Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Well, welcome, especially if it's your first time or second time visiting here. My name is Dean Annan and I'm the discipleship pastor here. I'll be down in front afterwards. I'd love to meet you. If you're new here today, we are continuing in our series Narratives in Numbers.
[00:00:21] And if you're newer to the Bible, Moses is the one who wrote the Book of Numbers and also wrote most of the first five books in the Bible. He is and was God's chosen man to lead the Israelites out of brutal Egyptian slavery and into the promised land.
[00:00:42] The Book of Numbers certainly points out God's holiness. And the events of this book are mostly in the wilderness before God's people reach the promised land. And that's what we're walking into here.
[00:00:56] So you can open up or turn on your Bibles to numbers chapter 16. That's where we're going to be today. Numbers chapter 16 and A into chapter 17 as well, 66 verses. No, it's okay. We're not gonna be here all day.
[00:01:11] I'm not going to read all of that text. I'm not going to preach on all of that text.
[00:01:18] I'm gonna be telling the story. This is another historical narrative where we're trusting God during this season to take our church into a time of confession of sin and repentance and making hard decisions so that our lives will be changed, all for the glory of God. You heard last week the importance of context and taking the Bible out of context. How wrong that can be. If we do that, we move towards misunderstanding, we move towards error, and we move towards wrong conclusions.
[00:01:57] Context is so important in understanding Scripture that some theologians will say context is king meaning. Don't skip it. It's what we need to understand Scripture. But also I want to remind us that these biblical historical narratives that we're in, these ancient true stories, these are a type of literary genre or category, if you will, designed by God specifically for what he has given through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to the authors to capture your hearts, also to bring you in to this story. Because if I were to sit here today and talk about this text and give you just a bunch of bullet points of the theological principles which are important for you and me today.
[00:02:41] And that's all I did and didn't tell the story, you'd probably fall asleep.
[00:02:45] Frankly, I'm not that interesting.
[00:02:47] God knows that, you know that.
[00:02:51] But these stories are real people's lives in real time.
[00:02:57] They're happening and they all point us. And these experiences, they move us towards the Messiah and they teach us along the way. For example, if I said parents, you know, it's important to or gave you a little lecture and it's important to protect your children, but also to give them a sense of independence to learn that. And perseverance is so important for young kids and being courageous as well. And also it's important to teach your kids about friendships.
[00:03:27] Yeah, we could do that for half an hour or we could watch Finding Nemo, right? We're not doing that. Everybody's like, yeah, no, because the same things are there, but in a story form. And we'd probably learn more and we'd probably love it more, frankly. And we'd be pulled in narratives. Sailhammer says this about narratives. Historical narratives in the Bible are the re presentation of past events for the purpose of instruction. These are not just for history for sake alone. They're not just to entertain. They're not really at all about that. They're about instruction.
[00:04:06] All right, that's enough about that for now. A little more about interpreting scripture. Let's move on. We are in Numbers, chapter 16, verse 1. We have Korah, who begins to become our main character right away. The Levite who leads a rebellion.
[00:04:21] Verse one says this.
[00:04:23] Now, Korah the son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi and Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and on the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men, verse 2. And they rose up before Moses with a number of the people of Israel, 250 chiefs, leaders, in other words, of the congregation chosen from the assembly, well known men. So we have some people so far. The who here we have Moses, we have Korah, Dathan, Abiram, 250 others. And an kind of drops out of the story. So I'm not gonna talk about him. But if we broke down the dads here, if we looked at the lineage, what was going on, here's what we see about Korah. Korah the rebel. Yes, he's going to be. We'll see that he's the clear leader of this rebellion from the tribe of Levi. He's not a priest. Not all Levites are priests. Some yes, some no. Korah has a privileged position where he would handle sacred objects in the tabernacle. We learned that earlier in the Book of Numbers. Korah is a cousin of Moses and Dathan and Abiram are joining him in this as well. So even though Korah was a Kohathite, meaning that's a class within the tribe of Levi, even though he had a very important position in the tabernacle, he worked with sacred object close to the Lord. That was not enough, not for him. He rose up. In other words, he's challenging Moses. He figures he could do better, do better than Moses and his leadership. And so what are they saying? What's this complaint? Who's the target? Well, in verse three, we're gonna put verse three up there. Verse three, he's targeting Moses, God's leader of the Israelites, and Aaron and Aaron's priesthood. Verse 3 says, they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, you have gone too far.
