Back to sermon search

Full transcript

Welcome to this sixth study in the Book of Numbers. Tonight we must move on to consider chiefly the fourth rebellion recorded in the Book of Numbers, when Israel joined herself to Baal-Paor, and God was jealous. Before we move on, uh, those of you who weren't present last week, forgive me for three minutes while I clear up a matter that arose at the end of our session last week. We began to talk about the report that Balaam had to bring from God, how in spite of his own inclination and the desires of Balak the king, God made him repeat the blessing of God upon Israel. There are three major statements by Balaam of God's attitude to his people. At the end of them, the king who had hired him and had promised him a lot of money if he would curse Israel, a group flew into a temper with disgust because Balaam had blessed them, and he bade Balaam get home quick. But before he went, Balaam pronounced th- four short parables. They were parables in which, darkly sometimes, but otherwise quite clearly, he prophesied the future of Israel. But regarding the three major statements of God's blessing upon Israel, I tried to make the point, but time ran out on me, so let me now make it, uh, briefly, that as God speaks through Balaam of his determination to bless Israel, God was repeating the promises that he had made to Abram right from the start of that nation in the book of Genesis. God had called Abram out of all the other nations to make of Abram a new nation that had never existed before, that was distinct from all the other nations of the earth in its testimony to the one true God of heaven, as distinct from the crass idolatry of all the other nations. And God had said to Abraham that he would, uh, give him descendants like the very dust of the earth in number. Thirdly, he had said that kings would come from Abraham and Sarah. So now when, uh, Balaam reports his three great reports of what God made him say, the first one deals with the problem that, uh, King Balak had found. Balak had said, look, this nation has come, it is absolute vast multitude. They will eat up everything in the land for the sheer numbers of them. Yes, indeed. God was fulfilling his promise to make Israel of Abram a great multitude. And then Balaam added, it is a people that dwells alone and shall not be reckoned among the other nations. That was already true then. The remarkable thing, it is still true. In spite of the sundry captivities, the scattering of Israel all over the earth, and only until recently a homeland found them in Palestine. It is a nation that has not become intermingled, and therefore its identity lost among the nations. This is an extraordinary thing. It is part, of course, of our Christian apologetics. I had an elderly Jewish friend in this city some years ago, and he used to come to dinner. He was a Jew that had escaped from Austria, from, uh, from Hitler, and managed to come across here, and in his old age, he was at least bewildered. He would tell me, it's you Christians that was responsible for the Holocaust and the gassing of the Jews. You taught your children that it was the wicked Jews that crucified Jesus and sowed hatred in their heart that expressed itself in the gas chambers of Hitler. And then he would say, I don't know whether there's a God or not. And then he'd add, and yet I look out of my office window and I, I see a man there. I say, is it you? How did we remain and keep our identity all down the years? It must be of God, he would say. It is true, of course. The nation that God chose and preserved, the nation through whom the Messiah came, the nation who will yet be restored under God, though they have a great tribulation to go through. Yes, God being true to his purpose, and all the incantations, enchantments, omens, inspections of livers, and prognostications, and dark arts and satanic attempts in the heavenly places to get God to change his mind and curse Israel, of course, are all in vain. In Balaam's second great statement, he appeals, of course, to the ca- he describes the character of God. God is not a man that he should lie, or the son of man that he should repent. God had given the promises right from Abram's days. God is not going to change his mind. But then Balaam a- adds cryptically, the shout of a king is among them. Already, in spite of their trials in Egypt, and now in the wilderness, once-time slaves, but already there's the beginnings. The shout of a king is among them. Of course, one day the king would come through that nation. And already the prophecies, did not God say, kings shall come of you? Yes, a whole lot of kings, the chief of them being David. And one day he of David's line shall prove to be the king of kings and lord of lords. And the third great report of Balaam gives us what you might call the Holy Spirit's view of the matter. Uh, I must, I cannot have afford the time to explain that in great