Korah's Rebellion - [Numbers 16]

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Now I need to give a disclaimer before I deal with this subject tonight.
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We're going to talk about Numbers 16. So turn with me to Numbers 16 and we're going to look at an incident in the
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Old Testament that sort of epitomizes the dangers and the evil of rebellion.
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And this is material I prepared I think going all the way back to the 1970s.
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One of the first studies I did fresh out of Bible college years ago, this was one of the one of the messages
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I brought from that series. And then I redid it in the 1990s and for a couple of years
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I think or maybe less I would occasionally preach this message when
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I was a guest speaker somewhere. And I had to stop doing it because it's about rebellion and and it's a it's a it shows the pattern of how rebellion always happens.
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And people would invariably come up to me afterwards and say our pastor told you to give that message didn't he?
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And that's targeting me. And and I got myself in some trouble from people who thought that I had specifically found out whatever politics were going on in their church and and brought this message because of that.
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So I want to say before I begin I don't know anything about the politics in this church and so nothing you hear tonight is targeting anyone.
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I think that's true except that Mike did ask me to bring this message so he might have something in mind but if you have a beef about that you can take it up with Mike.
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But actually he did tell me that is absolutely no agenda in asking me to do this other than that he heard a recording of my doing this sermon
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I think probably that dates back to the 1990s and he liked the message and wanted me to do it tonight. So number 16 and this is a crucial passage.
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This is the record of Korah's rebellion. This is a landmark event in Israel's history and it established once and for all in the national consciousness of Israel what
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God thinks of rebellion. And and it's such a key episode that this passage is referred to in the
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New Testament in Jude 11 where Jude describes heretics as those who perish in the rebellion of Korah.
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And there Jude reminds the church that rebellion against legitimate spiritual authority is despised by God in the church as much as it was in national
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Israel. And Jude also reminds us that the the kind of rebellion Korah stirred up lies at the root of all false teaching.
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And so rebellion or a rebellious attitude inevitably corrupts sound doctrine and leads to spiritual decline among the people of God.
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Every time I have ever known anyone to lead a rebellion against legitimate spiritual authority they have done it under the guise of reformation in the name of correcting and strengthening the church.
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But true reformation is never carried out by means of rebellion. And rebellion inevitably weakens and never strengthens the church.
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That was Jude's point when he likened the false teachers of his day to the rebels who followed
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Korah in Moses day. In the King James Bible Jude 11 speaks of the gainsaying of Korah.
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And the word translated gainsaying there is is a Greek word antilogia which means to to speak against.
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It speaks of contradiction, rebellion, dispute, and literally speaking against someone.
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And that is precisely what Korah is best remembered for. He spoke against Moses. He sowed the seeds of rebellion in Israel.
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And the mutiny that he began was responsible for the destruction of many lives. And so he becomes sort of the emblem and the embodiment of what makes heresy so wrong.
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Here is the lesson we learn from Korah. God hates rebellion. God despises those who defy authority that he has established.
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So that rebellion against God's chosen leaders is tantamount to rebellion against God himself.
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And that was a hard lesson for the Israelites to learn. And we can sympathize with them in that because it is also a particularly hard lesson for Americans to swallow.
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We live in a nation that was founded in the wake of a rebellion against England. We have enshrined rebellion as virtually a desirable thing.
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And even more so in our generation. Egalitarian virtues are so deeply ingrained in our thinking that we sometimes forget that the
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God we worship rules with a rod of iron. And he despises those who scorn authority.
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The Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 13 that there is no authority except from God.
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And those who exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what
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God has appointed. And those who resist will incur judgment. And yet rebellion seems to hold a irresistible temptation especially for people in a society like ours where rebels are often glorified and authority is often despised.
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In fact I would say authority is usually despised. That is really one of the hallmarks of postmodern thought.
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That authority is to be questioned and distrusted and at all points possible resisted.
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Because authority is seen as an oppressive and evil thing. But that's not how Scripture presents authority.
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And number 16 is a kind of prototype of the worst kind of rebellion.
