No, we are going to the Old Testament In fact, we're going all the way back to the book of Leviticus today so you see just how big of a Contrast that is between what I just said and the sermon itself there, but that's alright. We're gonna get through this. Amen So Leviticus chapter number 10, we're gonna read the first couple of verses. There's a thought here that I wanna share with y'all. I got the privilege of sharing this at Pacific Garden Mission back in July, and I just felt like it'd be good to share it with you here today as well. So I hope it'll be a blessing and encouragement for you today. So Leviticus chapter number 10, verses one and two, the Bible says this. and Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron. Okay, sounds like we're starting off pretty good. We're talking about the sons of Aaron here. Aaron, the first high priest for Israel, okay, took either of them his censer, okay, he's got, you know, those old time lamps there, you know, you get the, you know, like the Aladdin's lamp type deal there. Okay, well, they got the censers, looks like they're gonna do some work. All right, and put fire therein. Okay, hey, hey, those lamps ain't no good if they ain't got no fire. This is sounding really good, really good. and put incense there on. Okay, yeah, you gotta have fuel for that fire. Yeah, the incense, that's what you need. Incense, the type of prayers. This is looking great. And offered. Yes, praise God, they're offering up to God. This is awesome. Strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. Uh-oh, Houston, we got a problem. In fact, verse 2 says, and there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. I want to preach here real quickly on this thought of strange fire. Our most gracious Father in heaven, we thank you Lord for all you've done for us. And this is certainly a subject that each one of us, and I suppose it actually does go back to what I was saying about Paul and Silas that are in jail. We ain't doing it right. We ain't doing it your way. We are trying to do it with unconfessed sins. Whatever the case is, we're offering strange fire. And you judge strange fire. Because it is not your holy fire. It's not regulated fire. Or regulation fire, I should say. So Lord, help us please, please, please, please to get our acts together. To do as you would have for us to do. Because we want to do right. Yes indeed, we surely want to do right. So help us, Father, please. And I pray, Father, that if there's someone, somewhere in the sound of my voice, that does not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, that somehow, through this sermon, they'll see, hey, wait a minute, I'm living a life of strange fire. I need to get saved. And they'll act upon it, please. Help us now, Father, because only You can. In the glorious, wonderful name of our precious Savior and High Priest, Jesus Christ, we ask You, Father, Amen and Amen. Strange fire is essentially fire that does not come from the approved, original source. Men generally don't care. Me have fire. Good enough for me. I can cook with fire. I can shape metal with fire. I can keep warm with fire. I don't care where fire came from, whether me striking two stones together, or lightning come from sky and strike wood. Me good. But when it comes to God, though, And the Bible describes him as a consuming fire. You see many places he talks about his wrath and comparing it to fire, the book of Nahum. You see God's fiery wrath coming down upon them. But fire also cleanses too, because fire is what melts the gold and separates the gold from the dross. God wants the right fire. Offering strange fire, it's simply going to cost you a lot, quite possibly everything. That's what happened here with Nadab and Abihu. It cost them everything to offer the wrong kind of fire before a holy and righteous God. It's gotta be done the right way. And there are instances even with man that we recognize that we've got to have the right fire. recently here in 2024, the Summer Olympics took place. And I got to thinking about the tradition that goes back several decades with the Olympics. And what they do is they start with the cauldron there in Greece, because Greece is who created the first Olympics and all that. They start with the cauldron there in Greece, they light the fire there. And then they will have runners take a torch and they will pass this torch. They'll run for a certain distance, pass the torch to the next guy, and that person will run to the next person and pass the torch, so on and so forth there. And they will run it all the way, one way or the other, until they finally get to the city that is hosting the Olympics, whether it's the summer or the winter, either way. And once they arrive at that new Olympic Stadium, they will take that torch and they will go up to that cauldron there at the new Olympic Stadium, and they will light that cauldron on fire, symbolizing the opening of that season's Olympic Games. Well, as I was doing a little bit of studying there on the Olympic flames, I found that there was