How to Conquer A Critical Spirit
Psalm 139
This morning we are going to be finishing up our little series on a critical spirit. Just to make sure we are all on the same page, we have defined a critical spirit as a negative attitude / perspective that focuses on real or perceived problems, with no thought given to a biblical or practical solution. The key phrase is the last one because what separates the critical spirit that God judges from genuine concern that God blesses is the presence or absence of a proposed solution.
So far in this series we have seen the danger of a critical spirit and the roots of a critical spirit. The danger of a critical spirit is seen in the severity of how God dealt with it [Miriam and Michal], and the roots of a critical spirit is usually either envy, pride, or hypocrisy. If you missed either of these two messages, please download them from my blog. All this leads us up to where we are today as we think about how to conquer a critical spirit. As I shared with you last week, there are four steps we can take to do this. Now, I need to point out that the title of this message isn’t “Four Easy Steps to Conquering A Critical Spirit.” It involves a lot of hard work and a humble spirit. And for the first one, I want us to turn to Psalm 139 as we consider the practice of rigorous self examination.
1. Practice Rigorous Self-examination – Psalm 139
O Lord, Thou hast searched me and known me. 2 Thou dost know when I sit down and when I rise up; Thou dost understand my thought from afar. 3 Thou dost scrutinize my path and my lying down, And art intimately acquainted with all my ways. 4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, Thou dost know it all. 5 Thou hast enclosed me behind and before, And laid Thy hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high, I cannot attain to it.
In verses 7 – 12, David spends some time talking about the impossibility of getting away from God’s presence. You may try to hide from God or ignore Him, but it’s impossible! In verses 13 – 16 he addresses God’s creative involvement in the fetus. If you have ever wondered about a good passage dealing with life before birth, this is it.
In verses 17 – 22 there are some thoughts about the wicked, but then note how David ends the psalm with a request. “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
What is interesting about this Psalm is that it starts with an acknowledgment of God’s intimate knowledge of us, but ends with an invitation for God to investigate his life. This needs to be our prayer. The first step to conquering a critical spirit is to humble yourself before God and ask Him to “probe” your heart. That is what the word “search” literally means.
When I was sanding our floor and got a huge splinter in the heel of my hand, it was broken off so deeply that I couldn’t see it. The doctor took a scalpel and cut the length of the bump, and then took a long needle and started digging around to find the splinter (which felt like a plank!). What was he doing? He was “probing.” It was difficult, and it was painful, but it was necessary to fixing the problem.
That is what David is asking God to do to his heart. Dig around. Probe a little bit. Pull away the layers of flesh and see if there are hurtful, grievous things in his life. And if you are serious about dealing with a critical spirit, this is where you start. You ask God to reveal to you if you are struggling in this area.
Next, I want you to turn to Mt. 23. In this passage we are going to see another important factor in conquering a critical spirit, and it is the discipline of distinguishing between gnats and camels. Look with me at verses 23 – 24.
2. Practice Distinguishing Between Gnats and Camels – Mt. 23:23 - 24
23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, but have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. 24 "You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!
Here we see Jesus rebuking the religious leaders for a practice that is pretty familiar to us. In v. 23 we see how the scribes and Pharisees were punctilious, even obsessive in their tithing – even going to the point of separating out 1/10th of a portion of some of the smallest spices they had. Why would they be preoccupied with something so minute? It was because of their hypocrisy. One of the primary indicators of the hypocrisy / pharisaical spirit is a fixation on the visible. They pray on street corners to be seen of men, instead of in their closets. They mope and have long faces when they fast so that everybody will know they are fasting, instead of fasting in secret. They make a great show when they bring their offerings so that everyone will be impressed with their generosity instead of giving in secret so that only God knows of their generosity. Pharisees want to be seen, and their thinking was that if people saw them obsessing over something as small as their spices, surely the observers would conclude that the Pharisees were equally serious about big matters, and therefore quite spiritual.
But in verse 24 Jesus exposes them for their hypocrisy by mentioning two unclean animals, the gnat and the camel. In Lev. 5 God tells the nation of Israel that the swarming insects are unclean, and even if you inadvertently touch one, you are ceremonially defiled. In Lev. 11, God tells the nation of Israel that camels are unclean as well. So what we have here are the two extreme ends of the size spectrum of unclean things, gnats and camels.
The Pharisees, true to form, would put gauze over their drinking vessels to make sure they didn’t accidently swallow a gnat. But when it came to the huge issues that would defile a person, they couldn’t care less.
This concept has great application to a critical spirit, and if you struggle with this, it is important to learn how to distinguish between gnats and camels. Were gnats legitimately unclean things that could defile you? Yes. But all unclean things were not equal in their “badness.” How do we know this is true? Because the requirements for being restored were different depending on the infraction. For instance, sometimes when you became defiled, you were unclean until evening, sometimes you were unclean until evening and you had to bathe, sometimes you were unclean until evening and you had to wash your clothes, sometimes you were unclean for a week, but at other times you were unclean for a month, sometimes you just had to wait for a period of time but sometimes you had to bring a sacrifice.
All unclean things were not equal in their gravity, and the same is true with the issues we encounter in life that we are tempted to have a critical spirit about. Some things are gnats, and some things are camels, and a person with a critical spirit needs to develop the ability to distinguish between them.
I had a co-worker one time who continually bugged me because I ate ham. He told me I was violating scripture, that the swine was unclean (he couldn’t even bring himself to call it ham, or pork, or even pig – it was swine), and it was a huge issue to him. Yet he smoked pot every night because it acted as a sedative for him. In fact, he tried to argue that his smoking pot every night to get to sleep was no different than me drinking coffee every morning to wake up. Do you see the inability to distinguish between gnats and camels? The critical person needs to understand that all problems are not equal in gravity, and he then needs to give his energies to the big things and let the little things ride.
So as we think about the steps to conquering a critical spirit, we have seen that we need to practice rigorous self-examination, and secondly, we need to learn how to distinguish between gnats and camels. The third thing we need to focus on is found in 1 Thess. 5:18, and I’m calling this step practicing the discipline of gratitude.
3. Practice the Discipline of Gratitude – 1 Thess. 5:18
“In everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.”
How many of you see the comprehensive nature of this command? The verse doesn’t say, “Give thanks in most things,” or “Give thanks in many things,” but “Give thanks in everything.” Something else I want you to note about this verse is the phrase, “for this is God’s will for you.” That is a very rare phrase in the Bible! In fact, I think the only other place you see the phrase “for this is God’s will for you” is in 1 Th. 4:3 which talks about abstaining from sexual immorality. What this tells me is that there are at least two issues where you will never have to worry about what God’s will is – being thankful and keeping yourself pure.
But I point this out because God takes gratitude very seriously. It is God’s will for you to give thanks in every situation. I don’t know of too many things that will cure a critical spirit as quickly as this matter of deliberate gratitude. I learned this principle in the context of my migraine headaches. I knew I could either lie in bed and stew and complain and gripe about my condition, or I could “give thanks in everything, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” So I decided to give it a try one day and started thanking God for the chemists who have discovered codeine to deaden the pain, and a soft bed to lie on instead of being on a bumpy road, and for being self-employed which gives me the flexibility to lie down for a couple of hours. And it is amazing what the discipline of gratitude will do to improve your outlook on life.
Let me challenge you. The next time you find yourself about to complain or gripe about or criticize something (regardless of how legitimate it is), see if you can find ten things about that situation to give thanks for. And to make this really practical, let’s work through a situation that is facing us right now.
When I got home Friday night, I saw that our governor had signed this Marriage Equality Bill and I was very disappointed about it. I don’t know if you appreciate the magnitude of what happened in Albany on Friday, but it was huge. In the realm of culture, and society, and freedom – it was bigger than 9/11. 9/11 was simply terrorists who hate the United States, so they destroyed two landmark buildings and killed a lot of people. Without diminishing the grief of those who lost loved ones in the tragedy, 9/11 did not fundamentally alter our culture and set in motion a series of events that will eventually bring about the end of our freedoms as we know them today.
But my point is that as easy as it could be to have this critical spirit, is it possible to find ten things about this scenario to be thankful for?
1. Expressing my opinion without fear of arrest and torture.
2. I’m on the right side.
3. This world isn’t my home – no matter how bad it gets here I’m in heaven for eternity.
4. I can stand before God with a clear conscience in this matter.
5. It was a huge educational opportunity for my children.
See how that works? It takes our focus off the negative and onto the positive. We aren’t ignoring reality here, we are creating a spirit of optimism through the discipline of gratitude, even in the face of defeat or serious problems.
Now the final truth I want to share with you comes from the book of Nehemiah, and it is here we see the idea of focusing on solutions, not merely the verbalizing of the problem. So why don’t you turn to chapter one and we’ll skim through several chapters of this short book to look at how Nehemiah faced his problems.
4. Practice Focusing on Solutions – Neh. 2:17
If you aren’t familiar with the context of Nehemiah, here it is in a nutshell. The nation of Israel has been conquered and the people have been deported to foreign countries. The capital Jerusalem, and even worse the temple, have been destroyed.
In chapter 1, we see that Nehemiah is a Jewish official working in the palace of King Artaxerxes. The king graciously gives Nehemiah permission to go back to his homeland to start rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem. Starting in chapter 2 verse 12, you can read about Nehemiah’s survey of the damage.
In verse 17 we read “Then [Nehemiah] said to them, "You see the bad situation we are in, that Jerusalem is desolate and its gates burned by fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem that we may no longer be a reproach." That was all he had to say about the situation. He wasn’t asking “why” it had taken so long to start rebuilding, he didn’t try to analyze the work ethic of the people, he didn’t deride the people who had been living there for not starting the work, he simply said, “let’s get to work.”
So in chapter 3 you see his solution to the problem. Various groups of people were assigned to various sections of the wall to get the job done. Some worked while the others stood guard, but they had definite goals to accomplish. What I like about Nehemiah is that he was a doer, not a talker. He was not an armchair quarterback. He could see the problems very clearly, but his focus was on solutions, not merely verbalizing the problem! Anybody can verbalize about a problem, and many people excel at it, but few people are willing to go on and do the hard work of coming up with a solution.
I remember when God highlighted my tendency to do this. Several months ago, there was a bill in the senate that was granting broad powers to the Child Protective Services. Part of the bill established that if a parent refused to let a CPS worker into the home, that refusal constituted probable cause and immediately established grounds for a search warrant. This is a huge invasion of privacy, which is why so many people in NY were having fits about it. So I called the Senator responsible for sponsoring the bill, spoke with his administrative assistant and expressed my opposition to the bill. I pretty much repeated verbatim the little paragraph that had been sent to me, and the woman on the other end of the line said, “And sir, what do you suggest instead?” And for a moment, I was stunned.
I could see what the problem was. I felt strongly about the situation. I could have spent some time telling her the problems this was going to cause in the future, but I had given no thought at all to an alternative solution to the rampant child abuse that takes place in the homes in our state. Fortunately, I was able to recover and said something about finding different language that protected our freedoms, but it was a powerful lesson to me about this problem of focusing only on the verbalizing of the problem.
So what does it take to overcome a critical spirit? Rigorous self-examination, the ability to distinguish between gnats and camels, the discipline of deliberate gratitude, and a focus on solutions, not simply spouting out criticisms.
May God help us at Cornerstone Baptist Church / Greenville Center Baptist Church not to harbor critical spirits.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
The Roots of A Critical Spirit
The Roots of A Critical Spirit
James 4:1
Last week we were in Numbers 12 where we were looking at the danger of a critical spirit. In this passage we saw that Miriam and Aaron were "speaking against" Moses. The nature of their speaking against him doesn't seem all that bad, does it (something to do with his Cushite wife)? Yet it was significant enough in God's eyes that He responded to that criticism very strongly. One of the thoughts I had this past week is that this kind of response on God's part may seem foreign to us because of our growing up in the United States where "freedom of expression" is one of those inalienable rights that we hold so dearly.
There are two issues here that come into play. The first has to do with speaking against duly ordained authority, and the second has to do with spreading dissension. We developed the spreading dissension aspect by looking at Prov. 6:16-19 where we saw that "sowing discord among the brethren" is an "abomination" in God's eyes, but what about this matter of speaking against your authority?
How many of you have ever heard a sermon taken from 1 Sam. 24:1-7. This is the story of David and Saul when David is on the run. Saul wants to kill him because so many of the nation of Israel are enamored with David. And even thought the people of the nation want David to be king, and even though God has already chosen David to be the next king, and even though the prophet had anointed David to be the next king, Saul is king. As such, he is David's duly ordained authority, and as such, David has to live under Saul's authority and treat him with due respect.
Well, the opportunity comes up for David to kill Saul. Saul is asleep, and David sneaks into his camp, but instead of killing Saul, he humiliates him by cutting off a part of his robe. In this little scenario, David articulates a timeless principle. When his soldier says, "The Lord has delivered your enemy into you hand, kill him," David says, "I will not lift up my hand against the Lord's anointed."
That is the principle that was being violated when Miriam and Aaron "spoke against" Moses. And that is why God responded so strongly. He publicly, visibly, disciplined her for a prolonged period of time. And so the entire nation of Israel sat in neutral for a week while God dealt with Miriam.
Today, we are going to be looking at the roots of a critical spirit. In other words, the critical spirit is a surface issue, there is something beneath the surface we need to address. The critical spirit is a manifestation of something deeper. And it is silly to treat surface problems, right? We don't put band-aids on basal cell carcinomas, do we? We get out the scalpel and treat it conclusively.
So let's look at this passage in James 4:1 where we see the root of all sinful expressions, especially a critical spirit. "Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?" These two words, "wars" and "fights" refer to prolonged conflict, as well as smaller conflicts. They span the spectrum from armed conflict like we see all over the world, to the verbal conflicts that may have taken place on the way to church this morning! James is telling us that these things happen because in our heart, we have desires that are fighting for supremacy, or control.
"We want what we want, when we want it. And when we don't get it, bad stuff happens if the Spirit of God is not in control of my life."
Let's look at three heart issues that generate a critical spirit. The first is found in last week's text, Numbers 11 &12, where we see a spirit of envy in Miriam and Aaron. This spirit of envy isn't explicitly recorded for us, but when you look at the flow of these two chapters, you can see something interesting. Listen to this series of verses while I read them.
11:1 - Now when the people complained, it displeased the Lord, for the Lord hear it, and his anger was aroused. So the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp. Then the people cried out to Moses, and when Moses prayed, the fire was quenched."
11:16 - God gives Moses 70 assistants to help with the administration of the nation. "So the Lord said to Moses, "Gather to me 70 men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, bring them to the tabernacle of meeting, that they may stand there with you. Then I will come down and talk with you there. I will take of the Spirit that is upon you and will put the same upon them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone."
11:18 - when the people were complaining about not having meat to eat - "Then you shall say to the people, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat."
It is in the context of Moses stopping a plague simply by praying, and Moses providing meat for the nation simply by praying, and Moses having so much of the Spirit of God that he can share it with 70 other men who are going to help him with the nation, that we come to chapter 12:1 where we read, "Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses and said, 'Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses and not us also?" The envy is pretty obvious, isn't it?
Envy produces a critical spirit. I remember the first time I saw how this worked, and it was 43 years ago! I still remember it today! I was about 7 years old, and my older brother had just received his first shotgun, a .410, and I was so proud of him. In fact, I was so proud I immediately ran down the road to tell my friend Mark. And to this day I can still see Mark's face and hear his voice as he said, "I wouldn't have it." Even at that young age, I saw the dismissive contempt in his voice was really nothing more than envy. And that spirit of envy was producing a critical spirit.
What I have learned over the years is to look for envy at some level whenever I see a critical spirit. If it isn't envy driving the critical spirit, it's probably pride, which is what we see in our next source of a critical spirit. Look with me next at 1 Sam. 18:5-9.
"So David went out wherever Saul sent him, and behaved wisely. And Saul set him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants. Now it had happened as they were coming home, when David was returning from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women had come out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy, and with musical instruments. So the women sang as they danced, and said: Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." Then Saul was very angry, and the saying displeased him: and he said, "They have ascribed to David ten thousands and to me they have ascribed only thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?" So Saul eyed David from that day forward.
