GROWING SPIRITUALLY

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Moses said to Aaron and his remaining sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, "Take the grain offering left over from the offerings made to the Lord by fire and eat it prepared without yeast beside the altar, for it is most holy. Eat it in a holy place, because it is your share and your sons' share of the offerings made to the Lord by fire; for so I have been commanded. But you and your sons and your daughters may eat the breast that was waved and the thigh that was presented. Eat them in a ceremonially clean place; they have been given to you and your children as your share of the Israelites' fellowship offerings. The thigh that was presented and the breast that was waved must be brought with the fat portions of the offerings made by fire, to be waved before the Lord as a wave offering. This will be the regular share for you and your children, as the Lord has commanded."

When Moses inquired about the goat of the sin offering and found that it had been burned up, he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's remaining sons, and asked, "Why didn't you eat the sin offering in the sanctuary area? It is most holy; it was given to you to take away the guilt of the community by making atonement for them before the Lord. Since its blood was not taken into the Holy Place, you should have eaten the goat in the sanctuary area, as I commanded."

Aaron replied to Moses, "Today they sacrificed their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord, but such things as this have happened to me. Would the Lord have been pleased if I had eaten the sin offering today?"

When Moses heard this, he was satisfied.

Leviticus 10:12-20

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

After the prescribed seven days of ordination preparation, Aaron and his two sons, Nadab and Abihu, were ready to start serving the Lord by performing duties within the tabernacle. Unfortunately, Nadab and Abihu made a fatal decision to burn incense using “unauthorized fire” and were consumer by flames sent out from the Lord’s presence (Leviticus 10:1-2).

After this, we found the Lord providing Aaron guidance on abstaining from drinking alcohol before entering the tabernacle to carry out priestly functions and as we move from that to today’s passage, we find Moses providing additional instruction to his brother and his “remaining sons, Eleazar and Ithamar" regarding sacrifices and how they were to conduct them. Look again at verses twelve through twenty here:

Moses said to Aaron and his remaining sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, "Take the grain offering left over from the offerings made to the Lord by fire and eat it prepared without yeast beside the altar, for it is most holy. Eat it in a holy place, because it is your share and your sons' share of the offerings made to the Lord by fire; for so I have been commanded. But you and your sons and your daughters may eat the breast that was waved and the thigh that was presented. Eat them in a ceremonially clean place; they have been given to you and your children as your share of the Israelites' fellowship offerings. The thigh that was presented and the breast that was waved must be brought with the fat portions of the offerings made by fire, to be waved before the Lord as a wave offering. This will be the regular share for you and your children, as the Lord has commanded."

When Moses inquired about the goat of the sin offering and found that it had been burned up, he was angry with Eleazar and Ithamar, Aaron's remaining sons, and asked, "Why didn't you eat the sin offering in the sanctuary area? It is most holy; it was given to you to take away the guilt of the community by making atonement for them before the Lord. Since its blood was not taken into the Holy Place, you should have eaten the goat in the sanctuary area, as I commanded."

Aaron replied to Moses, "Today they sacrificed their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord, but such things as this have happened to me. Would the Lord have been pleased if I had eaten the sin offering today?"

When Moses heard this, he was satisfied.

During this discourse, we find Moses inquiring about a sacrifice that had already been performed, the "goat of the sin offering". Specifically, Moses is "angry with Eleazar and Ithamar" after learning that the offering had been burned up as he says this:

"Why didn't you eat the sin offering in the sanctuary area? It is most holy; it was given to you to take away the guilt of the community by making atonement for them before the Lord. Since its blood was not taken into the Holy Place, you should have eaten the goat in the sanctuary area, as I commanded."

As some background, it was required that the priests and their assistants eat the sin offering in the sanctuary, which was symbolic of the sins of the people being forgiven and swallowed up. Here’s what God commanded in the sixth chapter of Leviticus:

“These are the regulations for the sin offering: The sin offering is to be slaughtered before the Lord in the place the burnt offering is slaughtered; it is most holy. The priest who offers it shall eat it; it is to be eaten in the sanctuary area, in the courtyard of the tent of meeting.” Vv.24-26

This is the basis for Moses’ rebuke as it is clear that Aaron’s sons did not obey the command. On the surface, one might immediately fear that these two sons might face the same fatal fate as their brothers but as we see, the outcome was very different after we see Aaron intercede for Eleazar and Ithamar. The scriptures share this as he speaks to Moses:

"Today they sacrificed their sin offering and their burnt offering before the Lord, but such things as this have happened to me. Would the Lord have been pleased if I had eaten the sin offering today?"