[00:06:20] For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourself above the assembly of the Lord?
[00:06:32] Let me pause there for a minute. Remember, real people, Moses, what he's going through really, really stinks.
[00:06:41] You might remember a while back in July, we had a sermon on numbers, chapter 12. And we saw Miriam, who is Moses, older sister, and Aaron, his brother, who's the high priest, rebelled against Moses back then. And now you have, in our passage today, Korah, a cousin of Moses, doing the same thing, rebelling against his leadership. You talk about family conflict, talk about a bad Christmas. Maybe you're. Or maybe a bad Thanksgiving dinner, like some disagreements or challenges. Multiply that by a thousand, and then maybe you can understand how he's beginning to feel here.
[00:07:18] The charge, the charge so far against Moses, Korah is accusing Moses and Aaron of, if you saw that, exalting themselves.
[00:07:29] He was supported by dathan and Abiram, 250 others that were leaders. It's interesting that those who are discontent here fall into this blaming cycle again, discontent. So then they're challenging and complaining, of course. Accusing and blaming again and again. Challenging, accusing, blaming. If you've been with us in Numbers, you kind of see this over and over. Or if you've read all of Numbers before, you see this cycle over and over, regardless of the facts, they blame.
[00:07:57] But how might they have gotten here? Why? Why did they get to this conclusion?
[00:08:03] Levi or not Levi, Korah and his cohorts. Well, verse three says, for all in the congregation. This is what he's saying. For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them. So they're discontent again. I said they're complaining.
[00:08:19] They're blaming Aaron and Moses for their predicament. They're wandering in the wilderness. They're not in the promised land yet. But what they've forgotten is they are the Ones who caused this, their own sin, their own disbelief in God. And when I was reading this before, I paused there for a moment, I looked at my own heart.
[00:08:38] Am I discontent? Am I a complaining person? Am I blaming?
[00:08:43] Back to verse three. We see that the. The Lord's covenant. So we know that the Lord's covenant, of course, is for all people. And so they might be thinking in their minds, these rebels.
[00:08:54] So why are they setting themselves above everybody else as the leaders? Because they might be thinking everybody's holy, aren't they? Didn't the Lord say that? And where do they get this. Where do they get this idea that everybody's holy? Well, In Leviticus, chapter 19, you don't have to go there. I'm just going to read this. In Leviticus 19:2, the Lord says this to the people of Israel. He says, you shall be holy for the Lord your God am holy. Yeah. They could be thinking that, well, that's the foundational principle of all of Leviticus. So, well, we're holy too, right? Or they might be thinking, if you look back the paragraph just before numbers, chapter 16, there's this little segment of Scripture where God is trying to help his people to remember to follow his commandments. This is Numbers, chapter 15, verses 37. And on.
[00:09:51] The Lord gives them kind of an object lesson almost.
[00:09:55] He tells them, the Lord instructs them, the people of Israel, to wear tassels on the corner of their garments to remind them to not only follow his commands, but they are to be holy as well. And so maybe they're thinking and getting these ideas that now, well, we feel entitled. We also should be and could be the Lord's leaders. Why not?
[00:10:18] But there's a lot of problem. I'll tell you why not.
[00:10:22] There's a lot of problems with this.
[00:10:24] There's a lot of problems with their conclusions. The first. Is this the first problem with their conclusions. They did not listen to the entire truth.
