When the people journeyed, the ark of the covenant was borne before them. “And the cloud of the Lord was upon them by day, when they went out of the camp. And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate thee flee before thee. And when it rested, he said, Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel.” (4aSG 11.1) MC VC

Chapter 23—Strange Fire VC

“And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the Lord, and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said unto Aaron, This is it that the Lord spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace.” (4aSG 11.2) MC VC

The sons of Aaron did not take the sacred fire from the altar, which the Lord himself had kindled, and which he commanded the priests to use when they offered incense before him. They took common fire and put in their censers, and put incense thereon. This was a transgression of God’s express command, and his judgment speedily followed. Aaron’s sons, who officiated in holy things, would not have thus transgressed if they had not indulged freely in the use of wine, and were partially intoxicated. They gratified the appetite, which debased their faculties, and disqualified them for their sacred office. Their intellects were beclouded, so that they did not have a realizing sense of the difference between the sacredness of the fire which God let fall from Heaven, and was kept burning continually upon the altar, and the common fire, which he had said they should not use. If they had had the full and clear use of their reasoning faculties they would have recoiled with horror at the presumptuous transgression of God’s positive commands. They had been especially favored of God in being of the number of the elders who witnessed the glory of God in the mount. They understood that the most careful self-examination and sanctification was required on their part before presenting themselves in the sanctuary, where God’s presence was manifested. (4aSG 11.3) MC VC

“And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar, and unto Ithamar, his sons, Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes, lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people; but let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the Lord hath kindled. And ye shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die; for the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you. And they did according to the word of Moses.” The father of the men slain, and their brothers, were forbidden to manifest any signs of grief for the ones who had been justly punished of God. When Moses reminded Aaron of the words of the Lord, that he would be sanctified in them that come nigh to him, Aaron was silent. He knew that God was just, and he murmured not. His heart was grieved at the dreadful death of his sons, while in their disobedience. Yet, according to God’s command, he made no expression of his sorrow, lest he should share the same fate of his sons, and the congregation also be infected with the spirit of unreconciliation, and God’s wrath come upon them. (4aSG 12.1) MC VC

“And the Lord spake unto Aaron, saying, Do not drink wine nor strong drink, thou, nor thy sons with thee, when ye go into the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. And that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean.” (4aSG 13.1) MC VC

When the Israelites committed sin, and God punished them for their transgression, and the people mourned for the fate of the one punished, instead of sorrowing because God had been dishonored, the sympathizers were accounted equally guilty as the transgressor. (4aSG 13.2) MC VC

The Lord teaches us, in the directions given to Aaron, reconciliation to his just punishments, even if his wrath comes very nigh. He would have his people acknowledge the justness of his corrections, that others may fear. In these last days many are liable to be self-deceived, and they are unable to see their own wrongs. If God, through his servants, reprove and rebuke the erring, there are those who stand ready to sympathize with those who deserve reproof. They will seek to lighten the burden which God compelled his servants to lay upon them. These sympathizers think they are performing a virtuous act by sympathizing with the one at fault, whose course may have greatly injured the cause of God. Such are deceived. They are only arraying themselves against God’s servants, who have done his will, and against God himself, and are equally guilty with the transgressor. There are many erring souls who might have been saved if they had not been deceived by receiving false sympathy. (4aSG 13.3) MC VC

The case of Aaron’s sons has been placed upon record for the benefit of God’s people, and should teach those especially who are preparing for the second coming of Christ, that the indulgence of a depraved appetite destroys the fine feelings of the soul, and so affects the reasoning faculties which God has given to man, that spiritual and holy things lose their sacredness. Disobedience looks pleasing, instead of exceeding sinful. Satan rejoices to see men, formed in the image of his Maker, yield themselves as slaves to a depraved appetite, for he can then successfully control the faculties of the mind, and lead those who are intemperate to act in a manner to debase themselves and dishonor God, by losing the high sense of his sacred requirements. It was the indulgence of the appetite which caused the sons of Aaron to use common instead of sacred fire for their offerings. (4aSG 13.4) MC VC

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) MC VC

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) MC VC

Chapter 24—The Quails VC

God continued to feed the Hebrew host with the bread rained from Heaven; but they were not satisfied. Their depraved appetites craved meat, which God in his wisdom had withheld, in a great measure, from them. “And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting; and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. But now our soul is dried away. There is nothing at all besides this manna before our eyes.” They became weary of the food prepared for them by angels, and sent them from Heaven. They knew it was just the food God wished them to have, and that it was healthful for them and their children. Notwithstanding their hardships in the wilderness, there was not a feeble one in all their tribes. Satan, the author of disease and misery, will approach God’s people where he can have the greatest success. He has controlled the appetite in a great measure from the time of his successful experiment with Eve, in leading her to eat the forbidden fruit. He came with his temptations first to the mixed multitude, the believing Egyptians, and stirred them up to seditious murmurings. They would not be content with the healthful food which God had provided for them. Their depraved appetites craved a greater variety, especially flesh meats. (4aSG 15.1) MC VC

