‘Smartest Man in the World’
(Nadab and Abihu)
Many years ago, I heard a funny story that has always stuck with me. Even before I tell it, rest assured I have been guilty of the very same thing many times in my own life. So, it’s a lesson to me as much as to anyone.
Three men were flying in a plane: Billy Graham, Henry Kissinger, and a hobo. Everyone knows Billy Graham, of course; and, back in our younger days, Henry Kissinger was always considered one of the smartest men in the world. And we know the hobo by the meager way he is dressed and the knapsack he carries over his shoulder.
About midway of the flight, the plane had engine-failure, and the passengers were going to have to parachute out. However, there were only two parachutes. The three passengers had to make a quick decision, but immediately Mr. Kissinger spoke up,
“Listen, I’m the smartest man in the world, so, obviously, the world needs me. I’ll take one of the parachutes.” And with that, he jumped out.
Billy Graham turned to the hobo, and said, “Well, son, I’m a God-fearing man, and I’m ready to go, so I’ll let you have the last parachute.”
The hobo said, “Aw, don’t worry Mr. Graham. We still have two. The smartest man in the world just jumped out with my knapsack.”
I still chuckle when I read that, I guess because there is so much truth in it, and maybe because I’ve jumped out of far too many planes in my life with a knap sack on my back. I only have to mention “Yellowstone” for people who know me to say, “Yep, he was way
too big for his own britches on that one.”
Truth is, it’s important for all of us to understand our own frailties, and being too smart for our own good is one we all have.
I hope I never carry myself in any area of life where I come across as thinking I’m smarter than everyone else. Maybe that story will keep me in line, because I’ve thought of it through the years whenever I’ve met people who carry themselves as if they are the smartest people in the world. Forgetting that I was at one time thirty-something, I jokingly suggested that when my own children got to be thirty-something that maybe they thought they cornered the market on knowing how to do things. After all, by the time the time they reached that age their parents clearly were old-fogy parents.
That has always been a funny discussion, and usually it is a harmless one. As we get older, though, we are more than happy to defer to the younger generation because, sometimes, they really are very smart.
Spiritual ‘Intellect’
But when it comes to spiritual matters, the “smartest man in the world” attitude will get us all in trouble; and, as in our funny story, if we are not careful we will look up and see the plane flying overhead and the parachute we are clinging to has no rip cord and isn’t even a parachute at all.
The other evening in one of our Bible studies, we began talking about how some people fail to grasp the truth of the gospel and choose to go into religious circles where there is a great deal of entertainment and ‘feel-good’ teaching and often incorrect teaching. When examined by the Bible, often the church they belong to does not seek to follow closely to the Bible and takes on a good many man-made practices and beliefs.
On February 20th of our Bible reading, we read of a story of two religious men whom I think fall into this dangerous pit: Nadab and Abihu, from the tenth chapter of Leviticus. We had not come to that scripture yet when we had our study, but these two men immediately came to my mind during our conversation. Three or four days later in our reading, Leviticus 10 kind of slipped up on me; and I realized that we had been closer to it than I had thought. It still struck me as a powerful account, even after all these years of hearing the story. Here is how the account reads in the New Living Translation:
1 Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu put coals of fire in their incense burners and sprinkled incense over them. In this way, they disobeyed the Lord by burning before him the wrong kind of fire, different than he had commanded.
2 So fire blazed forth from the Lord’s presence and burned them up, and they died there before the Lord.
3 Then Moses said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord meant when he said, ‘I will display my holiness through those who come near me. I will display my glory before all the people.” And Aaron was silent.
I think the knee-jerk reaction to this account for all of us can be that the Lord issued a harsh punishment on these priests for offering “the wrong kind of fire.” After all, they were worshipping the Lord, and I am sure they also were very spirited and even excited in how they were doing things, especially since they had come up with a new idea.
However, they erred.
