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A powerful Opening

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I’m always happy when my Bible-in-a-year plan takes me to Romans. After all, the book is so deep, so rich, so full of insight and doctrine. The Lord used Romans to change Martin Luther’s life, and in doing so, he changed the world. The Lord uses Romans constantly to teach believers all over the globe.

Interestingly, as we read the introduction to the book, Paul sets forth a couple of truths in his greeting that are vital.

Romans 1:1-4 – 1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,

I’ll not unpack this, but simply point to a couple of things that believers today need to remember. First, the gospel is in keeping with God’s long-time promise. It has become popular for some who claim the faith to ignore the Old Testament. Some dangerous teachers tell believers to detach themselves from the Old Testament and only focus on easy stuff in the New Testament.

But look at Paul’s words. The gospel is the result of God’s Old Testament promise. This means that you cannot really understand the gospel without understanding what God swore to do. You need to understand that God promised to bring a delivering King into the world, a glorious Savior, through the family tree of David who was himself descended from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Judah. You must grasp the story of salvation history to truly understand the glorious thing done by the Lord Jesus. And to unhitch from that story would be utterly foolish and completely dishonoring to the Lord.

The other big and deep thing that Paul points us to in the beginning of his greeting is the resurrection of Jesus. See how the two points come together. Jesus is descended from David. He is perfectly set to be the fulfillment of God’s promise. And his resurrection from the grave proves it. One might wonder about Jesus were he simply a man of the right lineage who seems like a powerful teacher and healer. But the resurrection changes everything. With the resurrection comes full divine confirmation of the deity of Jesus. With the resurrection comes full confirmation of the acceptability of his sacrifice and the completeness of his perfect work. With the resurrection comes our only hope for eternity. With the resurrection, we have hope and life. Because of the resurrection, we know we must worship Jesus as God in flesh. Without the resurrection, our faith means nothing.

Christians, when you see this kind of weight put into such a small space, you should see that God is showing us great things as this letter opens. And the things he shows us matter. Jesus is the fulfillment of a promise that God made in the garden. Jesus is the fulfillment of all toward which the Old Testament points. And Jesus is risen from the grave, proving his claims. We worship the Savior, promised from eternity past and our hope for eternity future.

Shepherds’ Conference 2020 Notes: Session 4 — H. B. Charles

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Shepherds’ Conference 2020

General Session 4

H.B. Charles

Preaching is to be measured by biblical truth, not pulpit style.

2 Timothy 2:15

A worthy workman

Many pastors and churches suffer from a ministerial identity crisis.

Many are confused as to what the church is to be and do.

What is the bottom line of Christian ministry?

2 Timothy 2:15 tells us.

Guard against false teaching that will lead to ungodliness.

Paul calls Timothy to practice careful, pastoral oversight.

He is to watch the church to protect against dangerous teaching.

But in 2 Timothy 2:15, the passage is not about watching the congregation.

It is a call for pastors to watch themselves.

Watch your own motives and conduct and doctrine.

Paul wants Timothy to watch himself.

Work to please God in everything you do.

The bottom line of Christian ministry is to please God in everything you do.

3 Requirements of God-pleasing ministry

God-pleasing ministry requires personal earnestness

Present yourself as one approved…

Study to show thyself approved…

Diligence in ministry requires study.

The word means to make haste, be diligent, make every effort.

Quote: Doing your best is more important than being the best.

Paul is not calling Timothy to be in competition with other preachers.

You are to give God your best.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else, give God your best.

Why be earnest?

Romans 12:1 calls us to present our bodies as living sacrifices.

We want to present others complete in Christ.

We want to have ourselves presented to God as one approved.

Every act of ministry should be done as an act of worship.

If your ministry is going to be pleasing to God, there will be times when you have to go through the fire.

You will have to go through the fire to be reminded that it is not about you.

God-pleasing ministry requires ministerial excellence.

This has nothing to do with size, style, or sensationalism.

It has to do with being a worker who has no need to be ashamed.

Ministry is hard work.

You are to be a worker, a laborer.

You cannot please God if you suffer from ministerial sloth.

The man of God should be known for hard work.

Colossians 1:28

We want to present people to God.

Verse 29 says that Paul toil to this end.

If you want some nice, leisurely life, you need to go do something else. Ministry is hard work.

Ministry is holy work.

Paul actually motivates Timothy with shame.