[00:10:33] I think Pastor Michael mentioned something about that last week. See, something can be true, but you may reach the wrong conclusion because you're not hearing all the facts. You're not hearing the entire truth. This happens all the time. Amen. You know what I'm talking about. Happens all the time. Especially in our society today. People are just not listening to each other. They're not listening to all the facts. And that was true back then as well. We'll see more about this in a moment. Let me move forward. Problems with their conclusions. There's a second one.
[00:11:03] They did not live in God's blessings and calling in their life. What do I mean by that? I mean Core and company. What they did here is they chose not to see God's blessings that they had already in their life and the calling. Because Cora, just one example. He had a great, really important position in ministry but chose not to think about that. He wasn't one of the rabble, he was one of the insiders. He was an Israelite and yet challenged God's selected leaders.
[00:11:39] And that's actually the third point. The problem with their conclusions here is that the Lord himself appointed Aaron and his sons for the priesthood specifically. Remember, Korah is actually targeting the priesthood of Aaron. He wants to do that too. Well, specifically Korah who is a Levite, thinks he should be able to be one too. But not all Levites, again were priests.
[00:12:08] Remember the idea of these, these half truths are not listening to all the truth.
[00:12:13] Back in Numbers, chapter three, I'm going to read this to you.
[00:12:17] The Lord spoke this to Moses saying, and you shall appoint Aaron and his sons and they shall guard their priesthood. Whose priesthood? Aaron and his sons, Were they Levites? Yes. Not all Levites are to be priests. Just Aaron as his sons. And then he says, but if any outsider comes near, he shall be put to death.
[00:12:44] They chose to disobey the Lord himself. It's the Lord that appointed Moses and it's the Lord that appointed Aaron to his office. And so God appoints priests here in the old covenant, not men.
[00:12:59] This type of sin is what would be called a high handed sin. Do you remember that if you were with us before, previously you heard that a high handed sin, which is, if you're looking at your Bibles, that's In Numbers chapter 15, verse 30 is the type of sin that is prideful, it's arrogant and specifically it's against God himself.
[00:13:27] This is a high handed sin, what we're saying. And so the logic is God's appointments are being directly challenged. So God himself is being challenged. That's important.
[00:13:39] See what Moses did.
[00:13:41] How did he respond?
[00:13:43] Verse 4, he humbled himself in prayer.
[00:13:47] This is his normal thing. This is what he does. Moses falls down and he prays. He's done this before in front of the entire assembly. He lowers himself in humility. Even when people are attacking him, he goes before the Lord. Humility is not self deprecation. Right? It's not thinking less of yourself or you're having an inferiority complex at all. Right? It's about right, judgment, sober judgment. In light of God's greatness and his grace, it's God. Humility is God focused and other focused. Now, Moses did this quite regularly. He would go before God on his face. He would do it for many different reasons at different times. Sometimes to worship the Lord in face of adversity. He'd do it when he was mourning the people's sins.
[00:14:35] He would go before God to intercede and to advocate for the people. He did that also. And when he would sometimes go on his faith, it was really just to seek God's solution for the people.
[00:14:49] Verse 5 through 7, really a test is proposed. So Moses proposes a test for the next morning.
[00:14:57] In lieu of what we just saw, Moses is going to propose a test after praying to God to prove the source of his authority and Aaron's authority and let God choose who is the holy one, the one who should be leading.
[00:15:13] Verse six, you get to test instructions. We'll put it on the screen. So here's these. The contest or the test instructions. And Moses is speaking.
[00:15:25] Do this. Moses says, take sensors. Those are like fire pans or like cup shaped bowls where priests would put incense to burn before the Lord. So he says, do this. Take censers, Korah and all his company, put fire in them and put incense on them before the Lord tomorrow. So this test is going to be tomorrow. And the man whom the Lord chooses shall be the holy one, the leader of the nation. That's the test. That's this idea is that they would do this thing, they would go to the tabernacle and then God will make his choice.
[00:16:04] God will choose. And everything seems pretty civil so far, right? Nothing seems too bad so far. But remember back in verse three, when the congregation accuses Moses and Aaron of exalting themselves or exalting themselves.