Do you see how Saul's pride had been wounded? And what did that wounded pride generate in his heart? A critical spirit.
We see another example of this in the life of David in 2 Sam. 6. This is the story of David coming back to Jerusalem with the Ark of the Covenant, and he is so thrilled that the Ark is back in the Tabernacle that he sets aside his kingly decorum, and in verse 14 we read that, "David danced before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod. 15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet. 16 Now as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal, Saul's daughter [who also happens to be David's wife], looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart." How's that for a critical spirit? Now drop down to verse 20. "Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, "How glorious was the king of Israel today [just in case you can't see it, this is sarcasm], uncovering himself today in the eyes of the maids of his servants, as one of the base fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!"
Do you see how her wounded pride as generated a critical spirit? Her husband was the king, and in her estimation, the King doesn't take off his ephod and dance in the streets. That is what the "underclass" does (she uses the term "base fellows"). And as a side note, God severely chastises her. Look in verse 21. So David said to Michal, "It was before the Lord, who chose me instead of your father and all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel. Therefore I will play music before the Lord. And I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, bu them I will be held in honor. Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death."
Do you see the pride that has been wounded, which in turn generates the critical spirit? It is no coincidence that proud, or arrogant people are also very critical people. We don't have time to look at it this morning, but spend some time this afternoon in Luke 7:36-50 where you have the story of the Pharisee Simon and the woman who anoints Jesus' feet. As Simon watches Jesus' interaction with this woman, you can hear his critical spirit as he says to himself, "This man, if he were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner."
The final heart issue that generates a critical spirit is a spirit of hypocrisy. For an illustration of this one, we are going to look into the New Testament, so let's look at Mt. 7:1-5.
"Judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me remove the speck from your eye, and look, a plank is in your own eye?" Hypocrite! First, remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
We see an example of this concept in action in the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8:2-11.
Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him, and He sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery [This is significant that it was the Scribes and Pharisees, two groups of religious leaders known for their hypocrisy]. And when they had set her in the midst [this is a public humiliation], they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded that such should be stoned, but what do you say?" This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear [I love this dismissive act on the part of Jesus]. So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." And again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heart it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, "Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more."
Did you see how Jesus gets right to the heart of the pharisaical, hypocritical issue here? These men, because of the planks in their own eyes, couldn't see clearly enough to see the speck in the adulterous woman's eye. Which is really interesting when you think about it, because adultery is not small sin! But Jesus masterfully makes a statement that exposes the motives of these men when He said, " he who is without sin can cast the first stone."
Do you remember me saying last week in our definition of a critical spirit that a critical spirit is marked by a lack of a solution?
So what does all this mean for us this morning? A critical spirit is like a warning light on the dashboard of your car. When that little orange light comes on, you know there is something wrong under the hood. It may be that you are low on gas, or that it is about time to change the oil, or that you have a slow leak in your radiator and the engine is overheating - but the presence of the orange warning light means that something isn't right with the engine. That is what the presence of a critical spirit indicates. Either there is a a spirit of envy in the heart, or a spirit of pride that needs to be dealt with, or simply the presence of a hypocritical, judgmental attitude.
Whatever it may be, just understand two things. 1) It needs to be dealt with. You dare not let it go unchecked. And 2) remember that God takes the critical attitude seriously. He doesn't overlook it by saying, "Well, Michal was having hormonal issues, she'll feel better tomorrow." No, she was childless until the day of her death. He doesn't minimize the critical attitude by saying, "Miriam is really tired and has been stressed recently, she'll be more optimistic in another day or so." No, God struck her with leprosy and publicly chastised her. This is a serious matter in God's eyes.
And finally, let me challenge us to work together to deal with this matter. What I mean by that is, don't leave it up to your pastor to deal with critical attitudes! When somebody comes to you with that negative attitude and they haven't given any thought to a biblical or practical solution, would you stop them in their tracks? Remind them of what we talked about last week in spreading discord in the body. Remind them that they need to speak to the person who is the problem, or to the person who is a part of the solution to the problem. Another way you can help us work together on this is to get a copy of this message to those who weren't here last week or this morning. Now, do it in a gracious way. Don't hand the manuscript to them and say, "Here, you really need help with this. You're the most critical person I've ever met!" There are better ways to do it than that. But the idea is for all of us to get on board together with it so that we can be in a place where God will bless us.
James 4:1
Last week we were in Numbers 12 where we were looking at the danger of a critical spirit. In this passage we saw that Miriam and Aaron were "speaking against" Moses. The nature of their speaking against him doesn't seem all that bad, does it (something to do with his Cushite wife)? Yet it was significant enough in God's eyes that He responded to that criticism very strongly. One of the thoughts I had this past week is that this kind of response on God's part may seem foreign to us because of our growing up in the United States where "freedom of expression" is one of those inalienable rights that we hold so dearly.
There are two issues here that come into play. The first has to do with speaking against duly ordained authority, and the second has to do with spreading dissension. We developed the spreading dissension aspect by looking at Prov. 6:16-19 where we saw that "sowing discord among the brethren" is an "abomination" in God's eyes, but what about this matter of speaking against your authority?
How many of you have ever heard a sermon taken from 1 Sam. 24:1-7. This is the story of David and Saul when David is on the run. Saul wants to kill him because so many of the nation of Israel are enamored with David. And even thought the people of the nation want David to be king, and even though God has already chosen David to be the next king, and even though the prophet had anointed David to be the next king, Saul is king. As such, he is David's duly ordained authority, and as such, David has to live under Saul's authority and treat him with due respect.
Well, the opportunity comes up for David to kill Saul. Saul is asleep, and David sneaks into his camp, but instead of killing Saul, he humiliates him by cutting off a part of his robe. In this little scenario, David articulates a timeless principle. When his soldier says, "The Lord has delivered your enemy into you hand, kill him," David says, "I will not lift up my hand against the Lord's anointed."
That is the principle that was being violated when Miriam and Aaron "spoke against" Moses. And that is why God responded so strongly. He publicly, visibly, disciplined her for a prolonged period of time. And so the entire nation of Israel sat in neutral for a week while God dealt with Miriam.
Today, we are going to be looking at the roots of a critical spirit. In other words, the critical spirit is a surface issue, there is something beneath the surface we need to address. The critical spirit is a manifestation of something deeper. And it is silly to treat surface problems, right? We don't put band-aids on basal cell carcinomas, do we? We get out the scalpel and treat it conclusively.
So let's look at this passage in James 4:1 where we see the root of all sinful expressions, especially a critical spirit. "Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?" These two words, "wars" and "fights" refer to prolonged conflict, as well as smaller conflicts. They span the spectrum from armed conflict like we see all over the world, to the verbal conflicts that may have taken place on the way to church this morning! James is telling us that these things happen because in our heart, we have desires that are fighting for supremacy, or control.
"We want what we want, when we want it. And when we don't get it, bad stuff happens if the Spirit of God is not in control of my life."
Let's look at three heart issues that generate a critical spirit. The first is found in last week's text, Numbers 11 &12, where we see a spirit of envy in Miriam and Aaron. This spirit of envy isn't explicitly recorded for us, but when you look at the flow of these two chapters, you can see something interesting. Listen to this series of verses while I read them.
11:1 - Now when the people complained, it displeased the Lord, for the Lord hear it, and his anger was aroused. So the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp. Then the people cried out to Moses, and when Moses prayed, the fire was quenched."
11:16 - God gives Moses 70 assistants to help with the administration of the nation. "So the Lord said to Moses, "Gather to me 70 men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, bring them to the tabernacle of meeting, that they may stand there with you. Then I will come down and talk with you there. I will take of the Spirit that is upon you and will put the same upon them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone."
11:18 - when the people were complaining about not having meat to eat - "Then you shall say to the people, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat."
It is in the context of Moses stopping a plague simply by praying, and Moses providing meat for the nation simply by praying, and Moses having so much of the Spirit of God that he can share it with 70 other men who are going to help him with the nation, that we come to chapter 12:1 where we read, "Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses and said, 'Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses and not us also?" The envy is pretty obvious, isn't it?
Envy produces a critical spirit. I remember the first time I saw how this worked, and it was 43 years ago! I still remember it today! I was about 7 years old, and my older brother had just received his first shotgun, a .410, and I was so proud of him. In fact, I was so proud I immediately ran down the road to tell my friend Mark. And to this day I can still see Mark's face and hear his voice as he said, "I wouldn't have it." Even at that young age, I saw the dismissive contempt in his voice was really nothing more than envy. And that spirit of envy was producing a critical spirit.
What I have learned over the years is to look for envy at some level whenever I see a critical spirit. If it isn't envy driving the critical spirit, it's probably pride, which is what we see in our next source of a critical spirit. Look with me next at 1 Sam. 18:5-9.
"So David went out wherever Saul sent him, and behaved wisely. And Saul set him over the men of war, and he was accepted in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants. Now it had happened as they were coming home, when David was returning from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women had come out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy, and with musical instruments. So the women sang as they danced, and said: Saul has slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands." Then Saul was very angry, and the saying displeased him: and he said, "They have ascribed to David ten thousands and to me they have ascribed only thousands. Now what more can he have but the kingdom?" So Saul eyed David from that day forward.
Do you see how Saul's pride had been wounded? And what did that wounded pride generate in his heart? A critical spirit.
We see another example of this in the life of David in 2 Sam. 6. This is the story of David coming back to Jerusalem with the Ark of the Covenant, and he is so thrilled that the Ark is back in the Tabernacle that he sets aside his kingly decorum, and in verse 14 we read that, "David danced before the Lord with all his might, and David was wearing a linen ephod. 15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the trumpet. 16 Now as the ark of the Lord came into the city of David, Michal, Saul's daughter [who also happens to be David's wife], looked through a window and saw King David leaping and whirling before the Lord, and she despised him in her heart." How's that for a critical spirit? Now drop down to verse 20. "Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, "How glorious was the king of Israel today [just in case you can't see it, this is sarcasm], uncovering himself today in the eyes of the maids of his servants, as one of the base fellows shamelessly uncovers himself!"
Do you see how her wounded pride as generated a critical spirit? Her husband was the king, and in her estimation, the King doesn't take off his ephod and dance in the streets. That is what the "underclass" does (she uses the term "base fellows"). And as a side note, God severely chastises her. Look in verse 21. So David said to Michal, "It was before the Lord, who chose me instead of your father and all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel. Therefore I will play music before the Lord. And I will be even more undignified than this, and will be humble in my own sight. But as for the maidservants of whom you have spoken, bu them I will be held in honor. Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no children to the day of her death."
Do you see the pride that has been wounded, which in turn generates the critical spirit? It is no coincidence that proud, or arrogant people are also very critical people. We don't have time to look at it this morning, but spend some time this afternoon in Luke 7:36-50 where you have the story of the Pharisee Simon and the woman who anoints Jesus' feet. As Simon watches Jesus' interaction with this woman, you can hear his critical spirit as he says to himself, "This man, if he were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner."
The final heart issue that generates a critical spirit is a spirit of hypocrisy. For an illustration of this one, we are going to look into the New Testament, so let's look at Mt. 7:1-5.
"Judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me remove the speck from your eye, and look, a plank is in your own eye?" Hypocrite! First, remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
We see an example of this concept in action in the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8:2-11.
Now early in the morning He came again into the temple, and all the people came to Him, and He sat down and taught them. Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery [This is significant that it was the Scribes and Pharisees, two groups of religious leaders known for their hypocrisy]. And when they had set her in the midst [this is a public humiliation], they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses, in the law, commanded that such should be stoned, but what do you say?" This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear [I love this dismissive act on the part of Jesus]. So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first." And again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground. Then those who heart it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, "Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?" She said, "No one, Lord." And Jesus said to her, "Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more."
Did you see how Jesus gets right to the heart of the pharisaical, hypocritical issue here? These men, because of the planks in their own eyes, couldn't see clearly enough to see the speck in the adulterous woman's eye. Which is really interesting when you think about it, because adultery is not small sin! But Jesus masterfully makes a statement that exposes the motives of these men when He said, " he who is without sin can cast the first stone."
Do you remember me saying last week in our definition of a critical spirit that a critical spirit is marked by a lack of a solution?
So what does all this mean for us this morning? A critical spirit is like a warning light on the dashboard of your car. When that little orange light comes on, you know there is something wrong under the hood. It may be that you are low on gas, or that it is about time to change the oil, or that you have a slow leak in your radiator and the engine is overheating - but the presence of the orange warning light means that something isn't right with the engine. That is what the presence of a critical spirit indicates. Either there is a a spirit of envy in the heart, or a spirit of pride that needs to be dealt with, or simply the presence of a hypocritical, judgmental attitude.
Whatever it may be, just understand two things. 1) It needs to be dealt with. You dare not let it go unchecked. And 2) remember that God takes the critical attitude seriously. He doesn't overlook it by saying, "Well, Michal was having hormonal issues, she'll feel better tomorrow." No, she was childless until the day of her death. He doesn't minimize the critical attitude by saying, "Miriam is really tired and has been stressed recently, she'll be more optimistic in another day or so." No, God struck her with leprosy and publicly chastised her. This is a serious matter in God's eyes.
And finally, let me challenge us to work together to deal with this matter. What I mean by that is, don't leave it up to your pastor to deal with critical attitudes! When somebody comes to you with that negative attitude and they haven't given any thought to a biblical or practical solution, would you stop them in their tracks? Remind them of what we talked about last week in spreading discord in the body. Remind them that they need to speak to the person who is the problem, or to the person who is a part of the solution to the problem. Another way you can help us work together on this is to get a copy of this message to those who weren't here last week or this morning. Now, do it in a gracious way. Don't hand the manuscript to them and say, "Here, you really need help with this. You're the most critical person I've ever met!" There are better ways to do it than that. But the idea is for all of us to get on board together with it so that we can be in a place where God will bless us.
The Danger of a Critical Spirit
The Danger of A Critical Spirit
Num. 11
Several weeks ago we were studying the issue of contentment. I shared with you that as humans we have a tendency toward being discontent. It is part of our old nature, and when you grow up privileged, as we Americans have, this can really be a problem. We defined contentment as “a heart that was satisfied with Jesus because we could acknowledge His sufficient care for us in every realm; physical, emotional and spiritual.” This truth is taught repeatedly in the Bible. In 2 Pt. 1:3 we read that God’s “divine power hath given unto us all things concerning life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” In Phil. 4:19 we read, “And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” In 1 Pt. 5:7 we read that we can cast all our cares on Him because He cares for us. And the list goes on and on - contentment in this life is possible.
What I want to speak about this morning is on the other side of the coin, and that is the danger of a critical spirit. And just like this matter of discontent, a critical spirit comes to us naturally. We don't have to be taught how to gripe, do we? Your parents never sat you down and said, "Here's how to whine about the humidity." This ability comes to us at birth, so let’s start right in with a definition of a critical spirit. “A negative attitude that focuses on real or imagined faults with no thought toward a biblical or practical solution.” Let me repeat that. "A negative attitude that focuses on real or imagined faults, with no thought toward a biblical or practical solution."
There are several things I want to point out about this definition. First of all, note that a critical spirit isn’t limited to perceived problems. We can have a critical spirit about genuine, real problems. Another way of putting this is that the existence of an actual problem does not justify a critical spirit. For instance, we have a genuine problem with our church cleaning system. We used to pass a clip board but that can be disruptive, so we went to a voluntary signup sheet. But for a variety of reasons, no one was signing up. So the church either doesn’t get cleaned, or the same person cleans it week after week. So then we went back to sending the clip board around, but we usually only get one family per week to clean, which isn't optimal. This is an actual problem, not a perceived on. The church still does not get cleaned on some weekends. But just because this is a real problem doesn’t mean that we can harbor a critical spirit. We can't gripe about the leadership of the church, or the policies of the church, or anything else.