Paul uses the word shame in many places.

It would be worth it to study Paul’s understanding of shame.

Here, Paul says to Timothy that he wants to be a worker who has no need to be ashamed.

Not ashamed before God.

You can be a smashing success before men and a complete failure before God.

God sees all that we are and all that we do.

We need to live in light of the fact that our lives are clear before the Lord.

2 Corinthians 5:10 says that we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.

God-pleasing ministry requires faithful exposition.

…rightly handling the word of truth…

The term means to cut it straight.

The primary, definitive, and central function of the Christian pastor is to preach the word.

We do not have editorial authority over the content of the message.

We preach in season and out of season.

Our times despartely need faithful men who will preach the word in season and out of season.

Preach the word, not personal opinion, motivational talks, self-help advice, political perspective, trendy theology, health and wealth blasphemy, pop psychology.

You must rightly divide the word of truth to preach faithfully.

The word of God is sharp. Handle with care.

Cut it straight.

Tell the truth.

Stand your ground.

Don’t sell out.

Give God your best.

Shepherds’ Conference 2020: Session 2 — Austin Duncan

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Shepherds’ Conference 2020

General Session 2

Austin Duncan

Job 25-26

Theological Balance

We want to be careful with the word balance.

It can be quite selfish.

Jesus is radical and extreme.

This section of Job represents the book of Job faithfully.

We know the context of the story.

The opening chapters are preached often.

WE often neglect the middle of the book.

Theological balance means we let the whole Bible speak and say what it wants to say.

Theology can be close, and still quite far off.

This is true especially when we work with souls.

Job 25-26 includes the final speeches from Job’s friends.

4 rounds of speeches.

Job’s friends are telling him that he is being punished.

The counselors can sometimes be right, even as they misapply the truth that they may know.

Chapter 25

Dismantling Theological Imbalance

The chapter has the ring of theological credibility.

It looks like big-God theology.

What Bildad says about God shows us that we can be right but imprecise about how we communicate about God.

Verse 2 exposes a problem.

This use of dominion is very rare.

The word is common.

This form is different.

Bildad sees God as a particular kind of ruler.

See Psalm 8:7.

Sheep and critters are under his dominion.

Bildad seems to see God as ruling man as livestock.

To Bildad, God is tyrannical, despotic.

Daniel 11:39 also uses dominion in this way.

The word terror Bildad uses is ominous.

Again, we see that God is a despot and terrifying.

Bildad does not really understand what God is like.

His deity grinds people down, with little benevolence, all power and terror.

Bildad’s deity is likely more like the deity of Islam, not the God of the Bible.

We are not saying God is not the ruler.

But if you preach a God who is mighty and ruling but who is not good, you do not preach to them the truth.

Bildad calls man a maggot and worm.

There is worm language in other passages.

But maggot is really low language.

Psalm 8 says that man is a little lower than the angels, or than God himself.

Bildad misses truth about the value of man.

Bildad sees Job like a maggot.

HE is missing biblical balance.

Human beings matter as we carry the image of God.

Bildad is skewed in his look at mankind.

He sees man as only despicable and low.

Verse 4 is the very center of Bildad’s speech.

There is a chiasm.

IT almost looks right.

IT almost looks Calvinistic.

How can a man be just with God?

How can he be clean, pure, who is born of a woman?

This exposes what Bildad thinks of his deity.

He thinks God is so big and so mighty and so other and so holy and so sovereign that he could never forgive.

Forgiveness was necessary.

Forgiveness is clearly necessary in the book of Job.

Job offered sacrifices, so we know that he needed forgiveness.

Job is not calling himself perfect.

The book does not call Job perfect.

But the book shows that Job had sought and found forgiveness in God.

Bildad misses the point, as he cannot see how God could be compassionate and able and willing to save.

Bildad’s view of man could use some work.

He could use a little C.S. Lewis doctrine of man.

Chapter 26

Discovering Theological Balance

Job handles this differently than we might have tried to do so.

Verses 1-4 are sarcastic.

This is rich.

Job gives Bildad a very sharp response.

Job tells Bildad, “This is not helpful.”

This is for the other bad counselors too.

They have applied no real wisdom.

Verses 5-13 build from low to high.

Verse 5, the departed spirits tremble.

Maybe dead souls, maybe demons

Lowest of the low tremble.

Verse 6, sheol

God hangs the earth on nothing.

