God Will Not Be Spurned, nor will He Allow His Servants to Face Opposition Alone

Numbers 16:15-40 God Judges Korah

Day 66. Sadly, I must admit that many people are getting used to this new ‘normal’ – whatever it looks like. America is poised to see what happens in New York City this Memorial Day Weekend when the Mayor has threatened to send officers into the water to pull swimmers out if they dare go in. Unbelievable. But nothing surprises me anymore. President Trump just declared churches and places of worship as “essential” to Americans and wants them to be open this weekend. That put the Federal government up against the States who disagree. A battle royal between the First Amendment and the Tenth is likely to go to the Supreme Court. I go on doing what I enjoy doing. And that includes studying the Word of God. Thanks for joining me. We’re about to see God’s response to Korah and his gang of rebellious leaders.

The Passage

¹⁵ Then Moses became very angry and said to the Lord, “Do not regard their offering! I have not taken a single donkey from them, nor have I done harm to any of them.”¹⁶ Moses said to Korah, “You and all your company be present before the Lord tomorrow, both you and they along with Aaron. ¹⁷ Each of you take his firepan and put incense on it, and each of you bring his censer before the Lord, two hundred and fifty firepans; also you and Aaron shall each bring his firepan.” ¹⁸ So they each took his own censer and put fire on it, and laid incense on it; and they stood at the doorway of the tent of meeting, with Moses and Aaron. ¹⁹ Thus Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the doorway of the tent of meeting. And the glory of the Lord appeared to all the congregation.

²⁰ Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, ²¹ “Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them instantly.” ²² But they fell on their faces and said, “O God, God of the spirits of all flesh, when one man sins, will You be angry with the entire congregation?”

²³ Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ²⁴ “Speak to the congregation, saying, ‘Get back from around the dwellings of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.’”

²⁵ Then Moses arose and went to Dathan and Abiram, with the elders of Israel following him, ²⁶ and he spoke to the congregation, saying, “Depart now from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing that belongs to them, or you will be swept away in all their sin.” ²⁷ So they got back from around the dwellings of Korah, Dathan and Abiram; and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the doorway of their tents, along with their wives and their sons and their little ones. ²⁸ Moses said, “By this you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these deeds; for this is not ^[o]my doing. ²⁹ If these men die ^[p]the death of all men or if they suffer the fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. ³⁰ But if the Lord brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they descend alive into Sheol, then you will understand that these men have spurned the Lord.”

³¹ As he finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under them split open;³² and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who belonged to Korah with their possessions. ³³ So they and all that belonged to them went down alive to Sheol; and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. ³⁴ All Israel who were around them fled at their ^[u]outcry, for they said, “The earth may swallow us up!” ³⁵ Fire also came forth from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men who were offering the incense.

³⁶ Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ³⁷ “Say to Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, that he shall take up the censers out of the midst of the ^[w]blaze, for they are holy; and you scatter the burning coals abroad. ³⁸ As for the censers of these ^[y]men who have sinned at the cost of their lives, let them be made into hammered sheets for a plating of the altar, since they did present them before the Lord and they are holy; and they shall be for a sign to the sons of Israel.” ³⁹ So Eleazar the priest took the bronze censers which the men who were burned had offered, and they hammered them out as a plating for the altar, ⁴⁰ as a reminder to the sons of Israel that no layman who is not of the descendants of Aaron should come near to burn incense before the Lord; so that he will not become like Korah and his company—just as the Lord had spoken to him through Moses.

Thoughts on the Passage

Moses, as the God-appointed leader had just been disobeyed by some subordinates he had asked to come and meet him. So he gets angry. No, wait, the text says, he became “very angry”. He had done nothing wrong. He had had enough. And remember this man Moses the Bible tells us in Numbers 12:3 was the ‘meekest of all men’. We need to be careful that we are never the one to push some who has not sinned before God to get that angry because God may just be on their side. And so, once again, as angry as he was and as wronged as he had been, he took the matter to God telling Him to not accept their offering. Then Moses tells Korah, the leader of this rebellious group, to make sure they all keep the appointment with God the next day and how to prepare for it. What a scene that was going to be. Imagine 252 firepans with incense in them ready to be lit.