And this leads us to the second half of the definition. How do you know if your feelings about a situation are a critical spirit or “righteous indignation?” I mean, even Jesus himself got angry from time to time, right? It has to do with where you go with your feelings. This is what we see in the phrase, “with no thought toward a biblical / practical solution.” This is a critical distinction. A critical spirit focuses on the problem only! What separates griping / complaining / whining / critical spirit from legitimate concern is the presence of absence of a solution. So let me challenge you right here at the beginning of this message to learn how to evaluate your concerns and focus on solutions, not simply the airing of your grievances.
So with this introduction to a critical spirit, let’s go to the book of Numbers and look at an example of a critical spirit and God’s response to it. Let's read chapter 12 verses 1 - 16 together. What we are going to see in these verses are the effects of a critical spirit. Then, as we have time, we are going to go to some other Scriptures and look at the roots of a critical spirit, and finally we are going to see the cure for a critical spirit.
Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman) 2 and they said, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?” And the Lord heard it. 3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.) 4 And suddenly the Lord said to Moses and Aaron and to Miriam, “You three come out to the tent of meeting.” So the three of them came out. 5 Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the doorway of the tent, and He called Aaron and Miriam. When they had both come forward, 6 He said, “Hear now my words. If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, shall make Myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream. 7 Not so, with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my household; 8 with him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, and not in dark sayings, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses?” 9 So the anger of the Lord burned against them and He departed. 10 But when the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. As Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was leprous. 11 Then Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, I beg you, do not account this sin to us, in which we have acted foolishly and in which we have sinned. 12 “Oh, do not let her be like one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother’s womb!” 13 And Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “O God, heal her, I pray!” 14 But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut up for seven days outside the camp, and afterward she may be received again.” 15 So Miriam was shut up outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until Miriam was received again. 16 Afterward, however, the people moved out from Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.
In these verses, we see at least four effects of a critical spirit, so what I want to show you this morning is how a critical spirit can affect Cornerstone Baptist Church.
First of all, in verses 1 - 3, we see that a critical spirit separates us from our fellow Christians. Because of the envy Aaron and Miriam had toward Moses (and this is something we are going to develop further next week), there was division now between these family members. What is the purpose of the family? Turn with me to Prov. 17:17 where we see the answer. “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” That does not mean that brothers are born to fight with each other, it means that a family is supposed to be a cohesive unit so that when adversity comes, you aren’t facing it alone. These three siblings were the recognizable leaders of the nation. Moses and Aaron were a team, and Miriam was a prophetess, and now at this critical point in the history of the nation, the unity had been jeopardized. And had this division not been dealt with the consequences could have been disastrous. This is why Jesus said in Mt. 12:25 that “a house divided against itself will not stand.”
That is how a critical spirit works - it separates us from our fellow Christians. If you have a chronic critical spirit, nobody wants to be around you! You will find yourself becoming a very lonely person. From time to time you will find another critical spirit who will give you an ear, but generally speaking, nobody wants to hear it. Over the years I have met multiple people who have church all by themselves, in their living room, every Sunday morning. Why? Because their critical spirit has made it impossible for them to have any significant level of relationship with other Christians.
So the first effect of a critical spirit we see in these verses is that it separates us from our fellow Christians. The second effect is found in verses 4 – 9 where we see that a critical spirit separates us from fellowship with God. One of the things this passage alerts us to is that God is aware of a critical spirit. Did you catch that at the end of verse 2? “And the Lord heard it.” Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? Can you imagine how careful we would be in our conversations if God still worked this way today? God is the “unseen listener of every conversation,” and when He heard this critical spirit being expressed, He dealt with it strongly. Note especially in verse 9 where we read that the “anger of the Lord burned against them.” God was angry with them for their words about Moses.
When you are harboring a critical spirit, you can forget about having any kind of good relationship with God. Your fellowship with Him is gone, He isn’t going to be hearing and answering your prayers, He isn’t going to be communing with you through your Bible reading. The only thing you can expect in the relationship is to be “called out” (cf. vv. 4-5) and dealt with strongly. So in addition to a critical spirit affecting your relationship with other Christians, it also brings separation between you and God.
The third thing we see in this passage according to verses 10 - 15 is that a critical spirit brings serious consequences to the one practicing it. God struck Miriam with leprosy. This was a public, visible punishment. The entire nation was aware of it. It is similar to Paul’s advice to Timothy in 1 Tim. 5:20 that when you have a person in a place of leadership that continues in sin, he is to be “rebuked in the presence of all.” Why the public rebuke? “So that the rest also may be fearful of sinning.” That is the price of leadership, and as a leader in the nation, Miriam is publicly chastised by God.
This tells us that this matter is significant in God's eyes. It is no small thing to have a critical spirit! Please don’t dismiss these messages as “Murray is making mountains out of molehills again.” Let me share with you a very sobering passage from Proverbs. Turn with me to chapter 6, and let’s read verses 16 – 19. “There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife (discord)among brothers.”
Proportionately, there aren’t too many things in the Bible that are labeled as abominations in God’s eyes, so when an activity gets that label, we ought to pay attention to it! Few things spread strife among the brethren more effectively than a critical spirit!
And finally, note in verses 15 - 16 that a critical spirit hurts the progress, of others. Verse 15 says that “the people did not journey till Miriam was brought in again, and afterward, the people moved.” The entire nation of Israel had to sit there and wait until Miriam was done being disciplined by God before they could move on. For seven days, they were shut down and went no where. And what a sad reality it is that the entire nation, not just the guilty parties, suffered the consequences of Miriam and Aaron’s critical spirit.
So the four effects of a critical spirit are that a critical spirit separates us from our fellow Christians, it separates us from fellowship with God, it brings serious consequences to the one spreading the criticism, and a critical spirit hurts the progress of those around us. But what does all of this mean for us this morning? Let me give you several points of application.
• In a church setting, you are in the midst of sinful, selfish leaders; and sinful, selfish brothers and sisters in the Lord. Because of this reality, you aren’t going to have to look too hard to find problems. Some of them may be real problems, some of them may be perceived problems, but how are you going to deal with them? Are you going to harbor a critical spirit and spread dissension in the church, or are you going to deal with it in a biblical way?
• When you see a problem, deal with it the right way – don’t pull a Miriam and Aaron who spoke against the person they had the problem with. Let’s say that you don’t like how long I preach, or you don’t care for the music that Ray / Mary picks out for our choruses, or you think that some of the deacons are unqualified to be serving as deacons. How are you going to deal with problem? Well, keeping in mind our definition of a critical spirit let me give you two important reminders.
• There are only two people you can talk to in each of these situations: the person who has the problem (Murray, Ray / Mary, or the deacon), or a person who is a part of the solution to the problem. This is vital to keeping a critical spirit from spreading in the church. If you discuss your concern with anyone else in the church, and please hear me carefully here, you are demonstrating a critical spirit and spreading discord among the brethren, which God takes very seriously.
• The second thing to keep in mind is that what distinguishes a critical spirit and sowing discord from genuine concern is the presence or absence of a practical or biblical solution. Let me let you in on a little secret. I don’t need anyone telling me there are problems at Cornerstone Baptist Church. Do you know what I need? Proposed solutions. Do not talk to me about the sound system unless you are also prepared to talk with me about possible solutions. Make sense?
By way of conclusion, I want you to turn to Acts 20:28. Have you wondered why God dealt so severly with Miriam and Aaron? Or let me ask it this way. Was the punishment proportionate to the offense, or did God overreact (cf. how God dealt with the men making fun of Elisha)? The severity of the punishment tells us something. It tells us that God takes a critical spirit very seriously. Please understand that this is no small thing we are talking about this morning. And the reason He takes it so seriously is because of how precious the church is in His eyes. Look at the truth we see in Acts 20:28. “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood.” Think about this. This flawed church (your pastor, your deacons, your trustees, that person sitting next to you) that is so easy to have a critical spirit about is so precious in God’s estimation the God sent His Son Jesus to create it. And because of this, you don’t want to be found guilty of “messin’” with His church! Which is what a critical spirit does.
So let me leave you with this challenge this morning. If you have a problem with anything at Cornerstone Baptist Church, handle it in a way that is pleasing to God. The presence of problems is not a problem – that is a part of the human experience – how we handle them can be. We know how God feels about a critical spirit, and we know the effects of a critical spirit, so let’s each do our part in making sure we conduct ourselves in such a way as to generate God’s blessings on our church, not His judgment.
Num. 11
Several weeks ago we were studying the issue of contentment. I shared with you that as humans we have a tendency toward being discontent. It is part of our old nature, and when you grow up privileged, as we Americans have, this can really be a problem. We defined contentment as “a heart that was satisfied with Jesus because we could acknowledge His sufficient care for us in every realm; physical, emotional and spiritual.” This truth is taught repeatedly in the Bible. In 2 Pt. 1:3 we read that God’s “divine power hath given unto us all things concerning life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” In Phil. 4:19 we read, “And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” In 1 Pt. 5:7 we read that we can cast all our cares on Him because He cares for us. And the list goes on and on - contentment in this life is possible.
What I want to speak about this morning is on the other side of the coin, and that is the danger of a critical spirit. And just like this matter of discontent, a critical spirit comes to us naturally. We don't have to be taught how to gripe, do we? Your parents never sat you down and said, "Here's how to whine about the humidity." This ability comes to us at birth, so let’s start right in with a definition of a critical spirit. “A negative attitude that focuses on real or imagined faults with no thought toward a biblical or practical solution.” Let me repeat that. "A negative attitude that focuses on real or imagined faults, with no thought toward a biblical or practical solution."
There are several things I want to point out about this definition. First of all, note that a critical spirit isn’t limited to perceived problems. We can have a critical spirit about genuine, real problems. Another way of putting this is that the existence of an actual problem does not justify a critical spirit. For instance, we have a genuine problem with our church cleaning system. We used to pass a clip board but that can be disruptive, so we went to a voluntary signup sheet. But for a variety of reasons, no one was signing up. So the church either doesn’t get cleaned, or the same person cleans it week after week. So then we went back to sending the clip board around, but we usually only get one family per week to clean, which isn't optimal. This is an actual problem, not a perceived on. The church still does not get cleaned on some weekends. But just because this is a real problem doesn’t mean that we can harbor a critical spirit. We can't gripe about the leadership of the church, or the policies of the church, or anything else.
And this leads us to the second half of the definition. How do you know if your feelings about a situation are a critical spirit or “righteous indignation?” I mean, even Jesus himself got angry from time to time, right? It has to do with where you go with your feelings. This is what we see in the phrase, “with no thought toward a biblical / practical solution.” This is a critical distinction. A critical spirit focuses on the problem only! What separates griping / complaining / whining / critical spirit from legitimate concern is the presence of absence of a solution. So let me challenge you right here at the beginning of this message to learn how to evaluate your concerns and focus on solutions, not simply the airing of your grievances.
So with this introduction to a critical spirit, let’s go to the book of Numbers and look at an example of a critical spirit and God’s response to it. Let's read chapter 12 verses 1 - 16 together. What we are going to see in these verses are the effects of a critical spirit. Then, as we have time, we are going to go to some other Scriptures and look at the roots of a critical spirit, and finally we are going to see the cure for a critical spirit.
Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had married a Cushite woman) 2 and they said, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?” And the Lord heard it. 3 (Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.) 4 And suddenly the Lord said to Moses and Aaron and to Miriam, “You three come out to the tent of meeting.” So the three of them came out. 5 Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the doorway of the tent, and He called Aaron and Miriam. When they had both come forward, 6 He said, “Hear now my words. If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, shall make Myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream. 7 Not so, with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my household; 8 with him I speak mouth to mouth, even openly, and not in dark sayings, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant, against Moses?” 9 So the anger of the Lord burned against them and He departed. 10 But when the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. As Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was leprous. 11 Then Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, I beg you, do not account this sin to us, in which we have acted foolishly and in which we have sinned. 12 “Oh, do not let her be like one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother’s womb!” 13 And Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “O God, heal her, I pray!” 14 But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut up for seven days outside the camp, and afterward she may be received again.” 15 So Miriam was shut up outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until Miriam was received again. 16 Afterward, however, the people moved out from Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.
In these verses, we see at least four effects of a critical spirit, so what I want to show you this morning is how a critical spirit can affect Cornerstone Baptist Church.
First of all, in verses 1 - 3, we see that a critical spirit separates us from our fellow Christians. Because of the envy Aaron and Miriam had toward Moses (and this is something we are going to develop further next week), there was division now between these family members. What is the purpose of the family? Turn with me to Prov. 17:17 where we see the answer. “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” That does not mean that brothers are born to fight with each other, it means that a family is supposed to be a cohesive unit so that when adversity comes, you aren’t facing it alone. These three siblings were the recognizable leaders of the nation. Moses and Aaron were a team, and Miriam was a prophetess, and now at this critical point in the history of the nation, the unity had been jeopardized. And had this division not been dealt with the consequences could have been disastrous. This is why Jesus said in Mt. 12:25 that “a house divided against itself will not stand.”
That is how a critical spirit works - it separates us from our fellow Christians. If you have a chronic critical spirit, nobody wants to be around you! You will find yourself becoming a very lonely person. From time to time you will find another critical spirit who will give you an ear, but generally speaking, nobody wants to hear it. Over the years I have met multiple people who have church all by themselves, in their living room, every Sunday morning. Why? Because their critical spirit has made it impossible for them to have any significant level of relationship with other Christians.
So the first effect of a critical spirit we see in these verses is that it separates us from our fellow Christians. The second effect is found in verses 4 – 9 where we see that a critical spirit separates us from fellowship with God. One of the things this passage alerts us to is that God is aware of a critical spirit. Did you catch that at the end of verse 2? “And the Lord heard it.” Sounds ominous, doesn’t it? Can you imagine how careful we would be in our conversations if God still worked this way today? God is the “unseen listener of every conversation,” and when He heard this critical spirit being expressed, He dealt with it strongly. Note especially in verse 9 where we read that the “anger of the Lord burned against them.” God was angry with them for their words about Moses.
When you are harboring a critical spirit, you can forget about having any kind of good relationship with God. Your fellowship with Him is gone, He isn’t going to be hearing and answering your prayers, He isn’t going to be communing with you through your Bible reading. The only thing you can expect in the relationship is to be “called out” (cf. vv. 4-5) and dealt with strongly. So in addition to a critical spirit affecting your relationship with other Christians, it also brings separation between you and God.
The third thing we see in this passage according to verses 10 - 15 is that a critical spirit brings serious consequences to the one practicing it. God struck Miriam with leprosy. This was a public, visible punishment. The entire nation was aware of it. It is similar to Paul’s advice to Timothy in 1 Tim. 5:20 that when you have a person in a place of leadership that continues in sin, he is to be “rebuked in the presence of all.” Why the public rebuke? “So that the rest also may be fearful of sinning.” That is the price of leadership, and as a leader in the nation, Miriam is publicly chastised by God.
This tells us that this matter is significant in God's eyes. It is no small thing to have a critical spirit! Please don’t dismiss these messages as “Murray is making mountains out of molehills again.” Let me share with you a very sobering passage from Proverbs. Turn with me to chapter 6, and let’s read verses 16 – 19. “There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, a false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife (discord)among brothers.”
Proportionately, there aren’t too many things in the Bible that are labeled as abominations in God’s eyes, so when an activity gets that label, we ought to pay attention to it! Few things spread strife among the brethren more effectively than a critical spirit!
And finally, note in verses 15 - 16 that a critical spirit hurts the progress, of others. Verse 15 says that “the people did not journey till Miriam was brought in again, and afterward, the people moved.” The entire nation of Israel had to sit there and wait until Miriam was done being disciplined by God before they could move on. For seven days, they were shut down and went no where. And what a sad reality it is that the entire nation, not just the guilty parties, suffered the consequences of Miriam and Aaron’s critical spirit.
So the four effects of a critical spirit are that a critical spirit separates us from our fellow Christians, it separates us from fellowship with God, it brings serious consequences to the one spreading the criticism, and a critical spirit hurts the progress of those around us. But what does all of this mean for us this morning? Let me give you several points of application.