General revelation.

Job is telling Bildad that God is making mysterious spirits tremble.

God is authoritative over all things, seen and unseen, high and low.

Verse 8

God wraps up waters in the clouds.

None of us know how God makes all these things work.

Job is building a conception of God from natural revelation.

Job is looking at the world and seeing the glory of God.

Mountains look like the pillars of heaven, looking like they hold up the sky.

The word Rahab points to all sorts of evil deities and monsters.

Job does not try to balance God and man by bringing God down or exalting man.

HE explores God and man better.

Job tells Bildad that Bildad’s view of God is still too small.

A huge part of theological balance shows us that we do not have a big enough view of God.

WE are not strong enough on the glory of God.

IF you want to prepare your people to suffer, you must present to them a God who is far greater than the God they could ever imagine.

Only that God can accomplish redemption.

Even when Job overextends his own righteousness on occasion, he knows that God knows more than he does.

Job knows what verse 14 says so powerfully.

These are only the edges of God’s ways.

Job has based his case on the God who has revealed himself to Job.

This is the doctrine of the knowability of God.

God is both knowable and incomprehensible.

We must think about God rightly.

He is immense and ungraspable.

He has revealed himself and made himself known in creation and in his word.

Job shows us that the way through suffering is to see the glory of God.

Job never gets the answer that he wants and demands, at least not in this book.

Calvin reminds us that the heavens and the earth are not as great as the power and the wisdom and power of God.

To understand God is to try to hold the ocean in a single hand.

Job’s grasping of the greatness of God is what we must see for balance.

God’s blessing of Job in the end is not the glorious conclusion.

New kids do not make up for dead kids.

At the end of the book, Job died.

Job longed to have a face-to-face with God.

HE wanted answers.

He wanted to know god.

In that final line, all of Job’s questions were answered.

Job wanted a mediator.

He meets Jesus.

He wanted an intercessor.

HE meets Jesus.

Job finds one who would not accept our sacrifices, but who became a sacrifice for us.

God is mysterious.

Nothing is mysterious to God.

God’s Law, Logic, and Sovereignty

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The law of God teaches us about God. And the law of God teaches us about ourselves and our own nature. God’s law shows us just how greatly we need a Savior. And I think Leviticus 26 is a great example.

Notice these two opposite thoughts from Leviticus 26 set side-by-side.

Leviticus 26:3-4 – 3 “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, 4 then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

Leviticus 26:14-16 – 14 “But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, 15 if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it.

Ok, nothing is complicated here. God told the people of Israel that, if they obey him, they will be blessed. The section from verses 3-13 is full of blessing after blessing after blessing. God says that he will bless the people so much if they follow him that they will be happy, healthy, and whole. It is really good.

But, if the people refuse him, if they ignore his standards and his ways, God is clear that he will curse the nation. Starting at verse 14, God spells out curse after curse after curse for the nation if they turn their backs on the Lord.

Now, as a quick reminder, the people had already agreed to all this. They, as a nation, swore before God on multiple occasions that they wanted to follow him, wanted his blessing, and would accept his judgment for their disobedience. So this chapter is no surprise.

But what gets me is what this chapter tells us about ourselves. You see, if you follow the history of Israel, you will find that they, as a nation, do not follow the ways of God. They turn from him. They begin to worship idols. They behave immorally. They turn from the Lord, ignore his blessing, and earn for themselves his curses.

What does this tell us about ourselves? We are nuts. If God holds out to humanity a hand full of blessing and a hand full of cursing, we will take the bad option 100% of the time. Sin has so corrupted us that we are incapable of desiring that which will do us good. We are sinfully so confused, warped, broken, and messed up that we will not choose the right if the Lord does not mercifully bring us to himself and change us.

Do you love the Lord? Let this passage in Leviticus and the subsequent history of Israel remind you that your love for the Lord is the result, not of your assessment of your situation, but of the kindness of God working on your rotten heart. Remember that you, like Israel, would have chosen the wrong 10 times out of 10 had God not grabbed your heart and made you alive together with Christ. Let this cause you to brim full with gratitude for the grace of the Lord.

