 |
Web Hosting by Netfirms | Free Domain Names by Netfirms |
|
|
|
In this article we will be taught a very important lesson that sadly has escaped most of the Gentile Christian Church; namely, that there is a Divine "Pattern of Worship" that God has commanded and any deviation from it is displeasing to the Creator in spite of what we might think or believe. The seriousness of this lesson cannot be stressed enough.
You might have heard of Nadab and Abihu but we will become more acquainted with them momentarily. You need to position yourself to understand that the account of Nadab and Abihu occurs on their very first day to lead in worship the people of God. You might say that it occurs on their ordination day. It was their first day to lead the people of God in worship. As you read this document, please draw the analogy and question if at all possible if you have possibly been led in worship by contemporary "Christianized" Nadabs and Abihus.
Aaron and his sons had spent seven whole days within the tabernacle of meeting and now on this eighth day, they had been more than ready to begin the ceremonies which would complete their consecration to the priesthood. The ceremonies were tedious and difficult and they had to be followed and performed correctly to be pleasing to God. Aaron's brother and God's chosen mediator Moses, had been told by Yahweh,
"See that you make everything according to the pattern shown you in the mount" (EX. 25:40).
Now notice if you will that God tells Moses that there exists "a Pattern" that is to be followed by man when he worships God!
As you read this article, you will see that we have deviated from the "pattern" and you will quickly see that we (the Gentile Christian Church) have erred today and have not followed the "pattern for worship" as given by God. Let us draw the parallels to our situation as Gentile Christians who consider themselves followers of Jesus and "the Christ" today.
1 Cor 10:5-6 5 But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 6 Now these things were our examples...(KJV)
Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10) had been very careful to do everything to the Lord's exacting specifications (but that would change). Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu were very meticulous in slaughtering a calf, a kid, a bull, and a ram, washing and burning the kidneys, fat, and fatty lobe of the liver on the altar, pouring the blood at its base, burning the hide and flesh outside the camp, and then offering a grain offering mixed with oil. Let us not forget that this was done specifically according to the pattern given by God; the pattern He intended to be followed to the very "jot" and "tittle" of each command.
The high point of these preparations came when the glory of the Lord (God's Presence) appeared as a result of obedient worship and a great presence of fire went out from the Lord and entirely consumed the burnt offering and fat on the altar. During this last event Nadab and Abihu were moved with the rest of the congregation to fall on their faces in worship at this miraculous display of their Magnificent God, as He accepted with great pleasure, the sacrifice of His people.
Perhaps it was the emotion of the moment, yet nevertheless, whatever it might have been, it entered into the minds of these two sons of Aaron to make a generous gesture of worship to the Lord. Their hearts were no doubt filled with joy and thanksgiving at being chosen along with their father and the entire tribe of Levi to mediate God's dealings with His special people, Israel. God had taken extreme care to communicate to them the manner and spirit in which He was to be honored and worshipped, and they had been faithful to do all that He had asked of them. God would do the same to King David and Solomon when giving further instructions concerning "the Pattern of Worship" to be followed in the Temple as hopefully you have seen in the study of the prior articles.
Lev 10:1 1 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not. (KJV)
Nadab and Abihu, however, were not content with worshipping "by the Book" or "by the Pattern of Worship" commanded by God; they wanted to excel in worship, and to do so, they would exceed God's expectations, hoping through their creativity to convey to Him their inestimable thanks and praise. They felt in their emotions and they reasoned in their minds that they were unable to express their gratitude doing only what the Lord had asked. They reasoned among themselves: "After all, if we do all that God required, surely He will approve if weimprovise and bring Him what He has not asked for?" I can hear them now as they most likely reasoned and said to themselves: "We will go beyond the 'Pattern" for after all, does not God know our hearts?" This needs some deep thought in order to see if God can or will accept what man decides on his own to give God which God did not ask in lieu of what He did ask that man do and observe. The bottom issue here is the substitution of what the flesh manifests instead of the Spirit. Even more clearly we are speaking about Replacement Religion which is undetectable to the flesh of mankind since most are devoid of the necessary knowledge to even know that such a tragic substitution has even occurred.
