BibleTools.info

Aaron's sons took the common fire, which God did not accept, and they offered insult to the infinite God by presenting this strange fire before Him. God consumed them by fire for their positive disregard of His express directions. All their works were as the offering of Cain. There was no divine Saviour represented. Had these sons of Aaron been in full command of their reasoning faculties they would have discerned the difference between the common and sacred fire. The gratification of appetite debased their faculties and so beclouded their intellect that their power of discernment was gone. They fully understood the holy character of the typical service, and the awful solemnity and responsibility assumed of presenting themselves before God to minister in sacred service. Con 81.1

Two Antagonistic Principles—The kingdom of God comes not with outward show. The gospel of the grace of God, with its spirit of self-abnegation, can never be in harmony with the spirit of the world. The two principles are antagonistic. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).—The Desire of Ages, 509 (1898). 2MCP 557.1

Conform Not in Principles and Customs—Like Israel, Christians too often yield to the influence of the world and conform to its principles and customs in order to secure the friendship of the ungodly, but in the end it will be found that these professed friends are the most dangerous of foes. 2MCP 557.2

The Bible plainly teaches that there can be no harmony between the people of God and the world. “Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you” (1 John 3:13). Our Saviour says, “Ye know that it hated Me before it hated you” (John 15:18). Satan works through the ungodly, under cover of a pretended friendship, to allure God's people into sin that he may separate them from Him; and when their defense is removed, then he will lead his agents to turn against them and seek to accomplish their destruction.—Patriarchs and Prophets, 559 (1890). 2MCP 557.3

Common Fire and Sacred—The truth of God has not been magnified in His believing people because they have not brought it into their personal experience. They conform to the world and depend upon it for their influence. They allow the world to convert them and introduce the common fire to take the place of the sacred that they may, in their line of work, meet the world's standard. 2MCP 557.4

There must not be these efforts made to ape the world's customs. This is common, not sacred, fire. The living bread must not only be admired, but eaten. That bread which cometh down from heaven will give life to the soul. It is the leaven which absorbs all the elements of the character into a oneness with the character of Christ and molds the objectionable hereditary and cultivated tendencies after the divine similitude.—Manuscript 96, 1898. 2MCP 557.5

Angel Supervisors in the Publishing House—The machinery may be run by men who are skillful in its management; but how easy it would be to leave one little screw, one little part of the machinery, out of order, and how disastrous might be the result! Who has prevented casualties? The angels of God have supervision of the work. If the eyes of those who run the machinery could be opened, they would discern the heavenly guardianship. In every room in the publishing house where work is done, there is a witness taking note of the spirit in which it is performed, and marking the fidelity and unselfishness revealed.—Testimonies for the Church 7:192. PM 60.2

There are those who do not discern the sacredness of the work, who will surely bring in principles that are not correct. They will work to secure wages, and then think their duty is done. They will bring in a selfish, grasping spirit, which will result in robbery of God. Strange fire will be mingled with the sacred fire. Others will catch this spirit, for the plague spot of selfishness is as contagious as the leprosy.—Manuscript 19, 1891. PM 70.2

He [God] expects His workers to be tenderhearted. How merciful are the ways of God! (See Deuteronomy 10:17-20; 2 Chronicles 20:5-7, 9; 1 Peter 1:17.) But the rules God has given have been disregarded, and strange fire has been offered before the Lord.... PM 139.2

Anciently it was a great sin for the people of God to give themselves away to the enemy, and open before them either their perplexity or their prosperity. Under the ancient economy it was a sin to offer sacrifice upon the wrong altar. It was a sin to offer incense kindled by the wrong fire. 3SM 300.4

The sons of Aaron departing from God's commands represents those who transgress the fourth commandment of Jehovah, which is very plain—“Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work,” &c. Nearly all the professed followers of Christ do not keep the day God has sanctified and required them to keep sacred, to rest upon it because he has rested upon it himself. They labor upon God's holy time, and honor the first day of the week by resting upon it, which is a common working day, a day upon which God did not rest, and upon which he has placed no sacred honor. 4aSG 14.1

A departure from the fourth commandment will not now be visited immediately with temporal death. Yet God does not regard the violation of his commandments any more lightly than he did the transgression of Aaron's sons. Death is the final punishment of all who reject light, and continue in transgression. When God says, Keep holy the seventh day, he does not mean the sixth, nor the first, but the very day he has specified. If men substitute a common day for the sacred, and say that will do just as well, they insult the Maker of the heavens and of the earth, who made the Sabbath to commemorate his resting upon the seventh day, after creating the world in six days. It is dangerous business in the service of God to deviate from his institutions. Those who have to do with God, who is infinite, who explicitly directs in regard to his own worship, should follow the exact course he has prescribed, and not feel at liberty to deviate in the smallest respect, because they think it will answer just as well. God will teach all his creatures that he means just what he says. 4aSG 14.2