Here, we find Aaron showing accountability, telling his brother that he was as responsible for what had happened as his sons. And through this, we see an incredible display of spiritual growth in Aaron from what we had seen in the past.

For rewind back to when Moses was on Mount Sinai, spending forty days and nights with God (Exodus 32). After he had been away for some time, the Israelites, who were encamped at the foot of the mountain, became restless and decided they wanted an idol to worship.

And so they approached Aaron with the idea and instead of rebuking the people and standing firm for God, he tells the people to bring him all their gold jewelry which he melts down and forms into a golden calf. The people then danced and worshipped the calf, clearly in violation of God’s commands to have no other gods before Him and to not bow down to idols.

Well, when Moses came down the mountain with the two stone tablets which the Lord had written His commandments on with His finger, he sees what has transpired and in anger, smashed the tablets on the ground before asking Aaron what had happened. In response to the question, you’ll recall that Aaron blamed the people, telling the story as if he had not participated in the matter. Moses knew better however, calling his brother out for letting the Israelites “get out of control."

Fortunately, that was then but in today’s passage, we see where Aaron speaks up and assumes blame for what happened with the sin sacrifice. In fact, he words were such that Moses accepted them and was "satisfied".

So what was it about what Aaron said that convinced Moses that there wasn't as serious a violation of God’s command as he thought?

It all came down to the matter of repentance.

For Aaron and his sons were so impacted by the judgment on Nadab and Abihu that they also saw themselves as sinful, so much so that they didn’t feel worthy to consume the sin offering. After all, why would Aaron and his sons eat meat that was to represent the sins of the people when they felt just as sin-blemished?

In the end translation, Aaron and his sons didn’t feel consecrated or set apart enough to represent the people before the Lord and so they didn’t eat any of the goat as prescribed, burning it instead. At its core, this was a humble acknowledgement of their unworthiness and unholiness before a most Holy God who then preserved them and withheld judgment. Their heartfelt emotions and the associated actions in support of those emotions showed that they had already passed judgment on themselves.

Friends, we can learn a lot from Aaron and his sons in today’s scripture passage. For we all are sinners like them who have disobeyed the Lord many times over, so many times that I’m afraid that we can become desensitized to our fallen nature.

Do we always repent when we realize our sinful failings?

Do we display the kind of heartfelt contrition and remorse found in Aaron and his sons in the scriptures today?

Do we take full accountability for our sinful actions or do we attempt to make excuses, blaming something else instead?

My prayer is that we will see three very important takeaways that we can apply to our lives today.

First, it’s important to not repeat the sinful mistakes of the past.

When confronted at the base of Mount Sinai for the Israelite’s worship of the golden calf, Aaron tried to deflect fault from himself but later, as we see in today’s passage, he was ready to take full credit for the way he and his sons handled the sin offering.

Truly, Aaron had learned from his prior transgression and made sure there wasn’t another occurrence.

Second, we will only know where we are spiritually when we fully examine ourselves through the lens of the scriptures and the screening of the Holy Spirit.

Any darkness within us will always be exposed when we shine the light of the Lord upon it. We can then invoke His strength and power to become overcomers and more the people He wants us to be.

As we realize our sins (and we all have them), we need to come before the Lord with a spirit of humble, reverent repentance, bowing down before the One we have wronged while confessing where we went wrong and recommitting ourselves to His will and way, a will and way that will allow us to turn from our sinful ways.

Let us never forget that we are all works in progress when it comes to our Christian faith. There’s no perfect believer and so there’s always a chance to be better today than we were yesterday. Spiritual growth happens when we never accept where we are but always seek to take our faith and Gospel work to the next level in and through Christ Jesus. Through a steady study of the Word and a persistent submission to the leading of the Holy Spirit, we can do just that.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.