So with love in their hearts (like us) and with great satisfaction in their own cleverness, Nadab and Abihu mistakenly devised a plan whereby they thought that they could draw closer to the Lord who chose them. With their father Aaron looking on, each took his censer and put fire in it. With eager hearts they approached the glory which so recently had accepted the sacrifice offered on the altar. "Surely" they thought to themselves drawing ever nearer the expression of Yahweh's presence, "this will assure Yahweh (God) of my appreciation for His selection of me to be a holy priest before Him." Can't you just picture Aaron as he looked on, his heart in similar fashion overflowing with gratitude to His Lord and with pride for his sons on this, their ordination day. Here they were, young men, selected by God to be members of a special class among all of the houses of Israel -- priests to the Most High God, of the order of Levi! They were God's worship leaders!
Answer for yourself: Can this apply to the Christian? Do we offer God "Strange Fire" in worship and not know it today?
Yet God will destroy and kill them for their false worship and their deviation from "the Pattern of Worship" which He had previously commanded. Tragically, they forgot that with God obedience is better than any sacrifice one can bring God.
This should hit home to us as followers of Jesus and "the Christ" since as Gentile Christians today we follow a different "Pattern of Worship" created by Rome instead of the "Pattern of Worship" commanded by God to Israel which was to be the template not only for the Jews but all non-Jews and God-fearers as they made their way to the Temple and the Presence of God.
Maybe not intentionally but surely we do the same as Nadab and Abihu as Gentile Christians at times in our lives when we are led astray by false teaching which we fail to see for what it really is; namely, deviation from what God had commanded in the first place concerning His "Holy Days and Sabbaths" let alone the associated rituals and observance that are parts of these "appointed times" with God.
Now let us pick up the story of Nadab and Abihu. The Hebrew Scriptures teach us that Aaron's worship was interrupted by a sudden commotion which he heard breaking out among the assembly. All of Israel was riveted on the Glory as they beheld again the fire which, having just moments before moved them to fall on their faces, was now once again coming out of God's Presence and began racing rapidly outward. This surely puzzled Aaron, because the sacrifice of the animals had been completely consumed and there remained not so much as a morsel to be devoured by this blaze. But these flames were different than before in that they did not reveal Yahweh's pleasure in the worship and the offerings of His people as they had before.
Screams of horror broke out as the realization settled upon the people of Israel that the flames were directed not toward the altar, but on the two sons of Aaron who had just been worshipping God. Aaron, shattered by what he saw, felt the panic and fear as it filled his soul. It surely seemed like an eternity to the gathering until the flames departed just as swiftly as they had appeared. Where once stood two young men, there were now two smoking carcasses. Unlike the sacrifices which had been totally consumed, the displeasure of the Lord at the institution of perverted worship was manifested in His leaving their lifeless bodies intact and on the ground.
Answer for yourself: Should this worship not have been accepted? Did not God know their hearts and their attempts to love Him after their own zeal?
Notice what Moses says immediately who was quick to speak to Aaron about what had just happened. Moses says:
"This is what the Lord spoke of when He said: 'Among those who approach me I will show myself holy; in the sight of all the people I will be honored.'" Lev. 10:3
Such honor of God is NEVER done in the flesh or zeal of man but in OBEDIENCE to what God has said and commanded.
Aaron's mouth was quiet! Two of his cousins, being thus commanded of Moses, came forward and conducted the remains of his two sons outside the camp, to the place where the unacceptable portions of the sacrifices were routinely taken.
