Our Daily Homily

Devotional For

April 9

      Aaron held his peace. Lev 10:3
      
      His heart must have been rent with paroxysms of grief, as he beheld the bodies of his beloved sons on the floor of the Tabernacle, stretched out in death. He repressed the cry, choked back the sob, staunched the flowing tear, and continued to perform the holy duties with which he was charged. He was no stoic, and tears are not wrong for our dead; but his relationship to God was so overmastering as to still the expressions of nature.
      
      He saw the wrong from God's standpoint. - It was of great importance that the Divine regulations and enactments should be maintained, and that the ministering priests should always prefer God's work and service above their own ideas. Aaron was able to appreciate that position, and saw the sin of which his children were guilty. They had forgotten the voice which said, Sanctify thou Me. Obedience is the foundation of reverence, honor, and service; and if it were relaxed with the priests, how for the people! How careful they should be who bear the vessels of the Lord I With what fear and trembling must they work, who work with God!
      
      He acquiesced in the Divine dealings. - To take the yoke, and meekly bear it; to put the hand on the mouth, and bow in the dust - this is rest and peace. In this way we drink Christ's cup and become partakers of His sufferings.
      
      He felt that his work as priest must take precedence. - It was a solemn and awful thing to be God's anointed priest, and the office must come first, even to the denial of the dues of nature, if that were necessary: so always with us, there must be the subordination of everything to our service and work for God.