The following is a sermon preached at the First Presbyterian Church of Jackson, Mississippi. This morning we are returning to our studies in the book of Leviticus from which we took a break in December and January. We are still in the first major section of the book which deals with sacrifices and priesthood that are really at the very heart of worship in ancient Israel. And we pick up the study today in chapters 9 and 10. In chapter 8, Aaron and his sons were consecrated and ordained as priests in an ordination ceremony that took seven whole days. And our passage this morning begins, you'll notice, in chapter 9, verse 1, on the eighth day. So this is the first day after the ordination of the priesthood, and what follows in these chapters is the inaugural worship service under the leadership of those priests in the tabernacle. The whole assembly of Israel gathers. The priests perform the various sacrifices required of them in the law. Now, no doubt as you gathered to worship this morning, your expectations of what we would do in this service would have been very different from those of Moses and Aaron and the Israelites at that first worship service in the tabernacle in the wilderness long ago. Their worship and our worship, at least outwardly, are very unalike. But while the outward forms are different, to be sure, there are some shared principles about worship from Leviticus 9 and 10 that continue to apply to us even in our new covenant age. Let me simply list the principles that we'll consider together this morning for you, and then we'll read the passage and study them each in turn. In chapter 9, we're going to learn about the pattern and the promise of worship. And then in chapter 10, the peril and the practice of worship. Okay? So there's the four principles we'll think about today—the pattern, the promise, the peril, and the practice of worship. That said, let me invite you to bow your heads with me one more time as we ask for the Lord to help us understand and apply His holy Word. Let us pray. Lord our God, please will You send us the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit, giving us light and understanding as Your Word is read. We want to do more than simply grasp its truth. We want to meet with the Lord Jesus who speaks to us here, We want to be reconciled to You, having our sin forgiven. We want our worship and indeed our very selves to be acceptable in Your sight through our Lord Jesus Christ. So take Your Word now in the power of Your Spirit and wield it to wound and to heal in all our hearts for Jesus' sake. Amen. Leviticus chapter 9 at the first verse. This is the Word of God. On the eighth day, Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel, and he said to Aaron, take for yourself a bull calf for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering, both without blemish, and offer them before the Lord. And say to the people of Israel, take a male goat for a sin offering. and a calf and a lamb, both a year old without blemish for a burnt offering, and an ox and a ram for peace offerings to sacrifice before the Lord, and a grain offering mixed with oil, for today the Lord will appear to you." And they brought what Moses commanded in front of the tent of meeting, all the congregation drew near and stood before the Lord. And Moses said, This is the thing that the Lord commanded you to do, that the glory of the Lord may appear to you. Then Moses said to Aaron, Draw near to the altar, and offer your sin offering and your burnt offering, and make atonement for yourself and for the people, and bring the offering of the people and make atonement for them, as the Lord has commanded." And then in verses 8–14, we see Aaron offering the sacrifices prescribed for the priests, and in 15–21, the sacrifices prescribed for the people, And we pick up the reading again at verse 22. Then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them. And he came down from offering the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings. And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting, and when they came out, they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering, and the pieces of fat on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer 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. Amen. Every Monday, an email goes out to all the ministry staff at First Presbyterian Church with the first draft of the order of service for the coming Sunday. The email goes out so that we can check it over and make sure that the order of the liturgy makes sense, all the elements are in their proper places before the Tuesday lunchtime print deadline. In Leviticus 9, 1 through 7, Moses calls Aaron and his sons and all the elders together, and essentially he gives them the bulletin containing the order of service for the inaugural worship service at the tabernacle. Here in the first place is the pattern of worship, the pattern of worship. In verse 2, the priests are to offer a bull calf for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering on their own behalf. And then, verses 3 and 4, the people of Israel are to bring a goat for a sin offering and a calf and a lamb for a burnt offering and an ox and a ram for a peace offering and a grain offering. at Moses' command. The whole congregation of Israel assembles with their offerings before the Tent of Meeting in verse 5, and Aaron is instructed to make atonement for himself and his sons and then for all the people in verse 7. That is