Also, as you think about this passage, let it remind you that you are not going to convince a lost world to follow the Lord through simple logic. Logic would have told Israel to go for the good and turn from the evil. Simple logic would have said to behave well for blessing and avoid the curse. But they did not follow God’s ways. Adam and Eve did not follow God’s ways. No person you know will simply see the logic of their need and follow the Lord. It requires a miracle from God for people, deep down in their souls, to turn from sin and embrace Christ. We keep praying. We keep calling people to faith. And we keep trusting that the Lord will change hearts.

Sabbath and Faith

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The call of God to have the people of Israel observe the Sabbath is an amazing call to faith and a glorious pointer to Christ. Resting one day out of seven is something that requires discipline and faith. And the Sabbath command for the land is even greater.

Leviticus 25:1-4 – 1 The Lord spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you, the land shall keep a Sabbath to the Lord. 3 For six years you shall sow your field, and for six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in its fruits, 4 but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.”

God called on the people of Israel not only to rest one day out of seven, he called the nation to let the land rest one year out of seven. God promised a harvest in year 6 that would be so great that it would sustain the people for years to come.

I’m sure you know that many Christians debate with one another as to whether or not we are legally required to keep a Sabbath day. Some folks do. Some others do not, but believe the Sabbath command to be a pointer to the ultimate rest we receive in Christ.

Hebrews 4:9–11 – 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

I am one who believes that the binding ordinance of Sabbath is fulfilled in Christ. But I also know that it is good for the people of God to take a day, focus on the Lord, and rest from their worldly labors. But this is not what I want to write about.

What grabbed my attention in this read through Leviticus and in thinking about the Sabbath commands is just how much faith the Sabbath required. The week-to-week Sabbath required faith. People had to believe God, that he would provide for them if they worked only 6 out of 7 days. If you look at our world, at businesses open 24/7, you know that it requires faith to believe that you can sustain life without constant labor. And if you take that further, if you consider the nation’s call to let the land rest for a full year, you know that would have required incredible faith. In fact, as far as I know, the people of Israel never once obeyed that command.

But, dear friends, that faith, that impossible faith, that stunning faith is what points us so greatly to Jesus. It takes faith to let a day go by without working. It takes faith to let a year go by without farming. And it takes faith, genuine faith, to believe that the holy God of the universe will welcome you without you performing a single religious ritual to earn your way to him. IT takes faith to believe that you can be forgiven without a special gift, a special sacred item, a special sacred incantation, a special object or word of power. But the Lord tells us that such is the case. There is no way for you to be made right with God other than by you letting go of sin and self and fully entrusting your soul to the person and the finished work of Jesus.

The author of Hebrews tells us to enter into the Sabbath rest of Jesus. He tells us to turn from the ideas that we do things to gain God’s favor. He instead tells us to fully rely on Jesus and Jesus alone for salvation. This is not him saying that there is no obedience to God that follows salvation. But it is to say that, as counter-cultural as the Sabbath felt to all who did not understand it, so too does it seem crazy to all other worldviews that a holy and just God would accept us based entirely on God’s own choice and God’s own work in Christ. Salvation by grace through faith requires a faith that is depicted for us in the crazy faith required to keep the Sabbath day and the Sabbath years.

No, I do not believe that the Sabbath regulation is a binding regulation on the modern Christian. Instead, I believe that the Sabbath regulation is a shadow that points to the finished work of Christ and our salvation by grace through faith. But I do believe it is good for Christians to shape our lives with work, with rest, and with worship on a regular cycle in the week so that we can, in our lives, show the world that we are resting in Jesus rather than trusting in our labor.

An Example of Man’s Best Guesses

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We see a fascinating event happen when Paul was shipwrecked on the island of Malta. The people gather wood and build a fire to warm the bedraggled passengers. And a thing happens to Paul that adds some level of insult to injury. And in that happening, we can see a solid example of why we ought not trust human conclusions without divine revelation.

Acts 28:3-6 – 3 When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. 4 When the native people saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer. Though he has escaped from the sea, Justice has not allowed him to live.” 5 He, however, shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm. 6 They were waiting for him to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But when they had waited a long time and saw no misfortune come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.

OK, Paul is bitten by a snake. The thing just latched on. Paul shakes it off, and he lives. All things considered, this is a rough day.

But watch the assumptions made by the observers. First, the people draw a conclusion from the evidence they see. They assume that Paul is a criminal getting justice. Even though he survived the wreck of the ship, he is still going to die from the poison of the snake. HE is getting what is coming to him. This is what the natives assume.