In verse 25, when Moses goes to speak to the rebels, we note what appears to be an insignificant phrase. The text says, “and the elders of Israel followed him”. Not insignificant at all. David Guzik says,

This was glorious. God had appointed elders back in Number 10:16-30, in response to another attack on Moses' leadership. There, the elders were to be men with the same spirit and vision as Moses, men to help him bear the burden, men to stand with Moses. Here they did exactly what God appointed them to do.

Every leader, appointed by God, and staying in God’s will, needs people like that in their lives. If you’re a leader, do you have such men or women of God, ready to back you up. If you know a leader of God, are you that man or woman that will back that leader up?

Sure enough they all show up and amass around the doorway of the Tabernacle, lit their censers, and the glory of the Lord appeared to all the congregation that was watching.

God then tells Moses and Aaron to move away from all the people as He intended to “consume” all of them. But yet once again, Moses and Aaron, fell on their faces, pleading to God not to destroy the whole congregation for the sin of one or a few.

Matthew Henry reminds us that what God did hear was to show these rebels the penalty they deserved. And it is a good time for us to ask whether or not we have recognized the penalty we deserve as sinners. I hope we have and that we can then sincerely, with our whole hearts, accept the fact that God gave His only begotten son to take that penalty on Himself in our stead.

Henry says we note that Moses was primarily angry because of the people’s view of God Who had done so much for them. And what he asked for was that his name be cleared in their sight. That somehow God would show them that He backed Moses, who in his own defense, due to his disappointment, pointed out in verse 15 that he had never “taken a single donkey from them, nor [had he] done harm to any of them.” You can see how hurt Moses was. Have you ever felt that way when false accusers you thought were your friends turned on you? I have and believe me it is no fun, even if in the end, they apologize and want to make things right.

God seemed to listen to His servants and instead told Moses to ask the congregation to back away from the dwellings of the three gang-leaders, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. [We cannot ignore the fact that this was a direct answer to Moses’ earlier plea to God. God answers the fervent prayers of His holy servants.] Moses then   did as he was told. All the people stood back from the dwellings of these three.

There’s a key lesson for us here. This was done for the sake of the people. Guzik covers it in three points:
1. God’s people should stay away from divisive, argumentative, contentious people in the body of Christ.
2. The New Testament supports this in Titus 3:10-11 and Romans 16:17-18.
3. Remember a divisive, contentious person will never claim to be such – they always consider their work a noble cause. Therefore, we need some discernment and to look at what others do, not only at what they say.

Now the scene gets very intense as Dathan and Abiram came out, with their wives and children, and stood in their respective doorways, and Moses spoke to them. And what Moses says to them is most interesting. Basically, he said, what was about to happen was not his doing, but God’s. If these rebels were to die like all other men, in due time, then that was a sign that God had not sent and appointed Moses to have authority over them. But if on the other hand, the ground opens up and swallows them, with all their households, and their personal followers, there and then, and they descended alive into ‘the nether world’, then you will know that they had ‘spurned’ the Lord.

The first thing to note is the confidence of Moses. The second is that somehow Moses knew that people could descent into Sheol alive. What that says about the reality of hell, I will to others. The third thing I would note here is that in verse 30 Moses refers to what God is about to do as “a new thing”. What a lesson for us – God never runs out of “new things” to do for His people and for His glory to be seen. What a great and mighty God is He. The fourth thing I would note here is how quickly things started happening.

The text says, “As he finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under them split open,” and as Moses had indicated, all three leaders, their households, and followers were all swallowed up. And then the earth “closed over them”.  Wow.