detail, but you see, Balaam tells us at the introduction to his third great statement, how the Spirit of God came on him, and he fell down, and he whose eyes had been shut were opened to see. And what he now says is very interesting. It's the illumination of God's spirit allowing Balaam to see what otherwise he wouldn't have seen. And he looked from his vantage point down on the tents of Israel. And of course, as we know from numbers, they were all ordered and in their particular, and what impressed him was their ordil- orderliness. Marvelous design, said he. And they're like, and this is the extraordinary bit, like gardens, uh, you know, watered by rivulets and rivers and streams and beautiful supply of water, and water shall come out of their ba- uh, uh, their uh, pails, uh, Josie. Marvelous. You wouldn't have believed it had you been listening to Israel, uh, you see, a little bit earlier, complaining that their uh, water was scarce and they had no water. But we got hints of it very, very on when they dug the well and God gave them water in the wilderness. But the spirit's view that Balaam was made to give, of course, was part prophetic, wasn't it? Already the beginnings there. Oh, for the wonderful things that would later happen. Listen to, uh, uh, Ezekiel and all his promise of the living water of life coming out of the temple. Listen to the Lord Jesus on the day of the tabernacles, when Israel remembered how once they dwelt in tents in a wilderness, and they poured out the water at the base of the altar in memory of the water out of the rock. Yes. And our Lord Jesus stood and cried over the heads of the people, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink, and out of his inward part shall flow rivers of living water. And the great eternal vision, of course, of the water of life, the river of the water of life coming out of the very throne of God, and on each side the tree of life. Hints, therefore, just allow me to shade it in. If you weren't here last week, it won't make any sense to you at all, and if you were here, its sense will be dubious, but never mind. A hint for you to follow up. You'll see three major explanations. One, God's view, all God's view, of course. The second one, uh, hints now at the coming of the king, and the third one is the Holy Spirit's view. It is the blessing of God Almighty. Three in one, and one in three. But with that, uh, having fulfilled my duty, uh, let's come now to this, um, fourth rebellion. It is the rebellion that is described now in, uh, chapter twenty five. Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. For they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods, and the people did eat and bow down to their gods, and Israel joined himself to baal Peor, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. Uh, do see. And then we're told later on, uh, verse eleven, for instance, Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned away my wraths, says God, away from the children of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Verse thirteen: And it shall be unto him and to his seed after him the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the children of Israel. The rebellion then consisted of physical fornication and adultery, and of spiritual adultery. Because not only did they commit physical adultery and fornication with the Moabite women, but they joined themselves to Baal Peor. That was the name of the local, uh, uh, idolatrous god, Baal, Baal of Peor. Peor is a place, you'll see. And Israel joined in the worship of him. And therefore God was jealous. And we'll come to that in the present moment. Why, you say to me, should all we innocent, nice, healthy Christian men and women of a Thursday night, getting late, half past eight uh at night, interest ourselves in such ugly goings on by a few ancient Israelites. Well, because the New Testament reminds us Christians of it, does it not? So let's begin to look, just turn over the page, uh, a little later on to, in the book of Numbers, where we shall pick up a hint, uh, juicy, eh, uh, of what happened. This is chapter thirty one, verse eight. In a subsequent war with the kings of Midian, we're told that Balaam also, the son of Beor, they slew with the sword. Then verse sixteen, behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor and of the plague that was among the congregation, and so the plague was among the congregation of the Lord. So you notice that bit through the counsel of Balaam. So now let's read in the New Testament the occasions where this incident is referred to. m One Corinthians, if you will, chapter ten. One Corinthians chapter ten. and this time it is verse eight. Writing to the Corinthians, Paul says, neither let us commit fornication as some of them committed and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. A reference to the plague that came upon Israel as described in Numbers twenty five. Let's