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Here we see a man who pretends to represent truth and justice and equity.
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Here he is standing against God -ordained authority and fomenting a rebellion that finally destroyed him and all who followed him.
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Galatians 6 7 I think I quoted this verse this morning. Do not be deceived God is not mocked.
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Whatever one sows he will also reap. And in this incident Korah and everyone who followed him, and there were multitudes who followed him, all of them reaped the bitter fruit of their own rebellion.
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And as we look at this text tonight I want you to see the pattern that unfolds. This incident as I said is the prototype for the worst kind of rebellion.
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Every church I have ever been a part of has seen this kind of rebellion at one time or another.
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It's very common. It's the same pattern. Rebellion almost always follows and nothing is more destructive to the community of God's people than this sort of mutiny against God -ordained authority.
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Because it always comes under the guise of righteousness. It always pretends to defend what is right.
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But it really sows doubt and confusion and distrust and division.
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And because it's a direct attack on authority that has been ordained by God it's a sin against God himself.
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And in Korah's case God punished the rebellion immediately, directly, and in a most dramatic fashion.
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God's attitude towards this sort of rebellion was thus made clear very early in Israel's history.
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And all the marks of sinful rebellion are present here in this account of Korah. And I want to point them out to you as we go along.
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You've turned hopefully to Numbers 16. And we're going to go through this whole passage tonight.
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So I'm going to breeze through it very quickly. But I'm going to begin by reading the first three verses.
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Now Korah the son of Ishar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men.
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And they rose up before Moses with a number of the people of Israel, 250 chiefs of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well -known men.
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They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, you have gone too far.
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For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them.
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Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord? Now I'm going to stop there because I want to point out to you the first mark of this kind of rebellion.
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You can take these down because you'll see and you may even recognize this pattern. Mark number one of sinful rebellion, the agitators are influential leaders.
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The agitators are influential leaders. Korah was a
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Levite. He was a member of the priestly tribe. And not only that, he was also in a position to be one of that tribes most influential leaders.
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This verse says his father was Ishar, son of Kohath. And according to Exodus 6 verses 18 through 21,
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Ishar's brother was Amram. And Amram was the father of Moses.
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So in other words, Korah was Moses own cousin. Look at verse 1 again.
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It also mentions Dathan, Abiram, and On whom it says are sons of Reuben.
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And so you have two factions here. Korah is an influential Levite and Dathan, Abiram, and On, these other three guys, we'll call them the three stooges, they are leaders of the tribe of Reuben.
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And they evidently formed a confederacy, the four of them, to carry out this rebellion. Now here's an interesting fact.
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If you study the layout of Israel's camp, Korah and the Kohathites were situated on the same side of the tabernacle as the
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Reubenites. So these guys were all neighbors. This whole rebellion undoubtedly hatched from a plot that grew out of idle conversations where these neighbors were venting their dissatisfactions to one another.
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And they were not merely obscure and insignificant people, but men who were leaders in their tribes.
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They were men of distinction and prominence, men whose leadership gifts were substantial, very likely men with great natural leadership abilities, men who already had the people's respect.
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And apparently they were also very good at recruiting others with great leadership abilities to their cause, because verse 2 says that by the time this rebellion broke into the open, there were already 250 chiefs of the congregation involved, well -known men.
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And they sinfully used their influence to spread this rebellion throughout the multitude.
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So that is the first mark of the typical sinful rebellion. The agitators are influential leaders.
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Here's a second characteristic to watch for. Number two, their complaint is believable.
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They have a complaint that is believable. Look at verse 3 again. They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, you've gone too far, for all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the
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Lord is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord? In other words, they're accusing Moses of setting himself above the rest of the people.
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You want all the power, you know, you want to call all the shots. What makes you so special?
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Who made this man to be a ruler and a king over us? They were simply calling for a little democracy.
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They were complaining that it was unfair for Moses to be elevated above everyone else when, after all, no vote had ever been taken.