And if that wasn’t enough fire came down from the Lord (likely out of the cloud above) and consumed the 250 other leaders. So, what did the congregation do? Well, instead of bowing down and worshipping God Almighty, they fled, crying as they ran, and fearing they too may be swallowed up. They never did listen well or read between the lines of what Moses said. He had said nothing about the congregation being swallowed up, only the households of the three leaders.

Now it would be very amiss on my part if I didn’t say anything about the death of the spouses and the children of these three leaders. [As far as we now the wives and children of the 250 others were spared.] Again, we are faced with the fact that God is God. You don’t spurn Him. You don’t rise up against His true appointee(s). Count the cost before you proceed. And for those just watching idling by as things like this happen, you cannot use God’s actions as a reason for you to deny your belief in God. Well, not exactly true, for you can – but you do so at your own peril. The secret is to accept that God is God and He can indeed do what He wants, when He wants to, and how He wants to. And the true believer has seen enough evidence to believe that God always acts with fairness and justice. If you can’t do that – if you can’t believe He has this right – you can’t really accept what He has done for you, especially through His Son, Jesus Christ – because, you know, you and I don’t deserve it at all.

Then God told Moses to tell Eleazar, Aaron’s son, to pick up the holy censers and scatter the burning coals. And the censers themselves were to be hammered into sheets for a plating of the altar, as a sign to all Israel. This was to be a reminder that no ‘layperson’ who was not a descendant of Aaron should go “near to burn incense before the Lord” to avoid ending up like Korah and his company.

This was a packed passage if ever there was one. There is so much guidance, direction, and lessons for each of us on how then we should view the God of our salvation. Now do you think the so-called “congregation of Israel” learned their lesson? Stay tuned. In the meantime, I hope you were blessed by this passage.  Seems that my comment section is not working for now -- so feel free to leave a message on the social media or reply to the email you got if you're a subscriber.   Thank you.

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Pharaoh Pulls His Second “Mea Culpa” -- Exodus 9:27-35:

Then Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “I have sinned this time; the Lord is the righteous one, and I and my people are the wicked ones.  Make supplication to the Lord, for there has been enough of God’s thunder and hail; and I will let you go, and you shall stay no longer.”  And Moses said to him, “As soon as I go out of the city, I will spread out my hands to the Lord; the thunder will cease, and there will be hail no longer, that you may know that the earth is the Lord’s.  But as for you and your servants, I know that you do not yet fear the Lord God.”  (Now the flax and the barley were ruined, for the barley was in the ear and the flax was in bud.  But the wheat and the spelt were not ruined, for they ripen late.)  So Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh, and spread out his hands to the Lord; and the thunder and the hail ceased, and rain no longer poured on the earth.  But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned again and hardened his heart, he and his servants.  And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he did not let the sons of Israel go, just as the Lord had spoken through Moses.

Once again Pharaoh does the calling and the asking.  He tells Moses and Aaron that he has sinned -- “this time”.  Somehow I do not read a lot of sincerity in that verbal admission, but I have always been one not to easily accept stated contriteness – I believe supporting action has to go along with the uttered words.  I guess Pharaoh had not seen his disobedience to God in the past as sin.  Oh well, the man has come a long way.  Pharaoh also recognizes God’s righteousness and readily compares it to his own evilness.  But what I find interesting is that he does not take the whole blame for it alone as he includes his people in the guilty party.  Why so and what exactly caused this ‘confession’ of sin?

What seems (for no one knows the heart of any man for sure) to be at play here is the fact that Pharaoh is just starting to learn the difference between righteousness and sinfulness.  That is always an important step in a person potentially coming into a relationship with God.  But true repentance is only evidenced after the fact by the appropriate actions of the repented person, as well as his/her ability to maintain the desire to do what is right, by God.  Pharaoh was not there yet.  As to why he included his people in his identification of  “evil” sinners’ group, it is difficult to say.  One commentator suggests that he is referring to “his land” – the whole country.  So he may be speaking euphemistically as a “commander in chief” – that is, all the troops are guilty of this calamity they have brought about in disobeying God.

