A warning against seduction and a call to zeal

Text Numbers 25 Time 03/03/13 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church

For the last few weeks we have been looking at Numbers 22-24 and the story of how Balak King of Moab tries to bring down a curse on the Israelites by engaging the help of Balaam. However, try as he might to curse the people, Balaam can only call down blessing on them. The fact is that God's people are blessed and nothing can take that blessing away, It is a very comforting message designed to encourage us.

But before we run away with the idea that nothing then can go wrong we are confronted in Chapter 25 by another disastrous episode in the story of Israel in the desert. Thankfully, it is not just a story of sexual immorality and idolatry, though it certainly is that. It is also the story of a heroic act of zeal by Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron, that stands as a great example for us and is remembered later in Scripture, in Psalm 106:30, 31

But Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was checked. This was credited to him as righteousness for endless generations to come.

So there are really two main things here

1. A warning against seduction

1. Be warned against the danger of seduction

Israel, I remind you, is at this point about to enter the Promised Land and yet they seem, spiritually, as far from God as ever.

While Israel was staying in Shittim, we are told the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate and bowed down before these gods. So Israel joined in worshipping the Baal of Peor.

This does not appear to be a case of so-called sacred prostitution. There were and still are sometimes situations where in paganism prostitution was practised in connection with idolatry. The idea there is that by means of sexual union with a person dedicated to a particular fertility God crops could be improved. Rather, here it seems that proximity to Moab at this time led to some of the Israelite men beginning sexual relationships with some of the Moabite women. These women then invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. And so these Israelites ate in the temples and bowed down before these gods. So Israel joined in worshipping the Baal of Peor. The phrase means something like “they entered into intercourse with the Baal of Peor”.

So there was both adultery and idolatry. Both the second and the seventh commands were openly being broken. This raises a warning for us first of all then against being seduced into such things.

We live in a society where adultery and other forms of sexual immorality are not considered to be particularly sinful by some and yet the Bible is very clear that sexual union is something that is to be confined to the marriage bed. Idolatry is also common in our day. People make idols of money and possessions, of living the good life as they put it. How careful we ought to be, especially when we consider what happens to these people here.

2. Be warned that God judges the adulterer and the idolater

We read at the end of verse 3 And the Lord’s anger burned against them. We read in verses 4 and 5 that

The Lord said to Moses, Take all the leaders (or perhaps a literal reference to the heads) of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the Lord, (not to be buried was a great shame to a person) so that the Lord’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel. So Moses said to Israel’s judges, Each of you must put to death those of your men who have joined in worshipping the Baal of Peor.

Now, of course, we are not living under Moses and so death would not be appropriate for such sins but let's be clear that just as God's anger burned against the people then so it burns now and just as those sins deserved death then so they do now, although the procedure now would be to put such a person out of church membership until there was a clear sign of deep and genuine repentance.

So we say beware of sexual sin and of idolatry. Such sins make God angry and they deserve punishment. In your relationships with members of the opposite sex there must always be the utmost propriety. There is a lot of talk at the moment about men making inappropriate advance to women in the work place. A Christian must never be guilty of such things. You don't need me to remind you either that if you use the Internet you need to be very careful indeed.

Let me give you some statistics

1 By the end of 2004, there were 420 million pages of pornography on the Internet.

2 There are an estimated 100,000 websites offering illegal child pornography.

3 They say there 68 million search engine requests for pornography every day, ie 25% of total search engine queries.

4 Nearly half the Christians questioned in a survey said pornography is a major problem in the home,

There is not only the Internet but what young people are doing with their 'phones and other devices. It is quite frightening. We all need to be very careful indeed.

At the same time idolatry is an equally strong temptation. This is more difficult to demonstrate but take these facts for an example

1 As of June 2011, 3.2 million households in the UK were in financial difficulty, with some form of debt action being taken against them or with three months of outstanding monthly payments. If that figure is accurate it's astonishing: about one in ten households! There is possibly some good reason for the debts in some cases but in most cases it is probably an inordinate love of money or of possessions that has led to this crisis.

2 On average Britons spend £898 a year on holidays. The average British family will also spend around £800 on Christmas each year.