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No general consensus had ever been reached in Israel on the question of whether Moses was the most qualified man to lead the
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Israelites. And all of that was perfectly true. There had never been a vote to ratify
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Moses' leadership. He was not elected to office by the people. They had never formally consented to his rule.
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And Korah's goal in making an issue of this was to get the people to doubt whether Moses indeed was the best man for the job.
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And remember that Moses himself didn't think he was the best man for the job. He had told the
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Lord he was slow of speech and perhaps not the most articulate spokesperson to be a leader of the people.
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Evidently, Korah had some of the personal charisma that Moses lacked, because notice that Korah has no trouble gaining a large following of people who are ready to depose
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Moses and put Korah in his place. Verse 12,
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And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram the sons of... oh wait,
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I skipped a page here. I hate it when my notes stick together. Yeah, before we do that, look carefully at the substance of their complaint in verse 3.
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All in the congregation are holy. Every one of them. And the
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Lord is among them. That is a clear reference to some very familiar biblical promises. Exodus 19, verse 6, where God says to all the
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Israelites, You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
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Exodus 29, verses 45 and 46. I will dwell among the people of Israel and I will be their
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God and they shall know that I am the Lord their God who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them.
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I am the Lord their God. Numbers 35 -34. I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.
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And so Israel itself was a kingdom of priests. God was in their midst.
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Every one of them was holy in God's eyes. And those were vital promises every person in Israel could cling to and they were taught to cling to.
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And the complaint of Korah was based on those biblical promises. But the promises are twisted out of context by Korah.
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Promises like those did elevate every member of that nation to an incredible position of grace and privilege.
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But promises like those don't nullify the divinely ordained authority structure in Israel. You sometimes hear this in the church, you know.
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We believe in the priesthood of the believer. And there are whole denominations, they usually prefer not to be called denominations, who refuse to have pastors because they don't want anyone in authority over them.
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And they say they believe in the priesthood of the believer but what they really want is an egalitarian setup where nobody's really in charge and nobody has any authority and everybody gets to say whatever he wants.
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That's what they're asking for here. And Korah in essence was misusing and twisting the promises of God to justify an unjustifiable rebellion.
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But for people lacking in discernment, just the fact that Korah referred to scripture lent believability to his complaint about how
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Moses and Aaron had taken authority on themselves. That is how rebellion usually grows in the early stages.
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The claims and the accusations are made as believable as possible, often by an appeal to the scriptures.
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So now look at verses 12 through 14 and take note of the complaint that the
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Reubenites who were part of this Confederacy brought out. Verse 12, and Moses sent to call
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Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab and they said we will not come up. Is it a small thing that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness?
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That you must also make yourself a prince over us? Moreover, you have not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards.
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Will you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up. Now one thing to notice right away is that the triumvirate of the three rebels, the three stooges, already has been apparently reduced to two.
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In verse 1 it was Dathan, Abiram, and On. Now it's just Dathan and Abiram.
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On evidently dropped out of the rebellion. One ancient rabbinical tradition claimed that On quit the rebellion because his wife talked him out of opposing
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Moses. There's no biblical evidence for that of course, but it's an interesting possibility.
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In any case, from this point on it doesn't seem that On was any part of the Confederacy. He's not mentioned again in the narrative.
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But notice that Dathan and Abiram have this complaint against Moses. He had brought them out of the land of Egypt with the promise that he would lead them into a land of milk and honey, and now the whole nation is simply wandering around aimlessly in the wilderness.
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Was that true? Well, strictly speaking, yes, but it wasn't the full story.
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The rebellion of the people was responsible for keeping them in the wilderness. Not any deficiency in the leadership of Moses, but this wandering was a judgment of God against the nation for the sin of rebellion against him.
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And now Dathan and Abiram were proposing more rebellion as a solution to the problem. Again, their account is believable.
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If you've ever been to that part of the world, you leave Egypt and you go into the the Sinai Peninsula there, and it is a rocky, dry wilderness.
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It's not a land that you'd look at and say, this is a land flowing with milk and honey. By comparison, Egypt was, but this was a deceitful and totally false way of thinking.