[00:16:22] And Korah and company said back in verse three, you have gone too far to Moses and Aaron. Verse 7, Moses throws the same back. The language is the same in the original Hebrew. He throws back the same phrase at them, says Moses says of them, you have gone too far, sons of Levi. Using the same phrase, Moses is clarifying who has really gone too far.
[00:16:49] And then Moses throws the third response here. He lets them have it verbally, verse eight. Now he doesn't let them have leadership. Okay, that's not what's. It's an idiom, right? Like a dressing down, a chewing somebody out, a scolding them. This is what he does next. He directs these words at Korah, Korah and his fellow cohorts here, his rebels.
[00:17:13] Let's be clear that the priesthood, you might think, oh no, the Aaronic Priesthood is in jeopardy. No, it's not in jeopardy. It's not in jeopardy. What's really happening here is that these rebels are challenging the Lord's sovereignty.
[00:17:31] That's what's happening.
[00:17:32] The Lord's choice of Aaron's family as priests. I'll read a few select words from Moses. Moses is speaking about what God has done for them, for Korah and company. Here's what he says in verse 10, and that he has brought you near him and all your brothers, the sons of Levi, with you. In other words, you have this great responsibility. The Kohathites have this great responsibility, great ministry before the Lord. And then he says, and you seek the priesthood also. Can you hear the tone? I don't know if that's how he said it, but that's. Imagine how he said it.
[00:18:06] And would you seek the priesthood also? Verse 11 gets really real.
[00:18:11] Therefore, it is against the Lord that you and all your company have gathered together.
[00:18:18] So Corhyn and his cohorts, the motives are very possibly that we can do better than Moses, right? We can do better than Aaron. We're still not in the promised land. But also, I think there's this motive also here, possibly, is that I want more.
[00:18:33] I want more. Here's what's so tragic, in my opinion. Here's what's so tragic about this.
[00:18:40] These. These rebel Levites like Korah and the other Levites along with him, they misunderstood the heart of ministry.
[00:18:51] You know, they looked at ministry as position, maybe instead of sacrifice and service. Ministry is a call to service, selflessness and sacrifice.
[00:19:02] Not position, not prestige and not power.
[00:19:06] That's what I think is tragic about this. This is what makes this rebellion so tragic. Ministry is open hands to the Lord so that the Lord can take away and the Lord can give more whenever and if ever. It's his will. This is what ministry is. It's open hands. But this overemphasizing of my ministry just kills that idea. It kills it. So the story continues. And now we have. We're back to. We have Dathan and Abiram now show up again. They defy Moses, and then we have a contest coming next.
[00:19:42] So so far, Korah's been targeting Aaron's priesthood, but now Dathan and Abiram step in, in the text, and we're going to see that they're challenging Moses like they want that power, it seems. In verse 12, Moses calls for them to come see him. Moses is calling for Dathan and Abiram to come up to see him. And they will not Come up.
[00:20:06] They say they will not come up to see him. Then they blame Moses again for all the troubles that they're experiencing in the wilderness, not being in the promised land.
[00:20:16] We have it on the screen. It says, they say, dathan and Abiram say we will not come up. They will not come up to see Moses. Then they go on, is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness, that you must also make yourself a prince over us? They're complaining about leaving the comforts of Egyptian slavery.
[00:20:39] You see how silly that is? They're lying.
[00:20:42] Egyptian slavery was terrible.
[00:20:45] They're calling it a land of milk and honey, just like later. Sometimes milk and honey is talked about as a promised land, but here they're talking about the comforts of slavery in Egypt. Not at all.
[00:20:54] Moses gets frustrated. He starts venting. In verse 15, he says this back to them. Actually, he's talking to the Lord, and he says, I have not taken one donkey from them, and I have not harmed one of them. He's venting to the Lord. He's showing his own innocence.