3 An article I saw from 2011 said that in a lifetime Britain's Mr Average will spend 10,585 hours in the pub and 11 years in front of the TV. Each year he will spend £570 a year on designer clothes, £1,144 on beer, more than £2,000 shopping online, £2,189 on gadgets and £417 eating out.

4 Meanwhile Mrs Average will spend 8.5 years of her life shopping, will spend more than £43,000 on cosmetics and in a lifetime will spend £103 a year on shoes.

Now these are just statistics but they do raise fundamental questions about how we spend our time and money and about where our hearts are. Don't be seduced by the world all around us.

2. A call to zeal

1. A call to see how blatant sin can be

Then in verse 6 we read that right in the middle of all this

an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting.

Never was vice more daring says Matthew Henry.

A footnote in verse 14 and 15 tells us that

The name of the Israelite ... was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite family. And the name of the Midianite woman … was Cozbi daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family.

(The Midianites lived among the Moabites at this time). This footnote reveals that these two were people of high standing in their communities. That fact did not deter Phinehas.

Another footnote appears in verses 16-18

The Lord said to Moses, Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them, because they treated you as enemies when they deceived you in the affair of Peor and their sister Cozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader, the woman who as we shall see was killed when the plague came as a result of Peor.

This sin had repercussions.

The sin was public and blatant and showed an utter disregard for everyone else. What they went into the tent to do is clear from the way they die together, as we shall see. We see many examples of this sort of thing today, where people do not simply sin but flaunt their wickedness. This is part of the argument with the homosexual lobby. It is not enough that homosexuality be allowed. They want to parade it before all as a legitimate activity. There is also something of a reaction against hypocrisy so that this becomes almost the only sin. You hear people confess the most wicked sins and then say "at least I'm honest about it".

2. A call to zeal against such sins

This was an outrageous act then. However, it provoked a most zealous response. Never was virtue more daring says Matthew Henry. We read in verses 7 and 8 that When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear through both of then - through the Israelite and into the woman’s body. Presumably Phinehas had been appointed as an executer. It is a pretty horrific moment and rather bloody but it made a difference. We are told that it was Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped. By that stage (9) some 24,000 had died but it was brought to an end by this act of zeal.

It is a reminder of what happened back in Chapter 16 when another plague came from the Lord and

Moses said to Aaron, Take your censer and put incense in it, along with burning coals from the altar, and hurry to the assembly to make atonement for them. Wrath has come out from the Lord; the plague has started. So Aaron did as Moses said, and ran into the midst of the assembly. The plague had already started among the people, but Aaron offered the incense and made atonement for them. He stood between the living and the dead, and the plague stopped.
Phinehas is commended for his act of atonement in no uncertain terms.

10-13 The Lord said to Moses, Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was as zealous as I am for my honour among them, so that in my zeal I did not put an end to them. Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honour of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.

There was something God-like about this act the LORD says. God made sure that Phinehas was ever remembered for this courageous and God honouring act. The covenant of peace is not entirely clear but it was probably simply a promise to protect Phinehas from any act of revenge from the family of Zimri or of the Moabite woman. The promise of a perpetual priesthood is much clearer.

So how should we see it in our day. Do we have a mandate here for killing people who blatantly flout God's law? Are the abortion clinic assassins right? Should we just go out and kill certain people?

Well, no we need to keep in mind that there have been changes since Moses' time and especially since the coming of Christ. Killing people is not the thing to do. Do you remember that incident related in Luke 9:53-56? We read that some Samaritans did not welcome Jesus,

because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village.

No the lesson here is not about killing people. Rather, it is a grand example of zeal for the LORD and his honour and a case of doing what opposes sin and breaks it for the glory of God. That is the sort of zeal we need in our day.

Now how it works out today is more difficult to pin down. What we are talking about is a zeal for God that is fearless, zealous for God and that seeks only God's glory. It is not a matter of killing anyone but of saying the right things at the right time. For a pastor it is seeing that a wicked person is removed from the membership in a timely way. For individuals it may be dealing with that blatantly wicked person at home or in work by blowing the whistle as we say. Whatever happens we must be more zealous for God and his glory than for our own safety or honour, ready to stand up for him.