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Such is the deceitfulness of the human heart in captivity to sin. These guys had forgotten that the real reason they were wandering aimlessly in the wilderness was a previous rebellion, or more likely they never took seriously the threat of divine judgment.
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But notice this, they were pretending to seek the good of the nation. Their complaint was believable.
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It seemed reasonable to the natural mind. They claimed to be concerned for the whole nation.
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The truth is that their real agenda was something far more selfish than that, and that's the third mark of a typical rebellion.
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Number three, there's always a deeper agenda. There is always a deeper agenda.
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Korah's real concern was not the good of Israel. His real concern was his own personal status, and that becomes clear as you dig into this story.
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Let's see if we can get to the heart of why Korah led this rebellion. Remember that the passing of the inheritance from one generation to another in Israel was generally guided by a principle that was known as the law of primogenitor.
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The law of primogenitor said that the firstborn son was to receive a double portion of the family's inheritance, and the reason for that was to preserve a family's riches so that family lands and family businesses didn't have to be divided up every generation.
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It also gave the firstborn son a wonderful privilege, but also placed on him a great responsibility.
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The eldest son became the head of the family when the father died, and the responsibility for spiritual leadership and family welfare fell on him.
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And yet, several times, as in the case of Ishmael and Isaac, as well as Jacob and Esau, God himself reversed the natural order and chose the younger over the elder as it is
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God's sovereign right to do. And here's the remarkable thing about Korah's rebellion.
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All of the primary leaders, all of them, all the ringleaders in this rebellion, may have felt that they were unfairly passed over when younger relatives were preferred.
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Take Korah for example. I mentioned that he and Moses were cousins.
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Both of them were descendants of Kohath. Exodus 6 .18 indicates that Kohath had three sons.
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The eldest was Amram, father of Moses and Aaron. Kohath's second son was
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Ishar, Korah's father, and the youngest son in Kohath's family was a man named
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Uzziel. Numbers 3 records the numbering and organizing of the
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Kohathites. Keep your finger here in Numbers 16. I put a marker there.
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And turn back to Numbers 3 for a minute. I want you to see this. Numbers 3, reading from verse 29, the clans of the sons of Kohath were to camp on the south side of the tabernacle with Elisaphan, the son of Uzziel, as chief of the father's house of the clans of the
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Kohathites. In other words, when a leader for the Kohathite tribe was chosen, it was
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Korah's cousin from the youngest branch of the tribe. Korah undoubtedly felt that he had unfairly been passed over.
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And furthermore, Korah was the firstborn son in his family. Yet Aaron, the younger son in Moses' family, was chosen over all the
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Levites as the high priest in all of Israel. And so Korah had reason to feel doubly slighted.
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In any case, it's clear from the nature of his rebellion that he felt he had as much right to power in Israel as Moses.
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And that's what's driving all of this. The same thing is true of the Reubenites who joined
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Korah in this rebellion. They also had reason to feel they had been unfairly snubbed.
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Who was the eldest son of Jacob? It was Reuben. And yet you may recall in Genesis 49, when
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Jacob was blessing his sons just before he died, instead of pronouncing a blessing on Reuben, he pronounced a curse.
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Listen to Genesis 49 verses 3 and 4. He said it like this, Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the firstfruits of my strength, preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power.
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Unstable as water, you shall not have preeminence. Wow. That was his dying blessing on his eldest son.
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You shall not have preeminence. And the tribe of Reuben never became the dominant tribe in Israel.
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The fact that Moses, a Levite, had ascended to power instead of a
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Reubenite seems to have been a particularly galling thing to the leaders of the tribe of Reuben. And that's why so many of them were eager to join this rebellion.
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Korah found them easy recruits for a mutiny. And here's the fourth mark of this sort of rebellion.
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Number four, it spreads secretly before it goes public.
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It spreads secretly before it goes public. Korah and the
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Reubenites had evidently conspired quietly over some period of time before they brought this rebellion out into the open.
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A rebellion like this never just springs full -blown into being. Influential people first shared their complaints with one another.
