Oh, my reader, how far have you and I progressed in this profound lesson? No doubt both reader and writer have to make the same humiliating confession. Too often, alas! we "walk as men" and "eat the bread of men"--too often are we robbed of our high priestly privileges by the workings of nature and the influences of earth. These things must be watched against. Nothing save realized priestly nearness to God can ever preserve the heart from the power of evil or maintain its spiritual tone. All believers are priests unto God, and nothing can possibly deprive them of their position as such; but though they cannot lose their position, they may grievously fail in the discharge of their functions. These things are not sufficiently distinguished. Some there are who, while looking at the precious truth of the believer's security, forget the possibility of his failing in the discharge of his priestly functions: others, on the contrary, looking at the failure, venture to call in question the security.
Now, I desire that my reader should keep clear of both the above errors. He should be fully established in the divine doctrine of the eternal security of every member of the true priestly house; but he should also bear in mind the possibility of failure, and the constant need of watchfulness and prayer, lest he should fail. May all those who have been brought to know the hallowed elevation of priests unto God be preserved, by His heavenly grace, from every species of failure, whether it be personal defilement or the presentation of any of the varied forms of "strange fire," which abound so in the professing church.
"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; and that ye may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the Lord hath spoken unto them by the hand of Moses.'" (Ver. 8-11.)
The effect of wine is to excite nature, and all natural excitement hinders that calm, well-balanced condition of soul which is essential to the proper discharge of the priestly office. So far from using any means to excite nature, we should treat it as a thing having no existence. Thus only shall we be in a moral condition to serve in the sanctuary, to form a dispassionate judgment between clean and unclean, and to expound and communicate the mind of God. It devolves upon each one to judge for himself what, in his special case, would act as "wine or strong drink."[21] The things which excite mere nature are manifold indeed--wealth, ambition, politics, the varied objects of emulation around us in the world. All these things act with exciting power upon nature, and entirely unfit us for every department of priestly service. If the heart be swollen with feelings of pride, covetousness, or emulation, it is utterly impossible that the pure air of the sanctuary can be enjoyed, or the sacred functions of priestly ministry discharged. Men speak of the versatility of genius, or a capacity to turn quickly from one thing to another; but the most versatile genius that was ever possessed could not enable a man to pass from an unhallowed arena of literary, commercial, or political competition, into the holy retirement of the sanctuary of the divine presence; nor could it ever adjust the eye that had become dimmed by the influence of such scenes, so as to enable it to discern, with priestly accuracy, the difference "between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean." No, my reader, God's priests must keep themselves apart from "wine and strong drink." Theirs is a path of holy separation and abstraction. They are to be raised far above the influence of earthly joy as well as earthly sorrow. If they have aught to do with "strong wine," it is only that it may "be poured unto the Lord for a drink-offering, in the holy place." (Numb. xxviii. 7.) In other words, the joy of God's priests is not the joy of earth, but the joy of heaven--the joy of the sanctuary. "The joy of the Lord is their strength."
[21] Some have thought that, owing to the special place which this direction about wine occupies, Nadab and Abihu must have been under the influence of strong drink when they offered the "strange fire." But be this as it may, we have to be thankful for a most valuable principle in reference to our conduct as spiritual priests. We are to refrain from every thing which would produce the same effect upon our spiritual man as strong drink produces upon the physical man.