essentially the liturgy prescribed for the first worship service at the tabernacle under Aaron's priesthood. And then in verses 8 through 21, we have the record of the service itself, each sacrifice in turn offered just as Moses said it should be. And it really doesn't look like church at all, does it? There are no priests, there's no blood being spilled, there's no altar in our worship services, for which I'm sure you're deeply grateful. Doesn't look like church, and yet there are two principles operating in this first tabernacle service that continue to be important for our worship every Lord's Day today. First, this worship, true worship, is to be by the book, and secondly, true worship is to be by the blood. by the book and by the blood. If worship in Moses' day, worship in our day is to be acceptable before God, these two things must be true of it. It must be by the book and by the blood. It is worshiped by the book, first of all. Five times over in these opening seven verses, in verse 1, 2, 5, 6, and 7, we're told everything happens here at the call or command of Moses. Moses, remember, is the mediator of the covenant. He's the one through whom God speaks His Word to Israel. And so naturally, Moses is the one who directs every detail of this inaugural worship service. It was all, as verse 21 puts it, as Moses commanded. But these commands of Moses are not novel. He didn't invent this order of service out of thin air. He didn't convene the worship team, you know. to dream up an especially impressive liturgy for this first worship service. Let's come up with something really special that will, you know, that will knock people's socks off for the opening service at the tabernacle. That's not it at all, no. Notice at the end of verse 7, all the commands of Moses to offer these sacrifices are actually as the Lord has commanded. The same language shows up again in verse 10. The sin offering was made as the Lord commanded Moses. And when Aaron offered the burnt offering, we read in verse 16 that he did so, notice how the text puts it, according to the rule. You might recall that we spent a significant amount of time, a number of weeks, carefully working through the various prescribed details for each of the major sacrifices of Israelite worship in Leviticus chapters 1 through 6. The point that this chapter is now making is that in the opening worship service of the tabernacle, each of these rites that we've already considered is performed in exacting obedience to the rule laid down in the first part of the book of Leviticus. And the reason for that is very simple. God alone gets to determine the content of acceptable worship. God alone gets to determine the content of acceptable worship. That was true in ancient Israel, and it is still true today. The elements of worship that please Him are not left to our whim and taste and preference. We're not to go to God to offer Him what best pleases us. we are to offer Him only what He has told us pleases Him. Now, in the new covenant age in which we live, the public worship of God no longer features blood sacrifice on an altar offered by priests, but the Scriptures are no less clear in prescribing exactly what we are to do when we come together on the Lord's Day. We are, Acts 2.42, to devote ourselves to apostolic teaching and to the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and to the prayers. We are to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly as we teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in our hearts to God, Colossians 3, 16. On the first day of the week, we are to take up a financial offering for the work of ministry, 1 Corinthians 16, 2. We are to baptize into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 28, 19. We are to celebrate the Lord's Supper in obedience to the Lord Jesus, who said, this do in remembrance of me," 1 Corinthians 11.24. That is the scriptural pattern of New Testament worship. This is what God commands. And we're not free to add to or to subtract from it my taste, my creativity, what I think will work or not work. As far as the elements of worship are concerned, those things are entirely irrelevant. We are to read the Bible, sing the Bible, pray the promises of the Bible, preach the message of the Bible, and see and touch and taste the truth of the Bible in the sacraments of baptism and the supper. That is the worship God requires, and it must be worship by the Book. if it is to be acceptable to Him. So first of all, here's the first principle we see. Worship must be by the book. But secondly, Leviticus 9 reminds us true worship must also be worship by the blood. And that point sits, doesn't it, right on the surface of the text. In verse 8, Aaron dips his fingers in the blood of the sin offering and applies it to the horns of the altar and then pours the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. The priests offer their sin offerings in 8–11 and their burnt offerings in 12–14, and then the same procedure is followed in verses 15–21 for the whole assembly of the people. The animals are slain and their blood is manipulated and applied to the altar, and their flesh is burnt up in sacrifice to God. It is gory and bloody. But remember, Leviticus has been teaching us This is nevertheless the only way for sinners into the presence of a holy God. Hebrews 9.22, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. Now, of course, all of these sacrifices in the Old Testament Scriptures are designed to point forward, aren't