• In a church setting, you are in the midst of sinful, selfish leaders; and sinful, selfish brothers and sisters in the Lord. Because of this reality, you aren’t going to have to look too hard to find problems. Some of them may be real problems, some of them may be perceived problems, but how are you going to deal with them? Are you going to harbor a critical spirit and spread dissension in the church, or are you going to deal with it in a biblical way?
• When you see a problem, deal with it the right way – don’t pull a Miriam and Aaron who spoke against the person they had the problem with. Let’s say that you don’t like how long I preach, or you don’t care for the music that Ray / Mary picks out for our choruses, or you think that some of the deacons are unqualified to be serving as deacons. How are you going to deal with problem? Well, keeping in mind our definition of a critical spirit let me give you two important reminders.
• There are only two people you can talk to in each of these situations: the person who has the problem (Murray, Ray / Mary, or the deacon), or a person who is a part of the solution to the problem. This is vital to keeping a critical spirit from spreading in the church. If you discuss your concern with anyone else in the church, and please hear me carefully here, you are demonstrating a critical spirit and spreading discord among the brethren, which God takes very seriously.
• The second thing to keep in mind is that what distinguishes a critical spirit and sowing discord from genuine concern is the presence or absence of a practical or biblical solution. Let me let you in on a little secret. I don’t need anyone telling me there are problems at Cornerstone Baptist Church. Do you know what I need? Proposed solutions. Do not talk to me about the sound system unless you are also prepared to talk with me about possible solutions. Make sense?
By way of conclusion, I want you to turn to Acts 20:28. Have you wondered why God dealt so severly with Miriam and Aaron? Or let me ask it this way. Was the punishment proportionate to the offense, or did God overreact (cf. how God dealt with the men making fun of Elisha)? The severity of the punishment tells us something. It tells us that God takes a critical spirit very seriously. Please understand that this is no small thing we are talking about this morning. And the reason He takes it so seriously is because of how precious the church is in His eyes. Look at the truth we see in Acts 20:28. “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood.” Think about this. This flawed church (your pastor, your deacons, your trustees, that person sitting next to you) that is so easy to have a critical spirit about is so precious in God’s estimation the God sent His Son Jesus to create it. And because of this, you don’t want to be found guilty of “messin’” with His church! Which is what a critical spirit does.
So let me leave you with this challenge this morning. If you have a problem with anything at Cornerstone Baptist Church, handle it in a way that is pleasing to God. The presence of problems is not a problem – that is a part of the human experience – how we handle them can be. We know how God feels about a critical spirit, and we know the effects of a critical spirit, so let’s each do our part in making sure we conduct ourselves in such a way as to generate God’s blessings on our church, not His judgment.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Loving the Unlovely
Loving The Unlovely
Phil. 2:1-11
One of the hallmarks of true Christianity is the ability Christ gives his followers to love the unlovely. Something that sets Christianity apart from the other world religions is the Jesus fueled capacity to treat others the way we want to be treated. There is a reason why the caste system still operates in India today, and it is connected to Hinduism.1 One of the closely guarded secrets of our day is the prevalence of the sex trade in fundamentalists Islamic countries. Why is it that a country like Iran, that will stone a teenage girl to death for walking down the road holding her boyfriend‘s hand, has seen a 635% increase in legalized prostitution in the years it has been in power? Why is it that in Tehran you can find over 200 houses of prostitution with over 80,000 prostitutes working the streets? Why is it that the head of Iran‘s Interpol bureau believes that the sex trade is one of Iran‘s most profitable activities?2 It has to do with Islam‘s view of women. There is a reason why the slave trade is flourishing in Islamic countries, and it has to do with their belief system.3
Contrast this with the influence Christianity has had over the years. Who was the driving force behind the abolition of slavery in England? William Wilberforce. Was he just a social ―do-gooder,‖ was he a wealthy philanthropist who had a soft heart, or was there something more important driving him? There was something more compelling him to stand up for the dignity of all men, and it was his commitment to Christ. Wilberforce came to Christ for salvation under the ministry of John Wesley, and in fact, the last letter Wesley ever wrote was to Wilberforce encouraging him to carry on in his work.
John Piper writes of Wilberforce like this. ‗What made Wilberforce tick was a profound Biblical allegiance to what he called the ―peculiar doctrines‖ of Christianity. These, he said, give rise, in turn, to true affections—what we might call ―passion‖ or ―emotions‖—for spiritual things, which, in turn, break the power of pride and greed and fear, and then lead to transformed morals which, in turn, lead to the political welfare of the nation. He said, ―If … a principle of true Religion [i.e., true Christianity] should … gain ground, there is no estimating the effects on public morals, and the consequent influence on our political welfare.‖‘
Wilberforce wasn‘t the only reason behind the abolition of slavery. Thomas Sowell says, ―The anti-slavery movement was spearheaded by people who would today be called ―the religious right‖ and its organization was created by conservative businessmen. Moreover, what destroyed slavery in the non-Western world was Western imperialism. Nothing could be more jolting and discordant with the vision of today‘s intellectuals than the fact that it was businessmen, devout religious leaders and Western imperialists who together destroyed slavery around the world.‖4
The reason Christianity operates this way is because of its founder, Jesus Christ, and we see the example he set in Phil. 2:1-11. Read these verses along with me.
If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, 2 make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself (do you see how this flies in the face of other world religions?); 4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Note the example Jesus sets for us as his followers:
1. He left a place of comfort and honor to go to a place of privation and derision. Think about what it would be like for you to leave your life and all its creature comforts and move to the Sudan. Now, multiply that by several thousand times and you see what Jesus had to go through to leave heaven and live on earth!
2. He associated himself primarily with the working class, the socially marginalized, and even the outcasts. He certainly didn‘t receive the royal treatment when he got here.
3. He focused ministry on the receptive needy, not the affluent indifferent. Jesus seemed to focus his ministry on those people who didn‘t have the capacity to reciprocate. What a difference between the groups of people Jesus targeted for ministry and the people most church planters target for establishing new churches.
The point I am making here is that Jesus sets the example for us emptying ourselves, crossing social barriers and loving the unlovely. This example runs 180 degrees opposite to our human nature.
Sociologists have a term called the ―homogeneity principle.‖ In a nutshell, it says that human beings like to hang out with other people just like them. The statistic is that you can go to any group of humans on the globe (e.g., a volunteer fire company, a local church, a bar, a neighborhood, a health club) and you will find that 80% of the people in the group are just like each other in three categories: their level of education, their level of income, and their ethnicity. 10% of the people in that group will be lower than the rest, and 10% will be higher than the rest. What this tells us about human nature is that we like to be with other people who are just like us!
But the example Jesus sets for us compels us to do things that are contrary to human leanings, and history is full of examples. If you‘d like to do an interesting study, look into the life of Father Damien, a catholic priest who ministered to the lepers of Hawaii. He ended up contracting the dreaded disease and eventually died as a result of his leprosy. But his Christianity compelled him to love the unlovely. Think of the Moravian men who sold themselves into slavery so they could be shipped to the islands to work on the sugar cane plantations, and minister to the slaves there.
There is a movie currently out called Of Gods and Men, and it is a great illustration of this point. It is the true story of a group of monks living in a monastery in Islamic Algeria during the 1990‘s when there was a bloody civil war. They have to decide if they want to leave or stay with their community when that community comes under threat by militant Islamic terrorists. They stay, because that is what followers of Christ do. When the mayor of the village offers to station government troops at the monastery for their protection, they decline the offer, and sure enough, seven of them get kidnapped by the terrorists, and they are found two months later, beheaded. Sometimes that is where following the example of Jesus will lead you. It‘s certainly where Jesus ended up.
I think of all the orphanages that were established by Christians meeting practical needs of society. Think of all the hospitals that were founded for the same purpose. Think of the social programs churches used to run that provided food, shelter, education, and clothing for the destitute. It all has to do with following the example Jesus set of ministering to the needy. And when the church relinquished its responsibility in these areas and gave them to the government, poverty exploded, the cost of health care exploded, and the cost of social services exploded, and the cost of adoptions exploded. What is the connection?
The connection is that when the motive for each of these changed from selfless ministry in the name of Christ to revenue producing enterprises, the cost of these activities exploded. It shouldn‘t cost $20,000.00 to adopt a baby from Russia, but why does it? Because adoption agencies aren‘t serving Christ, they are generating revenue. It shouldn‘t cost $24,000.00 for an appendectomy, but it does. Why? Because hospitals aren‘t in the business of Christian, physical compassion anymore, they have boards of directors to answer to and have to show a profit. It shouldn‘t cost $99 billion to take care of poverty in America, but it does. Why? Because welfare is big business.
Are you starting to see the difference Christ makes in practical ways? Jesus set the standard when he left his place of comfort and went to a place of deprivation, when he associated himself with the socially ostracized, and when he focused ministry on the needy who couldn‘t minister back to him. And there are times when Jesus calls on us to follow Him in this manner. So I‘d like Shaun to come up at this time and share with us his testimony of where he spent last weekend, because it is a perfect illustration of being obedient to the call of Jesus.
I want to end our study about loving the unlovely with a powerful passage in Luke 6. It is found in verses 31 – 35.
31 "And just as you want people to treat you, treat them in the same way. 32 "And if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.33 "And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 "And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, in order to receive back the same amount. 35 "But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.
Do you see the difference between ministering to those who have the capacity to reciprocate, and ministry to those who can‘t reciprocate? Ministry to those who can minister back isn‘t wrong, it‘s legitimate ministry. But that isn‘t what distinguishes a follower of Christ – even unsaved people do that. What makes us stand out is our willingness to
love the unlovely,
do good to the ungrateful, and
lend without any expectation of return.
The promise of Jesus is that if we will do that, our reward will be great, we will be demonstrating that we are sons of God, and we will be truly following the example of Jesus.
Footnotes:
1 http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/dharmadata/fdd53.htm
2 A measure of Islamic fundamentalists‘ success in controlling society is the depth and totality with which they suppress the freedom and rights of women. In Iran for 25 years, the ruling mullahs have enforced humiliating and sadistic rules and punishments on women and girls, enslaving them in a gender apartheid system of segregation, forced veiling, second-class status, lashing, and stoning to death. Joining a global trend, the fundamentalists have added another way to dehumanize women and girls: buying and selling them for prostitution. Exact numbers of victims are impossible to obtain, but according to an official source in Tehran, there has been a 635 percent increase in the number of teenage girls in prostitution. The magnitude of this statistic conveys how rapidly this form of abuse has grown. In Tehran, there are an estimated 84,000 women and girls in prostitution, many of them are on the streets, others are in the 250 brothels that reportedly operate in the city. The trade is also international: thousands of Iranian women and girls have been sold into sexual slavery abroad. The head of Iran‘s Interpol bureau believes that the sex slave trade is one of the most profitable activities in Iran today. This criminal trade is not conducted outside the knowledge and participation of the ruling fundamentalists. Government officials themselves are involved in buying, selling, and sexually abusing women and girls. http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/iran_sex_slave_trade
3 Tragically, Muslims are still enslaving blacks today in Africa. African-American economist Dr Walter Williams of George Mason University writes in Black Slavery is Alive in 2001:‗Slavery in the Sudan is in part a result of a 15-year war by the Muslim north against the black Christian and animist south. Arab militias, armed by the Khartoum government, raid villages, mostly those of the Dinka tribe. They shoot the men and enslave the women and children. Women and children are kept as personal property or they‘re taken north and auctioned off. http://creation.com/anti-slavery-activist-william-wilberforce-christian-hero
4 http://creation.com/anti-slavery-activist-william-wilberforce-christian-hero
Phil. 2:1-11
One of the hallmarks of true Christianity is the ability Christ gives his followers to love the unlovely. Something that sets Christianity apart from the other world religions is the Jesus fueled capacity to treat others the way we want to be treated. There is a reason why the caste system still operates in India today, and it is connected to Hinduism.1 One of the closely guarded secrets of our day is the prevalence of the sex trade in fundamentalists Islamic countries. Why is it that a country like Iran, that will stone a teenage girl to death for walking down the road holding her boyfriend‘s hand, has seen a 635% increase in legalized prostitution in the years it has been in power? Why is it that in Tehran you can find over 200 houses of prostitution with over 80,000 prostitutes working the streets? Why is it that the head of Iran‘s Interpol bureau believes that the sex trade is one of Iran‘s most profitable activities?2 It has to do with Islam‘s view of women. There is a reason why the slave trade is flourishing in Islamic countries, and it has to do with their belief system.3
Contrast this with the influence Christianity has had over the years. Who was the driving force behind the abolition of slavery in England? William Wilberforce. Was he just a social ―do-gooder,‖ was he a wealthy philanthropist who had a soft heart, or was there something more important driving him? There was something more compelling him to stand up for the dignity of all men, and it was his commitment to Christ. Wilberforce came to Christ for salvation under the ministry of John Wesley, and in fact, the last letter Wesley ever wrote was to Wilberforce encouraging him to carry on in his work.
John Piper writes of Wilberforce like this. ‗What made Wilberforce tick was a profound Biblical allegiance to what he called the ―peculiar doctrines‖ of Christianity. These, he said, give rise, in turn, to true affections—what we might call ―passion‖ or ―emotions‖—for spiritual things, which, in turn, break the power of pride and greed and fear, and then lead to transformed morals which, in turn, lead to the political welfare of the nation. He said, ―If … a principle of true Religion [i.e., true Christianity] should … gain ground, there is no estimating the effects on public morals, and the consequent influence on our political welfare.‖‘
Wilberforce wasn‘t the only reason behind the abolition of slavery. Thomas Sowell says, ―The anti-slavery movement was spearheaded by people who would today be called ―the religious right‖ and its organization was created by conservative businessmen. Moreover, what destroyed slavery in the non-Western world was Western imperialism. Nothing could be more jolting and discordant with the vision of today‘s intellectuals than the fact that it was businessmen, devout religious leaders and Western imperialists who together destroyed slavery around the world.‖4
The reason Christianity operates this way is because of its founder, Jesus Christ, and we see the example he set in Phil. 2:1-11. Read these verses along with me.
If therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, 2 make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself (do you see how this flies in the face of other world religions?); 4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Note the example Jesus sets for us as his followers:
1. He left a place of comfort and honor to go to a place of privation and derision. Think about what it would be like for you to leave your life and all its creature comforts and move to the Sudan. Now, multiply that by several thousand times and you see what Jesus had to go through to leave heaven and live on earth!
2. He associated himself primarily with the working class, the socially marginalized, and even the outcasts. He certainly didn‘t receive the royal treatment when he got here.
3. He focused ministry on the receptive needy, not the affluent indifferent. Jesus seemed to focus his ministry on those people who didn‘t have the capacity to reciprocate. What a difference between the groups of people Jesus targeted for ministry and the people most church planters target for establishing new churches.
The point I am making here is that Jesus sets the example for us emptying ourselves, crossing social barriers and loving the unlovely. This example runs 180 degrees opposite to our human nature.
Sociologists have a term called the ―homogeneity principle.‖ In a nutshell, it says that human beings like to hang out with other people just like them. The statistic is that you can go to any group of humans on the globe (e.g., a volunteer fire company, a local church, a bar, a neighborhood, a health club) and you will find that 80% of the people in the group are just like each other in three categories: their level of education, their level of income, and their ethnicity. 10% of the people in that group will be lower than the rest, and 10% will be higher than the rest. What this tells us about human nature is that we like to be with other people who are just like us!
But the example Jesus sets for us compels us to do things that are contrary to human leanings, and history is full of examples. If you‘d like to do an interesting study, look into the life of Father Damien, a catholic priest who ministered to the lepers of Hawaii. He ended up contracting the dreaded disease and eventually died as a result of his leprosy. But his Christianity compelled him to love the unlovely. Think of the Moravian men who sold themselves into slavery so they could be shipped to the islands to work on the sugar cane plantations, and minister to the slaves there.
There is a movie currently out called Of Gods and Men, and it is a great illustration of this point. It is the true story of a group of monks living in a monastery in Islamic Algeria during the 1990‘s when there was a bloody civil war. They have to decide if they want to leave or stay with their community when that community comes under threat by militant Islamic terrorists. They stay, because that is what followers of Christ do. When the mayor of the village offers to station government troops at the monastery for their protection, they decline the offer, and sure enough, seven of them get kidnapped by the terrorists, and they are found two months later, beheaded. Sometimes that is where following the example of Jesus will lead you. It‘s certainly where Jesus ended up.
