I am a sucker for atmospheric scenting. There is no such thing as too many candles, wax melts, diffusers, and the like in my opinion. Hawaiian breeze and cotton cloud dream are two of my favorite plugins. Lately, the redolence of my household fragrances have brought to mind the Biblical altars I have been studying. Refilling my dispenser seems more like a priestly privilege than a humdrum chore.
As idyllic as incense and other sacred items are, we can't talk about altars without addressing their defilement.
Many kings and priests disrespect the holy things of God and debased themselves by making sacrifices and burning incense to false gods. Some even sacrificed their own children to gods like Moloch and Baal!
The accounts of Eli and his sons, Saul, and Uzziah offer unique lessons.
We are told some disturbing things about Hophni and Phinehas. The two sons of Eli stole for their own pleasure the temple sacrifices meant to burn on the altar, mistreated worshipers, and slept with women who served at the Temple!
Their actions blatantly displayed their disrespect for God, worship, their duty, and God's people. Eli heard of their wrongdoings and warned that they were sinning against God Himself. Neither man heeded the warning.
God told Samuel He was about to deal with these sins and said, “I have warned him (Eli) that judgment is coming upon his family forever, because his sons are blaspheming God and he hasn't disciplined them. So I have vowed that the sins of Eli and his sons will never be forgiven by sacrifice or offering.” (NLT)
This is chilling! Not only is Eli punished for failing to discipline his children but there is a finality to the judgment.
When we see the priests of God defiling the house of God or mistreating the people of God, and do nothing; we are complicit in God's eyes.
Eli and his sons died and the ark was taken but God was not defeated. Once the ark was in the Philistines' possession, God demonstrated His superiority over the false god Dagon.
Samuel witnessed the demise of Eli and his bloodline; and was later intimately acquainted with Saul's rise and fall.
Saul did not follow the instructions of the Lord, given through the prophet Samuel, and sacrificed the burnt offering and peace offerings himself. Saul's act of being outside of God's timing demonstrated his fear of men and lack of trust in God.
As a result Samuel prophesied, “But now your Kingdom must end, for the Lord has sought out a man after His own heart.” (NLT)
Saul is allowed to continue as king for quite some time and fails another test by not completely destroying the Amalekites. Samuel declares that because Saul rejected the commands of the Lord, God rejected Saul as king. Again, this decision is final.
Interestingly, God does not seem to reject Saul as a person and is still willing to redeem Saul's soul. It is curious to wonder what would have happened to Saul's kingdom had he passed the test of the Amalekites even though he failed the previous test. There is no indication that Saul sought his individual redemption but rather fought to cling to his title.
Lastly, let's take a look at King Uzziah. Uzziah started off strong but became prideful which led him to enter the sanctuary of the Lord's temple and burn incense on the incense altar which was a job strictly allotted to the priests. To their credit, eighty-one priests of the Lord confronted Uzziah who did not respond well and immediately got leprosy. He was humiliated, isolated, forced to hand over the kingdom to his son as regency, and was later buried apart from the other kings.
Uzziah's sin was pride. He thought he had elevated to the status of king and priest as King David had before him.
The lesson of Uzziah is not simply to stay humble. We should not assume we can flippantly follow in the path others have carefully taken in their pursuit of God without equal commitment.
We must approach the altars of the Lord with reverence, in His timing, and in the truth of our own humanity. Otherwise we might face severe consequences.
In order to be successful we are wise to consider the shortcomings of others; not for the purpose of judgement but to learn. Are you able to connect to the warnings or examples of others without entering into the pitfalls of ungodly comparison? Are you like the prophets who not only abstained from defilement but also attempted to warn others?
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