they, to the final, perfect, once-for-all sacrifice, not of the blood of bulls and goats, but of the precious blood of Christ, who offered Himself without blemish to God. He is the Lamb of God who takes away forever the sin of the world. Now, I think we're used to the idea that at the cross, Jesus died so that we might be forgiven. Praise God for that glorious and precious truth. But I suspect that while that is a familiar and precious idea to us, we rarely consider that Jesus died not just to secure our pardon before God, but our access into the presence of God that we might worship Him. Did you know that your pardon, your forgiveness, isn't actually the final goal of the cross of Jesus Christ at all? The intention and design of Jesus doesn't terminate on you and your forgiveness, but rather you and your forgiveness by His blood has a further end in view. the glory and praise of God's great Name, who has reconciled you to Himself by the blood of His Son. Jesus died to make you worship, to open the way. That's why at the moment of His death, do you remember, The temple curtain that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom by the death of Jesus, by His sacrifice. Your sin is removed so that access might be given to you all the way in. to the most holy place, into the very presence of the God who is holy, holy, holy. Ephesians 2.18, the apostle Paul says, through him, that is, through Jesus' blood, we both, Jews and Gentiles now alike, everyone, we all have access in one's spirit to the Father. And that is the point here. We get to draw near to God. to worship Him because of the blood of Christ. And when you think about worship in those terms, in light of the price paid by your Savior, you will begin to see that worship really ought to be the most precious privilege you ever exercise. What we are doing here today was made possible only by the blood of our dear Savior. Jesus Christ died. to make us all now a kingdom and priests to serve our God, that we may declare the praises of Him who called us out of darkness and into His marvelous light. Your access to God, free access in prayer and praise, it is a blood-bought privilege. It took the horror and hell of Calvary to secure it for us. And shouldn't that make us all reconsider our attitude as we participate in it? Am I a complainer, a fault finder, always sitting in judgment on worship? instead of bowing in reverence before the God whose Son died to give me free access to His throne? Am I a bored worshiper, indifferent, tuned out? The Savior I say I love was hanged on the tree. in agony of body and soul, to lavish on me the priestly privilege of praise, and I won't even open my mouth to sing His great name. Has familiarity with worship bred contempt in me? It's all just so old hat. It's the same old, same old every week. It just doesn't excite me anymore. Beloved, we need to go back to Calvary, don't we, to meditate again on the sufferings of our Savior who loved us and gave Himself for us. We need to look longer at His wounds and remember, these were the price of your privileges. Here is the pattern of worship. Do you see it? It must be by the Book, according to the Word of God. And how precious it should be to us, because it can only also be by the blood. He died to open the way that we may praise Him. The pattern. Secondly, the promise of worship. In verse 4, Moses tells the congregation to bring these sacrifices, notice, because today the Lord will appear to you, In verse 6 he tells Aaron, this is the thing that the Lord has commanded you to do, that the glory of the Lord may appear to you. Don't miss the conditional clause there in verse 6. Do this thing so that the glory of the Lord may appear to you. The appearance of the glory of the Lord is conditioned upon the obedient worship of his people. Later, after the service was concluded, as we saw in our reading, Aaron pronounced a benediction, and in verse 23, the glory of the Lord appeared to the people, and fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. It was an awesome moment, an awesome moment. But remember that for all the difference in outward form between their worship and ours, we continue today to worship the same living and holy God whose presence is fire and electricity. And aren't there still times, actually, when something of the weight of the glory of God becomes palpable to us in the preaching of the Word, in the ordinances of gospel worship. We feel as though God comes down as the Holy Spirit works in our hearts, and we are still. There's a hush. There's an awe. We're humbled. We're bowed under the weight of the holiness of God. And there are times, there are times when we're so searched by the Scriptures, like the visitor in the congregation in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 14, 25, we fall down and we say, is truly among you. He's here. There are moments still like that, echoes of this moment here in Leviticus 9, in the wilderness, to be had even now today in this new covenant age as the people of God offer their sacrifices of praise. When the Reverend Alexander MacLeod arrived in the tiny village of Uig on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, He was appalled at the profound spiritual ignorance and superstition and worldliness of the people. It took him three years of faithful pastoral labor and gospel preaching and much prayer before he was able to admit anyone to the Lord's table. But on the 25th of June, 1827, the first communion season in years