one time they had a bit of an issue. You see, there's rules in regards to that fire. If the fire goes out, they actually have a van or some other form of storage nearby that has other authorized Olympic torches inside of there with a flame present that they took from off of that cauldron there in Greece and they keep it safe in there so if the torch ever goes out they can relight it with one of these other torches or just swap out the torch altogether so that same Olympic fire that began in Greece continues through to the Olympic City. But one time, I believe it was back in the late 70s, the flame at the cauldron had been lit, and everything's going great, but that particular venue, this one day, they weren't having any events there. They were spread out at other sites. And the fire in that Olympic cauldron went out. And as such, it's not burning. The fire had gone out. Well, there was a plumber nearby who realized that the fire had gone out. And what he did was he pulled out his trusty lighter and he went up and he just reignited the flame. Hey, it's all good in the hood. The fire is going yet again. A couple hours later, the Olympic officials were told about what happened, and they immediately ordered the extinguishing, I'll get out in a moment, of that fire. It was strange fire. It had not been lit by the fire from the cauldron all the way back there in Greece. So what they did was they had They still had the torch with the fire off to the side secured so it doesn't go out. They took one of those torches there after they had extinguished this fire and they brought the torch with the official Olympic flame on it and used it to reignite the fire there in that cauldron. Because for their ceremonies, okay, human ceremonies, They wanted the real thing! Church, why is it we don't want the real thing with God and His fire? Did you know that when John the Baptist was preaching, he promised that the Messiah was going to come and do two things for all those he would save? He would baptize them with the Holy Spirit and with fire! Yeah! Go ahead, look it up there in Matthew. It'll show you with fire. You and I, we need that real fire from God. His regulation approved official fire from God in our lives. Because if we ain't got it, we're just a bunch of pretenders going on out there. We're just a bunch of hypocrites. We're no better than the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus complained about. Because we're playing a part. But we might be saved, but we're not actually doing right. I mean, Nadab and Abihu were Israelites. Heck, they were Levites. You know what? Even further, they were the two oldest sons of Aaron. One of them, Nadab, was meant to be the next high priest after dear old dad died. Abihu was the spare, just in case something happened to Nadab. Well, something happened to both of them. Because they offered strange fire. And I want to look at this subject here real quickly. I want to look at these boys here. And just for clarity, I'll throw this out there. All of my points will begin with the letter R. So if you're taking notes, you know what to go with. But number one, they got in a hurry and rushed. Yeah, yeah. And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. At what point does God say, hey, you two, I need you to go and offer fire? I need you to actually go out there, get you each a censer, put some incense in there, and start burning it. Where does God tell them specifically to do it? Answer, he doesn't. They were rushing. Yeah. I don't know why. I don't. You don't know why. No one knows why but these two and God. That's it. As to why they rushed. But they couldn't wait to get the authorized flame from God off the altar. They went ahead and did it themselves. I don't know. One of them pulled out their Zippo lighter. They banged rocks together. Hey, lightning struck over there and fire started. Obviously that's what God, the source that God wants us to use. I don't know what it is that caused them to do it. And I don't know what causes you and I to do the exact same thing in our lives. We get ahead of God all the time. Oh, this is what God would have me do. And I got to run and hurry up and do it. Now don't misunderstand. There are times when God's telling us to do something. We need to do it. Don't put it off. But until God tells us to do it, don't be rushing to do it. Okay? But that's what these guys did. Became a rush job to them. Gotta hurry up, gotta get it done. They said there's no time to do the right thing now. We need to do the thing now. Excuse me. Now maybe they'd have been okay if they'd have just waited a couple more minutes and went out there and actually got the right stuff. Excuse me. But whatever it is, they decided they needed to take a shortcut. Shortcuts, they can be useful, but not when it comes to dealing with eternity, folks. I understand there are things that, you know, we just feel that we've just got to absolutely do. But if it's not God's plan, God's way, in God's time, we're trying to rush God. I mean, yeah, we certainly would love for