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And then, having stirred one another up to become even more disgruntled, they began to infuse their discontent into the rank -and -file people of their tribes.
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And before long, they had a large party of people who were feeding on one another's complaints. And they drew courage from the fact that so many other people feel the same way.
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And thus, the root of bitterness that had sprung up in one or two individuals soon infected multitudes.
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That's how it always is. Now, if these men had ever had a legitimate complaint against Moses, what was their first responsibility?
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To take their complaint privately to Moses himself. And yet, it's evident that they didn't do that.
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By the time word of this rebellion reached Moses, there were already, according to verse 2, at least 250 influential leaders involved and a multitude, countless number of rank -and -file people.
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Only after he had whipped the people into a mutinous furor, only then did Korah make his complaint known to Moses.
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And look at Moses' response, verse 4. When Moses heard it, he fell on his face and he said to Korah and to all his company, in the morning the
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Lord will show who is his and who is holy and will bring him near to him. The one whom he chooses he will bring near to him.
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Moses' reply to Korah is the model of humility and restraint. First, he falls on his face and he leaves it entirely to the
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Lord to settle the differences between him and Korah. Here is the response of a truly godly man.
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Moses doesn't reply with an outburst of personal indignation. He doesn't debate with Korah.
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He doesn't defend himself. He simply places the whole matter before the Lord and he proposes a test, verse 6.
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Do this, he says, take censers, those are the containers usually on a chain, hanging on chain, in which you'd put incense to burn and smoke would come out of these censers.
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And so he says take censers, Korah and all his company, put fire in them and put incense on them before the
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Lord tomorrow and the man whom the Lord chooses shall be the Holy One. You have gone too far, sons of Levi.
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See, he turns back on them exactly what they said of him. You've gone too far. He says, you have gone too far, you sons of Levi.
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And he reminds the rebels that their uprising is a direct attack on God. This is not merely a slur against Moses, but it's an attack on God.
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Verse 8, and Moses said to Korah, here now you sons of Levi, is it too small a thing for you that the
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God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel to bring you near to himself, to do service in the tabernacle of the
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Lord, and to stand before the congregation to minister to them? And he has brought you near him and all your brothers, the sons of Levi, with you.
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And would you seek the priesthood also? Therefore it is against the Lord that you and all your company have gathered together.
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What is Aaron that you grumble against him? See, God had given them a task, and it was no small task.
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They were to stand before the congregation and minister to them in the presence of God. But they treated their own calling with contempt.
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They didn't want the role of service. They wanted the place of authority. They acted as if, in Moses' words, it was a small thing to minister in the role
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God had assigned them to. Korah would be satisfied with nothing less than Aaron's job.
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And that brings us to another mark of sinful rebellion. Number five, the ungodliness of the rebels inevitably is manifest.
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That's number five. Inevitably, you see that what motivates the rebels is ungodliness.
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I pointed out at the start that this sort of rebellion always pretends to take the moral high ground.
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Rebels claim to be defending justice or righting wrongs, but inevitably their response manifests its own ungodliness.
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You've seen this, I'm sure, people who claim they have been wronged think they're justified now in bringing a lawsuit against a fellow believer in violation of God's clear word, 1
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Corinthians 6. Disgruntled church members purposely spread strife and division even though they know that dishonors
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God. Rebellious people always begin by pretending they own the moral high ground, and they'll recite laundry lists of wrongs which they claim they've suffered as if their suffering justified their doing wrong.
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But scripture never grants that kind of tolerance to evildoers. Suffering wrong never entitles us to do wrong.
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David, you'll recall, was anointed by Samuel as the rightful king of Israel in Saul's place, and yet Saul retained the throne, and Saul pursued
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David's life with a demon -possessed vengeance, literally. David was the rightful ruler.
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He was God's choice for the throne. He was a man after God's own heart, and yet because he was a man after God's own heart, he knew that rebellion could never be the means by which he came to the throne.
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God never sanctions rebellion, even when the person in authority is completely in the wrong, or even demon -possessed, as Saul became.
