Lesson 5: God's Holiness Causes a Removal of People, part 2

Psalm 33:8-11 - “Let all the earth fear the LORD; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him! For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm. The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the LORD stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations.”

As we read in our last lesson, the barnacles thought they had humans figured out. But they were wrong. It is the same for us. As long as we try to understand the holiness of God from our perspective, we will always have a warped view of God. God is absolutely Holy whether we like it or believe it or not. Our personal belief or perspective is not going to change God's holiness. The whole lesson in the passage from Exodus and our verses above is not just that God has no sin in Himself, but that He has no tolerance for sin from us.

This is precisely the problem for many Christians today. This is why we act like practical atheists. We already have a hard time thinking we need to revere God. What makes it worse is we see absolutely no need to fear God, especially when it comes to our sin. Therefore, if we are ever going to understand the holiness of God and His zero tolerance for sin, we need to see what the holy word of God has to say about it.

The first way the Bible describes God's zero tolerance for sin is in the removal of Nadab & Abihu.


Leviticus 10:1-3 - "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."

Here we see the amazing account of the removal of Nadab and Abihu from life. Here they were, not only the sons of the great man of God, Aaron, but they were priests of God Himself. One day they decided to try something new. The orders from God were very clear, but they wanted to spice things up a little bit. What was God's response? How did He react when this unholy behavior was committed in His Holy presence? God immediately sent forth fire and burned both of them causing Aaron to shut his mouth.

The Holiness of God shows us that God absolutely does not tolerate even the slightest bit of sin.

* Memorize Psalm 33:8-11 above.