God to do things in our time. Oh man, so many things. But instead, nah, I got to rush it. Sometimes we just offer up a really quick prayer. God, would it be for your will for me to do this? Okay, good enough for me. Obviously, I had the thought, so that's God telling me, yes, if we go and do it. I remember years ago, I was preaching at a church, and somehow or other... This is a guy, I think, I got to talking about cars, and the reason we have some of these problems with these cars is because we ain't stopped and actually took the time to pray about it and wait for God to direct us to the right car. The one he wants for us to have, if we actually need a car. Had a couple come up to me after service. How in the world did you know? What are you talking about? We've had nothing but problems with our car since we bought it six months ago. We didn't pray about it. We said this is a car we like and we bought it. The worst part was he was a mechanic. But sometimes we rush. Preachers will rush too. Don't let anyone ever out there tell you that we don't mess up. Preachers don't get in too big of a hurry at times. We do. We're just as human. We're just as fallible as the next person. But let's try not to be Nadab and Abihu. Cause that's, yeah, that's a problem. Let's not offer up that strange fire, cause we're rushed. You know what else? Aside from them rushing, they thought it was their right. Yeah. They are the sons of Aaron, the two oldest. Dear old dad is the current high priest here in Israel according to the divine. Therefore, it's our right to do as we wish. And quite frankly, we can do whatever we want. That's always nothing but problems when we decide we can do whatever we want because it's our right. And they felt they can do it whenever they wanted to. Yeah, getting away from God's time, God's way, God's plan. Kind of like how, and I'm not preaching against anyone specifically here, but people will say my body, my choice. Genetically speaking, that's not your body. It has its own genetic code, that little baby growing in there. You had your choice. You made your choice. You ended up where you are. And you know what the fascinating part I found out about that was? When COVID hit. And suddenly it was no longer my body, my choice. Now it was, you must mask up. You must get these inoculations. You must get the COVID vaccine. You must, you must, you must. You must remain six feet away. You must do this. You must do that. You must not go to church. It's okay for you to go to Walmart. You can't go to church. Remember all those musts? The right suddenly went out the window because someone decided it was their right to dictate everything. Now I'm not bashing against the COVID stuff either. I'm just saying. We need to be careful. We need to be certain about what is our right. Okay? A lot of people think, well, hey, I live here in America. I have rights. Yeah, you've got rights. You have certain unalienable rights. Doesn't mean they're right with God. Here's an example for you. I heard of a pastor. He went up into Canada and he started preaching and he started preaching against homosexuality. He got arrested. Went before the judge and the judge told him, Sir, you are no longer in the United States. You are here in Canada. You do not have First Amendment rights to say whatever you want. He got in a lot of trouble. Now, put that to the side and understand this. God looks down at us and says, you may think it's your right to do this, that, or the other, whenever you want, with whomever you want, with whatever you want, but do you have the right with me? And the only way you've got the right with God is if you are right with God in what you're doing, how you are doing it, and when you are doing it. Otherwise, it's strange fire to Him. If it's strange fire, by the way, just to let you know, in case you did not understand from our text here, where it said in verse 2, and there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Yeah. He did not approve. And there were consequences. We can very easily have consequences too for acting upon what we think is our right, but it's not His will. Strange fire is also radiant. The word radiant means that it looks just as good. Honestly, fire is fire. You're looking at, I understand there's electrical fires, there's grease fires, there's wood fires, there's coal fires. I get all that, okay? But when I'm looking at fire, I couldn't tell you, okay, this one came from off of my stove versus this fire coming off from my neighbor's hot water heater, okay? I couldn't tell you. They look like flames to me. They both radiate light. They both have certain colors to them. It's good. It glows. It's showy. It gets attention here. And for these two guys, Nadab and Abihu, it showed how important they are. And who doesn't like to feel that way, feel important? Guilty. Get the big head occasionally. Not just the bald head, but the big head. Or sitting there like, hey, yeah, I'm all that and a bag of chips. I am the man or I am the woman, whatever the case may be there. Remember Brandon