Date: July 12, 2023|Series: Youth for Jesus|Number: Vol. 6, No. 9
“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.” (Lev 10:16-20NIV)
Why was Moses angry with Eleazar and Ithamar? It was because they neglected something of the will of God that they should have done. They were supposed to have eaten the meat of a goat that had been offered for sin offering before the Lord. Instead, they had it burnt up.
So, Moses was angry with them for not doing the will of God on that occasion. Now was he right to be angry with them for not doing the will of God that day? Yes, he was right to be angry with them for not doing the will of God that day. In fact, he would be right to be angry with them for not doing the will of God any day. That is because the will of God is not something we choose to do anytime we like.
Rather, it is something we must be devoted to doing every moment of our lives.Mind you, there are consequences for not doing the will of God for us. And that is something that someone like Moses was well acquainted with. He had seen how God judged Pharaoh and the Egyptians for their rebellion against Him. He had also seen how He judged many of the Israelites in the wilderness for various sins.
So, he was not going to allow anybody under his leadership to behave anyhow, without regard for the word of God. Instead, he would passionately set himself against that person.In like manner, wherever we are acting in leadership capacity, we must show ourselves as passionate in standing against wickedness, oppression, cheating, stealing and any other kind of evil.
That way, those under us will know that any form of wickedness on their part will not be overlooked or swept under the carpet. Instead, it will be brought out in the open and judged. And that will make them apply caution or restraint anytime they want to do something nasty or silly.
Nonetheless, we need to know when and where to put our passion for righteousness to prevail aside and instead show compassion to those who have failed to meet up with our expectations or what is required of them.
And that, as we see in our opening bible text, was where Moses missed it when he was rebuking Eleazar and Ithamar for not doing the will of God on the day mentioned.As the bible equally shows us, something terrible had earlier happened that same day to the elder brothers of these men, that is, Nadab and Abihu. For reasons not disclosed in Scriptures, the two of them had offered unauthorised fire before the Lord, contrary to His command.
So, a fire came out from His presence and instantly consumed them. They were not even warned or given any opportunity to repent and change their ways. Conversely, they were immediately put to death by God. And He was not sorry about killing them. Instead, He told others to be warned. (Cf. Leviticus 10:1-5)
Then, as if that were not enough, He told Moses to tell Aaron and his remaining two sons, Eleazar and Ithamar, not to mourn for those who had died like the rest of the people. Otherwise, they too would die and cause trouble for the entire nation. Why? They were God’s anointed priests. So, they must not defile the anointing on them with mourning. (Cf. Leviticus 10:6-7)
Now try to imagine how Aaron, Eleazar and Ithamar must have felt that day. Try to imagine what must have been going on in their minds about the matter and about their ministry as priests. It is possible that they were even saying to themselves, “Did we volunteer to be priests? Was it not God Himself that chose us? Why, then, must He place this kind of burden on us?” You can see, then, that such a day was not one in which they would want to eat anything or have a feast, even though the Lord had commanded it.
And that was exactly what Aaron pointed out to Moses when he, in his passion for God’s honour, began to rebuke them for not performing their priestly duty of eating some sin offering. He told him that even God would not have been pleased with him, if he had treated the death of his sons as nothing and had begun to feast on some sin offering meat. That would have painted him as a callous and insensitive father.
How, then, could a callous and insensitive father be a true and compassionate high priest for the people?In any case, when he said these things to Moses, as the account shows us, he was satisfied. In other words, Aaron’s words opened Moses’ own eyes to the fact that he had allowed his passion for God to rob him of compassion. The men that died were his own blood too. They were his nephews. Yes, they died for their sins.
But he should still have comforted their father and brothers instead of getting angry with them for neglecting some of their priestly duties that day. What if those who died were his own sons? Would he have carried on with his work that day as though nothing had happened?
Well, the point of this is that we must know where to draw the line between being zealous for God’s honour and being brutal, callous or unfeeling. Yes, we should be passionate about anything that concerns God, His honour and His work.
However, we must not allow our passion or zeal to make us become insensitive or callous in dealing with those who are unable to keep in step with us in doing God’s will or work because they are genuinely hurting or troubled in their lives.
Otherwise, as Aaron showed Moses, we will be acting contrary to the nature of God our Father, who is not only strict but also compassionate. And that may ruin whatever we are trying to do for Him instead of building it. So, be careful.