[00:21:10] And then as it moves on, we get to the next day, the day of the test, the day of the contest, and the legitimacy of Aaron's priesthood. Here is what's being tested. And Korah, along with his 250 other followers are there at the tabernacle. Verse 18 says this. So every man took his censer and put fire in them and laid incense on them and stood at the entrance of the tent of meeting, which is the tabernacle with Moses and Aaron. And verse 19 says, Then Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And the glory of the Lord appeared to all the congregation.
[00:21:53] You could probably read this, and you could probably read a little bit quickly here and maybe go past this. The glory of the Lord appeared, but we don't want to do that, because whenever you see this, when the glory of the Lord appeared, something's about to happen.
[00:22:08] Something big is about to happen.
[00:22:10] One of the times they saw this, not too long ago, back In Leviticus, chapter 9, verse 23, you see, the glory of the Lord appeared. The glory of the Lord appeared at the ordination ceremony of Aaron as the high priest. So something big we know is about to happen.
[00:22:29] Down to about verse 20. We're at the time of the verdict, we're at the time of the judgment now. And God says this, that he's going to consume them in a moment.
[00:22:41] But apparently when he said that, he was about to put to death the older generation of Israel for their grumbling. Not just those he's talking about now, what's going on, but the older generation because of their constant disbelief and grumbling. In verse 20 through 23, Moses and Aaron intercede for the Israelites yet again.
[00:23:02] They want God to. They go to God, they beg God for mercy, to limit his judgment just to these rebels. What's happening now in this moment. So out of humility and out of love, Moses and Aaron are interceding. Look what they do. Verse 22.
[00:23:21] This is Moses and Aaron. And they fell on their faces. This is before God. And they say, o God, the God of the spirits of all flesh shall one man's sin. And you be angry with all the congregation. In other words, God. You know who the real instigators here are in this case, at this time only they should be punished. The title they use here, where it says, the glory O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, this is simply a way, a title for God, a God who understands the inner motives and inner hearts of people that God can see who's at fault here.
[00:23:59] They're pleading for mercy to God, and God listens.
[00:24:04] And then Moses tells the people to separate from the rebels. Get away from Korah, get away from Dathan, get away from Abiram, so that, as it says in the text, they would not be swept away. This is in verse 26. So they would not be. Everyone else would not be swept away in all their sins. This is a public warning.
[00:24:28] This is serious. And this is dreadful because God is about to punish the evildoers and show his support for Moses and Aaron's leadership.
[00:24:38] I'm gonna read a bunch of verses. We're gonna have them on the screen. It's like eight verses in a row. Here we go.
[00:24:43] And Moses said, he's talking to them, the rebels hereby and all the congregation, you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works and that it has not been of my own accord. If these men die, as all men die, or if they're visited by the fate of all mankind, then the Lord has not sent me. Meaning that if these guys just die of natural causes in old age, then, yeah, then maybe I'm not the chosen one, the one to lead Israel. Verse 30.
[00:25:13] But if the Lord creates something new. Moses is talking.
[00:25:17] And the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol Then you shall know that these men have despised the Lord. Sheol means the grave here, the place of the dead. Verse 31.
[00:25:38] And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up and their household and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods.
[00:25:52] Verse 33.
[00:25:54] So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. And all Israel who were around them fled at their cry, for they said, lest the earth swallow us up.
[00:26:13] Verse 35. And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men offering the incense.
[00:26:23] Earlier I said that this was very personal to Moses, for sure. But we have to realize how really personal this was for Aaron too, because not too long ago, two of Aaron's sons were killed by fire in the same way. His sons were priests. But they decided out of disobedience on their own to go to the tabernacle with incense to offer to the Lord their own way apart from the way God said to. And they also were consumed by fire.
[00:26:54] This is personal for Moses and Aaron. And this is painful to see this, but we have to remember sin has consequences.
[00:27:02] Bottom line, then you can tell from these verses, bottom line is they failed the test, right? They lost this contest.
[00:27:11] This is more than a Sunday school object lesson, and I love object lessons. This is more of a graphic example. I think it's one of the biggest in all of Scripture where we see the fact that sin leads to death. You know, if not right away, then later. Right. If not immediately, physically, then imminently, spiritually. Even the Apostle Paul talks about the wages of sin is death.