look at two Peter chapter two. Two Peter chapter two. And verses ten forward. For now, Peter is talking about men that have infiltrated the church. And he says, but chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement and despise dominion. Daring, self-willed, they tremble not to rail at dignities. Whereas angels, though greater in might and power, bring not a railing at judgment against them before the Lord. But these, as creatures without reason, born mere animals to be taken and destroyed, railing in matters whereof they are ignorant, shall in their destroying surely be destroyed, suffering wrong as the hire of wrongdoing, men that count it pleasure to revel in the daytime, spots and blemishes reveling in their love feasts while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unsteadfast souls, having a heart exercised in covetousness, children of cursing, forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the higher of wrongdoing, but he was rebuked for his own transgression. Adam er spake with man's voice and stayed the madness of the prophet. I needn't go on reading it. It is a very dark passage of denunciation of what was going on in some assemblies in Christian times. But let's go further because we're not at the end yet, are we? Let's read Jude this time. And this is Jude, verses eleven to thirteen. Again, about people that have infiltrated the church. Woe unto them, for they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah. These are they who are hidden rocks in your love feasts when they feast with you, shepherds that without fear feed themselves, clouds without water, carried along by winds, autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, wild waves of the sea foaming out of their own shame, wandering stars for whom the blackness of darkness have been reserved forever. Strong language. True of some assemblies to which Jude wrote. And if you think that's exaggerated, you won't think what comes next is exaggerated, will you? Because this time it's the Revelation and chapter two. And this is our blessed Lord, chapter 12 of verse two of of chapter twelve. verse 12. These things saith he that hath the sharp two-edged sword. I know where thou dwellest, even where Satan's throne is, and thou holdest fast my name and didst not deny my faith, even in the days of Antipas, my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there some that hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit fornication. This is our blessed Lord talking to an assembly, and the name of the place was Pergamum. This is one of the most quoted incidents from the Old Testament in the New. Of course, you can understand it a little bit, particularly when the writers are writing to Greek churches. Because in countries like ancient Greek, and even in Rome, nobody ever thought that fornication was wrong anyway. That was taken for granted. And when people became Christian, as you see from the epistles, the apostles had to write to Christian communities and tell them that fornication was wrong. No Greek would ever have imagined it, you see. But this is now Christian standards being taught. And therefore it's understandable if in the Christian as early Christian assemblies you find this weakness and temptation. But my dear brothers and sisters, our modern world in the West becomes progressively more like the world of the apostles than ever it has been in the ages since then. And there is a link, you know. Hold fast to the true God, and he will hold you fast to his moral standards. You allow unfaithfulness to God through idolatry and admixture of all kinds of, uh, heathen religions, Hinduism, and all such things. You must not be surprised if what comes with it is sexual immorality. The two go together. But I'm afraid in modern Christendom, fornication is thought to be okay. Sometimes even in Christian unions in university known to me. And in many a church. And then, of course, Christendom as a whole and its pronouncements on the perversions of sexual morality that threaten now to split the Church of England and the Anglican Communion around the world. But then, of course, I- I'm old enough to remember the sixties and seventies where we had advocated the new morality, and if you do it for the right reasons, even fornication and adultery can be a good thing, if you only do it from the right motives. Bishop of Woolwich so said. And as for the prevalence of divorce, in some places the minister is on his third wife. It is not for nothing, then, that the New Testament repeats and recalls this story more than once in the epistles by the apostles and in one of the letters dictated by our Lord. Now comes the matter, therefore, of God's jealousy. To us in English, the word jealousy often seems to be a bad thing. So people wonder how you could possibly say that God is jealous. Well, jealousy can be a very bad thing and a root of many crimes, but jealousy