Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Do You Take Your Sin Seriously? | Torah | Leviticus 10

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

What sins are you comfortable with? Do you justify some of your sinful habits? Do you ever think God overreacts to sin? In today's episode, Jensen looks at God's reaction to Aaron's sons' sin in Leviticus 10 to discuss how we should respond to our sin. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Leviticus 10 Resources: The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Welcome to 10-minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. When's the last time you got in the car and drove the speed limit or less the whole time? If you're me, the answer is probably never. But it's no big deal, right? Everyone knows that you're only really speeding if you're going 10 over. But 8 over? Totally fine. So really, I'm just speeding a little. Like everyone? around me. I mean, is speeding really that bad? The thing is, it probably is, when I speed, I'm breaking the law, laws that are in place to keep me and others around me safe. So I'm breaking the law and I'm endangering the lives of the people around me. But I don't think about that when I'm driving. I know I shouldn't speed, but it feels like such a small infraction that I do it anyway.

Maybe you're a good law-abiding citizen, but I bet that there are other things in your life. Maybe little sins, little rules you break that you've become numb to, you've become comfortable with. A little white lie, a little gossip with your friends, a little bit of sexually explicit television shows, a little bit of anger towards your spouse. But don't worry, you lied so you wouldn't hurt someone's feeling. and you're gossiping because you need to vent. And you need to stay relevant because everyone is watching that one show. And your spouse honestly had it coming. Anyone saying would have been angry

at them. See, we get comfortable with our little sins. We justify them. We scoach over a bit so they can fit into our lives. We don't see what the big deal is. But when it comes to big sins, We're loud. We point the finger at the world of sinful people around us. How could he have that affair? I cannot believe she gets drunk every Friday night. How could they have a child outside of marriage? See, we protest, letting the world know how we as Christians feel about the sin of homosexuality or the injustice of abortion. We hold up picket signs in our hearts signaling to the world around us that we do. We do. We do. We do it. We hold up picket signs in our hearts signaling to the world around us that we do. don't sin big like them. And while, yes, not all sins are exactly the same, I say that meaning sins do come with big and little consequences. Some sins cause greater fractures in our interpersonal relationships. Some sins harm other people more deeply, more intrinsically. But we're fooling ourselves if we think that to a holy God, any kind of sin isn't a big deal. Leviticus 10 makes this clear. Right on the heels of becoming priests of the nation of Israel,

right after being clothed with the priestly garments and learning all the commands from the Lord, right after their sin offerings have been accepted from the Lord, Aaron's sons are killed by God. Leviticus 10. Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censor and put fire in it, and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord has said. Among those who are near me, I will be sanctified. And before all the people, I will be glorified.

And Aaron held his peace. These brothers, Aaron's oldest sons, priests of the nation of Israel are struck down, killed by a holy God, why? Well, the text tells us it was because they lit unauthorized fire. Now, does that seem a little dramatic to you? Maybe you've heard of other instances in scripture where something like this happens. A woman looks back on Sodom and Gomorrah, a couple lies about their donations, a man touches the Ark of the covenant, and God strikes them dead.

This feels like an overreaction to us, doesn't it? We want to know that maybe these sons of errands, they were drunk, or maybe they were worshipping other gods, or maybe they were just really bad people in their normal lives, and this was the last straw. The thing is, we don't know for sure if any of those things are true, because the Bible doesn't shed light on any of those possibilities. What we do know is that they lit an unauthorized or strange fire when the Lord had not commanded them to do so. And because of this action, they died before the Lord. Sit with that for a moment.

Don't try to speculate or add to their sins. God killed the sons of Aaron for lighting an unauthorized fire in the temple. The feeling of unease, the desire to call. all God unjust, angry, and spiteful, all come from the same place in our hearts that wants to move over, cuddle up, and make room for our little sins. And that feeling, it sheds light on our comfort with certain sins, and it exposes our misunderstanding of what it means to follow a holy God. See, holiness, its complete moral purity, a perfectly moral God, a perfectly moral God from whom all goodness comes from. And because of that, throughout Scripture, we see immoral humans approach God with respect, humility, and fear because they approach a holy God. We cannot stand before a

holy God without being overwhelmed by His perfection in light of our imperfection. Every one of us, whether we consider our sins big or little, is guilty and unable to stand. righteous before a holy God. C.S. Lewis in his book, Screw tape letters, tells the story of a demon teaching his apprentice how to lure people away from the enemy, the enemy being God. And in a conversation between this older demon

and his apprentice, Lewis writes this. You will say that these are very small sins. And doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the light and out into the nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to hell,

is the gradual one, the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. Lewis imagines this young apprentice wanting to lure his subject into big spectacular wickedness, like murder or abortion or homosexuality or adultery or drunkenness. But the older demon, the older one knows that the only thing that matters is separated. man from God. And as it turns out, with a holy God, small sins can do the trick. Do you take your sin seriously? Do you know what it means to fear and follow a holy God? We have to examine our hearts. We have to cut away out and stamp out the parts of us that are comfortable with our little sins. It isn't safe. It isn't no big deal. We follow a holy God and we have to understand. We have to

understand what that means for our lives. Because we are not holy, not one of us. And because God is holy and just, he has every right to enact justice against any and all sins. God knew this. And so we see him put in place mediators between his people and himself. For the people of Israel, that was their priests. It was the priests who made sacrifices for the sins of the people. And yet in this very story, we see that God's priests, they're just as broken and sinful as his people. They disobey. They distort God's commands, his instructions. They do things their own way, and they suffer the consequences of not taking seriously the holiness of God. We have to have a right view of our sin and a right view of our God. We have to approach

God with a right reverence, with humility, with respect. fearing a holy and perfect God. But we also, we also get to approach God with thankfulness and joyful expectation because it is the same holy God whose presence we cannot stand in as sinful people that made a way for his people to be brought near to him. The priests of Israel served as imperfect mediators, but scripture tells us that Jesus is the ultimate high priest and mediator for all of God's people. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus, the son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way

just as we are, yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence. so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Jesus became our high priest when he offered himself as a blameless sacrifice for an unholy people. He made a way for us to confidently come before a holy God and receive mercy, not the judgment that we deserve. The only way that we can stand before a holy God and receive mercy rather than judgment is because Jesus suffered on our behalf. Our sin has real consequences in this physical world and for our spiritual lives. The little sins we are so comfortable with are slowly pulling us away from a holy God.

When we don't recognize the gravity of our brokenness, we cannot understand the weight of what Jesus did or see our need for his mediation as our great high priest. We need to pray like the psalmist prays in Psalm 139. Search me, God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. We cannot come before.

a holy God until we examine our hearts and start seeing our sin all of it the way that God sees it. May we be a people who long for our sins to be taken away from us. May we be a people who look to Jesus, our high priest and mediator, to stand before a holy God for us so that we can be seen as righteous in his sight. May we be a people who are led by a holy God. as we follow him obediently in the way everlasting. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help encourage you in the middle of the work week

and bring you deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.