Text: Numbers 25:1-13, Title: Silver Bullet #2, Date/Place: NRBC, 6/19/11, AM
A. Opening illustration:
B. Background to passage: 1 Cor 10:6-10 gives us four OT reminders of God’s dealing with sin in His covenant people that should have known better, in order to help us fight sin in our own lives. Last week verse 7 led us to Ex 32 with four helps for fighting sin. Today verse 8 gives us our text for today and it deals with the sin at Peor. Israelites had just come off some major victories after the little incident at Kadesh-Barnea. And God had just protected them from Balak (the king of Moab, who was afraid of the invading Israelites, and wanted them gone) and Balaam’s attempt to curse them. And now they would be attacked more subtly and be defeated from within.
C. Main thought: In the text today, we will see two more motivations and ammunitions for Rom 8:13
A. The Lure of the Sensual (v. 1-4)
1. Since Balak couldn’t get the Israelites cursed, because of God’s protection upon them, he was instructed by Balaam to try another method. If Balak couldn’t get them by direct spiritual attack, he would try a preliminary invasion tactic: sex. So he arranged for Moabite and Midianite women who were religious prostitutes in the worship of Baal-Peor (the Canaanite fertility god), to go and undercut the heads of the households in Israel morally, then spiritually, and thus put them at odds with their God, and cut them off from divine blessing, and invite discipline.
2. And the strategy couldn’t have worked better! Prominent men of Israel were being led about by the belts by the lustful looks of these ladies. And this has nothing to do with intermarriage, but simply sex. But the strategy didn’t stop (wasn’t designed to) at moral failure, it progressed to worship of Baal. So not only had they disobeyed God and been unfaithful to their wives (which would have been utterly destructive to the family and the fabric of society, just look at our culture or ask anyone who has experienced adultery in a marriage), but they “joined” themselves, made themselves one, through eating, sex, and worship with Baal. The Israelite men would be leading their families to be absorbed into the Canaanite culture, effectively destroying the people of God. Sexual desire led to fornication, led to idolatry, led to the 2nd highest body count due to one incident of discipline in the OT.
3. Rev 2:14, Hos 9:10, Pro 6:32, 2:18-19, 5:22-23, 7:22-23, 8:36, 9:16-18,
4. Illustration:
5. Just on a side-note of application: there are many other preliminary attack strategies in Satan’s plan to destroy you that will indirectly open the floodgates of destruction and discipline in your life: money, power, pride, position, even blessing (elaborate on these). And this doesn’t just apply to men, women may have other forms of sensual pleasures (that may not necessarily be sexual, although the sexual revolution and the women’s liberation movement of the 60s-70s has done few favors in the downslide of female sexuality in our culture). Other technological and cultural trends have made inroads into much of our life because of sexual “freedoms” (that are actually bondage), that exacerbate the temptation (as if our depravity wasn’t enough as we saw last week).
6. Moral failure, particularly sexual moral failure is a gateway to at onslaught of evil! Most, if not all, sin is not an isolated incident, but has far reaching consequences. You have heard that sin will take you further than you want to go, here’s the proof. But sexual sin specifically has windows into the soul for evil, much like God-honoring marital sex has windows of joy and goodness. You think that when you look at porn on the internet that nobody knows, nobody is harmed, but the floodgate of sin are now open—lust has controlled your heart, intimacy with your spouse will suffer (even if they don’t catch you), your mind is more at ease with objectifying people, you have committed adultery (or fornication if you are single), guilt is unleashed, physical self-gratification may have taken place further complicating matters, images are burned into your mind’s eye, you defenses are lowered toward physical and emotional intimacy with those who are not your spouses, and you may become addicted, not even to mention your spiritual spiral and the harm to Christ and His church—all for a quick thrill. And the same could be applied to romance novels, soap operas, Victoria’s Secret catalogues, movies with sex scenes (and even insinuations), office flirtation, second stares at passing joggers, billboards, commercials, cheerleaders, etc. And just by the way, I know this affects men generally more, and many times, ladies, you don’t help us out much.
7. Recommend Sex and the Supremacy of Christ by Piper and Taylor. This gives (among other vast reservoirs of other good information and teaching) the best way to fight sensual sinful pleasures: with greater, more fulfilling, more satisfying pleasure: in Christ! Be afraid of sin, be enraptured with Christ!
B. The Zeal of the Passionate (v. 6-13)
1. God has the most passion for God in the universe. His first goal, last goal, and the reason for doing everything that He does is the glorify His Name. Radical measures are sometimes carried out to restore the glory among the people or among the nations on behalf of His Name. That being said, God commanded that Moses impale and display the leaders of this incident for the public to see. It was a display of wrath, but also of the value of His Name, which they had profaned. Just BTW, public death to preserve the glory of God’s Name is not limited to the OT.
2. So Moses orders their death, and a plague begins among the people at the same time—judgment upon the other men who participated. This got the attention of the congregation. Most probably knew of the immorality and idolatry, but no one did anything until the plague came. Then people start weeping at the tabernacle, begging God to forgive them and grant them reprieve from the plague. Talk about bad timing; Zimri and Cosbi walk right by the tabernacle into a foreign tent to “introduce her to the family,” explain. That’s when the righteous indignation of Phinehas, the main gatekeeper and guardian of the tabernacle, and he grabbed a spear/javelin, gave them a second, then in the arms of embrace, he put the spear through both of them! And to beat all, God stopped the plague, and gave him a covenant with him and his descendants. God said he acted with “My zeal” and that turned away the wrath of God
3. Psalm 106:28-31,
4. Illustration:
5. And if we realize the power, awesomeness, beauty, and glory that belong to the Name of God, we better understand the judgment that was meted out and endorsed, whether it be against sexual immorality and idolatry, or murder and slander. Knowing the God-centeredness of God, and the passion He has to magnify His glory through His people will help you keep from sin (1 Cor 10). Knowing that God may just let Satan destroy you for the maintenance of the glory of Christ, is a deterrent to sinful patterns.
6. Isn’t it sad that sometimes it takes a real tragedy or near tragedy to wake people up to their sinfulness, but then unfortunately they usually forget? What tragedies has God used in your life to wake you up? What can you wake up from now, before the plague?
7. This is a positive example for us about our commitment to holiness and hatred and anger against sin. Now I don’t think that we need to go impaling or spearing sinning members to death (but if the church did it as a whole, adultery among us would probably decrease), but rather desire the kind of passion, zeal for God as Phinehas did. Some of you may have to take some radical stands for righteousness in our day against sinning believers or against sin in general. You may lose friends, boyfriends, girlfriends. You may have disputes with family over them (these can be civil, polite, and without grudges and lingering hostility). You may lose rank at the office, or be passed over because you are not in the “buddy system.” We may see church members leave because of it. If confront others (sweetly and Christ-like, or not at all) in the church about gossip or lack of attendance or bitterness, you will avoidably offend some. But we may rescue the church or our families or ourselves from wrath and further sin in subsequent generations if we act with zeal! But let the burning passion for the fame of His Name fuel your desires and behaviors! Let this be a positive example that will catapult you into a pursuit, not only of His glory, but a life with radical flavor—students who don’t pressured into physical intimacy; employees that don’t play office politics, flirt with others’ spouses; couples who lead their kids down a road that sows the seeds and reaps the fruit of holiness
A. Closing illustration:
B. Recap
C. Invitation to commitment
Additional Notes
• Gospel: the people were suffering and dying under a plague that was due to sin. And a human sacrifice was needed to turn away the wrath of God, the Son of God was impaled on a tree as a punishment for sins that he did not commit. The wrath of God was satisfied, plague was over, right with God.