also is a healthy thing. Care to look back to this? If a woman finds that another woman has drawn away her husband, isn't she right to be jealous? If a man finds his wife has been drawn away from him by a, a, a, a another man. Wouldn't he be jealous in the right sense? If he were not, he never did love the woman to start with. True jealousy is the other side of the coin of true love and commitment. And therefore, God is jealous. Let's take some passages in the New Testament that talk about God being jealous, shall we? This is one Corinthians then. One Corinthians and chapter ten once more. One Corinthians ten. Uh, do you see? Uh, and Paul has been here dealing with the troublesome problem now, not of sexual immorality, but of spiritual unfaithfulness to God. And the Christians at Corinth were wondering, now, is it okay to eat meat offered to idols? Well, if you buy it in the marketplace, says Paul, and you don't know where the meat comes, you don't have to ask about it. Eat it, and eat it with good conscience. But if somebody points it out to you that this was a meat offered to an idol, don't eat it. For his sake, don't eat it. But what about the possibility of going to the temple restaurant, which they did have in Greece, you see, as a good trade. The people brought their sacrifices, and you slaughtered the animals, and you burnt some on the altar, of course, but then you had a lot of spare beef over and some jolly good mutton. Goat not so very popular, but um, I do see um, anyway, uh, uh, and so they had a, a, a, a restaurant, you see. So you go to the temple and be served the very best, now recently cooked, you see, not imported from New Zealand, but now recently cooked and recently slaughtered and very tender and beautifully cooked and nice surroundings and architecture, Corinthian pillars, whoo. And you could invite your friends along to it, you see. And it wasn't all that expensive, not compared with some Belfast hotels. And so, uh, what about that then? No. No, he says no, you see. And Paul says, no. You mustn't confuse this with the other matter that is talked of in Romans fourteen following. In Romans fourteen, it is a question of whether you can eat meat as a believer, or ought you to be a vegetarian. And Christians will go on, uh, disagreeing about that until the Lord come. And then the meat eaters will be shown right, or is it the vegetarians? I forget which. A- a- you see, and a- but uh, that's one thing. Me- eating meat offered to idols is another thing completely. And it must not be done. Knowingly done, that is. You must not, in that sense, for instance, go to the the temple hotel and the meat that's been offered to the idols brought to your plate and eat it. Why not? Because the first basic sin in this universe is disloyalty to the Almighty Creator. Isn't that so? These chapters in one Corinthians are not merely museum pieces, and how odd in those days. My dear friends in Malaysia had problems, of course. Young person gets converted in the Christian camp, goes home, and in the parents' home, there's a God shelf in the corner. And normally, when the meal is prepared, it is first offered to the god, and then they eat. What did a young person do? Practical questions, even in this modern world. Ah. Come back to the pointed issue, therefore. Idolatry is the fundamental sin in the universe. It's the disloyalty to Almighty God, the one true God, Creator. So Paul tells them that this must not be done, and he says, one Corinthians ten, this is, and he says, you see, verse twenty, but I say the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I would not that you should have communion with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons. Well, he says you cannot. Well, I mean, physically you can if you intend to, but do remember if you do. Or do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? What do you think the point of that last statement is? Are we stronger than he? Don't provoke the Lord to jealousy. Are you stronger than he is? What, what do you think that means? He could do something to you. Ah, he could, couldn't he? Yes, he could. It'd be safer not to provoke him to jealousy. This then is over the fundamental matter of our relationship with the Lord God Almighty. So that mustn't be done. And our Lord complains to two churches, actually. There's one to Pergamon, when he says that the believers there are being taught by false teachers, some of them, they weren't all like that, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication. Then to the church in Thyatira, our Lord has some very strong words out of, out of, uh, about a woman called Jezebel, you'll see. I- it's like calling a man Hitler, to call someone Jezebel. Jezebel was the wife of Ahab, you know, and she persuaded Ahab, he didn't take a lot of persuading, but she persuaded him to shut up the temple of the Lord and build a nice new one in the modern age, you