I think of all the orphanages that were established by Christians meeting practical needs of society. Think of all the hospitals that were founded for the same purpose. Think of the social programs churches used to run that provided food, shelter, education, and clothing for the destitute. It all has to do with following the example Jesus set of ministering to the needy. And when the church relinquished its responsibility in these areas and gave them to the government, poverty exploded, the cost of health care exploded, and the cost of social services exploded, and the cost of adoptions exploded. What is the connection?
The connection is that when the motive for each of these changed from selfless ministry in the name of Christ to revenue producing enterprises, the cost of these activities exploded. It shouldn‘t cost $20,000.00 to adopt a baby from Russia, but why does it? Because adoption agencies aren‘t serving Christ, they are generating revenue. It shouldn‘t cost $24,000.00 for an appendectomy, but it does. Why? Because hospitals aren‘t in the business of Christian, physical compassion anymore, they have boards of directors to answer to and have to show a profit. It shouldn‘t cost $99 billion to take care of poverty in America, but it does. Why? Because welfare is big business.
Are you starting to see the difference Christ makes in practical ways? Jesus set the standard when he left his place of comfort and went to a place of deprivation, when he associated himself with the socially ostracized, and when he focused ministry on the needy who couldn‘t minister back to him. And there are times when Jesus calls on us to follow Him in this manner. So I‘d like Shaun to come up at this time and share with us his testimony of where he spent last weekend, because it is a perfect illustration of being obedient to the call of Jesus.
I want to end our study about loving the unlovely with a powerful passage in Luke 6. It is found in verses 31 – 35.
31 "And just as you want people to treat you, treat them in the same way. 32 "And if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.33 "And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 "And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, in order to receive back the same amount. 35 "But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.
Do you see the difference between ministering to those who have the capacity to reciprocate, and ministry to those who can‘t reciprocate? Ministry to those who can minister back isn‘t wrong, it‘s legitimate ministry. But that isn‘t what distinguishes a follower of Christ – even unsaved people do that. What makes us stand out is our willingness to
love the unlovely,
do good to the ungrateful, and
lend without any expectation of return.
The promise of Jesus is that if we will do that, our reward will be great, we will be demonstrating that we are sons of God, and we will be truly following the example of Jesus.
Footnotes:
1 http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/dharmadata/fdd53.htm
2 A measure of Islamic fundamentalists‘ success in controlling society is the depth and totality with which they suppress the freedom and rights of women. In Iran for 25 years, the ruling mullahs have enforced humiliating and sadistic rules and punishments on women and girls, enslaving them in a gender apartheid system of segregation, forced veiling, second-class status, lashing, and stoning to death. Joining a global trend, the fundamentalists have added another way to dehumanize women and girls: buying and selling them for prostitution. Exact numbers of victims are impossible to obtain, but according to an official source in Tehran, there has been a 635 percent increase in the number of teenage girls in prostitution. The magnitude of this statistic conveys how rapidly this form of abuse has grown. In Tehran, there are an estimated 84,000 women and girls in prostitution, many of them are on the streets, others are in the 250 brothels that reportedly operate in the city. The trade is also international: thousands of Iranian women and girls have been sold into sexual slavery abroad. The head of Iran‘s Interpol bureau believes that the sex slave trade is one of the most profitable activities in Iran today. This criminal trade is not conducted outside the knowledge and participation of the ruling fundamentalists. Government officials themselves are involved in buying, selling, and sexually abusing women and girls. http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/iran_sex_slave_trade
3 Tragically, Muslims are still enslaving blacks today in Africa. African-American economist Dr Walter Williams of George Mason University writes in Black Slavery is Alive in 2001:‗Slavery in the Sudan is in part a result of a 15-year war by the Muslim north against the black Christian and animist south. Arab militias, armed by the Khartoum government, raid villages, mostly those of the Dinka tribe. They shoot the men and enslave the women and children. Women and children are kept as personal property or they‘re taken north and auctioned off. http://creation.com/anti-slavery-activist-william-wilberforce-christian-hero
4 http://creation.com/anti-slavery-activist-william-wilberforce-christian-hero
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Clean and Unclean - Part Two
Studies in Leviticus
Clean and Unclean – Part 2
Lev. 11 - 15
I‟d like you to turn in your Bible this morning to Lev. 11:44. Two weeks ago we were in Lev. 11 – 15, and we started to consider the concepts of “clean” and “unclean” in the life of Israel. We saw that things that were “clean” were acceptable to God, and the things that were “unclean” were unacceptable to God. It really is a very simple concept. Sometimes you had control over being clean or unclean, and sometimes you didn‟t. These five chapters deal with food, skin disease, bodily discharges, mildew, and procreation. We ended our survey of these chapters here in Lev. 11:44 where I shared with you God’s rationale and Israel’s response. The thinking behind these guidelines, stated generally, is that the God who created the nation of Israel and delivered them from bondage in Egypt had the unequivocal right to regulate their lives as He saw fit. When you are the creator and deliverer, that is your prerogative! We see this in the phrase, “For I am the Lord your God.” The response on the part of Israel is seen in the next phrase, “Consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am holy.” They were to separate themselves from their surroundings (the concept behind “consecration”) so they could be in fellowship with God.
This concept of separation from our surroundings lies at the heart of our memory passage, so let‟s say it again before we start to make some practical application from these five chapters.
“Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, „Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, „I am the LORD your God. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live in accord with them; I am the LORD your God. So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.‟”
What I want to do this morning is go a little further and show you that there is more going on here than God simply doing whatever He wants to with His people. There is more here than some autocrat exercising the whims of his power. So let me give you four secondary purposes behind the laws of the clean and the unclean.
1. God was building a barrier between His people and the surrounding cultures.
As I mentioned several weeks ago, if a person practiced these stipulations rigorously, it would be impossible for him to have any significant level of relationship with the surrounding nations. Why?
A. Because of the very limited diet. The nations around Israel did not have such a structured diet, so an Israelite was running the risk of contaminating himself any time he accepted an invitation to have a meal with someone of the surrounding nations. Take for instance the coney, or rock badger. It was a delicacy in that part of the world, and could easily be a meat the Canaanites would serve if they were having a guest over for a meal. But the Israelites couldn‟t eat them. Their limited diet served as a barrier between them and their surrounding cultures.
B. Because their cleanliness could so easily be compromised. Any time an Israelite touched something that had been touched by something unclean, he himself became unclean. Remember the point I made about how uncleanliness could be spread to inanimate objects as well as other people. If you had an open sore on your body and were under observation by the priest, if you sat on a stool, that stool became unclean. And if someone in your family came along and sat on that stool, he himself became unclean for the rest of the day. So the chances are very high that if you visited the home of your Canaanite neighbor or spent time shopping in their marketplace, you would become unclean.
C. Because of the public nature of being unclean. When you were unclean, basically everybody around you knew it. It was hard to keep it a secret. You were forbidden from tabernacle activities. In some cases you had to verbally announce your uncleanness. In some cases you were physically separated from the entire nation for observation. If you were sensitive to those around you were very cautious not to spread your state of being unclean. Do you see how this point would restrict your contact with the nations around you?
So the first thing God was doing with these guidelines was creating a barrier between His people and the surrounding nations. The next thing God was doing, which is very significant, maybe even the most significant, is that He was demonstrating the impossibility of holiness through human effort.
2. God was demonstrating the impossibility of holiness through human effort.
Probably the most startling dimension of this concept of cleanliness is the reality that the people of Israel were incapable of maintaining lasting fellowship with God. Look with me at 14:33 where we see a very interesting verse that illustrates this. “The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, „When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession and I put a case of leprous disease in a house in the land of your possession, then he who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, „There seems to me to be some case of disease in my house.‟” Did you catch the significance of that? It was possible for you to be doing everything you were supposed to to maintain fellowship with God, and then bam! Here‟s mildew in the house, everything in the house is unclean, and because I have touched it, now I‟m unclean. And my separation from God is not because of something I have done, it is because God has put a case of the leprous disease in my house.
Last week I shared with you that normal, bodily functions made you unclean. In certain instances, obedience to God‟s expectations made you unclean. I want us to appreciate the reality of this situation because if you disobey, you are separated from God, and if you obey, you are separated as well. What‟s the deal with that? God was sending a very powerful message, and then illustrating it physically, that holiness by human effort is impossible. The nation of Israel couldn‟t do it 4,000 years ago no matter how hard they tried, and we can‟t do it today either!
So we see that God is doing some very important things with these rules for cleanliness and uncleanliness. He is building a barrier between His people and the cultures around them, and He was showing them that holiness through human effort was impossible. The third thing I want to show you this morning is that God was instilling in his people a profound reverence for human life.
3. God was instilling in His people a profound reverence for human life.
I‟ve spent quite a bit of time over the last month meditating on Lev. 12 which deals with childbirth, and Lev. 15, which in part deals with procreation. As I expressed several weeks ago, I was struggling with why something that was created by God, and ordained by God as holy, and blessed by God - would put you into a state of dis-fellowship with God. The immediate answer that came to me I shared with you – conception and birth brings another sinner into the world. So I understood the childbirth part, but what about the other parts in chapter 15 that deal with male emissions and female cycles and the consequences of marital intimacy?
To understand what is going on here, we need to contrast the culture of Lev. 15 with the culture of the evangelical church. From our perspective, marital intimacy is viewed primarily from the perspective of pleasure. It is a God ordained activity that is the pinnacle of the human sensory experience, and we need to appreciate that God created us this way deliberately. He could have created us in such a way that the female of the species went into estrus, and the male of the species could sense that. But we aren‟t animals, God created us differently, and we are right to perceive this as God‟s gracious gift to us as humans. But what we evangelicals have lost, though, is the procreative potential that accompanies that intimacy. By embracing the concept of contraception, we have inadvertently downplayed the primary purpose of our sexuality. We like the idea of conception, but only on our terms! In other words, if the mother‟s health is conducive to it, or if the house is large enough, or if the family income is sufficient, or if the father has health insurance, or if we don‟t already have several children – then we like the idea of conception.
Contrast that perspective with Lev. 15. In Israel‟s culture, every single dimension of conception, both male and female, both married and single, was marked by one day of being unclean! Why? Because it is a God thing. Every single month, each woman of childbearing age spent a week reflecting on God‟s role in conception. Every time a husband and wife were intimate, they both spent a day contemplating the spiritual dimension of conception. It was impossible in Israel‟s culture to separate marital intimacy from the potential for human life. This is why Judaism as a culture has a profound respect for life, as these statistics show. In the US,
Women identifying themselves as Protestants obtain 37.4% of all abortions,
Catholic women account for 31.3%,
Women with no religious affiliation obtain 23.7%,
18% of all abortions are performed on women who identify themselves as "Born-again/Evangelical," and
Jewish women account for 1.3% of all abortions.
This is why I say that the rules of clean and unclean created in Israel a profound reverence for human life.
The final thing I want to show you about these rules guiding what is clean and unclean I am saving for last on purpose, because it really is the least significant of these four points. And that is that God was protecting the physical well-being of His people.
4. God was protecting the physical well-being of His people.
As you read these chapters, you can‟t help but notice that something in the physical realm was taking place. What kind of animals were they prohibited from eating? Generally speaking, bottom feeding, scavenging, and predatory animals. In other words, those animals who were at risk for disease because of their own diets. And if you eat a diseased animal, guess who gets that disease?
We see more of this practical dimension in that infectious skin diseases were very closely regulated or even quarantined. Why? Because of how easily they can spread throughout the family and even an entire community. The same is true for how mildew or mold was to be treated. In addition, it makes sense not to touch dead animals because of the possibility of contracting disease yourself. So its easy to see that God had built into His nation some basic rules for the prevention and containment of disease.
But I mention this last because I want you to see it in its proper perspective. I think it is very unfortunate that some people come to these chapters and all they see is this last point. Or maybe they see a little more, but they hold this last point up as being the focal point of the entire passage. How do we know that this point is the least significant of the four? Because Jesus himself rescinded it! Out of these four points, three are still in effect today. God still wants a barrier between His people and the world. God still wants us to realize that holiness by human effort is impossible. God still wants his people to have a profound respect for human life. But when it comes to mildew in my closet, or my wife not being able to go to church for 40 days after the birth of a child, or picking up a dead cat and burying it, or eating bacon wrapped, cheese stuffed jalapenos – those things don‟t separate me from God like they used to.
I want to remind you of one of the first messages I brought from this book of Leviticus. I shared with you that one of the dangers of the book was to focus on the particulars and miss the big picture. Do you remember the illustration of the huge picture window that looks out over the ocean and the person standing there was preoccupied with the woodwork around it? This warning is especially true for these laws of the clean and unclean.
I want us to close by looking at 1 Peter 2:9. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” Can you appreciate this morning that you are holy, not because of your human effort to maintain your holiness but because God has declared you as such (Jn. 15:3). What the Israelite struggled for his entire lifetime, you obtained with a single declarative statement on God‟s part. And it is all because of Jesus.
Prayer: Father, thank you for Jesus. Where would we be with Him? We‟d be locked in a depressing, endless cycle of trying to maintain our own holiness. Thank you for your Son who made it possible for us to be in fellowship with You in this lifetime as well as the next. Amen.
Clean and Unclean – Part 2
Lev. 11 - 15
I‟d like you to turn in your Bible this morning to Lev. 11:44. Two weeks ago we were in Lev. 11 – 15, and we started to consider the concepts of “clean” and “unclean” in the life of Israel. We saw that things that were “clean” were acceptable to God, and the things that were “unclean” were unacceptable to God. It really is a very simple concept. Sometimes you had control over being clean or unclean, and sometimes you didn‟t. These five chapters deal with food, skin disease, bodily discharges, mildew, and procreation. We ended our survey of these chapters here in Lev. 11:44 where I shared with you God’s rationale and Israel’s response. The thinking behind these guidelines, stated generally, is that the God who created the nation of Israel and delivered them from bondage in Egypt had the unequivocal right to regulate their lives as He saw fit. When you are the creator and deliverer, that is your prerogative! We see this in the phrase, “For I am the Lord your God.” The response on the part of Israel is seen in the next phrase, “Consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am holy.” They were to separate themselves from their surroundings (the concept behind “consecration”) so they could be in fellowship with God.
This concept of separation from our surroundings lies at the heart of our memory passage, so let‟s say it again before we start to make some practical application from these five chapters.
“Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, „Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, „I am the LORD your God. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live in accord with them; I am the LORD your God. So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.‟”
What I want to do this morning is go a little further and show you that there is more going on here than God simply doing whatever He wants to with His people. There is more here than some autocrat exercising the whims of his power. So let me give you four secondary purposes behind the laws of the clean and the unclean.
1. God was building a barrier between His people and the surrounding cultures.
As I mentioned several weeks ago, if a person practiced these stipulations rigorously, it would be impossible for him to have any significant level of relationship with the surrounding nations. Why?
A. Because of the very limited diet. The nations around Israel did not have such a structured diet, so an Israelite was running the risk of contaminating himself any time he accepted an invitation to have a meal with someone of the surrounding nations. Take for instance the coney, or rock badger. It was a delicacy in that part of the world, and could easily be a meat the Canaanites would serve if they were having a guest over for a meal. But the Israelites couldn‟t eat them. Their limited diet served as a barrier between them and their surrounding cultures.
B. Because their cleanliness could so easily be compromised. Any time an Israelite touched something that had been touched by something unclean, he himself became unclean. Remember the point I made about how uncleanliness could be spread to inanimate objects as well as other people. If you had an open sore on your body and were under observation by the priest, if you sat on a stool, that stool became unclean. And if someone in your family came along and sat on that stool, he himself became unclean for the rest of the day. So the chances are very high that if you visited the home of your Canaanite neighbor or spent time shopping in their marketplace, you would become unclean.