A deeper look into this account reminds us that it is not as if the Lord had not given them specific instructions on how to offer incense, for He had. But these two men transgressed against those commandments, even though God gives the instructions to Moses and the people several times. You cannot help but note the repetitious nature of the teaching in Exodus and Leviticus.
We know that in making their daily sacrifices, the priests were to take fire from the brazen altar and use that fire to burn incense on the altar of incense within the Holy Place – no “strange incense” allowed (Ex. 30:9).
But that is not what these two priests do on this occasion. Somehow, they took the “wrong kind of fire.” I have always suspected they took fire from a different place. Perhaps they had a barbeque pit or cooking pit outside their house and they had just cooked something and had coals and fire still in there and took that fire. I could see that happening.
And because God is a God of symbolism and a God of types and anti-types, the details of His worship do matter, both then and now. In other words, when God gives a command or lays out a pattern, He expects us to follow it. Otherwise, why would He provide instructions and details for certain parts of the Christian faith?
They digress because of their presumption that they could change God’s law and the Lord’s teaching, and that would be fine with God. But God is not fine with that. Knowing how men tend to think, the Lord tells Isaiah to remind the people of his day not to ‘outthink’ God:
My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways … As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-9).
So, Is God a God of Grace?
Note, now: This story does not mean that God is not a God of grace, either. God’s grace comes to us because He has provided a means by which our sins can be forgiven. Under the Old Testament system, sins could only be rolled forward, because the blood of animals could never take away sins. But, by the blood of Christ, our sins can be forever and completely washed away, never to be remembered again (Heb. 10).
That blood continually cleanses us from sin as we walk in the light and strive to live the Christian life (1 John 1:9).
While God is a God of tremendous grace, grace does not mean that we can bypass the Lord's teaching, including the means the Lord provides in the gospel of reaching the blood of Christ – which is through baptism for the remission of sins – or that we can set aside God’s plan for many other parts of the New Testament church. Clearly, as we read through the Bible and even get into Revelation, we see that the church does go into apostasy. She goes into error, because she lays aside God’s teaching and commandments and chooses to take on another form of religion.
I really think most errors come because people become 'smarter than God,' or they 'outthink' God. They are “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
That’s why the same apostle who writes that scripture in 2 Timothy 3 also speaks to the Corinthians a great deal about the simplicity of the gospel, even using a form of hyperbole to say that God chose the “foolishness of preaching” to save the lost, then adding, with more irony, that the “foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men—1 Cor. 1.
Men have always been enamored by flowery speech and rhetoric and “feel-good” preaching, looking for charismatic speakers to tickle ears and, as Isaiah wrote, encourage that the preachers “Speak to us smooth things.”
It is true today, and we are very sorry for this: More times than we could ever imagine, the “smartest man in the world” comes along and preaches a doctrine that is appealing to the masses; and people swoon in to accept that teaching without remembering the last words of Revelation that warn us of the consequences of adding to or subtracting from God’s great Book.
Yes, it is easy to feel sorry for people when they are deceived into “believing a lie” (Remember the enthusiastic young prophet of the Old Testament who cries out against Jeroboam but fails to obey the Lord’s command for him not to go home the same way he came and not to eat or drink while he was in Bethel?—1 Kings 13); and our hearts go out to people, even sometimes those preachers like our “young prophet” of First Kings, and definitely for poor sheep who can be so easily led astray.
All of this reminds us of the burden on us to teach clearly both the grace of Jesus and the Lord’s expectations and demands, because we cannot have one without the other.
And, let's not fall into the “smartest man in the world” trap
On the surface, yes, our hearts go out to Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu; but, at a closer look, we see they sinned a great sin in that they were blatantly disobedient to God and were deceived into thinking God doesn’t care how they do things, that if they have the right spirit about themselves the Lord will certainly be pleased. But he wasn’t. And He isn’t now.
Nor is he pleased when we think much too highly of ourselves, as was the case with Nadab and Abihu who became a little smarter than God.
If you think about it, that can happen, especially if we hasten to grab the knapsack instead of making sure we grab the real thing.
February 21, 2024
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