see, to, uh, the much more, uh, preferable view amongst most sensible people that Baal, you see, was the thing. Yeah. And now this modern Jezebel in an assembly is teaching the believers that it's right, do you see, to, um, uh, eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication. What is our Lord talking about? Well, of this perhaps, if nothing else. In those ancient days, if you were in a city like Thyatira and you were a businessman, then you would belong to your particular business guild. Whether you were a leather maker or fashion designer or furniture maker, whatever you were, there would be a guild of your fellow tradesmen. And of course, you would be invited, uh, if you were making enough money, uh, to become a member of the guild, you see. And then the guild would have its dinners. And you would, of course, be invited along as a member of the guild, the the business guild, uh, to the dinner, you see. You say, well, what's wrong with that? Nothing, except, of course, that every guild had its patron god or goddess. There would be a statue of the god up the corner somewhere prominent, you see, and the food would be offered to the patron god before it was put on the table. And then, of course, present would be a lot of ladies, enough for all the members anyway. They wouldn't be the men's wiser. This was a Greek city. And there were some in the assembly at Thyatira who said it was okay. Should a Christian be a member of a secret business society? When I first came to Ireland, well, not when I first, but half midway, the bank manager that looked after my one and five pence that I had in the bank was a believer, you see, dear believer of the name of Holly, and he would take me out to lunch sometimes, you see, for sheer Christian fellowship. I remember his asking me, David, he said, is it wrong for a Christian to be a member of the Freemasons? I said, why do you ask? He said, because the principals of the bank are putting pressure on me, telling me that if I don't belong to the Freemasons, I'm losing them custom. My own brother was a representative of a firm who likewise brought that pressure to bear upon him. You're losing us custom. You must become a member of the Freemasons. The members of the Freemasons, in their services, it is absurd in one sense, but a mixture of all the heathen idolatry you could possibly imagine, for they worship the sun god and Osiris and On, the Egyptian gods, and bull for Baal, as well as, uh, uh, Jehovah or Jah, a horrible mixture of paganism. I had an accountant once, simply because I find it difficult to add more than two plus five. It gets complicated after that, do you see? And, uh, he said, it was surprise you how many folks in the church are Freemasons. This is disloyalty to God, of course. Serious disloyalty to God, which our Lord rebukes. There is another form, however, of jealousy, isn't there? So let's look at, um, before we move off this, let's look at, um, uh, two Corinthians this time. Two Corinthians, chapter eleven. Two Corinthians eleven verse one, Would that you could bear with me in a little foolishness. Nay, indeed, bear with me, for I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy, for I espoused you to one husband that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your... Now, I don't know what your translation says here. Your minds, okay, means your thoughts, actually, the things you think. Your thinking, your thoughts should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ. Simplicity meaning absolute single loyalty to Christ. This is a question, therefore, Paul getting jealous for God's sake and for Christ's sake. I've espoused you, he says, as a chaste virgin to Christ. And in the ancient world, of course, espousals, uh, uh, uh, uh, what we call engagements, were more serious than our engagement. They were tantamount to marriage. You'll say, I've espoused you to one, even to Christ. I want to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ, but I fear lest Satan will get at your thoughts and corrupt your thoughts and your thinking from absolute simplicity, loyalty, and purity to Christ. Which is the thing, isn't it? Not that I know about it, but I've read about it in books. You'll say before a girl gets, um, engaged, or espoused as the Hebrew has it, you'll say, why shouldn't she keep an open mind? I mean, shall it be George? There's a lot to be said for George, you see, how handsome he is anyway. Oh, curl and the style of dress, you'll see. Shall it be George? On the other hand, George's okay. His conversation is rather empty. Uh, what about Philip, you see? Now he, he, he is, uh, he's very, very knowledgeable, you see, uh, and very charming in his conversation. The question would be, is that all superficial? I mean, what would he be like in the home? Just a theorist and never helped with the washing up and that kind of thing? What about him then? Should it be Philip? Ooh, then there