Then, after Paul does not die, the people amend their assessment of the situation. He survives a shipwreck and the bite of a viper. Now the people assume that Paul must be a god.

The fact is, the people of Malta were wrong, badly wrong, twice. They used their best guess based on the evidence available to them and their understanding of the world. And what we discover is a simple truth. Mankind, apart from the perfect revelation of God, will misinterpret the world around him time and time again.

Christians, let a passage like this one cause you to give God great thanks for Scripture. After all, without God revealing himself in his holy and inspired word, you too would interpret the world around you wrongly. Either you would have superstition all over you like the people of Malta, or you would be given into the folly of a naturalistic worldview. Either way, you would be very wrong. Thank the Lord for speaking to us in his word. Thank the Lord for speaking to us in the person and work of Jesus. It would be totally just of God to simply destroy us for our sin without ever speaking to us in any way whatsoever. Thank God for choosing to tell us who he is, who we are, and what we must do to be made right with him. Thank God for the Bible.

Love and Hate

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Our society has conditioned us against the word hate. If we hear that word used, it is often used as something nearly criminal. WE hear people speak of hate-crimes or hate-speech. We hear people speak of others being blinded by or motivated by hate.

In truth, we do not want to be marked as a hateful people. This is especially true when you think of hatefulness as a propensity to unjust cruelty. But, the word hate is not a bad word. Neither is it wrong to hate certain things.

Psalm 45:7

you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.
Therefore God, your God, has anointed you
with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;

In a psalm of praise to a righteous king, notice that hatred in this king is one of his praiseworthy attributes. The king loves righteousness and hates wickedness. And God wants us to know that this is good.

For the most part, among professing Christians, suggesting that it is good to love righteousness is not controversial. There are certainly now some who have grown to despise things that God tells us are righteous. But, for the most part, loving the good is pretty well accepted.

But the alternative, hating wickedness, that is not so broadly embraced. We are called by some to be understanding of wickedness. Some would tell us that, even when wickedness is wicked, we should not have hatred for it. But this denies something of the holiness of God.

Friends, loving righteousness and hating wickedness is what God suggests in this psalm marks a righteous ruler. We want to be led by people who do not suggest, when evil is discussed, that we just need to let it pass. God hates evil, always, in every form. God is righteous, always, in everything.

May we become more godly people. That will mean that we love righteousness. That will mean that we hate wickedness. And that will mean that we do both without shame, guided by Scripture, for the glory of the Almighty.

Desire God Above All

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When Jesus spoke with the rich young man of Matthew 19, the conversation was quite interesting. The young man wanted to know what he needed to do to go to heaven. He claims to have kept all the law from his youth. But we find out that he was lacking.

Jesus gives the man an odd command. And that odd command exposes his heart.

Matthew 19:21-22 – 21 Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Jesus touches the man where it hurts. Jesus shows what is lacking in the man’s quest for heaven. And what Jesus shows is true for us all. But what Jesus shows is not what you might think. You have to read this carefully, in the light of other Scripture, so as not to form a wrong conclusion from the words of the Master.

Jesus tells the man that if he wants to go to heaven, he should go and sell everything he owns, give the money away, and then come and follow Jesus as a disciple. Keep in mind a couple of truths before you let this shock you. First, this is not the same command that Jesus gives to all wealthy folks. He did not say this to Zacchaeus. Nor did he command this of Lazarus, Mary, and Martha, a family that seems well-off. We know from other Scriptures that giving away your money will not purchase for you salvation. Paul writes, “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Cor. 13:3). So, there is clearly more going on here than a call for the selling of goods.

Also consider that, when Jesus cited the Ten Commandments earlier, he did not point to the sin of coveting. But here, we see that Jesus now presses hard against this man’s love of wealth and possessions. It is as if Jesus has saved this particular sin, the one that the man is most consumed by, as the linchpin for his whole heart.

What Jesus is up to is actually shown in the man’s response. This young man, this man eager to know what he must do to earn his way to heaven, comes to a point of crisis. For him, the crisis has to do with his possessions, but it is more. The crisis has to do with his heart. Will this man want Jesus more than things? Will he want Jesus more than status, wealth, security, or whatever it is that ties him so closely to his fortune? And we see that he does not. The man hears what is required, decides the price is too high, and walks away.