C. Because of the public nature of being unclean. When you were unclean, basically everybody around you knew it. It was hard to keep it a secret. You were forbidden from tabernacle activities. In some cases you had to verbally announce your uncleanness. In some cases you were physically separated from the entire nation for observation. If you were sensitive to those around you were very cautious not to spread your state of being unclean. Do you see how this point would restrict your contact with the nations around you?
So the first thing God was doing with these guidelines was creating a barrier between His people and the surrounding nations. The next thing God was doing, which is very significant, maybe even the most significant, is that He was demonstrating the impossibility of holiness through human effort.
2. God was demonstrating the impossibility of holiness through human effort.
Probably the most startling dimension of this concept of cleanliness is the reality that the people of Israel were incapable of maintaining lasting fellowship with God. Look with me at 14:33 where we see a very interesting verse that illustrates this. “The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, „When you come into the land of Canaan, which I give you for a possession and I put a case of leprous disease in a house in the land of your possession, then he who owns the house shall come and tell the priest, „There seems to me to be some case of disease in my house.‟” Did you catch the significance of that? It was possible for you to be doing everything you were supposed to to maintain fellowship with God, and then bam! Here‟s mildew in the house, everything in the house is unclean, and because I have touched it, now I‟m unclean. And my separation from God is not because of something I have done, it is because God has put a case of the leprous disease in my house.
Last week I shared with you that normal, bodily functions made you unclean. In certain instances, obedience to God‟s expectations made you unclean. I want us to appreciate the reality of this situation because if you disobey, you are separated from God, and if you obey, you are separated as well. What‟s the deal with that? God was sending a very powerful message, and then illustrating it physically, that holiness by human effort is impossible. The nation of Israel couldn‟t do it 4,000 years ago no matter how hard they tried, and we can‟t do it today either!
So we see that God is doing some very important things with these rules for cleanliness and uncleanliness. He is building a barrier between His people and the cultures around them, and He was showing them that holiness through human effort was impossible. The third thing I want to show you this morning is that God was instilling in his people a profound reverence for human life.
3. God was instilling in His people a profound reverence for human life.
I‟ve spent quite a bit of time over the last month meditating on Lev. 12 which deals with childbirth, and Lev. 15, which in part deals with procreation. As I expressed several weeks ago, I was struggling with why something that was created by God, and ordained by God as holy, and blessed by God - would put you into a state of dis-fellowship with God. The immediate answer that came to me I shared with you – conception and birth brings another sinner into the world. So I understood the childbirth part, but what about the other parts in chapter 15 that deal with male emissions and female cycles and the consequences of marital intimacy?
To understand what is going on here, we need to contrast the culture of Lev. 15 with the culture of the evangelical church. From our perspective, marital intimacy is viewed primarily from the perspective of pleasure. It is a God ordained activity that is the pinnacle of the human sensory experience, and we need to appreciate that God created us this way deliberately. He could have created us in such a way that the female of the species went into estrus, and the male of the species could sense that. But we aren‟t animals, God created us differently, and we are right to perceive this as God‟s gracious gift to us as humans. But what we evangelicals have lost, though, is the procreative potential that accompanies that intimacy. By embracing the concept of contraception, we have inadvertently downplayed the primary purpose of our sexuality. We like the idea of conception, but only on our terms! In other words, if the mother‟s health is conducive to it, or if the house is large enough, or if the family income is sufficient, or if the father has health insurance, or if we don‟t already have several children – then we like the idea of conception.
Contrast that perspective with Lev. 15. In Israel‟s culture, every single dimension of conception, both male and female, both married and single, was marked by one day of being unclean! Why? Because it is a God thing. Every single month, each woman of childbearing age spent a week reflecting on God‟s role in conception. Every time a husband and wife were intimate, they both spent a day contemplating the spiritual dimension of conception. It was impossible in Israel‟s culture to separate marital intimacy from the potential for human life. This is why Judaism as a culture has a profound respect for life, as these statistics show. In the US,
Women identifying themselves as Protestants obtain 37.4% of all abortions,
Catholic women account for 31.3%,
Women with no religious affiliation obtain 23.7%,
18% of all abortions are performed on women who identify themselves as "Born-again/Evangelical," and
Jewish women account for 1.3% of all abortions.
This is why I say that the rules of clean and unclean created in Israel a profound reverence for human life.
The final thing I want to show you about these rules guiding what is clean and unclean I am saving for last on purpose, because it really is the least significant of these four points. And that is that God was protecting the physical well-being of His people.
4. God was protecting the physical well-being of His people.
As you read these chapters, you can‟t help but notice that something in the physical realm was taking place. What kind of animals were they prohibited from eating? Generally speaking, bottom feeding, scavenging, and predatory animals. In other words, those animals who were at risk for disease because of their own diets. And if you eat a diseased animal, guess who gets that disease?
We see more of this practical dimension in that infectious skin diseases were very closely regulated or even quarantined. Why? Because of how easily they can spread throughout the family and even an entire community. The same is true for how mildew or mold was to be treated. In addition, it makes sense not to touch dead animals because of the possibility of contracting disease yourself. So its easy to see that God had built into His nation some basic rules for the prevention and containment of disease.
But I mention this last because I want you to see it in its proper perspective. I think it is very unfortunate that some people come to these chapters and all they see is this last point. Or maybe they see a little more, but they hold this last point up as being the focal point of the entire passage. How do we know that this point is the least significant of the four? Because Jesus himself rescinded it! Out of these four points, three are still in effect today. God still wants a barrier between His people and the world. God still wants us to realize that holiness by human effort is impossible. God still wants his people to have a profound respect for human life. But when it comes to mildew in my closet, or my wife not being able to go to church for 40 days after the birth of a child, or picking up a dead cat and burying it, or eating bacon wrapped, cheese stuffed jalapenos – those things don‟t separate me from God like they used to.
I want to remind you of one of the first messages I brought from this book of Leviticus. I shared with you that one of the dangers of the book was to focus on the particulars and miss the big picture. Do you remember the illustration of the huge picture window that looks out over the ocean and the person standing there was preoccupied with the woodwork around it? This warning is especially true for these laws of the clean and unclean.
I want us to close by looking at 1 Peter 2:9. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” Can you appreciate this morning that you are holy, not because of your human effort to maintain your holiness but because God has declared you as such (Jn. 15:3). What the Israelite struggled for his entire lifetime, you obtained with a single declarative statement on God‟s part. And it is all because of Jesus.
Prayer: Father, thank you for Jesus. Where would we be with Him? We‟d be locked in a depressing, endless cycle of trying to maintain our own holiness. Thank you for your Son who made it possible for us to be in fellowship with You in this lifetime as well as the next. Amen.
Clean and Unclean - Part One
Studies in Leviticus
Clean and Unclean
Lev. 11 - 15
This morning we are going to be looking at five chapters in our study of Leviticus. We don‟t normally cover this much material in a single service, but as you read these chapters you see that they are somewhat repetitive. They aren‟t as bad as a genealogy (actually, they are somewhat intriguing), but they do seem to go on and on about a topic that doesn‟t have a whole lot of immediate relevance to us today. In fact, the specifics of these chapters are unique in that they were abrogated by Christ and the New Covenant. But it would be a great mistake not to address them because we are going to see that there is a timeless principle being taught in them. So while the specifics may not apply to us, the overall teaching is critical to our maintaining fellowship with God and a testimony in the world. But before we go any further, let‟s say our memory project together.
“Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, „Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, „I am the LORD your God. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live in accord with them; I am the LORD your God. So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.‟”
As we follow the flow of the book of Leviticus, God starts by establishing a means by which his people could draw near to Him. It was the sacrificial system (chs. 1-7), and it was designed to bridge the fellowship gap. God was holy and the people weren‟t, so if there were going to be any kind of relationship between them, something had to be done. The sacrifices erased the estrangement between the two parties. Then God established the priesthood (chs. 8-9), which was designed to bridge the communication gap. The High Priest was God‟s spokesman to the nation. The people looked to him for guidance and instruction, so God communed with the High Priest who communicated God‟s words to God‟s people.
Last week we saw a tragic failure in chapter 10 where two of the newly ordained priests lost their lives because they treated God as common and lightweight. God is holy, not common; and He is to be honored, not taken lightly. And when Nadab and Abihu diminished God‟s holiness and honor, fire came out from the presence of the Lord and slew them. That was a powerful, vivid object lesson to the entire nation concerning the holiness of God.
This brings us up to where we are today, and the issue that God is dealing with from Lev. 11 through 15 is the concept of “clean” versus “unclean.” This is something that might be foreign to us as followers of Christ living under the guidelines of the New Covenant, but this matter of clean and unclean comprised a significant dimension of the Old Covenant.
What is the concept behind the clean and unclean? The simplest explanation I have come across is the note in the MacArthur Study Bible which says, “God used the tangible issues of life which He labeled clean or unclean to repeatedly impress upon Israel the difference between what was holy and unholy. “Clean” means acceptable to God, “unclean” means unacceptable to God.” And when a person violated these guidelines, he himself became “unclean.”
When a person was in this state of uncleanness, several things happened. Let‟s say for example that a husband and wife are intimate one night. That made them both unclean. The man was unclean because of his seminal discharge, and his wife is unclean because it touched her. Here is what happened. First of all, they were barred from the Tabernacle. The person who had violated God‟s laws of cleanliness was physically estranged from God and all things holy. Secondly, the clothes they were wearing became unclean. The furniture they touched became unclean. In other words, the uncleanness was spreadable. If an unclean person spit on a clean person, that person became unclean as well! And finally, they had to go through a special ritual to remove the “uncleanness.” In this case, they could bathe and at the end of the day, and everything was back to normal.
What God is doing with these guidelines about things clean and unclean is showing his people the effects of violating God‟s standards. It doesn‟t matter if the violation of the standard occurred 5000 years ago in Israel or this morning in East Durham, NY, when we violate the standard, we are estranged from God. And what‟s more, our actions and the consequences of those actions spread. They aren‟t limited to the perpetrator alone. And finally, reconciliation is possible when we follow the protocol God has established to deal with the violation.
So with that little introduction to clean and unclean, let‟s move quickly over these five chapters.
Chapter 11 deals with clean and unclean animals, fish, insects, and birds. Let‟s read the first 8 verses which will give you a sense of the entire five chapters. “The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 2 "Say to the Israelites: 'Of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat: 3 You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud. 4 " 'There are some that only chew the cud or only have a split hoof, but you must not eat them. The camel, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is ceremonially unclean for you. 5 The coney [other versions call this the “rock hydrax” or the “rock badger” – a rodent that was a delicacy in that part of the world], though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you. 6 The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you. 7 And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, dos not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. 8 You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses [in other words, touching a live rabbit did not make you unclean]; they are unclean for you.” I think you get the idea. Certain animals were on the list, and other animals weren‟t.
God then deals with clean and unclean fish starting in verse 9. Generally speaking, bottom dwelling, scavenging fish and seafood were unclean. Clean and unclean birds are described starting in verse 13, and the list seems to focus on predatory and scavenging birds. Note that in verse 19 the bat is mentioned. Something to keep in mind is that God is communicating to His people in general terms, not biologically technical ones. We all know that bats are mammals and not birds, but they fly through the air with wings and have the bodily shape of a bird. So God included bats in the bird category. Starting in verse 20, God starts the list of clean and unclean insects. So that is chapter 11.
Chapter 12 deals with childbirth. In a nutshell, if a woman gave birth to a male child, she was unclean for 40 days, and if she gave birth to a female child, she was unclean for 80 days. During these days, verse 4 tells us “She must not touch anything sacred [any animals being raised for a sacrifice] or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over.” According to verse 6, “When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering. 7 He shall offer them before the LORD to make atonement for her, and then she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood.”
This chapter has sparked quite a bit of discussion for two reasons. First of all, childbirth is a divine mandate (Gen. 1:22 – “be fruitful and multiply”), not to mention that it is actually God who opens and closes the womb (Ps. 127:3 – “the fruit of the womb is His reward”). Since conception is an act of obedience and God is responsible for allowing it, why did that act of obedience make a woman unclean, and why did it require a blood sacrifice for restoration to a state of cleanness? That is the first area of controversy.
The second issue of controversy is the time inequity. Why was she unclean for only 40 days for a baby boy, but twice that for a baby girl? Most likely, this inequity served as a reminder that it was through woman that sin entered the world. Paul alludes to this in 1 Tim. 2:14 when he says that it wasn‟t Adam that was deceived, but Eve. We are going to elaborate on this a little later, but for now just understand that in Israel, every time a new sinner was introduced into the world through childbirth, there was a 40 or 80 day period of reflection on the significance of what had just happened.
Chapters 13 and 14 address various skin diseases, mildew or mold, and the purification rites for becoming clean again. In 13:1 we read, “The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 2 "When anyone has a swelling or a rash or a bright spot on his skin that may become an infectious skin disease [some of you may have a version that translates this word as “leprous sore” or even “leprosy.” The NIV translates it as “infectious skin disease” because from the description we see in these chapters, this condition is not leprosy as we know it today. This condition involved things like boils (vv. 18-28), shingles, psoriasis, ringworm, etc.], he must be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons who is a priest. 3 The priest is to examine the sore on his skin, and if the hair in the sore has turned white and the sore appears to be more than skin deep, it is an infectious skin disease. When the priest examines him, he shall pronounce him ceremonially unclean. 4 If the spot on his skin is white but does not appear to be more than skin deep and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest is to put the infected person in isolation for seven days. 5 On the seventh day the priest is to examine him, and if he sees that the sore is unchanged and has not spread in the skin, he is to keep him in isolation another seven days. 6 On the seventh day the priest is to examine him again, and if the sore has faded and has not spread in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is only a rash. The man must wash his clothes, and he will be clean.”
Starting in verse 47 there are guidelines for how to handle clothing that has been infected with the germs of the disease, and in chapter 14 verse 33 you have a discussion of how to handle things if you have an outbreak of mildew or mold in your house.
Chapter 15 addresses bodily discharges, both male and female. When you read this chapter, what you see is that there are two general categories of discharge; normal and abnormal. There are secretions that are the result of disease and there are secretions that are the result of simply being human. For a man, his normal discharge is nocturnal emissions and intercourse. The abnormal male discharge in this chapter is some kind of genital disease. We don‟t for certain what it was, but many scholars believe it to be gonorrhea. For a woman, the normal discharge involved her menstrual cycle, and the abnormal discharge involved some kind of genital hemorrhage.
So starting in verse 4 we see that “Every bed on which the person with the discharge lies becomes unclean, and everything on which he sits becomes unclean. 5 'Anyone, moreover, who touches his bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening; 6 and whoever sits on the thing on which the man with the discharge has been sitting, shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening.” While this is specifically directed to the man with a discharge, the stipulations are basically the same for the woman.
So there you have the overview of the five chapters. But what does this mean for us today? To answer this, I want us to go back to chapter 11 and look at verse 44 where we see two things. In this verse we get first of all a glimpse into the mind of God concerning the rationale behind these rules for cleanliness and uncleanness. The second thing we see is a response on our part. And understand that even though the specific context of this verse concerns clean and unclean animals, the overarching principle applies to all the categories.'For [this is a critical word – it is alerting us to God‟s reasoning, it is a summary statement] I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am holy.
The rationale in this verse is, “I am the Lord your God.” This tells us that God has an unequivocal right to regulate the behavior of his people. As a father, from time to time I used the phrase, “because I said so.” That is the essence of this phrase, “I am the Lord your God.” The response is: “consecrate [separate – cf. Bill‟s scripture reading this morning] yourselves therefore, and be holy.” This tells us that Israel had a solemn responsibility to distinguish themselves from their surroundings. It was difficult if not impossible for the Israelites to develop any level of relationship with their neighboring nations when they followed the rules of clean and unclean. These two ideas of God‟s right to regulate Israel‟s behavior and Israel‟s responsibility to separate itself from its surroundings lies at the heart of these five chapters.
And when you think about it, this isn‟t the first time we‟ve seen this concept, is it? It sounds familiar because it is also at the heart of our memory passage. “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, „I am the LORD your God [rationale]. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived [responsibility], nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you [responsibility]; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes [rationale], to live in accord with them; I am the LORD your God [He ends with a reiteration of the rationale]‟”.
