Numbers 25

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every weekday morning you and I, we get together. We have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's Word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. In this year 2024, Lord willing, we'll make it through the books of Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Hebrews. I'm so glad to be with you this morning.
I'm sorry for not being on here yesterday. Kids being out of school for the year has really kind of messed me up. We do year round school. And so I'm just out of routine as the kids are on a little break. So we are ahead of schedule because of Deborah and I covering like three chapters.
But here we are at Numbers chapter 25. Let's have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into God's word. Ooh, that's hot coffee this morning. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. What a blessing it is. to get to read your word. Lord, thank you for the gift it is to get to start off our day this way. Lord, we pray that as we read your word that you would help us to understand it. Please teach us, Lord. Please bury your truths in our heart. Let us follow after you and love you all of our lives in Jesus's name. Amen. OK, so we are at Numbers chapter 25. We'll read the first 18 verses together.
Now Israel remained in Acacia Grove, and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel was joined to Baal of Peor. And the anger of Jehovah was aroused against Israel. Then Jehovah said to Moses, take all the leaders of the people and hang the offenders before Jehovah out in the sun, that the fierce anger of the Jehovah may be turned away from Israel. Moses said to the judges of Israel, Every one of you kill his men who were joined to Baal of Peor.
And indeed one of the children of Israel came and presented to his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Now when Phinehas the son of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest saw it he rose from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through the man of Israel and the woman through her body.
So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel. And those who died in the plague were 24,000. Then Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned back my wrath from the children of Israel, because he was zealous with my zeal among them, so that I did not consume the children of Israel in my zeal. Therefore say, Behold, I give him my covenant of peace. and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the children of Israel.
Now the name of the Israelite who was killed, who was killed with the Midianite woman, was Zimri, the son of Saulu, a leader of a father's house among the Simeonites. And the name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cosbi, the daughter of Zur. He was head of the people of the father's house in Midian. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, harass the Midianites and attack them. They harassed you with their schemes by which they seduced you in the matter of Peor and in the matter of Cosby, the daughter of the leader of Midian, their sister, who was killed in the day of the plague because of Peor.
Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to this? So, A, what is this about? Well, I need to actually make a leap here that the Book of Numbers is going to get to in Numbers chapter 31 verse 16 and that this is actually a continuation of that story of Balaam. Numbers chapter 31 verse 16 is where the Lord records that it's actually Balaam.
He wasn't allowed to bless the people. He had tried that and God wouldn't let him say anything, but He comes up with this scheme that seems like he sells to the Moabites, right? They have just tried to go to war. The King of Moab had wanted to go to war, but he wasn't able to. So instead of trying to kill them in war, he tries to win them over. And how does he try to win them over? He tries to win them over with fertility type idolatrous ceremonies, right? What they do is they go and they try to have the Israelites, they don't try, the Israelites do it.
This is what it says. They invited the people, verse 2, to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel was, and the New King James here calls it, joined to, I would translate it, was yoked to Baal of Peor. That's this local deity, fertility god. So it's this idea that Israel has now turned away from the Lord, because you either love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength like He had commanded them, not to bow down to any idols, nor worship them, nor serve them, of anything. Or they were to go and commit idolatry, which is spiritual adultery. And this is what they do in the Lord. The Lord is a jealous God. He's like a husband who was zealous and jealous for his wife, not in a sinful way, in a way in which he wants his wife and the marriage bed to be pure. Right. Devotion. One for the other.
But the Israelites go and And they go and commit this adultery against the Lord. So Moses says this is why it's this spiritual adultery with this covenant people is why God says it's a death penalty in verse four. Take the leaders of the people, then hang the offenders before the Lord out in the sun, that the fierce anger of Jehovah may turn away from Israel. Right. The Lord isn't going to wipe them all out, but the offenders need to be taken care of. And so Moses tells the judges of Israel to go and do this, whoever went to this love feast, whoever's doing these things. But then it narrows in on one person who's especially brash. He just wants to... the Lord even names him out in verse 14.
The man who's killed with the Midianite woman was Zimri, the son of Saul, a leader of a father's house among the Simeonites. What did this man, Zimri, do? Zimri was different than everybody else. Zimri actually brought this Midianite woman into the camp of Israel. They didn't stay out with the Moabites, with these Midianite women.