Morris, years ago he testified that He got the big head once, and he started going around telling people, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm booking meetings with my pastor, Larry Brown. Both of them gone home to be with the Lord now. But Brandon, if he was still here, he'd tell you, booking meetings with my pastor, and he got up there to preach this one time, and he started stuttering and stammering, couldn't get nothing out as he's trying to tell people where to turn in the Bibles. Then he said he got the big idea, he was gonna sing a song and he, oh man, he absolutely butchered the first couple of words and all of a sudden his pastor got up and told him to sit down. As he was radiating a strange fire. He had let it get to him, he'd let his ego get out of control. And what happened? He got put down for it. been there, done that, still got the t-shirt that don't fit. In fact, I've been there many times. Oh, the stories I could tell you about letting my ego get out of control. But church, if what we are radiating is not God, If what we are radiating is our self, is our cause, is our thing that we're trying to show off here, then it is strange fire to God. It's like taking and going out to your favorite restaurant. Money is no option, or no object, because you've got a pocket full of $100 bills. You could barely pull it out of your pocket. It is monster-sized wad of $100 bills. and you take all of your friends out to go pay, to eat this food, and you're gonna go pay, and you got that wad of $100 bills, you start counting them out, okay? This pays the bill, here's a $100 tip for my server, and everything looks good in the hood, except for the fact that every last one of those $100 bills is counterfeit! It's fake! And the restaurant catches it. Yeah. You may have been radiating that you had it made in the shade. You may have been radiating that you were rich as can be. But you broke. And you can take that same wad of counterfeit hundred dollar bills and in your ignorance throw them in the offering plate there at church. Oh, praise the Lord. He allowed me the blessing to go and bless that church with $10,000, all $100 bills. I even put in a nice envelope there. They are all facing the same way. I even put them in sequential order. Boom, right there in the offering plate for them. But every last one of them is counterfeit. Guess what? It don't mean nothing. Yeah. Don't mean anything. They're fake. Someone will find them. And it'll be an embarrassment. Are we radiating God? Or are we radiating strange fire that is obviously not of God? Yeah. Had a problem on our end, if that's the case. Let me just say also that this Strange fire is by nature radioactive. In their case, for Nadab and Abihu, it was very quickly eating away at their lives. These boys, they struck that fire onto their sensors there, and they had no idea they had mere minutes left to live, if they even had minutes at that point in time. They were dying. Nuclear bomb just went off in their face. They are about to die It ultimately killed them And given how they chose to go out it seems Quite frankly because they had to do things their way with their material I would say it would be fair to say they didn't have actual faith in God to supply the need. Because we need God to supply our need. I don't care how much money you got. I don't care how much you got in the bank. I don't care how easy access you got to the materials you need. If God ain't supplying that need, then it's strange fire and it ain't gonna be proper. You can stone me for that later, that's fine. I know a lot of people, they've spent hundreds and thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars to build things, and God ain't in any of it. And it might still last to this day, but it ain't of God. I really believe those two boys end up splitting hell wide open. That's me, I could easily get to heaven and be proven wrong, but that's what I think. And there are times that our lives, we're gonna find that they're gonna be hampered. Everything that can go wrong is going to definitely go wrong. But you know it tends to be that God in those situations, He's actually trying to get our attention. And all we're doing is we're letting the radioactivity of this strange fire eat away at us. And God's trying to say, look I don't want you to be destroyed by this. Stop it. Please let me help you to get away from this problem that is going to destroy you. Because your life could easily end up being cut short. Their lives certainly were cut short. I don't read where these guys were old men. Men, yes. Old, no. Aaron and Moses were old. These guys, no. Not everyone who dies young is living in sin. We should keep that in mind. And not everybody who lives to be an old man or woman is living for God. We should keep that in mind as well. But we need to keep in mind that 1 John 5, 16 says that there is a sin unto death. A line. Not in the sand, but a line in concrete, titanium, whatever. It's something that's not going to be changed. that we could potentially cross with our