Next week we are going to tie up some loose ends and look at a series of practical applications we can make from these chapters.
Clean and Unclean
Lev. 11 - 15
This morning we are going to be looking at five chapters in our study of Leviticus. We don‟t normally cover this much material in a single service, but as you read these chapters you see that they are somewhat repetitive. They aren‟t as bad as a genealogy (actually, they are somewhat intriguing), but they do seem to go on and on about a topic that doesn‟t have a whole lot of immediate relevance to us today. In fact, the specifics of these chapters are unique in that they were abrogated by Christ and the New Covenant. But it would be a great mistake not to address them because we are going to see that there is a timeless principle being taught in them. So while the specifics may not apply to us, the overall teaching is critical to our maintaining fellowship with God and a testimony in the world. But before we go any further, let‟s say our memory project together.
“Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, „Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, „I am the LORD your God. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live in accord with them; I am the LORD your God. So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.‟”
As we follow the flow of the book of Leviticus, God starts by establishing a means by which his people could draw near to Him. It was the sacrificial system (chs. 1-7), and it was designed to bridge the fellowship gap. God was holy and the people weren‟t, so if there were going to be any kind of relationship between them, something had to be done. The sacrifices erased the estrangement between the two parties. Then God established the priesthood (chs. 8-9), which was designed to bridge the communication gap. The High Priest was God‟s spokesman to the nation. The people looked to him for guidance and instruction, so God communed with the High Priest who communicated God‟s words to God‟s people.
Last week we saw a tragic failure in chapter 10 where two of the newly ordained priests lost their lives because they treated God as common and lightweight. God is holy, not common; and He is to be honored, not taken lightly. And when Nadab and Abihu diminished God‟s holiness and honor, fire came out from the presence of the Lord and slew them. That was a powerful, vivid object lesson to the entire nation concerning the holiness of God.
This brings us up to where we are today, and the issue that God is dealing with from Lev. 11 through 15 is the concept of “clean” versus “unclean.” This is something that might be foreign to us as followers of Christ living under the guidelines of the New Covenant, but this matter of clean and unclean comprised a significant dimension of the Old Covenant.
What is the concept behind the clean and unclean? The simplest explanation I have come across is the note in the MacArthur Study Bible which says, “God used the tangible issues of life which He labeled clean or unclean to repeatedly impress upon Israel the difference between what was holy and unholy. “Clean” means acceptable to God, “unclean” means unacceptable to God.” And when a person violated these guidelines, he himself became “unclean.”
When a person was in this state of uncleanness, several things happened. Let‟s say for example that a husband and wife are intimate one night. That made them both unclean. The man was unclean because of his seminal discharge, and his wife is unclean because it touched her. Here is what happened. First of all, they were barred from the Tabernacle. The person who had violated God‟s laws of cleanliness was physically estranged from God and all things holy. Secondly, the clothes they were wearing became unclean. The furniture they touched became unclean. In other words, the uncleanness was spreadable. If an unclean person spit on a clean person, that person became unclean as well! And finally, they had to go through a special ritual to remove the “uncleanness.” In this case, they could bathe and at the end of the day, and everything was back to normal.
What God is doing with these guidelines about things clean and unclean is showing his people the effects of violating God‟s standards. It doesn‟t matter if the violation of the standard occurred 5000 years ago in Israel or this morning in East Durham, NY, when we violate the standard, we are estranged from God. And what‟s more, our actions and the consequences of those actions spread. They aren‟t limited to the perpetrator alone. And finally, reconciliation is possible when we follow the protocol God has established to deal with the violation.
So with that little introduction to clean and unclean, let‟s move quickly over these five chapters.
Chapter 11 deals with clean and unclean animals, fish, insects, and birds. Let‟s read the first 8 verses which will give you a sense of the entire five chapters. “The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 2 "Say to the Israelites: 'Of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat: 3 You may eat any animal that has a split hoof completely divided and that chews the cud. 4 " 'There are some that only chew the cud or only have a split hoof, but you must not eat them. The camel, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is ceremonially unclean for you. 5 The coney [other versions call this the “rock hydrax” or the “rock badger” – a rodent that was a delicacy in that part of the world], though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you. 6 The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you. 7 And the pig, though it has a split hoof completely divided, dos not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. 8 You must not eat their meat or touch their carcasses [in other words, touching a live rabbit did not make you unclean]; they are unclean for you.” I think you get the idea. Certain animals were on the list, and other animals weren‟t.
God then deals with clean and unclean fish starting in verse 9. Generally speaking, bottom dwelling, scavenging fish and seafood were unclean. Clean and unclean birds are described starting in verse 13, and the list seems to focus on predatory and scavenging birds. Note that in verse 19 the bat is mentioned. Something to keep in mind is that God is communicating to His people in general terms, not biologically technical ones. We all know that bats are mammals and not birds, but they fly through the air with wings and have the bodily shape of a bird. So God included bats in the bird category. Starting in verse 20, God starts the list of clean and unclean insects. So that is chapter 11.
Chapter 12 deals with childbirth. In a nutshell, if a woman gave birth to a male child, she was unclean for 40 days, and if she gave birth to a female child, she was unclean for 80 days. During these days, verse 4 tells us “She must not touch anything sacred [any animals being raised for a sacrifice] or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over.” According to verse 6, “When the days of her purification for a son or daughter are over, she is to bring to the priest at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting a year-old lamb for a burnt offering and a young pigeon or a dove for a sin offering. 7 He shall offer them before the LORD to make atonement for her, and then she will be ceremonially clean from her flow of blood.”
This chapter has sparked quite a bit of discussion for two reasons. First of all, childbirth is a divine mandate (Gen. 1:22 – “be fruitful and multiply”), not to mention that it is actually God who opens and closes the womb (Ps. 127:3 – “the fruit of the womb is His reward”). Since conception is an act of obedience and God is responsible for allowing it, why did that act of obedience make a woman unclean, and why did it require a blood sacrifice for restoration to a state of cleanness? That is the first area of controversy.
The second issue of controversy is the time inequity. Why was she unclean for only 40 days for a baby boy, but twice that for a baby girl? Most likely, this inequity served as a reminder that it was through woman that sin entered the world. Paul alludes to this in 1 Tim. 2:14 when he says that it wasn‟t Adam that was deceived, but Eve. We are going to elaborate on this a little later, but for now just understand that in Israel, every time a new sinner was introduced into the world through childbirth, there was a 40 or 80 day period of reflection on the significance of what had just happened.
Chapters 13 and 14 address various skin diseases, mildew or mold, and the purification rites for becoming clean again. In 13:1 we read, “The LORD said to Moses and Aaron, 2 "When anyone has a swelling or a rash or a bright spot on his skin that may become an infectious skin disease [some of you may have a version that translates this word as “leprous sore” or even “leprosy.” The NIV translates it as “infectious skin disease” because from the description we see in these chapters, this condition is not leprosy as we know it today. This condition involved things like boils (vv. 18-28), shingles, psoriasis, ringworm, etc.], he must be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons who is a priest. 3 The priest is to examine the sore on his skin, and if the hair in the sore has turned white and the sore appears to be more than skin deep, it is an infectious skin disease. When the priest examines him, he shall pronounce him ceremonially unclean. 4 If the spot on his skin is white but does not appear to be more than skin deep and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest is to put the infected person in isolation for seven days. 5 On the seventh day the priest is to examine him, and if he sees that the sore is unchanged and has not spread in the skin, he is to keep him in isolation another seven days. 6 On the seventh day the priest is to examine him again, and if the sore has faded and has not spread in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is only a rash. The man must wash his clothes, and he will be clean.”
Starting in verse 47 there are guidelines for how to handle clothing that has been infected with the germs of the disease, and in chapter 14 verse 33 you have a discussion of how to handle things if you have an outbreak of mildew or mold in your house.
Chapter 15 addresses bodily discharges, both male and female. When you read this chapter, what you see is that there are two general categories of discharge; normal and abnormal. There are secretions that are the result of disease and there are secretions that are the result of simply being human. For a man, his normal discharge is nocturnal emissions and intercourse. The abnormal male discharge in this chapter is some kind of genital disease. We don‟t for certain what it was, but many scholars believe it to be gonorrhea. For a woman, the normal discharge involved her menstrual cycle, and the abnormal discharge involved some kind of genital hemorrhage.
So starting in verse 4 we see that “Every bed on which the person with the discharge lies becomes unclean, and everything on which he sits becomes unclean. 5 'Anyone, moreover, who touches his bed shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening; 6 and whoever sits on the thing on which the man with the discharge has been sitting, shall wash his clothes and bathe in water and be unclean until evening.” While this is specifically directed to the man with a discharge, the stipulations are basically the same for the woman.
So there you have the overview of the five chapters. But what does this mean for us today? To answer this, I want us to go back to chapter 11 and look at verse 44 where we see two things. In this verse we get first of all a glimpse into the mind of God concerning the rationale behind these rules for cleanliness and uncleanness. The second thing we see is a response on our part. And understand that even though the specific context of this verse concerns clean and unclean animals, the overarching principle applies to all the categories.'For [this is a critical word – it is alerting us to God‟s reasoning, it is a summary statement] I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy; for I am holy.
The rationale in this verse is, “I am the Lord your God.” This tells us that God has an unequivocal right to regulate the behavior of his people. As a father, from time to time I used the phrase, “because I said so.” That is the essence of this phrase, “I am the Lord your God.” The response is: “consecrate [separate – cf. Bill‟s scripture reading this morning] yourselves therefore, and be holy.” This tells us that Israel had a solemn responsibility to distinguish themselves from their surroundings. It was difficult if not impossible for the Israelites to develop any level of relationship with their neighboring nations when they followed the rules of clean and unclean. These two ideas of God‟s right to regulate Israel‟s behavior and Israel‟s responsibility to separate itself from its surroundings lies at the heart of these five chapters.
And when you think about it, this isn‟t the first time we‟ve seen this concept, is it? It sounds familiar because it is also at the heart of our memory passage. “Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, „I am the LORD your God [rationale]. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived [responsibility], nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you [responsibility]; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes [rationale], to live in accord with them; I am the LORD your God [He ends with a reiteration of the rationale]‟”.
Next week we are going to tie up some loose ends and look at a series of practical applications we can make from these chapters.
Friday, April 1, 2011
A Priestly Failure
Studies in Leviticus
Nadab and Abihu – Priestly Failure
Lev. 10
This morning we are going to be in Leviticus chapter 10 where we see an example of priestly failure. Last week we were in chapters 8 and 9 where we saw God institute the priesthood. Once the sacrificial system was in place and the people could draw near to God, it was then necessary to establish a communication link – which is what the priesthood accomplished. The High Priest served as God‟s mouthpiece, he conveyed the will of God to the people of God, but almost immediately there was this tragic failure and Aaron‟s two oldest sons lost their lives because of it. This was a huge blow, not only to Aaron personally but also to the entire nation of Israel, and there are many lessons we can learn from this sad story.
Before we get into the passage though, let‟s review our memory passage.
“Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, „Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, „I am the LORD your God. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live in accord with them; I am the LORD your God. So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.‟”
In the passage Bill read this morning from the book of Hebrews, we saw a principle that doesn‟t get a whole lot of exposure in Christendom today, and that is the truth that our God is a holy God who deals strongly with willful sin. It really is true that “it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God!” I don‟t think Bill read verses 26 and 27 of the chapter, but those verses say, “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.”
When is the last time you heard a sermon from this verse? Well, this principle literally came true in Leviticus 10, and what I want to share with you this morning is the danger of diminishing a holy God. Why is that a dangerous thing to do? Because of the personal consequences, the familial consequences, and the community consequences. What we are going to see in this chapter is that when we fail to honor the holiness of God, a series of concentric circles emanate from us that affect those we love most. Let‟s start reading in verse one.
Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them.
The burning of incense was one of the more mundane jobs of the priesthood. It involved taking your firepan, going to the altar where the offerings were burned, taking some tongs and picking out some coals, and then sprinkling incense on them which would smolder and create the smoke and pleasant smell that is associated with incense.
This is what Nadab and Abihu did, but God called it “strange fire.” What is this “strange fire” that they offered? Some translations render this word “unauthorized fire.” Whatever it was, it was not done according to the directions God had laid out for the priests, as seen in the last phrase, “which He had not commanded.” God‟s word doesn‟t tell us the specifics of the disobedience. Was it offered at the wrong time? Did they take the coals from the wrong altar? Did they use incense other than the specific kind God had mandated? We don‟t know. All we know is that it was contrary to God‟s directions and therefore not recognized by God as being legitimate. It was “strange fire.”
In verse two we see the personal consequences of their actions.
2 And fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.
One of the truths I have come to be aware of is that in the church, imbalance is a greater threat to us than unorthodoxy. In other words, Satan causes more damage in our ranks through imbalance than through bad doctrine. Nobody here this morning is probably ever going to struggle with whether or not Jesus is the virgin born Son of God. But we will struggle with how much of our lives do we give to pursuing the Kingdom of God and how much of our lives do we give to pursuing our own agendas.
This phenomenon of dangerous imbalance is really seen in this matter of how we perceive God, because we know on the one hand that God is a loving, heavenly father. He is amazingly patient, and He has our best interest at heart, and longs for us as seen in the story of the prodigal son. But that is only half the story. God is also a holy and just God who has a hatred of sin that is beyond our understanding. I think we can legitimately say that our God is both a loving and a dangerous God!
And when we fail to keep both of these truths in balance, we get into trouble very quickly. That is the lesson that Nadab and Abihu learned. This is also the lesson that Ananias and Sapphira learned when they lied to the Holy Spirit about the price of a piece of land they sold, in Acts 5. This is also the lesson King Herod learned in Acts 12 when he accepted for himself the glory that was due to God. Yes, God is a patient and loving God, but that is only half the equation – he is also a God who will not tolerate willful defiance.
So here is where we see the personal consequences of diminishing the holiness of God. Nadab and Abihu thought they could serve as priests in the way they thought best. They found out differently.
3 Then Moses said to Aaron [understand that this is a man who has just seen two of his sons killed!], "It is what the LORD spoke, saying, 'By those who come near Me [the priesthood] I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored.'" So Aaron, therefore, kept silent.
This verse shows us the crux of the issue. What was it that Nadab and Abihu did that was so offensive to God? Think about it. They were serving God. They were wearing their priestly robes. They were performing a priestly duty. They were in God‟s tabernacle. What else could God want? Thanks for asking, because God wants two things. Number 1), God does not want to be treated as common, and number 2) God does not want to be taken lightly. Let me repeat that. Number 1), God does not want to be treated as common, and number 2) God does not want to be taken lightly. We see these two truths in the two words “holy” and “honored.” God‟s expectations are, “I will be treated as holy,” and “I will be honored.”
The word “holy” carries the idea of being separated from the common, and the word “honored” carries the idea of being weighty. The God of the universe is not to be treated as familiar, nor are His instructions to be understood as suggestions. To do so takes God from His throne and place Him down on the pavement where we are, and Nadab and Abihu‟s failure lay in their diminishing of God.
4 Moses called also to Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Aaron's uncle Uzziel, and said to them, "Come forward, carry your relatives away from the front of the sanctuary to the outside of the camp." 5 So they came forward and carried them still in their tunics to the outside of the camp, as Moses had said.
Here we see the waves of consequence starting to spread from the offenders to their family. Remember why it is dangerous to diminish the holiness of God: because of the personal consequences, the familial consequences, and the community consequences. And so here we have two of Nadab and Abihu‟s cousins carrying their dead cousins away from the tabernacle, through the encampment, and to a place outside the camp. They carried them by grasping their garments so they wouldn‟t be defiled by a dead body, and I would imagine that this scene was seared into the memory of the entire priesthood. It was a vivid object lesson concerning the holiness of God.
Something interesting we see here is the divine nature of the discipline. In verse two we see that “fire” came out from the presence of God and killed them, but interestingly enough, the fire did not consume their garments. Nobody looking on could say that this was a tragic accident and that the fire in the firepans got out of control and killed them. Had that been the case, their clothing would have been burnt – but it wasn‟t. This was a case of divine judgment for diminishing a holy God.