Intemperance in eating and in drinking, and the indulgence of base passions have benumbed the fine sensibilities, so that sacred things have been placed upon a level with common things. Nadab and Abihu drank too freely of wine, and the result was, they used common fire instead of sacred, and were destroyed for thus dishonoring God. When appetite is left to control reason, sacred things are not discerned. God expressly commanded the children of Israel not to eat swine’s flesh. The heathen used this meat as an article of food. God prohibited the Hebrews the use of swine’s flesh because it was hurtful. It would fill the system with humors, and in that warm climate often produced leprosy. Its influence upon the system in that climate was far more injurious than in a colder climate. But God never designed the swine to be eaten under any circumstances. Swine were useful. In a fruitful country, where there was much to decay upon the ground, which would poison the atmosphere, herds of swine were permitted to run free, and devoured the decaying substances, which was a means of preserving health. Other animals were forbidden to be eaten by the Israelites, because they were not the best articles of food. (4aSG 124.1) MC VC

If the Israelites had manifested a spirit of submission to God’s wise prohibitions, he would have removed from them everything injurious to their health, and would have suffered no sickness to be among them. But he gave them what they lusted for, because they would not submit to him. (4aSG 124.2) MC VC

Appetite has been indulged to the injury of health. Stimulating drinks have been used freely, which have confused the brain and brought down man to the level of the brute creation. While intoxicated, every degree of crime has been committed, and yet the perpetrators have been excused in many instances, because they knew not what they were doing. This does not lessen the guilt of the criminal. If by his own hand he puts the glass to his lips, and deliberately takes that which he knows will destroy his reasoning faculties, he becomes responsible for all the injury he does while intoxicated, at the very moment he lets his appetite control him, and he barters away his reasoning faculties for intoxicating drinks. It was his own act which brought him even below the brutes, and crimes committed when he is in a state of intoxication should be punished as severely as though the person had all the power of his reasoning faculties. (4aSG 124.3) MC VC

Nadab and Abihu, by drinking wine, beclouded their reasoning faculties, and so lost their sense of sacred things, that they thought they could as well offer common fire as sacred. God did not excuse them because the brain was confused. Fire from his presence destroyed them in their sin. Some look with horror upon men who have been overcome with liquor, and are seen reeling and staggering in the street, while at the same time they are gratifying their appetite for things differing in their nature from spirituous liquor, but which injure the health, affect the brain, and destroy their high sense of spiritual things. The liquor-drinker has an appetite for strong drink which he gratifies, while another has no appetite for intoxicating drinks to restrain, but he desires some other hurtful indulgence, and does not practice self-denial any more than the drunkard. (4aSG 125.1) MC VC

Those who do not control their appetites in eating are guilty of intemperance. In those cases where men lose all sense of their obligation to God, their families, and to community, it is a slow process. They are not changed from the kind husband and father at once. It takes time to degrade them to beasts, where they become mere wrecks of humanity. With many, their first error is in making a God of their appetite, subsisting mostly on highly-seasoned animal food which produces a feverish state of the system, especially if pork is used freely. The blood becomes impure. The circulation is not equalized. Chills and fever follow. The appetite fails. They think something must be done, and perhaps send for ale, which stimulates for the time, but as soon as the influence of the ale is gone they sink as much lower, and a continual use of the ale keeps them stimulated and over-excited. They think that the ale was of so much benefit to them, they must continue its use. After a while it loses its influence, then they use a stronger beverage, until they give themselves up to every excess, and man formed in the image of his Maker degrades himself lower than the beasts. It required time to benumb the sensibilities of the mind. It was done gradually, but surely. (4aSG 125.2) MC VC

The priests, who ministered in sacred things, were commanded to wash their feet and their hands before entering the tabernacle in the presence of God to importune for Israel, that they might not desecrate the sanctuary. If the priests had entered the sanctuary with their mouths polluted with tobacco, they would have shared the fate of Nadab and Abihu. And yet professed Christians bow before God in their families to pray with their mouths defiled with the filth of tobacco. They go to the house which they have dedicated to God, professing to worship him, with a stupefying quid of tobacco in their mouths, and the high-colored saliva staining their lips and chin, and their foul breath polluting the atmosphere. They leave their poisonous filth either upon the floor, or in receptacles prepared for the purpose. This is the offering they present to God. Instead of the cloud of fragrant incense filling the house as in the case of the ancient tabernacle, it is filled with the sickening, polluted odor of ejected tobacco spittle and quids, and the air breathed by the congregation is poisoned. (4aSG 127.1) MC VC

Men who have been set apart by the laying on of hands, to minister in sacred things, often stand in the desk with their mouths polluted, their lips stained, and their breath tainted with the defilements of tobacco. They speak to the people in Christ’s stead. How can such service be acceptable to a holy God, who required the priests of Israel to make such special preparations before coming into his presence, lest his sacred holiness should consume them for dishonoring him, as in the case of Nadab and Abihu? These may be assured that the mighty God of Israel is still a God of cleanliness. They profess to be serving God while they are committing idolatry, by making a God of their appetite. Tobacco is their cherished idol. To it every high and sacred consideration must bow. They profess to be worshipping God, while at the same time they are violating the first commandment. They have other gods before the Lord. “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.” (4aSG 127.2) MC VC