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Defiance and insurrection are never justified against God -ordained authority anywhere in Scripture under any circumstances.
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Consider this. The classic passage on submission to authority, Romans 13, was written by Paul when
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Nero was emperor of Rome, Nero being probably the most evil and undoubtedly demon -possessed man that ever held that office, and yet Paul tells us, submit to those who are in authority.
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Their authority has been ordained by God. That doesn't sanction everything they do, but it means that the right response to evil authority is never rebellion.
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Notice how the Reubenites responded to Moses. I read verses 12 through 14 earlier, but I want you to look at those verses again, and this time let's take special note of the sinful response of these men from the tribe of Reuben.
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Verse 12, Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and they said, we will not come up. Is it a small thing that you brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to kill us in the wilderness?
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That you must also make yourself a prince over us. Moreover, you've not brought us into a land flowing with milk and honey, nor given us inheritance of fields and vineyards.
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Will you put out the eyes of these men? We will not come up. This is unbelievable insolence.
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This kind of open rebellion against Moses amounted to treason. Furthermore, remember that all these men had been witnesses to the plagues
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God sent against Pharaoh because of his defiance of Moses.
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Had they forgotten how God used Moses to deliver them from the hand of their oppressors?
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And yet notice, they're actually accusing Moses of wrongdoing for having brought them up out of Egypt.
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They've forgotten the oppression they suffered. And now in verse 13, they characterize
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Egypt as a land that flows with milk and honey. You see how they turn the truth on its head?
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Egypt was a land of garlic and fish and onions. Canaan was the land of milk and honey.
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But again, rebellion is the seed bed of lies and false doctrine. Once you justify rebellion in your mind, you will turn truth on its head.
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And that's exactly what they did. I'm going to read a very long passage here. I want to follow the narrative starting with verse 15.
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And let's just see what happens. And I'll read the whole thing and then we'll comment on it. Verse 15,
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And Moses was very angry and said to the Lord, Do not respect their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them, and I have not harmed one of them.
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And Moses said to Korah, Be present, you and all your company before the Lord, you and they, and Aaron tomorrow.
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And let every one of you take his censer and put incense on it. And every one of you bring before the Lord his censer, 250 censers, you also and Aaron each his censer.
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So every man took his censer and put fire in them and laid incense on them and stood at the entrance of the tent of meeting with Moses and Aaron.
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And then Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the entrance of the tent of meeting.
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And the glory of the Lord appeared to the congregation. And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron saying,
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Separate yourselves from among this congregation that I may consume them in a moment. And they fell on their faces and said,
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O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin and will you be angry with all the congregation?
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And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Say to the congregation, Get away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.
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And then Moses rose and went to Dathan and Abiram and the elders of Israel followed him.
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And he spoke to the congregation saying, Depart, please, from the tents of these wicked men and touch nothing of theirs, lest you be swept away with all their sins.
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And so they got away from the dwelling of Korah, Dathan and Abiram. And Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the door of their tents together with their wives, their sons and their little ones.
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And Moses said, Hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these works and that it has not been of my own accord.
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If these men die as all men die, or if they are visited by the fate of all mankind, then the
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Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord creates something new and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall know that these men have despised the
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Lord. And as soon as he had finished speaking all these words, the ground under them split apart.
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And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their households and all the people who belong to Korah and all their goods.
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And so they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.
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And all Israel who were around them fled at their cry, for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up.
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And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men offering the incense.
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That's a frightening scene, isn't it? I mean, it's probably easier for us to imagine having seen movies where special effects accomplish this kind of thing.
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But imagine this happening in real life. Again, a new thing. Nobody had ever seen anything like this. The ground opened up and swallowed the ringleaders and then fire from the earth burned the other 250 participants to a crisp.
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And here is the sixth characteristic of sinful rebellion. Number six, it destroys undiscerning people.
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It destroys undiscerning people. This is the tragedy of this whole story.
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Korah destroyed not only himself but a number of others on the periphery who didn't have the discernment to stay clear of this mutiny.