So once again Pharaoh asks Moses to beg God, on his behalf, to forgive Pharaoh and his people.  He says he has had enough of all the consequences God has thrown on Egypt and he agrees once again to let the people go freely.  There is an interesting phrase there with which the sentence ends – “and you shall stay no longer.”  It is possible that Pharaoh had now realized it is best, and perhaps even wants, at least at that instant, the Hebrews to leave for good and not just for a few days to worship their God in the dessert.  Certainly, to have arrived once more to this thinking and these words indicates a very torn heart, even for the most stoic of mankind.

However Moses seems to have gotten to know Pharaoh pretty well by now and he knows better than to believe him out-rightly.  So he basically tells him, “Look, I’ll do it and this current calamity will stop.  But it will stop so you will know ‘God rules the earth.’  But you and your servants still will not fear God.”

I believe it is prudent for us at this point to stop and take note of the series of lessons that God wanted Pharaoh to understand and come to believe as He deals with the heart of this man:

·      Genesis 7:1 – that He is the Lord

·      Genesis 8:10 – that there is no one like the Lord

·      Genesis 8:22 – that the Lord is in the midst of the land (He’s actively involved and present)

·      Genesis 9:14 – that there is no one like the Lord in all the earth

·      Genesis 9:20 – our current verse, that the earth is the Lord’s

In some ways, that is the course of mental travel that one needs to arrive at a relationship with God – recognizing He exists as Lord, that there is no one or no power like Him, that He is involved with mankind moving in our midst, that anything the world can offer pales in comparison to His presence in our lives, and that the entire earth is at His command.  When we arrive at that point, most of us would want to have a close relationship with that kind of God.  And it is from there that we can recognize our sinful nature, and seek the remedy that God has provided through His Son, Jesus Christ, to address what Pharaoh well understood in his head, but did not care for in his heart – that is, that there indeed a gap between God’s righteousness and our wickedness, and that it needs to be addressed somehow, so that we may commune with the Almighty.

Our text then seems to take a bit of sidestep (in brackets no less) as the author, Moses himself, tells us that while the crops of flax and barley were ruined by the hail due to the time of the year and the progressive stage of their growth cycle, the wheat and the spelt were not, as they had not ripened yet.  I find this information rather interesting.  Why is it there?  Well, one possibility is that it is there to show us that God often works within His own set of physical laws of nature.  When He acts supernaturally to intervene, sometimes there are consequences that one would expect.  For example, if God allows or causes a drought to take place, one can also expect that various plant life may well die, and so on.  The other possibility is that Moses is intentionally or unintentionally sharing with us the fact that while many stocks were ruined, the people would not be left to die – starvation and famine would be averted.  While Moses, Aaron, and Pharaoh in those days, and we today, may see the long-term cause and effect of circumstances, God keeps His eye on the long-term plans He has for us and for mankind.

So Moses did what he told Pharaoh he would do on his behalf and God did His part – the thunder and the hail stopped, as did the rain.  And then we see that familiar word that can lead to good or to evil – that word “but” appear once more.  The text tells us “but once his troubles stopped, Pharaoh sinned again”.  I think that is what God must dislike very much – the “sinning again”.  Yes, He hates the sin, but He can forgive it.  And He would rather see sincere and determined repentance.  But I believe His heart is broken greatly when after sinning, and repenting, a child, especially one of His own, “sins again”.

It is also interesting that at this point in Scripture the text says in the same passage first that Pharaoh hardened his heart and than also says Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.  Here is the verse many of us look for when we wonder, “did God harden Pharaoh’s heart or did he do it himself?”  Well, the answer seems clear – Pharaoh did it from a human perspective and God allowed it to be so from a divine perspective.  There is no need to assess blame here – the fact remains Pharaoh ended up with a hardened heart – a state which God had predicted would be the case much earlier.  And now, even Moses himself finally got in tune with God on this one as he himself had told Pharaoh, “I know you do not yet fear the Lord.”

Where are you on the journey of fearing the Lord?

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