6 Then Moses said to Aaron and to his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, "Do not uncover your heads nor tear your clothes, so that you may not die, and that He may not become wrathful against all the congregation. But your kinsmen, the whole house of Israel, shall bewail the burning which the LORD has brought about. 7 "You shall not even go out from the doorway of the tent of meeting, lest you die; for the LORD's anointing oil is upon you." So they did according to the word of Moses.
This verse shows us more of the familial consequences of Nadab and Abihu‟s sin – Aaron and his two remaining sons were forbidden from showing the traditional signs of grief. They weren‟t even allowed to accompany the bodies to the burial. And right off the bat, Aaron and his sons have to demonstrate whether or not they are going to treat God as common and light, or holy and honored. When God says, “Don‟t uncover your head or tear your clothes or leave the tabernacle,” He means precisely that. No exceptions. No extenuating circumstances. No going with the “spirit of the law.” No “But God, these are my sons!” The High Priest and his two sons had to show that they understood God‟s unequivocal right to dictate even how they expressed their personal grief.
Now when we get to verse 8 we see something interesting. Out of the entire passage it gives us some clue as to what was going on in Nadab and Abihu‟s mind when they offered strange fire. We know what they did, but a deeper question is why? What was going through their minds when they offered the strange fire?
8 The LORD then spoke to Aaron, saying, 9 "Do not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you, when you come into the tent of meeting, so that you may not die-- it is a perpetual statute throughout your generations-- 10 and so as to make a distinction between the holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean, 11 and so as to teach the sons of Israel all the statutes which the LORD has spoken to them through Moses."
To be perfectly blunt, Nadab and Abihu were probably drunk when they did this. Why else would God interject this prohibition, and give it the status of a perpetual statute, at this time? We see further proof for this idea in verse 10 where God says that the rationale for not drinking strong drink when you come into the tent of meeting was so you could make distinctions between the holy and profane, between the clean and the unclean. When you are inebriated, what is one of the things you lose? Your ability to make distinctions between wise and foolish actions.
I heard about a drunk cowboy who went out into the street, stripped naked, ran to the edge of town and jumped in a bed of cacti. He sobered up real quickly. And when the doctor asked him why he did it, he said, “Well, at the time it seemed like a good idea.” That is what drunkenness does to you – it hurts your ability to make distinctions between good and bad ideas. And if there is anything a priest needs, it is that ability! Verse 11 is a sober reminder of the critical role the priesthood held in the nation of Israel – they taught the sons of Israel all the statutes which the Lord had spoken through Moses.
Now from verse 12 through verse 20, we have an account of the sacrificial meal that Aaron and his sons and family were supposed to eat. Understand that this probably happened on the day of the tragedy.
12 Then Moses spoke to Aaron, and to his surviving sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, "Take the grain offering that is left over from the LORD's offerings by fire and eat it unleavened beside the altar, for it is most holy. 13 "You shall eat it, moreover, in a holy place, because it is your due and your sons' due out of the LORD's offerings by fire; for thus I have been commanded. 14 "The breast of the wave offering, however, and the thigh of the offering you may eat in a clean place, you and your sons and your daughters with you; for they have been given as your due and your sons' due out of the sacrifices of the peace offerings of the sons of Israel. 15 "The thigh offered by lifting up and the breast offered by waving, they shall bring along with the offerings by fire of the portions of fat, to present as a wave offering before the LORD; so it shall be a thing perpetually due you and your sons with you, just as the LORD has commanded." 16 But Moses searched carefully for the goat of the sin offering, and behold, it had been burned up! So he was angry with Aaron's surviving sons Eleazar and Ithamar, saying, 17 "Why did you not eat the sin offering at the holy place? For it is most holy, and He gave it to you to bear away the guilt of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the LORD. 18 "Behold, since its blood had not been brought inside, into the sanctuary, you should certainly have eaten it in the sanctuary, just as I commanded." 19 But Aaron spoke to Moses, "Behold, this very day they presented their sin offering and their burnt offering before the LORD. When things like these happened to me, if I had eaten a sin offering today, would it have been good in the sight of the LORD?" 20 And when Moses heard that, it seemed good in his sight.
In a nutshell, Aaron and his family were in too much grief to eat this sacrificial meal that was the privilege of the priesthood. Instead, they burned the entire animal and didn‟t keep back any of it for themselves, which was probably not a wise idea since it was contrary to God‟s expectations! This is why v. 16 tells us that Moses was so angry – he had just seen two of his relatives lose their lives for disobedience, and now Aaron and his family were running the same risk. But Aaron‟s explanation in verse 19 was that there was no way their family could have enjoyed a feast on the day of the tragedy, so in verse 20 Moses accepts his explanation.
What does all this mean for you and me today? First of all, it means that God means what He says and says what He means. And when we minimize or marginalize Him, we do so at great personal risk. Secondly, it means that our God is not the caricature we see Him so often portrayed as in our culture. He is not “the big man upstairs.” He is not a doting, forgetful grandfather. He is not your best buddy. He is a holy God and when we diminish Him in any way, the consequences are very severe.
Nadab and Abihu – Priestly Failure
Lev. 10
This morning we are going to be in Leviticus chapter 10 where we see an example of priestly failure. Last week we were in chapters 8 and 9 where we saw God institute the priesthood. Once the sacrificial system was in place and the people could draw near to God, it was then necessary to establish a communication link – which is what the priesthood accomplished. The High Priest served as God‟s mouthpiece, he conveyed the will of God to the people of God, but almost immediately there was this tragic failure and Aaron‟s two oldest sons lost their lives because of it. This was a huge blow, not only to Aaron personally but also to the entire nation of Israel, and there are many lessons we can learn from this sad story.
Before we get into the passage though, let‟s review our memory passage.
“Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, „Speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, „I am the LORD your God. You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes. You are to perform My judgments and keep My statutes, to live in accord with them; I am the LORD your God. So you shall keep My statutes and My judgments, by which a man may live if he does them; I am the LORD.‟”
In the passage Bill read this morning from the book of Hebrews, we saw a principle that doesn‟t get a whole lot of exposure in Christendom today, and that is the truth that our God is a holy God who deals strongly with willful sin. It really is true that “it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God!” I don‟t think Bill read verses 26 and 27 of the chapter, but those verses say, “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.”
When is the last time you heard a sermon from this verse? Well, this principle literally came true in Leviticus 10, and what I want to share with you this morning is the danger of diminishing a holy God. Why is that a dangerous thing to do? Because of the personal consequences, the familial consequences, and the community consequences. What we are going to see in this chapter is that when we fail to honor the holiness of God, a series of concentric circles emanate from us that affect those we love most. Let‟s start reading in verse one.
Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it and offered strange fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them.
The burning of incense was one of the more mundane jobs of the priesthood. It involved taking your firepan, going to the altar where the offerings were burned, taking some tongs and picking out some coals, and then sprinkling incense on them which would smolder and create the smoke and pleasant smell that is associated with incense.
This is what Nadab and Abihu did, but God called it “strange fire.” What is this “strange fire” that they offered? Some translations render this word “unauthorized fire.” Whatever it was, it was not done according to the directions God had laid out for the priests, as seen in the last phrase, “which He had not commanded.” God‟s word doesn‟t tell us the specifics of the disobedience. Was it offered at the wrong time? Did they take the coals from the wrong altar? Did they use incense other than the specific kind God had mandated? We don‟t know. All we know is that it was contrary to God‟s directions and therefore not recognized by God as being legitimate. It was “strange fire.”
In verse two we see the personal consequences of their actions.
2 And fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.
One of the truths I have come to be aware of is that in the church, imbalance is a greater threat to us than unorthodoxy. In other words, Satan causes more damage in our ranks through imbalance than through bad doctrine. Nobody here this morning is probably ever going to struggle with whether or not Jesus is the virgin born Son of God. But we will struggle with how much of our lives do we give to pursuing the Kingdom of God and how much of our lives do we give to pursuing our own agendas.
This phenomenon of dangerous imbalance is really seen in this matter of how we perceive God, because we know on the one hand that God is a loving, heavenly father. He is amazingly patient, and He has our best interest at heart, and longs for us as seen in the story of the prodigal son. But that is only half the story. God is also a holy and just God who has a hatred of sin that is beyond our understanding. I think we can legitimately say that our God is both a loving and a dangerous God!
And when we fail to keep both of these truths in balance, we get into trouble very quickly. That is the lesson that Nadab and Abihu learned. This is also the lesson that Ananias and Sapphira learned when they lied to the Holy Spirit about the price of a piece of land they sold, in Acts 5. This is also the lesson King Herod learned in Acts 12 when he accepted for himself the glory that was due to God. Yes, God is a patient and loving God, but that is only half the equation – he is also a God who will not tolerate willful defiance.
So here is where we see the personal consequences of diminishing the holiness of God. Nadab and Abihu thought they could serve as priests in the way they thought best. They found out differently.
3 Then Moses said to Aaron [understand that this is a man who has just seen two of his sons killed!], "It is what the LORD spoke, saying, 'By those who come near Me [the priesthood] I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored.'" So Aaron, therefore, kept silent.
This verse shows us the crux of the issue. What was it that Nadab and Abihu did that was so offensive to God? Think about it. They were serving God. They were wearing their priestly robes. They were performing a priestly duty. They were in God‟s tabernacle. What else could God want? Thanks for asking, because God wants two things. Number 1), God does not want to be treated as common, and number 2) God does not want to be taken lightly. Let me repeat that. Number 1), God does not want to be treated as common, and number 2) God does not want to be taken lightly. We see these two truths in the two words “holy” and “honored.” God‟s expectations are, “I will be treated as holy,” and “I will be honored.”
The word “holy” carries the idea of being separated from the common, and the word “honored” carries the idea of being weighty. The God of the universe is not to be treated as familiar, nor are His instructions to be understood as suggestions. To do so takes God from His throne and place Him down on the pavement where we are, and Nadab and Abihu‟s failure lay in their diminishing of God.
4 Moses called also to Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Aaron's uncle Uzziel, and said to them, "Come forward, carry your relatives away from the front of the sanctuary to the outside of the camp." 5 So they came forward and carried them still in their tunics to the outside of the camp, as Moses had said.
Here we see the waves of consequence starting to spread from the offenders to their family. Remember why it is dangerous to diminish the holiness of God: because of the personal consequences, the familial consequences, and the community consequences. And so here we have two of Nadab and Abihu‟s cousins carrying their dead cousins away from the tabernacle, through the encampment, and to a place outside the camp. They carried them by grasping their garments so they wouldn‟t be defiled by a dead body, and I would imagine that this scene was seared into the memory of the entire priesthood. It was a vivid object lesson concerning the holiness of God.
Something interesting we see here is the divine nature of the discipline. In verse two we see that “fire” came out from the presence of God and killed them, but interestingly enough, the fire did not consume their garments. Nobody looking on could say that this was a tragic accident and that the fire in the firepans got out of control and killed them. Had that been the case, their clothing would have been burnt – but it wasn‟t. This was a case of divine judgment for diminishing a holy God.
6 Then Moses said to Aaron and to his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, "Do not uncover your heads nor tear your clothes, so that you may not die, and that He may not become wrathful against all the congregation. But your kinsmen, the whole house of Israel, shall bewail the burning which the LORD has brought about. 7 "You shall not even go out from the doorway of the tent of meeting, lest you die; for the LORD's anointing oil is upon you." So they did according to the word of Moses.
This verse shows us more of the familial consequences of Nadab and Abihu‟s sin – Aaron and his two remaining sons were forbidden from showing the traditional signs of grief. They weren‟t even allowed to accompany the bodies to the burial. And right off the bat, Aaron and his sons have to demonstrate whether or not they are going to treat God as common and light, or holy and honored. When God says, “Don‟t uncover your head or tear your clothes or leave the tabernacle,” He means precisely that. No exceptions. No extenuating circumstances. No going with the “spirit of the law.” No “But God, these are my sons!” The High Priest and his two sons had to show that they understood God‟s unequivocal right to dictate even how they expressed their personal grief.
Now when we get to verse 8 we see something interesting. Out of the entire passage it gives us some clue as to what was going on in Nadab and Abihu‟s mind when they offered strange fire. We know what they did, but a deeper question is why? What was going through their minds when they offered the strange fire?
8 The LORD then spoke to Aaron, saying, 9 "Do not drink wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons with you, when you come into the tent of meeting, so that you may not die-- it is a perpetual statute throughout your generations-- 10 and so as to make a distinction between the holy and the profane, and between the unclean and the clean, 11 and so as to teach the sons of Israel all the statutes which the LORD has spoken to them through Moses."
To be perfectly blunt, Nadab and Abihu were probably drunk when they did this. Why else would God interject this prohibition, and give it the status of a perpetual statute, at this time? We see further proof for this idea in verse 10 where God says that the rationale for not drinking strong drink when you come into the tent of meeting was so you could make distinctions between the holy and profane, between the clean and the unclean. When you are inebriated, what is one of the things you lose? Your ability to make distinctions between wise and foolish actions.
I heard about a drunk cowboy who went out into the street, stripped naked, ran to the edge of town and jumped in a bed of cacti. He sobered up real quickly. And when the doctor asked him why he did it, he said, “Well, at the time it seemed like a good idea.” That is what drunkenness does to you – it hurts your ability to make distinctions between good and bad ideas. And if there is anything a priest needs, it is that ability! Verse 11 is a sober reminder of the critical role the priesthood held in the nation of Israel – they taught the sons of Israel all the statutes which the Lord had spoken through Moses.
Now from verse 12 through verse 20, we have an account of the sacrificial meal that Aaron and his sons and family were supposed to eat. Understand that this probably happened on the day of the tragedy.
12 Then Moses spoke to Aaron, and to his surviving sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, "Take the grain offering that is left over from the LORD's offerings by fire and eat it unleavened beside the altar, for it is most holy. 13 "You shall eat it, moreover, in a holy place, because it is your due and your sons' due out of the LORD's offerings by fire; for thus I have been commanded. 14 "The breast of the wave offering, however, and the thigh of the offering you may eat in a clean place, you and your sons and your daughters with you; for they have been given as your due and your sons' due out of the sacrifices of the peace offerings of the sons of Israel. 15 "The thigh offered by lifting up and the breast offered by waving, they shall bring along with the offerings by fire of the portions of fat, to present as a wave offering before the LORD; so it shall be a thing perpetually due you and your sons with you, just as the LORD has commanded." 16 But Moses searched carefully for the goat of the sin offering, and behold, it had been burned up! So he was angry with Aaron's surviving sons Eleazar and Ithamar, saying, 17 "Why did you not eat the sin offering at the holy place? For it is most holy, and He gave it to you to bear away the guilt of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the LORD. 18 "Behold, since its blood had not been brought inside, into the sanctuary, you should certainly have eaten it in the sanctuary, just as I commanded." 19 But Aaron spoke to Moses, "Behold, this very day they presented their sin offering and their burnt offering before the LORD. When things like these happened to me, if I had eaten a sin offering today, would it have been good in the sight of the LORD?" 20 And when Moses heard that, it seemed good in his sight.
In a nutshell, Aaron and his family were in too much grief to eat this sacrificial meal that was the privilege of the priesthood. Instead, they burned the entire animal and didn‟t keep back any of it for themselves, which was probably not a wise idea since it was contrary to God‟s expectations! This is why v. 16 tells us that Moses was so angry – he had just seen two of his relatives lose their lives for disobedience, and now Aaron and his family were running the same risk. But Aaron‟s explanation in verse 19 was that there was no way their family could have enjoyed a feast on the day of the tragedy, so in verse 20 Moses accepts his explanation.
What does all this mean for you and me today? First of all, it means that God means what He says and says what He means. And when we minimize or marginalize Him, we do so at great personal risk. Secondly, it means that our God is not the caricature we see Him so often portrayed as in our culture. He is not “the big man upstairs.” He is not a doting, forgetful grandfather. He is not your best buddy. He is a holy God and when we diminish Him in any way, the consequences are very severe.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)