[00:27:37] Sin will swallow you up.
[00:27:39] And the rebels just experienced that.
[00:27:42] I think the way Moses writes is so beautiful. And it's important when we read these narratives really anywhere in Scripture, but certainly these narratives to look for language. That's interesting.
[00:27:55] Back in verse 12 and 14, if you have the text, you can look back in verse 12 and 14, do you remember where Dathan and Abiram said these words that they would not come up to see Moses? They would not come up to see Moses. Well, in verse 30 and 33, I just read most of this. The text says that they will then go down in judgment?
[00:28:18] Go down in judgment, alive into sheol. In verse 33, they went down alive into Sheol. They wouldn't come up, so they're gonna go down. That's the judgment.
[00:28:30] So this can be A little confusing. I get it. There's a lot going on here. Remember where you've heard this term a lot, where we're parachuting into this culture, you know what's happening here, what's going on? So I want to just talk a little bit about their sin.
[00:28:44] What? You know, this is confusing. Okay, what. Just to clarify some, what is the sin? What were these rebels doing trying to take over against God's appointed. First thing is they rebelled against God's leaders, Moses and Aaron, and that's an attack on God. We want to remember this. These were God's chosen. This is an attack on God. Number two, they tragically looked at service to God as something of position or privilege or even power.
[00:29:18] And third, I would say that they assumed that they could approach God however they want to.
[00:29:24] In other words, on their terms.
[00:29:29] It doesn't matter if it's the Old Covenant or the New Covenant. God is so amazingly awesome. Too awesome, frankly, and too holy. And our sin is too devastating that we need a mediator between us and God. Old Covenant Aaron, of course, and his sons, the High priest. New Covenant Jesus Christ, our great high priest. He is the one. He is our access to God. Jesus by his blood.
[00:29:56] It says in Hebrews 10. We'll put a slide up here, a little bit of a synopsis here of Hebrews 10, 19, 22, but I'm going to read the text itself.
[00:30:06] Hebrews chapter 10, verse 19 says this through 22. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh. And since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. With our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, we come to God, our holy God, through. Through Jesus alone.
[00:30:45] Let me skip a little bit.
[00:30:47] I'm going to go down to verse 41.
[00:30:50] Verse 41.
[00:30:53] Actually, before I start there, I want to give you an old quote from Pastor Warren Wiersbe, one of my favorite older pastors. He says the thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history, and that includes church history. So this is true today, right? We see this sometimes, but back then, the same thing applies, it's true to these Israelites because actually, after what we just read, after this tragedy, what just happened after they were judged justly by God, the next day after that, look what happens. Verse 41. But on the next day, the congregation, all of the congregation of the people of Israel grumbled. Here it is again. Grumbled against Moses and against Aaron, saying, you have killed the people of the Lord. Let me set the record straight here. First of all, those were not the people of the Lord. People of the Lord are people who have their faith in God, who are trusting in God, who are believing God, who are moving forward in that. And second, it was only because of Moses and Aaron's intercession the day before anyways, that any of them are still alive.
[00:32:00] So they're not getting it.
[00:32:02] So what does God do when they said that? Well, he sends another just judgment again, this time a plague.
[00:32:13] He sends a plague.
[00:32:16] And amazingly again, amazingly, again, Moses and Aaron intercede.
[00:32:26] Look at verse 45, by the way. This is three times, three times in our passage so far. They're going on their face before God for people who frankly don't deserve it.
[00:32:34] Verse 45. And they fell on their faces as Moses and Aaron before the Lord. And Moses said to Aaron, after they'd done that, Moses says to Aaron, take your censer and put fire on it from off the altar and lay incense on it and carry it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them. For the wrath has gone out from the Lord. The plague has begun. This offering of incense, think of it more of a prayer offering before the Lord for the people.
