STRANGE FIRE
Of Aaron’s Sons
“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. There came forth fire from before the Lord and killed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, This is what the Lord meant when He said, I [and My will, not their own] will be acknowledged as hallowed by those who come near Me, and before all the people I will be honored. And Aaron said nothing. But Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord when they offered strange fire before the Lord in the Wilderness of Sinai; and they had no children. So Eleazar and Ithamar ministered in the priest's office in the presence and under the supervision of Aaron their father” (Numbers 3:1-4).
In this period Moses was being directed about offerings that were to occur before the people and for the people. Part of what was to happen in these offering periods was a formal presentation of all that was Israel to the Lord.
One phrase that Moses repeated after the death of Aaron’s sons, from the instructions given by the Lord, was “MY WILL AND NOT THEIR OWN.” This really set the capstone on this, establishing it as a sequence holy to the Lord. Something became very evident, that when the sons of Aaron sought to establish recognition of their ministry by burning this illegal incense, judgment came. The area and even the atmosphere was impregnated and saturated by the holiness of God, and it became evident there was sin in this illegal incense, and a truth was established quickly: God does not allow sin to touch His glory. The sin in the life of the sons was judged instantly by the true incense, the presence of the Spirit of God.
Remember when David’s army sought to bring the ark back to the temple in Jerusalem. One of his men was lost for touching the ark when it started to slide off the cart it was being carried on. The ark was holy and care of the ark was carefully prescribed in the laws of the nation. It could only be carried by the Levites in a certain manner. None of this was according to the directions the Israelites had in the law. David, being a man after God’s heart, stopped everything to offer burnt offerings for whatever sin had occurred. At this point he did what should have been done in the beginning, and that was to bring the Levites in to govern the movement of the ark.
The Bible contains specific instructions for approaching His presence. I wonder how many of us take time to approach the Lord for directions. Maybe some of us just go in and say, “Hiya, Pop.” This is not good! God walks in mercy and extends His grace in all circumstances, but never is He without His righteousness. That righteousness demands upright behavior and truth before Him. You cannot walk in a manner so as to be separate from His holiness. Holiness is not just sinless behavior, but it implies a line that is cut with surgical precision between you and sin. The breach that is established by that cut cannot be crossed without a judgment of sin.
This breach or separation point between you and sin, or even the body and sin, has the Word of God in full truth to enforce that. How many members of the body of Christ are receiving a full truth from the Word of God so that they can clearly see the way ahead. The psalmist wrote, “Thy word is a light unto my path and lamp unto my footsteps.”
The problem is that we have pulpits loaded with apostate pastors who no more have the call of God on their lives than the grocery clerk in your local store. The upright man of God is the one who knows where the batteries are for the light that is the lamp to your footsteps. That battery light in all reality is the fire of the Holy Spirit, the true incense of the altar, the real fire, and He has nothing strange about Him.
I think about the pastors who lead a gay or homosexual life, the pastors who denounce the virgin birth, the pastors who denounce the deity of Jesus, the Pastors who play fast and loose with morality and divorce is just as easy to them as getting a new coat, the ones who teach a social gospel without the reality of a real, true God. I believe with all my heart that same type temple cleansing that occurred when Jesus drove the money changers from the temple is on hand and is imminent. No longer are men who are liars and strangers to the truth of God’s Word going to continue. There is a powerful move of God’s Spirit about to be loosed, and the next thing to happen will be the removal of the strange and the wild fire from His house. The apostate bodies will be given a choice of repenting and serving Him in the full truth of His Word, or we will begin to see the kinds of judgment of the churches of Revelation.
The full truth is coming to the house of God, and those who are pretenders will repent or not have a place in the house. The meetings that teach a customized gospel that can be seen as closely associating with familiar spirits will be judged for their loose handling of truth. Take a look at the Word and look for the plumb line of the Gospel, and see if your life can fall along that plumb line. If not, maybe it is time for repentance.
Somebody said, “I just don’t accept or believe any of this that you are saying.” Well, that really doesn’t matter a whole lot; it doesn’t matter what you don’t accept, because once you hear it you are responsible for it. Class isn’t dismissed because you decide to be a conscientious objector. The Lord will say, “Depart from Me,” and the rest of the troops will go on.
The days of game playing have come to an end, and getting real is the next reality.
