THE LIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS #50 | THE LIFE OF MOSES #32

Pastor Christopher Choo

Lesson 3732

THE LIVES OF THE PATRIARCHS #50

THE LIFE OF MOSES #32

3 REVELATIONS OF YHVH'S NAME GIVEN TO MOSES #20

YHVH M'KADDESH ( PART 11 )

DID AARON LEARN TO HONOUR GOD'S HOLINESS FROM THE DEATHS OF  NADAB AND ABIHU?

Apparently, he did.

Like Moses, he too was prohibited by God from entering the Promised Land.

Every time we visit Petra in Jordan, we will see his white-painted tomb gleaming on the horizon on one of the highest peaks there called Mt.Hor. He thus died before or shortly after entering Moab.

But let us return to the episode where Nadab and Abihu, the two eldest sons of Aaron, were burnt by God's holy fire. 

They had profaned God's holiness by not taking the fire from the brazen altar which was lit by God's holy fire from heaven. Instead, they used the "strange" or unauthorised fire of their own devices.

When his two elder sons died for what seems to be a minor dereliction of duty, he as their father would have been stricken with sadness.

This episode perhaps was the hardest day of Aaron’s life. Two of his sons were dead before him, and he could not mourn them on God's express instructions.

To mourn might have implied,  even in the slightest way, that God was wrong in bringing this fire upon Nadab and Abihu, and Aaron or Moses as leaders could not communicate this.

Let us read the relevant scriptures on this sorry episode.

3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord meant when he said,

‘Through those who are near me

I will show myself holy,

and before all the people

I will be glorified.’”

And Aaron was silent.

4 Moses summoned Mishael and Elzaphan, sons of Uzziel the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, “Come forward, and carry your kinsmen away from the front of the sanctuary to a place outside the camp.” 5 They came forward and carried them by their tunics out of the camp, as Moses had ordered.

6And Moses said to Aaron and to his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, “Do not dishevel your hair, and do not tear your vestments, or you will die and wrath will strike all the congregation; but your kindred, the whole house of Israel, may mourn the burning that the Lord has sent. 7 You shall not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting, or you will die; for the anointing oil of the Lord is on you.” And they did as Moses had ordered.

Aaron and his two surviving sons had to learn obedience in total isolation.

What is our spiritual lesson?

God's holiness must be maintained as a matter of life or death by our obedience. It is never trivial.

The Lord Himself tells Aaron 

to distinguish between the clean and the unclean (in order to better reflect the holiness of God).

For us in the New Testament, we can come to God just as we are, but we may not come to Him our own way. We must come the way He has provided, the way made in Jesus Christ.

For even in the Old Testament the prophet Samuel had this revelation (  1 Samuel  15:22 ).

But Samuel replied:

“Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD?

To obey is better than sacrifice,

and to heed is better than the fat of rams.”

In short, God's holiness must not be compromised by our acts of disobedience. 

Like Jesus, like Aaron, we have to learn obedience from suffering.

Hebrews 5:8

(Amplified Bible)

"Although He was a Son [who had never been disobedient to the Father], He learned [active, special] obedience through what He suffered."

This is today's revelation - the cost of true holiness based on Aaron's sufferings when he learnt of the sudden deaths of his eldest sons Nadab and Abihu.