Aaron, being a prophet and having a heart filled with the knowledge of the purposes of Yahweh, knew that it was obedience and not sacrifice that the Lord desired from His people. This may be news to you but God has not changed; we have! When we fail to observe God's Holy Days and "Appointed Times" and substitute for them our own inherited by antisemitic Rome because of their hatred of the Jewish nation then we must realize that we appear before God as just another Nadab and Abihu regardless of our emotional response that accompanies our feeble attempts to make God accept a substitute worship from what He commanded. Often we don't even know what we are doing and that we are dishonoring God when we lift our prayers and voices as we sanctify man's holidays taken from solar gods and goddesses to which Rome affixed the name of Jesus over 1700 years ago. Instead of the Sabbath of God we congregate on "Sun-day"; a day set apart for Helios the Sun god of Rome. Instead of the Passover we celebrate and observe as Christians a fertility cultic day called "Astarte" or "Easter" which commemorated licentious behavior representing the new life of Spring (Easter and bunnies as prolific breeders, eggs as symbol of fertility). Instead of observing the Festival of Tabernacles which symbolized the gathering of all men with God we celebrate Thanksgiving. And I could go on but you get the point. Instead of reading the "particular portions" of the Torah on God's Holy Days and Sabbaths along with the Haftorah (Prophets) as He commanded which convey the very specific messages He desires to communicate to His people corresponding to these specific days and time we have today over 2000 different Christian denominations all with a different passage with jumbled messages taken most likely from Rome's New Testament instead of the Holy Hebrew Scriptures recognized by the pre-Roman church. These specific readings may be new to you but if you desire to know more about them I suggest you read S. Spong's great book on this issue entitled Liberating the Gospels. In this book he will show you that basically the Gospel of Mark is little more than a midrash on the Synagogue readings (specific Torah and Haftorah portions read in succession through the Festival year beginning with Shavuot (Pentecost) and culminating at Pesach (Passover). These readings when taken in chronological order are the basic for the commentary of Jesus upon the synagogue readings which we find in his teachings as taken in "order" from Pentecost through Passover. I could not believe this when I first read this so I took the Gospel of Mark in my study Bible and took each paragraph/section, chapter by chapter beginning at chapter 1 through 16, and recorded the references to the Old Testament throughout the whole Gospel of Mark. After comprising the list of Old Testament references from each of the passages in Mark from chapter 1 through 16 I then compared them with the Torah and Haftorah readings for the synagogue in Israel in the first century and I about fell out of my chair. Although not 100 % accurate I found to my amazement that over 90% of the summary teachings of Mark flowed EXACTLY with the Torah/Haftorah readings of the synagogues in Israel in the first century in Israel. That only reinforced for the God's "Pattern of Worship" and I truly came to understand that on certain days and special times with God that God's message commanded for that day needs be read and not another which we usually say "God spoke to me and told me to tell ya". Sadly these are not from God when we have His expressed commands that ONLY certain passages and certain messages are to taught on certain "appointed times" with God. The analogy I make is that we surely don't say "happy anniversary" to someone when it is not his anniversary but his birthday. I hope you get the point. Get the book and begin to see God's "Pattern of Worship" for yourself. Now back to Nadab and Abihu.
Aarons' sons, regardless of the seeming innocence of their intentions, were surely guilty of disobedience in the worship of God. They were guilty of "Replacement Religion" as we today. Nadab and Abihu had been chosen by God to be a warning and an alarm to the congregation that God is to be obeyed to the letter, and that men were not to worship Him in ways He had not revealed. They had been the unwitting mediators of a great lesson by God to His people. And let me remind you that this "Pattern of Worship" has been given to King David and Solomon and handed down to the Holy Men of Old and we can find this "Pattern of Worship" not only in the first century in Israel but adapted and followed by Paul in Asia Minor among his Gentile congregations in the synagogues well into the 5th century before Rome finally succeeds in eradicating it.
God had not given Nadab and Abihu any instructions concerning the origin of the fire to be used nor did he command them to offer fire created by the hands of man. They had begun to think beyond the Word of God, and God, in His great care for the congregation, had given to them a strong reminder of the dangers of worshiping God with methods whose origins spring from the evil imaginations of the deceitful and sinful heart of man.
Nadab and Abihu were by no means the only persons through whom the Lord has demonstrated his displeasure with unrevealed means of worship. We have the examples given to us of Uzzah, who in steadying the teetering Ark, forgot that the ground upon which it was in danger of falling was much cleaner than the hands of fallen man; of Saul, who in offering the sacrifice in the absence of the priest, committed the sin of presumption, losing forever in the process the kingdom to his posterity; of Jeroboam the first ruler of the Northern Kingdom, who created a feast to the Lord in his own heart, a sin into which all who followed him on the throne strayed, a sin which resulted finally in the kingdom entering into the captivity of the Assyrians; of Ananias and Sapphira, who gave of their belongings to the Lord, but in a deceptive manner and were carried lifeless from the assembly.
Although we have these examples in our Bibles, we have still not responded to Him in obedience when it comes to the subject of worship, in spite of the advantage we enjoy of the Re-Newed Covenant. New hearts have been given to His people and instead of residing in a temple made of stone or skins, His glory, His Holy Spirit has come to dwell within His people corporately and individually. In spite of these advantages over those who have gone before, most of Christianity is mired deep in worship forms of which not the Lord, but man is the author. While many would claim that they are in New Testament assemblies, those who are truly seeking after the will of God know that when they read the letters of Peter, Paul, James, John, as well as other passages, they are confused by the glaring differences in practice from the first century assemblies and the assemblies of today. Christians today are unknowingly offering to the Lord, sacrifices no less profane than that of Nadab, Abihu, Uzzah, Saul, Jeroboam, Ananias and Sapphira and they don't even know of this tragic departure from the "Eternal Pattern of Worship".
