Strange Fire
73
the clean and unclean. Another reason of weighty importance why they
should abstain from anything which would intoxicate is also given.
It would require the full use of unclouded reason to present to the
children of Israel all the statutes which God had spoken to them.
Anything in eating and drinking which disqualifies the mental
powers for healthful and active exercise is an aggravating sin in the
sight of God. Especially is this the case with those who minister in
holy things, who should at all times be examples to the people and be
in a condition to properly instruct them.
Notwithstanding they have this striking example before them, some
professed Christians will desecrate the house of God with breaths
polluted with the fumes of liquor and tobacco. And the spittoons are
sometimes filled with the ejected spittle and quids of tobacco. The
effluvia is constantly arising from these receptacles, polluting the
atmosphere. Men professing to be Christians bow to worship God,
and dare to pray to Him, with their lips stained by tobacco, while their
half-paralyzed nerves tremble from the exhausting use of this powerful
narcotic. And this is the devotion they offer to a holy and sin-hating
God. Ministers in the sacred desk, with mouth and lips defiled, dare to
take the sacred word of God in their polluted lips. They think God does
not notice their sinful indulgence. “Because sentence against an evil
work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is
fully set in them to do evil.” God will no more receive a sacrifice from
the hands of those who thus pollute themselves, and offer with their
service the incense of tobacco and liquor, than He would receive the
offering of the sons of Aaron, who offered incense with strange fire.
[84]
God has not changed. He is as particular and exact in His require-
ments now as He was in the days of Moses. But in the sanctuaries
of worship in our day, with the songs of praise, the prayers, and the
teaching from the pulpit, there is not merely strange fire but positive
defilement. Instead of truth being preached with holy unction from
God, it is sometimes spoken under the influence of tobacco and brandy.
Strange fire indeed! Bible truth and Bible holiness are presented to
the people, and prayers are offered to God, mingled with the stench
of tobacco! Such incense is most acceptable to Satan! A terrible
deception is this! What an offense in the sight of God! What an insult
to Him who is holy, dwelling in light unapproachable!