Leviticus 8-12

Most of the passages of Leviticus 8-12 is law concerning the preparation of their food and which animals are clean or unclean. Leviticus 8 and 9 marks the beginning of the ministry of the priests where they begin wearing the special clothing that was prepared for them and then stayed at the Tent of Meeting for 7 days. On the 8th day they sacrificed a sin offering, burnt offering, and a fellowship offering. After this the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. Leviticus 9:24 "Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown."

Can you imagine this: God provides fire from Himself for the burnt offering - what an amazing sight!

Then Leviticus 10. As they are experiencing the Lord's holiness Aaron's sons Nabad and Abihu offered "unauthorized fire" which was "contrary to his command" and God didn't like this. God sent out fire and they died before the Lord. God is showing himself holy and demanding honor from the people. Because they died in their sin God doesn't let Aaron mourn their death, but leaves that to the rest of Israel.

My reaction to this is: Whoa! God, don't you think you're being a little extreme here? What did they do that was so terrible that it demanded death?

The verses that follow have God prohibiting priests from drinking wine which implies that his sons were drunk and thought in their pride that they wanted to do something other than what God had commanded to show that they knew better than Moses. They were trying to put themselves over God, while masking it as worship. God demands more from those who are his priests and this attitude could not be tolerated.

I started thinking of other times in the Bible when God punished with death:
- Lot's wife turned to salt (Genesis 19:26)
- Uzzah died when he touched the Ark of the Covenant when the oxen stumbled (2 Samuel 6:6-7, 1 Chronicles 13:10)
- Ananias and Sapphira when they lied about their giving to the Lord (Acts 5: 1-11)

What do these stories have in common? Lot's wife mourns those that God finds evil, Uzzah was irreverent by touching the ark of God, Ananias and Sapphira wanted praise from men rather than wanting to give to God. In all of these cases the people involved forget who they're dealing with. The Lord - holy, mighty, all-knowing, intolerant of evil. The Lord knows our hearts and our motivations. Maybe Uzzah reached out to save the Ark in order to get rewarded by King David rather than out of concern for God. We must evaluate constantly the desires of our hearts. God wants the one desire of our hearts to be God and him glorified. When we do things to glorify ourselves but masquerade as one glorifying God, that's when we run into trouble.