Answer for yourself: How you say? When was the last time you ever read Leviticus 23?
Various feast days, such as Christmas, Easter, Palm Sunday, and others, are all products of the heart of man, and are celebrated zealously with exhausting effort and care, while that which our Lord commanded that we do in remembrance of Him (the Passover for instance) is forgotten and replaced by Easter. It doesn't stop there! These are not just Jewish "day" for serious study will reveal to you that buried and hidden in these Hebrew texts are references to the non-Jews observing these days as well. Few understand today that the Lord's Supper has nothing to do with the grape juice and wafers taken in reverence in most Churches today, but rather refer to the three meals taken in observance of the weekly Sabbath service (the fourth of the ten commandments). And in our Christian churches we have changed the Lord's Supper entirely from its Hebrew and Jewish context as relating to the Sabbath to the day devoted to the worship of the Sun, namely, Sun-day.
Answer for yourself: Have you ever stopped and wondered why you keep and observe the commandment concerning adultery, stealing, murder, lying, etc., yet fail regularly (without remorse) to keep the Sabbath commandment when it is in the same list and more is written about this commandment than any of the others in Exodus 20?
Instead of the "coming together" for the Lord's Supper, (1Cor.. 10:16-17, 11:17-20, ACT 2:42-46, 20:7), the focus of the majority of believer's meetings (church gatherings) has become the glorification of the abilities of one person (usually the preacher) and the passive entertainment of the assembled (the inactive congregation). Though Christ warned his disciples against the taking upon themselves titles such as "Teacher", "Rabbi" (Aramaic "Teacher"), "Father", and "Master" claiming these to belong solely to himself and the Father, these men cling tenaciously to "Reverend", "Father", "Doctor" (Latin, "Teacher"), "Pastor" ("Shepherd") etc. Instead of following in the example of Paul, an itinerant missionary, to provide for himself with his own hands, these are the busybodies, the idle of whom Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, who bleed the church of finances which might be used according to the Hebrew Scriptures to take care of the widows, the infirm, the sick, the lame, the blind, and to share with the poor in keeping the Biblical Festivals and Sabbaths of God. Today in Christianity we don't even know how the tithe was commanded to be used when given and we use it for everything under the sun when areas designated by God to receive the tithe go unaddressed by the vast majority of Gentile Churches today. Instead of recognizing that God dwells in holy hearts and in His assembly, many attempt to build for him lavish buildings made with human hands which is not are area permitted by God in which we are to use "the Lord's Tithe". To make matters worse we rob God of His tithe which assuring the people that they are not yet how we use the funds make the given an accessory to robbery. Neglecting the holiness of His true temple, the temple made without hands, we blindly place our confidence in the majesty of cold stone structures and the architectural monuments to man's creativity.
It is time to cleanse the dwelling place of the Lord (ourselves). If your assembly is not responsive to His Word, and you have made every honest attempt to be the watchman and to warn them of their ways, then you are free from their blood. You must come out and cease being a part of the problem and become part of the solution. Our publications at Bet Emet will seek to call God's people to obedience in worship. It is not intended to annoy the disinterested, nor is it intended to condemn those who are not practicing the truth. We can also look back to a time when we, being ignorant of these things, also did not practice the truth. We preach the uncompromising Word, convincing, rebuking and exhorting -- but with longsuffering and patient teaching! We know that there are out there many "who have ears to hear", who are waiting for loving words of correction and instruction. God does not save us to live lives of insignificance but to live lives of glory and honor. He warned us that many in that day were going to be in shock to find that they do not truly belong to Him. Many will even make claims to have cast out demons and performed miracles in His name.They may be sincere, but they are sincerely mistaken. Paul, for transgressions much less perilous expressed doubt about the reality of the faith of his hearers, saying such things as "I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you" (Gal. 4:11) and "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves." (2 Cor. 13:5).
We have a far more compelling need to examine the assembly. At stake is the eternal destiny not only of ourselves, but of those we love.
Please do not rely on a short walk up an aisle or immersion in water as the evidence of your "faith". You are not going to be judged by your faith, but by your works. In the great epistle of the gospel of salvation by grace through faith, Paul says this:
"God will give to each person according to what he has done".
This verse applies not only to doing good deeds, but incorporated proper worship of God as well!
"Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you -- unless, of course, you fail the test?" 2 Cor. 13:5
Now that you know the rest is up to you. Blessings....