What should we learn here? Desire God above all. At the end of the day, the young man was faced with a dilemma. Will he yield himself, all of himself, to the Lord, or will he cling to his possessions, his rights of ownership, and turn from the Lord? Does he want God or things more? And in the end, we see that he chose self above the Lord. The lesson to learn is that, if you want heaven, want God. Want God more than you want your stuff. Want God more than you want your freedom. Want God more than you want status or fleeting pleasures or earthly comforts.

When we look at the issue of salvation or lostness, the question is one of repentance and faith. It has always been so. Faith asks if we believe we are sinners and that Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection, can and will give us the forgiveness we need. Repentance asks if we are ready to lay down the right of ownership of our lives and give it to Jesus, making him our Master. Are we willing to follow him and treasure him above all else? Are we willing to trust him, to obey his word, to submit to his authority; that is the question of repentance. And all that requires that we want God more than we want other things if we want heaven.

Does this mean that if you want to go to heaven, you have to sell all your stuff? Probably not. But it does mean that you surrender to the Lord and allow him to have the right to tell you to sell all your stuff if he wants. It does mean that you are willing to let go of anything in your life that moves you away from glorifying him.

Even the Skin Disease Chapter is About Jesus

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Scripture points to Christ. That is true in the obvious chapters like Isaiah 53 and the suffering servant. And it is true here, in a way, in the odd parts of Leviticus.

When we read through our Bible-in-a-year plan, hitting Leviticus can be a challenge for some folks. After all, it feels pretty foreign for us to read the chapters about how to sacrifice which animal, where to sprinkle the blood, and what to do with the carcass. Then we get to chapters on things like which critters you can eat and which to avoid.

But if all that is not enough, you open chapter 13 with this paragraph, and many lose heart.

Leviticus 13:1-8 – 1 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 2 “When a person has on the skin of his body a swelling or an eruption or a spot, and it turns into a case of leprous disease on the skin of his body, then he shall be brought to Aaron the priest or to one of his sons the priests, 3 and the priest shall examine the diseased area on the skin of his body. And if the hair in the diseased area has turned white and the disease appears to be deeper than the skin of his body, it is a case of leprous disease. When the priest has examined him, he shall pronounce him unclean. 4 But if the spot is white in the skin of his body and appears no deeper than the skin, and the hair in it has not turned white, the priest shall shut up the diseased person for seven days. 5 And the priest shall examine him on the seventh day, and if in his eyes the disease is checked and the disease has not spread in the skin, then the priest shall shut him up for another seven days. 6 And the priest shall examine him again on the seventh day, and if the diseased area has faded and the disease has not spread in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him clean; it is only an eruption. And he shall wash his clothes and be clean. 7 But if the eruption spreads in the skin, after he has shown himself to the priest for his cleansing, he shall appear again before the priest. 8 And the priest shall look, and if the eruption has spread in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean; it is a leprous disease.

Now we are into skin diseases. We will see stuff about what to do if a person has a boil or eruption. WE will see how to react if a person’s hair falls out. WE will see what to do if a person’s fabric in their garment has something growing and spreading in it. And it’s all sort of icky.

But, stop and think. Don’t let this feel useless and immediately off-putting to you. Instead, consider what the Lord has done here. God is moving a massive amount of people through the wilderness. What happens if this camp, groups of people living in tents that were tightly packed together, is suddenly hit with disease? If these folks get a disease, one that is not merely a nuisance, but something that is deadly or debilitating, there is a big problem. Recall that these folks did not know about bacteria. They had no germ theory. They did not yet have the scientific proof to grasp how disease would spread. So, a person with a sore that could spread disease to the next person, to the next person, to the next family, to the next cluster of tents, to the next swath of the camp would be a bigtime problem.

When God gives in the law instructions to priests about how to identify diseases that spread, and when he tells them to quarantine potential threats until their disease is either confirmed or proved benign, God is loving his people. God is protecting his people by giving them standards to combat the spread of dangerous diseases before they break out. God is showing this nation how to survive in the wilderness wandering.

And, yes, this is about Jesus. How? In the garden, God promised Eve that he was sending a descendant of hers into the world to crush the devil. IN Genesis 12, God promised Abram that a descendant of his would come and bless all nations. The covenant of circumcision was a mark on the descendants of Abraham to point to the fact that God was building a people for himself through whom he would bring this promised one into the world. And time and time again through the Old Testament, threats would arise that would, without God’s protection, potentially destroy this nation and prevent the promised one from coming into the world. And each time we watch God move to preserve his people, we should see an arrow pointing to Jesus. God guarded Israel so as to bring the Savior into the world just as he promised.

