kills his sons for a transgression. Moses then says in v. 3 “and Aaron held his peace.” God made it clear when He set up the priesthood that He was to be regarded as Holy.

This speaks to Aaron’s character. He did not question God. He did not try to say that it was his son’s fault. I find this refreshing and a great lesson to all of us parents.

The reason these stories frighten us, I think, is because every one of us knows that that could be us. We could be justifiably killed like that at any time. So people like to go and try to explain this type of thing away. Now the over all lesson of this story is God’s holiness. But let’s not miss the other applications:

1.	God’s holiness demands obedience.
2.	Innovation is not always good. This is particularly true for the church today. God has given more freedom than the Priests had, but He has still given some clear instructions in Timothy.
3.	Aaron displays tremendous godliness. We can all learn from Aaron not to make excuses for our children. This is a tough one, but we need to learn from Aaron. You know it is easy for us to make excuses for our children. Even when they are real young we can excuse their behavior by saying things like: Well, they are tired, or they are hungry, or they just had too much sugar. All of these things can contribute to certain behavior, but they still need to learn how to act when tired, hungry, and sugared up. And they will learn that mom and dad make excuses for them.

Now let’s look at another story which displays God’s holiness.

Story # 2: Uzzah touches the Ark.

Exodus 13:9-10

And when they came to Chidon's threshing floor, Uzza put out his hand to hold the ark, for the oxen stumbled. Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzza, and He struck him because he put his hand to the ark; and he died there before God.

On the surface this seems like a harsh and irrational judgment by God. The Sacred Ark, which symbolizes God’s presence, was about to fall into the mud and Uzzah instinctively reaches out to keep that from happening and God strikes Him dead. This makes one think of the cliché: “no good deed goes unpunished.” We might have expected God to say, “thank you Uzzah.”

But let’s look at the background to gain an understanding.

Background

Exodus 13:1-3

Then David consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds, and with every leader. And David said to all the assembly of Israel, "If it seems good to you, and if it is of the Lord our God, let us send out to our brethren everywhere who are left in all the land of Israel, and with them to the priests and Levites who are in their cities and their common-lands, that they may gather together to us; and let us bring the ark of our God back to us, for we have not inquired at it since the days of Saul."

This is a remarkable event. A very happy time for the Jews. The Ark was returned to the Jews. David ordered a celebration and called for the Ark of the covenant to be brought into the streets. The people danced in the streets for joy. (Philistines sent it back)

Exodus13:7

So they carried the ark of God on a new cart from the house of Abinadab, and Uzza and Ahio drove the cart. Then David and all Israel played music before God with all their might, with singing, on harps, on stringed instruments, on tambourines, on cymbals, and with trumpets. And when they came to Chidon's threshing floor, Uzza put out his hand to hold the ark, for the oxen stumbled. Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzza, and He struck him because he put his hand to the ark; and he died there before God. And David became angry because of the Lord's outbreak against Uzza; therefore that place is called Perez Uzza to this day. (meaning: the Lord had broken through)

We need to know the history of the Kohathites. The 12 tribes of Israel was given certain tasks. Levites were given task of the priesthood. Kohathites were the sons of Levi. These people were to take care of the sacred vessel. They were trained since they were children to handle the Ark. Numbers 4:4 “4:4

"This is the service of the sons of Kohath in the tabernacle of meeting, relating to the most holy things: “ Since he was a child Uzzah had been trained. The number one thing they were taught to do was not touch the Ark! They took the easy way out. The Ark was to be transported on foot.

Exodus 25:13

And you shall make poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold. You shall put the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark, that the ark may be carried by them.

The Ark had four golden loops on the side of it so that poles could be inserted in them. Thus, no one would have to touch the Ark. But they wanted to take the fast and easy way out. They put the Ark on the ox cart. They should not have. That was the sin. One sin often begets another. Uzzah broke God’s law. You cannot break God’s law and get away with it.

There was nothing ever written saying that the Ark could not touch the ground. Uzzah made the mistake of thinking that he was more holy than God’s dirt. It was not touching dirt that defiled the Ark, but the touch of a man’s hand. The earth obeys God’s laws. It does what God wants it to do. It is man that can defile the Ark. It was man’s sin that causes all of creation to groan together in travail until the day of redemption (cf. Rom. 8) .

So what we have are people who took the easy way. Again a bit of innovation was used. Had the Ark been carried the correct way this would have never happened. But it is interesting to point out that only Uzzah touched it. Why? Because the others remembered their training.

Applications:

1.	God is serious about His presence. The Ark was His throne on earth. It represented God’s presence. So we better be serious about His presence.
2.	David got angry but not at God at the fact that the ones transporting God’s Ark were trying to take a short cut. Many times we get angry with God instead of ourselves for our own sin.

Important:

As we close, I should say that I could have used other stories in the Bible, like Ananias and Saphira. Taking that story into account with the two we have seen, all parties involved appear to be believers. That means that these displays of God’s holiness were aimed at believers. We might expect it to be aimed at unbelievers. What should we make of this?

It speaks to the seriousness with which God takes His holiness. I think of those in Corinth who were killed for not guarding the purity of the Lord’s Supper. We need to be careful to honor God’s holiness properly. This is why we must do things in an orderly way and we better pay attention to the mandates God has placed on the church. Who knows if you or me will be the next object lesson!

Conclusion:

Nadab, Abihu, Uzzah, and Ananias and Sapphira were believers as far as we know. Now if God would deal such with believers what do you who reject God think He will do with you? God’s holiness demands justice.