[00:33:01] Verse 47. So Aaron took it, and look at how quickly he moves here. So Aaron took it, as Moses said, and ran into the midst of the assembly. He ran into the midst of the people. And behold, the plague had already begun among the people.
[00:33:16] And he put on the incense and made atonement for the people.
[00:33:22] Verse 48.
[00:33:24] This is Aaron. And he stood between the dead and the living.
[00:33:30] And the plague was stopped.
[00:33:33] Aaron stopped death because that's what a good high priest does. He intercedes, he stands in between. That's what a good high priest does here.
[00:33:43] Before I conclude, you can read in chapter 17, verses 1 through 11. You can see how this kind of plays out at the end here. The very end of this is simply that God vindicates Aaron's priesthood yet again.
[00:33:58] It should have been enough that Aaron, what he just did should have been enough for them to see that Aaron is certainly God's high priest.
[00:34:07] But given Israel's track record, given what we've seen in the Book of Numbers so far, God gave a miracle to Aaron, a miracle of what's called the budding staff, Aaron's staff, to show that only Aaron is his high priest. That's in the beginning of chapter 17. But let me just conclude and take some principles here from this today.
[00:34:29] First of all, I will tell you, I was so struck again by Moses character and Aaron's character. So find leaders, whether it's at work or whether, you know, spiritual leaders that fall on their faces.
[00:34:43] I don't mean clumsy, I don't mean clumsy ones. I mean ones who fall on their faces. I mean spiritually for the people, for others who go to God in prayer out of humility to three times in our passage, we saw these leaders do this three other times in the Book of Numbers they're doing the same thing really for the same reasons. Again, at least six times in the Book of Numbers they did this. They went down before the Lord for the sake of others, even for those who were against them.
[00:35:14] It just sounds like Jesus on the cross, doesn't it?
[00:35:18] You know, Moses and Aaron were men who understood sacrifice, they understood service, they understood intercession and intervening, but from a place of humility.
[00:35:28] They were for the people, not for a position, not for power.
[00:35:34] Second, so what, you know, check yours, because this is what I had to go with and go through all this week. Check your own discontentment in life and potential to blame others.
[00:35:50] Jesus was very clear that we are to examine ourselves before we look at others, before we blame others. Also seek to understand people, try to get the facts before we simply either condemn or grumble or complain or blame.
[00:36:06] Because if we don't do these things, if we don't do this, we're going down the path of Korah. That's where we're going to leave the rebel who is against God himself.
[00:36:17] You know, misplaced blame kills relationships, it kills trust, it kills your own growth. And it certainly will never resolve problems. And certainly it's going to rob your happiness. And it gives us this poor me mentality.
[00:36:34] Let me go to the third and final. So what?
[00:36:38] Take sin seriously, because God does.
[00:36:42] Sin is more than mere mistakes.
[00:36:46] Sin is rebellion.
[00:36:49] It impacts entire communities. Didn't we see that today? Your sin, my sin, it impacts communities around us. The Bible says this in Romans, chapter 6, verse 23. This is the Apostle Paul talking again. He says, for the wages of sin is death. We know that, we see that. Certainly separation from God, certainly for all eternity in hell, not heaven, if we don't come to what, the free gift of God, which is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Isn't that good news that we have a Savior who solved the sin problem, Our own rebellious heart.
[00:37:26] He saves us from our sin to eternal life with him forever. That is such good news. Amen. CHURCH let's pray.
[00:37:36] Lord, we thank you for this story. Again, we thank you for the reminder and the instruction it gives us. We thank you, God, because all of these, as they move forward, God, they point us towards you, the coming Messiah, which now we know has already come. Jesus, we thank you for your blood. We thank you for what you have done. We ask God that you would change us and transform us today, that we would look to you out of all humility, that we would take time and approach others in humility as well.
[00:38:07] God, that we would realize that our sin is something you've paid for. That we can come to you in confession, come to you in repentance and God help us to make things right so that we can live for you and give you the glory. We pray this in your son's name. Amen.