And here, in the skin laws, a weird chapter to read, we should see God’s preserving hand. God made sure that no spreading disease would wipe out Israel. God made sure that the nation knew how to prevent the spread of disease so that no plague would threaten the survival of the people. God was sheltering the nation so as to shelter his promise to send the Savior into the world. Leviticus 13 is, to be sure, also about God protecting the promise of Jesus.

Strange Fire and Obedience

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I want you to think back to the Garden of Eden. There, Adam and Eve rebelled against the Lord when they ate the fruit of a particular tree. That act brought the curse of God on the world. That act brought death and destruction. That act introduced sin to humanity.

What was the big problem? Was the fall of man in the garden about the particular fruit? Was God particularly angry at the loss of a fruit that he treasured? I really do not think that is the core issue. Instead, the issue is one of obedience and authority. Adam and Eve knew the command of God, decided their way was better, and rebelled.

We see a similar type of rebellion in Leviticus, a rebellion that caused the death of Nadab and Abihu, sons of Aaron.

Leviticus 10:1-3 – 1 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. 2 And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. 3 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.

On this particular day, the presence of God was noticeable at the tabernacle. It was a glorious sight. The people were awestruck. And Nadab and Abihu got so excited that they offered unauthorized fire, another translation says “strange fire,” before the Lord. And Nadab and Abihu died for their hubris.

What was the problem? Was a particular kind of fire, a particular kind of incense, a particular smell that offensive? Or, as I suggested in the account of the garden, is the issue here one of obedience? Look at the words of God. The Lord does not say, “That kind of fire really offends me.” Instead, God tells the people through Moses, “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified.” God saw that, in this instance, the sons of Aaron did not treat him as holy.

What does it mean that God is holy? In this instance, the issue is one of treating God as far greater, higher, above and beyond us. Nadab and Abihu acted as if God were like them, just another guy. Nadab and Abihu thought that their idea of what fire to offer was just as good as what God had commanded. They assumed that their ideas were equally valid as those of God. They did not glorify God. They did not sanctify God. They did not treat him as holy by meticulously obeying his commands for how he would be worshipped.

Consider now our world. The God we worship is the same God who flashed forth fire to consume Nadab and Abihu because those men did not treat him as holy. Do we? When your church gathers to worship, are you careful to do what the Lord has commanded. Many a church has introduced things to the service of worship that have nothing to do with the commands of God. I’m not here discussing equipment or instrumentation, lighting or visual design. But there are many churches that include practices of things that God has not commanded. Or, even worse, there are many who participate in practices that the Lord has forbidden.

We should be thankful that, because of the grace of the Lord Jesus, we are not experiencing what Nadab and Abihu experienced. We should be grateful to God that many of us have not been consumed by the holy wrath of God for approaching him in a way inconsistent with treating him as holy. And we should be driven to worship the Lord in loving obedience to his word.

With all that said, the New Testament does not tell us exactly how to order the worship service. We see a great deal of instruction about how sacrifices were made in the Old Testament. WE see God setting up things that point to Christ with great detail. But in the New Testament, we have fewer step-by-step directions. WE know that we are to pray, to sing, to read the word, to preach, to participate in ordinances like Lord’s Supper, to give, and to do all this to the glory of God and in a spirit of love and fellowship. WE also know that things are forbidden. God has said who is allowed to teach and who is not allowed to teach. God has warned against the fleshly indulgences of the world and the temptation to bring them into his worship.

So, let me simply call us to be careful. We gather as the family of God. Thus, familial love, joy, kindness, and caring are all part of our gatherings. We gather to worship the Holy One, and thus what we do must be fully in keeping with his commands. WE dare not violate his commands and treat him as less than holy, pretending our ways are superior to his. We dare not hijack the purpose of the service of worship, making it more about connecting to those who do not know the Lord than about honoring the Lord we are supposed to be there to worship.

Nadab and Abihu died because they failed to treat the Lord and his ways as holy. Adam and Eve fell when they refused to treat the simple command of God as holy. Jesus died to pay for the sins of people who have, in their past, refused to treat God as holy. May we, in our services of worship, be sure that we treat the Lord and his commands as holy.