Pastor Jim
STRANGE FIRE
Of Aaron’s Sons
Part 2
Leviticus 10:1-3, "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. And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD. Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace."
The last article from the ministry was on strange fire and what it is. Now I want to look at it so that we all can recognize it. The Bible speaks a great deal about ministry in the end days and the lack of truth in it. People in these times are willing to settle for imitations of the truth. These imitations require very little commitment and no loyalty. They are emotion based with little or no root. I have thought that the seed sown by the sower in the parable of the Gospels may represent the fruit of some of those that received strange fire.
Before we go much further letʼs put a definition on strange fire, and after some research I believe it could easily be labeled an attempt to imitate the nature and characteristics of the Holy Spirit. It might be said to be a blasphemous type of activity.
When you walk into a service and the ministry begins and you here the name of a man mentioned five times to one over the anointing and presence of the Lord. You might want let your spiritual radar go into intensive mode to carefully sense what is going on.
A side step here; from what I have written it would sound like I have laid all the responsibility for this and what happens through it on the ministry but that is not my intention. If you donʼt have any type of a role model to judge by how can you tell the difference in the moving of the true Spirit of God and the counterfeit?
One of the first things I would look at what would be the spiritual climate in the home. If the heads of the household have an active relationship with the Lord and the Holy Spirit is free to move in the household then he occupies the place of leadership. From that environment discernment of the value of the church service and what spirit is in control there will come quickly. The second thing is, can the television be replaced by a Bible study or are the things of the Lord second place to a worldly spirit. I could keep going but can you see how the kind of modeling that goes on in the home produces the spiritual barometer that is necessary to gauge the church ministry.
In three major church bodies this past year the ministry leadership has been exposed to sin and members of the body despite reliable revelation about what happened refused to accept sin in the pulpit. Strange Fire or an imitation of the Holy Spirit and his anointing can not take place in an environment where there is an active relationship with the Lord in the Home. That home relationship usually comes into the church and blends with like minds that are present.
To use an old country expression, if you are expecting chicken for dinner and when you come in to the cooking meal and it doesnʼt smell like chicken, then the chances are pretty good it ainʼt chicken. The same thing is true in church, if it doesnʼt look, taste like and feel like the Holy Spirit, chances are its not. To know the characteristics of the Holy Spirit you must spend time with and in the Holy Spirit because if you donʼt the chances your judgment is wrong.
The devil can come pretty close to imitating the things of God but if you are supposed to be eating chicken, you canʼt get by with an imitation. Those three churches I mentioned above got by for years with a false doctrine and ministering half truths, until the prayers of a few strong saints were answered.
The strange thing about those three churches was that in each case the ministry had a moral failure and it began to show up in the lives of the body. You see if it ainʼt chicken you canʼt fake it. One note here and I hope you get the point; people that have eaten rattlesnake sometimes say that the taste is just like chicken and the rattlesnake is just not good for your spiritual system.
Each incident for those ministries involved the statements from the Bible they used in justification of their behavior. I want you to note from the passage in Leviticus that when the fire of God came into the area where the sons of Aaron were in ministry their sin was consumed in the fire of the Lord. We now are in a period that sin in the pulpit or the congregation will not be tolerated and the Bible clearly spells out in Romans what the wages of sin are.
The area of ministry is a Holy Place and sin does have a place there. When I was young my parents taught me from an early period that the place of ministry in the church was a Holy Place and neither children nor adults play there. I wonder if we have lost some of that reverence for the presence of God and if with that respect for the things of God have been lost.
Bear this in mind if there were not a vacuum somewhere in the church or the congregation then much of what we see today would not be occurring. Whatʼs wrong with having the lampstand of the Holy Spirit in His place in the sanctuary of the believers that is supposed to his residence? We need a mindset that establishes certain things of God. The primary one should be a home in our bodies and the willingness to keep the Spirit of God in control. The church in America especially is in trouble in many locations and despite what I have said concerning the ministry, a lot of it is caused by members of our churches are in compromise with a lack of commitment and loyalty to the Lord. Peter said that if judgment comes to the House of God and it begins in the pulpit where will the rest of you appear?
There is revival coming to this land and the Spirit of God will be poured out on all. To those that stand in truth and reality of the Word the Spiritual outbreak will represent blessing but to those living with the strange fire --- judgment.
Pastor Jim