is Robert. Look at his Jaguar. Ah, pooh! And his dad is said to be worth some millions. Now, now, why shouldn't the, the dear lady keep an open mind? Until... when she has taken the vow, she's no longer free to keep an open mind. And if thereafter she keeps an open mind, that is not a sign of excessive intelligence. That is a sign of defective loyalty and morality. And I've espoused you to Christ. Our thoughts, gentlemen and ladies, and ladies and gentlemen, must be loyal to Christ. Now, for some of us who must face, uh, the world of thought, where we meet all sorts of theories, both scientific and philosophical and literary. We'll have to watch ourselves, shall we not? Lest our thoughts be corrupted from the simplicity, the loyalty that is towards Christ, like Satan deceived Eve. Well, how did he manage that then? Well, uh, he said, you see, the fruit of this tree, I hear you can't eat it, any of these trees. Oh no, said Eve, yes, we can eat as many as we like, except one tree. Ah yes, he said, well, that's like God is, you know. Uh, he puts a lovely thing in front of your nose and then tells you you can't have it, you see. Woman, go and eat it, woman. No, she said, God has said that in the day you eat thereof, you shall surely die. Oh, did he say that? Well, there is another opinion, you know, in which that wouldn't be altogether true, do you see? In fact, you won't surely die. In fact, if you, if you eat it, uh, the alternative view is you shall be as God, knowing good and evil, you see. And the dear lady in her innocence allowed the alternative explanation to enter her thinking, and thinking led to action. I'm not arguing for wearing intellectual blinkers. Let us be aware of the world we live in, but we have to guard our thoughts. Because in it all, the great tempter still rages, and what he's out to do is to corrupt our loyalty, our intellectual loyalty to Christ, and therefore provoke God our Father and the Lord Jesus to jealousy. It is perhaps not for nothing that when God was talking about the pro- provisions and preparations, he talked about this business of when a man gets jealous or suspects his wife has gone astray and becomes jealous. Well, he might must, he could possibly be an arbitrary old boy, and and nothing wrong with the woman at all, of course. But God arranged, as we saw in earlier week's study, a, a system by which the doubts could be settled. And they too come to trust each other. For the woman submitted, in pa- and indeed invoked, as she was to stand before God, invoke God's discipline and judgment on her if she had gone astray, so that God could then vindicate her if she hadn't gone astray, or discipline her if she had. You'll see. And we remarked, I think, when Doctor Professor K. O. Lee was here, it was suggested, of course, that when it comes to our trusting each other, and even men and wife trusting each other, but Christians trusting each other in the church. You don't know what I get up to, do you, when I go to Spain or Ukraine? We trust each other because at the Lord's Supper, we are made aware that we must discern ourselves as we come, for if we come carelessly, allowing blatant sin in our lives, then the Lord will judge us, discipline us. And because we're all in that same boat, we can trust one another, can't we? If we are sincere in saying, yes, I do not come to the Lord's Supper knowingly involved in some wicked enterprise. I've confessed my shortcomings. If I am perverse, let the Lord discipline me. If we all come with that, honestly, how should we not trust each other? But notice the incident. This is jealousy between a man and his wife. What do you hold about marriage? You're the experts, I'm not, too long way off. You're the experts. What do you hold about marriage? That God created man and woman, you say. Yes, that's right. And after some centuries of watching him, he said to himself, you know, hmm, I've got an idea. Um, I could use that as a sort of analogy of, um, the relation of, uh, church to Christ. You think it was that way round? No, of course. He doesn't, you see. And it wasn't, it's the other way round. This is an expression of God's own heart. And so when it came to Israel's redemption, God represents himself as a lover and Israel as his wife. And to Christians, the New Testament represents Christ as a lover, a bridegroom, and the church as his bride. So as we have at this level some understanding of the very heart of God in his relationship to his people. Just as a man or wife would get jealous if the purity of their partner were corrupted, so God gets jealous. Yes? The sacredness of life, therefore, and the seriousness of life, and the seriousness of this particular sin. Well, that's solemn stuff. So let's cease and take our coffee and our cake. I'd like you back, if I could have you back, at five and twenty minutes to ten o'clock, just for fifteen minutes more, and we shall put another side to the story.