was held in the parish. John MacDonald of Ferentosha, whose remarkable ministry in the Highlands of Scotland led him to be called the Apostle of the North. He was the preacher on that occasion, and the people from all over the islands flooded to hear the Word of God. At one point, the congregation was so moved by MacDonald's sermon that he was forced to pause and to announce a psalm to be sung until the people could regain their composure. The presenters, they would sing unaccompanied, and so there would be a presenter, a song leader. They began the psalm. They began to sing, but nobody in the congregation could break the silence and muster the strength to break the solemn stillness that had overcome them. MacDonald and the two presenters were the only people singing in a congregation of thousands. McLeod said of those services, quote, in serving the communion tables, the heavenly dew of gracious influences was evidently falling down on the people in so conspicuous a manner that not only the friends of Christ but also the enemies of the Lord cannot forget an occasion and a scene so singularly remarkable in which all acknowledge that God was of a truth among us. After the service, it was remarked that the communion cloths that covered the tables were as wet with the tears of the communicants as though they had been dipped in water. Sometimes God comes in unusual power, and the gravity of His nearness leaves us bowed and breathless before Him. That is a reality for which we must pray and plead with God until He gives it to us. But friends, let's acknowledge that we live at a time when people want the experience of transcendence like that. We all want to feel God, and that's a good thing. It's not a bad thing. but we rarely want the obedience upon which the promise of God's shining presence rests. Like Israel before the tabernacle, we must learn to tremble before Him and to cultivate a holy reverence for His worship and praise. We are to regulate our devotion according to the commands of His Word and not to the dictates of our own preferences. We are to obey Him. Obey Him, and He will keep His promise to draw near to us. That's what Jesus said He would do. Do you remember in John 14, Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him." There is a promise of the presence of God, of fresh discoveries of Christ in the heart, fresh tastes of the sweetness of God's love in your soul. But it is a promise made to those who keep His commandments. Do you want only the experience, but you don't care for the obedience? The Lord calls us to obedience, the pattern of worship, the promise of worship. Now look at chapter 10, 1 through 7, and the peril of worship, the peril of worship. Aaron's two sons, Nadab and Abihu, are newly ordained priests. They've been with their father this whole time for the seven days of their ordination ceremony in the tabernacle. They've heard all the commands of God. They've seen the glory of God, the fire from before the presence of the Lord that consumes the offerings. And yet, verse 1, Each took his censer 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." Now, we really don't know exactly what it was that Nadab and Abihu did here. The word translated unauthorized, you can see in the footnotes in the ESV, is the word strange. Strange fire is what they offered. That was a word that was often used for the pagan nations that surrounded the covenant people of God, Israel, which is a thought that has led some scholars to speculate that perhaps what Nadab and Abihu did was imitating those strangers to the covenant of God and offered some form of pagan offering. But the fact is, we really don't know for sure. The text doesn't say, which in itself is instructive. Exactly what they did is much less important than the principle they transgressed. We said at the beginning that acceptable worship before God is worship by the book, but need to have been a by who didn't seem to think so, did they? First chance they got, it seems, they decided they knew better. They were going to make an impression. They have a few innovations, you know, a couple of tricks up their sleeve that they think are really going to improve the worship experience. Wait till Moses sees this. But as it turns out, the fire of God's holiness that accepts true worship utterly abhors false worship. And that is a weighty reality. that I daresay we badly need to reckon with. And in case we're tempted to dismiss this shocking episode as just one of those awful Old Testament moments, you know, before God learned not to be so mean anymore in the New Testament, let me remind you of Ananias and Sapphira, who when it came to the offering, lied to God about their gift and were struck dead in Acts chapter 5. Or let me remind you of Paul's solemn explanation of the situation in Corinth in the wake of their careless misuse of the Lord's Supper, 1 Corinthians 11.30. Anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. Here is the peril of worship, even in the new covenant, do not think that God doesn't care how we praise and serve Him. We need Hebrews 12-28 bolted firmly into place in our minds whenever we take His name on our lips. Hebrews 12-28, let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. The pattern of worship, the promise of worship, the peril of worship, and finally and briefly, the practice of worship. In chapter 10, 8 through 15, Moses goes on to give some specific instructions to the priests about their duties while they're engaged in