strange fire and God's gonna say, that's your final step, I'm taking you out. We don't want that church. Flee the strange fire. Get to the regulation fire. Because that's the type of fire we need. We need regulation fire. Regulation means that it's been approved. This is the right thing. This is official. This is what you need. So how do I get it, preacher? How do I get regulation fire in my life? Well, number one, if you are not saved, you need to put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, that only He can save you. If you will believe that He can save you, you've taken that first step. The second step is simply this, ask Him to save you. Yeah, it's that easy. Like I said, John the Baptist said, the one coming after him is gonna baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. That's how you get the fire in your life. Oh, and by the way, even if you've been out of church for decades, okay, you got saved when you were a child, and now you're an 80-year-old person, and you haven't been in church for the last 70 years, the fire may look like it is out. You can't see that glow unless you get really, really, really close to it. But guess what? It's still there, and it can be rekindled! You gotta get back to Jesus. So step 1, believe in Jesus. Step 2, ask Him to save you. Step 3, get in the book. Read it. Memorize it. Study! Paul said in 2 Timothy 2.15, Study to show thyself approved unto God. A workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." Study the Bible. Start fellowshipping with other believers who are reading their Bibles, who are praying, who are attending church. Don't forget you also have to attend church. Garage Baptist is just that, it's supplemental material. Be sure you are in an actual physical church, if you are able to get out of the house. Get there and fellowship with these people and learn together why we got Sunday school now So that we can help each other to grow to learn this stuff about the Bible here Why we listen to excuse me the preacher preach is because we're trying to get as much of the Bible into our lives as possible Because this is what we need. Bible basic instructions before leaving earth. B-I-B-L-E. This is the road map that God has given us. Everything about life is contained within these pages right here. If we will just simply take and come to Him. The source of that fire that we need in our lives. Get some. Hebrews 10.25 says, Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. In other words, don't drift away, church. Come together right now. This is Sunday morning. A little after 5.30 on a Sunday morning, Central Standard Time. Church doors are probably going to be opening in about four hours or so. for Sunday school. Be on time for Sunday school. Give your pastor a heart attack just by seeing you there on time for Sunday school. Church starts at 11 o'clock usually. Be there for it. Hey, there's a Sunday night service still going on. I know a lot of churches have gotten away from Sunday nights, but if there's still a Sunday night, be there if you can. Midweek service, be there. Revival meeting, be there. Oh, here's a strange one for you. You hear another church is having a revival? Don't just say, good for them. Go. You need that revival meeting too. What ain't my church? I don't care. They're preaching the gospel. They're preaching from the word of God. Show up there. You need all the help you can get. Why wouldn't you say I need all the help I can get? Because like they say, you need Jesus just to go to Walmart, let alone go to heaven. You go to Walmart, it's going to take a lot out of you, spiritually. You go to your job, it's going to take a lot out of you, spiritually. You go to school, it's going to take a lot out of you, spiritually. Everything about this world is trying to get you to operate with a strange fire. You need as much of the regular fire as you can get in your lives, and you're only going to get that by getting with God! Are you willing? Are you willing to go get that regulation fire from God, or do you just want to settle for the bad stuff? That's the question today, church. Do you want regulation fire or strange fire? It's up to you. Our most gracious Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for all you've done for us. Lord, this is the sermon you have for us to bring to your people today. Help and pray, Father, that everyone there in the sound of my voice heard what they needed to hear, and that they be willing, willing, and then follow through on getting what they need from You, to getting to the good stuff. to getting where our hope is. And let that regulation fire into our lives and let it burn off the dross that has accumulated. Whether it be over the past few minutes, the past few hours, the past few days, weeks, months, years, whatever the case is. Because you're not only a consuming fire, but you are a purifying fire. And you can help us. You WANT, on top of that, you WANT to help us. And we're begging you Father for that help please. In the glorious name of Jesus Christ we do pray, Amen.