He even brings her into the camp. This is one of those difficult areas where it'd be very similar to if somebody came into church and as they came into church, it would be like their wife was there and they bring in a harlot. Their wife is there and they bring in a prostitute. That's the brashness of this, like bringing it into the congregation, into the church, before Moses, before Eleazar, the high priest. And it's Aaron's grandson, Phineas, who is filled with righteous zeal, righteous indignation.
And he goes, he does something that I'm not saying this is what should happen today. But he goes and he takes a javelin. And as the two of them are doing the deed in their tent, he runs a javelin through both of them. Now, we might say, oh, man, this is this is so bad. Well, he stops this plague. Phineas stops this plague that's killing all these different people. Phineas says no, and he nails it to the ground. He says no more. This is done.
And the Lord honors Phineas. Notice what the Lord himself says to Moses about Phineas. In verse 11, Phineas, the son of Eleazar, The son of Aaron, the priest, has turned back my wrath from the children of Israel because he was zealous for with my zeal among them that I did not consume the children of Israel in my zeal. Therefore, behold, I give to him my covenant of peace and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood. because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the children of Israel. Phineas was filled with righteous zeal and stopped the Lord from destroying all Israel. God makes a covenant with him, a covenant of peace, because Phineas loved the Lord more than he loved even his own countrymen.
Then the kind of the propriety that we feel like, oh, man, that's so violent. Right. He knew. He knew that in this situation, they were God's people and God was going to destroy all of them. He was filled with the zeal of the Lord to go do this. Now. So what is this about? Right. This is the people committing spiritually spiritual adultery. And we have Zimri who's doing it brazenly. We have Phineas who stands up with the zeal of the Lord and the Lord honoring that. So what's the best verse to summarize this? Well, this is our B question. B, what's the best verse to summarize this?
I would probably underline verses one, two, and three. That would kind of get at the heart of this. I have a whole bunch of stuff underlined. I do also have part of verse 11 underlined, because he was zealous with my zeal among them, and I have double underlined my covenant of peace. That's what I've underlined.
What would you underline in your Bible? You can let me know down in the comments what you would underline in your Bible. Well, last we have seek calling. What are we called to do? I think this is one of those areas where we have lots of different ways that we can apply this to our lives. But one of them is Revelation chapter 2 specifically tells us that this sexual immorality that Balaam was able to entice them with is the same type of sexual immorality that the world's still trying to entice us with.
How many pastors fail specifically in this area of sexual immorality? How many Christians are drawn away from the Lord because they yoke themselves together with unbelievers? And how many churches do we see today? Flags of the rainbow being brought into the churches, brazenly brought in, and couples standing before the Lord and saying, I'm not doing anything wrong. I think sexual immorality is one of the gods of our day.
And this is one of those areas where we need to be, in a way, zealous. We say no. No, this is not the way that we should go. We need to be those who are able to stand up and say, this is not the way that's going to bring us blessing. This is not the way that's going to build the church. This is not the way that God is going to have his face shine upon us. I think we as Christians ought to be able to say that.
But then also I look at Phineas and I see a type of Christ who didn't wait for somebody else to finish the problem. But Jesus Christ stood up for us. And he wouldn't attack someone worse than Phineas. He defeated death himself. We don't need to pick up our javelins and go actually fight. I do think there's a place for church discipline. But Jesus Christ made atonement. Notice that's what Phineas had done. God himself had said that. In verse 13, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the children of Israel. This is where the amazing thing is, right?
The Lord himself, Jesus Christ, didn't go and kill everybody else for their sins to make atonement for God's people. He offered up himself as a sacrifice. knowing that if he was going to ultimately solve the problem, it meant he was going to have to either wipe out all humanity or be one who would take the sins for all people. And so Jesus Christ offered himself and established a better covenant, a new covenant in his own blood. And so we can have his seal. We can have his mercy. We can follow him. Let's pray.
Father, we pray that you would please lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Lord, we pray that you would forgive us for our sins. Turn us from the ways in which we would want to go after the loss of our own heart. Lord, we pray that you would please protect us and our children, protect our families. Lord, we pray that where there are areas of sin, and if there's someone listening who is embroiled in sexual sin, Lord, I pray that they would know that sexual sin is a sin against our own body. Father, we pray that we would understand that you have made us a temple which you dwell in by your spirit. And so, Father, we pray that we would glorify you with our bodies.
We pray that we would follow after you faithfully, that we alone would be yoked to you. We pray these things in Jesus's name. Amen. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May you walk in the ways of the Lord. May you love him with all your heart and never stray from his covenant with you. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.