the service of the temple. They're not to drink alcohol. They are to discern between clean and unclean, pure and impure, and to teach the people. And in 12 through 15 in particular, Moses reminds them they are to eat the portion of the sacrifices that have been offered. That is part of God's gracious provision for their maintenance, and it is their sacred duty. And in verse 16, Moses then goes to check. He looks to see whether these instructions were being followed, and he discovers, as he does his spot check, that the whole sacrifice has been consumed entirely on the altar, and none of it has been reserved to be eaten in a sacred meal. And so now Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's two other sons, now they have to face Moses' rebuke in verse 17. Now, when Nadab and Abihu were judged by God, Aaron, we're told, was silent in verse 3. Who can argue with the just judgment of God? But this time, what looks like a careless disregard for the law of God on the part of Aaron's boys has actually been misunderstood by Moses. And so Aaron speaks up and says, in effect, if you look at verse 19, look, Moses, yes, they burned it all on the altar, it's true. But remember, I've just lost my two eldest sons. Eleazar and Ithamar have just lost their two older brothers. If we had feasted today as if nothing had happened, would the Lord really have been pleased with that? Of course not. And so, verse 20, Moses approved. He backs down. Now, if Nadab and Abihu were destroyed by God for offering strange fire, why aren't Eleazar and Ithamar destroyed for completely disobeying the direct command of God to eat the sacred meal? How is what they did really all that different from what their brothers did? Well, at least part of the answer, surely, has to do with the attitude of the heart. The attitude of the heart. The heart really matters in the practice of worship. It's not just about doing all the things just right, and who cares about your mind and your heart and your soul? Aaron and Eleazar and Ithamar, they could have kept the letter of the law and eaten their portion and feasted in the tabernacle that night. But for this family, this isn't a day for feasting. This is a day of grief. and loss. Had they eaten the meal, there was every possibility that their hurting hearts would have added the greater sin of bitterness and resentment against God to the lesser sin of not eating their portion in the first place. Yes, obedience really matters. But remember Hosea 6.6, God says, I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Remember Psalm 51, 16, and 17, you will not delight in sacrifice or I would give it to you. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God. You will not despise. Your heart really matters. singing praises, praying prayers, hearing the Word, doing all the outward forms correctly. That's not unimportant. But doing it with a careless, loveless, unrepentant heart is as deadly before God as offering strange fire on His altar. And Aaron's remaining sons refused to do it. They know if your heart is dead and cold, your orthodoxy will damn you as effectively as any paganism ever could. We need forgiven hearts, clean hearts, new hearts, hearts that are broken and contrite, clinging to Christ for mercy, don't we? If our worship is to be acceptable, we must be accepted. And the only path to acceptance with God is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the condition of your heart this morning? What's the condition of your heart? I read a story this week about a group of pioneers in their wagons, you know, trekking across the country toward the Old West. And as they make their way, they were confronted by a prairie fire, a terrifying prairie fire, moving toward them faster than they could escape. And then someone in the group had the idea of burning the grassland behind them, so that once that fire had burned itself out, they then moved back and camped on the burnt grass. And as the prairie fire finally reached them, the children in the group—you can understand, the children in the group were afraid. Are you sure we won't be burned?" they asked. And the adults reassured them, the fire can't reach us here because we are standing where the fire has already burned. When you are in Christ, you are forgiven and cleansed and pardoned and accepted before God. You're standing where the fire has already burned. At the cross, it consumed Him that we might be accepted. The fire of God consumes the sacrifice and not the sinner. Perhaps you're here, and actually you know you're not right with God. You can go through all the forms of worship, but the issue is you're cold. unrepentant heart. Friend, Jesus Christ has died for sinners to reconcile us to God. He's opened the way into the holy place, given you access to the Father if you would but come, as I invite you to do right now, and confess your sin and cry out for mercy. Go where the fire has already burned. Go to the cross where the wrath of God consumed His Son, who gave Himself willingly to judgment that you might be spared and pardoned and accepted. God has mercy for us, grace for us at the cross. And that surely is reason, fuel to praise Him. Every Lord's Day, every day, and for all the days that God gives us, and for all the long years of eternity in His presence together. So may the Lord light our hearts ablaze with praise to His great name. Let us pray. Father, we bless You for Your holy Word. please write its truth on all our hearts, for Jesus' sake. Amen.