And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, and put incense on it, and offered strange and unholy fire before the Lord, as He had not commanded them. – Leviticus 10:1, Amplified Bible (AMP)

In Leviticus 10, God slew Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, for offering strange and unholy fire in the tabernacle. As BibleGateway.com states in its footnote on Leviticus 10:3:

Perhaps few believers have ever identified themselves with Nadab and Abihu, and yet few, if any, of us have not done exactly what they did in principle. Their sin, which God took so seriously and which proved fatal to them, was not a mere matter of failing to obey the letter of God’s law for priests. Their inexcusable folly was in trying to please the Lord their way instead of His way.

Had Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire out of ignorance, then perhaps God would have spared their lives. But ignorance was not the issue, for Nadab and Abihu had been well trained on how to execute their offices as priests. Willful rebelliousness was the issue, and it was willful rebelliousness that God punished.

Like Nadab and Abihu, we often decide how we’d like to worship God, and we do so in direct contradiction to God’s revealed Word of Truth. When we act in this manner, we basically tell God to give up His standards and to get on board with our way of thinking. By doing so, we do EXACTLY what Satan did when he committed the universe’s first sin: we put ourselves in God’s place, expecting Him to serve us rather than the other way around.

It’s amazing that any of us are still alive, for the Holy God who took the lives of Nadab and Abihu has the same authority and the same power to take our lives today. But God is merciful and long-suffering, and thanks to His patience with us, we have regular chances to recognize our pride, to repent of it, and to ask God to forgive us of it. Let’s not waste those chances!

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