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That's how rebellion always works. Every sinful church faction I have ever witnessed has swept in people whom
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I love. They're dear people from a human perspective, often well -meaning people, people with sweet dispositions and kind hearts, but people who lack the discernment to see that this sort of rebellion is never how
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God accomplishes his word and his will. And God's judgment against Korah is severe, purposely, dramatically so.
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This was an unprecedented thing. The ground opened up and swallowed him. Imagine if you were a witness to that kind of judgment.
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And it was terrifying for people. They began to run, as you would. And yet, here is perhaps the most disturbing thing about this entire episode.
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The rebellion was not over yet. And here is one more remarkable characteristic of evil rebellion.
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Number seven, rebellion breeds more rebellion. Number seven, rebellion breeds more rebellion.
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Now try to put yourself in this scene. The people of Israel witnessed what happened to Korah and his followers.
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They saw the ground open up. They saw the fire from heaven. You would think that would put an end to rebellion in Israel once and for all, forever.
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But it did not. The fires were still smoking. The ground was still settling when the next major rebellion broke out.
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Look at verse 36. And again, I'll read a fairly longish passage. Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying,
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Tell Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, to take up censers out of the blaze. Then scatter the fire far and wide, for they have become holy.
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As for the censers of these men who have sinned at the cost of their lives, let them be hammered into plates as a covering for the altar, for they offered them before the
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Lord, and they became holy. Thus they shall be assigned to the people of Israel. And so Eleazar, the priest, took the bronze censers which those who were burned had offered, and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar, to be a reminder to the people of Israel, so that no outsider who is not of the descendants of Aaron should draw near to burn incense before the
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Lord, lest he become like Korah and his company, as the Lord said to him through Moses. But on the next day, all the congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron, saying,
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You have killed the people of the Lord. And when the congregation had assembled against Moses and against Aaron, they turned toward the tent of the meeting, and behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the
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Lord appeared. And Moses and Aaron came to the front of the tent of meeting, and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
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Get away from the midst of this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment. And they fell on their faces.
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And Moses said to Aaron, Take your censer and put fire on it from off the altar, and lay incense on it, and carry it quickly to the congregation, and make atonement for them.
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For wrath has gone out from the Lord, the plague has begun. So Aaron took it, as Moses said, and ran into the midst of the assembly, and behold, the plague had already begun among the people.
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And he put on the incense and made atonement for the people, and he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stopped.
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Now, those who died in the plague were 14 ,700, besides those who died in the affair of Korah.
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And Aaron returned to Moses at the entrance of the tent of the meeting, when the plague was stopped.
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Now, I want you to notice something important here. Although Moses is always the target of the rebels' attacks, it's always
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Moses who stands between God and the people as their intercessor. That's always the way it is with a godly man.
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Notice how prone the people were to misjudge Moses. I think we all have a sinful propensity to misjudge people who are in authority over us.
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And you see that at work here. This is a great reminder to young people who are strongly tempted to rebel against their parents' authority.
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The fruits of that kind of rebellion are always bitter and divisive, destructive.
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Young people, you will ruin your entire life if you allow your character to be shaped in your teenage years by rebellion and defiance.
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We live in a generation where that's been glorified. That is the norm. Don't do it. Don't let that happen to you.
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I've seen it many times. In fact, I grew up in a generation when generational rebellion was glorified and promoted deliberately.
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And many of my high school friends have not been able to make it as adults because they never learned to submit to the authority
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God placed over them in their youth. In fact, I graduated from high school, has it been 40 years?
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Yeah, 40 years ago this summer. And as we sit here, they're planning our 40th anniversary reunion.
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And they sent out, I had a large high school class, maybe 600 people, they sent out a list of everybody they've been able to make contact with.
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There's a long list of people that nobody even knows where they are, and a shockingly long list of people from my high school class who are now dead.
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They're dead, in many cases, prematurely dead because of the fruits of sins that started with rebellion.
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This is also a great reminder to all of us, particularly as members of the church for which
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Christ died, don't ever be tempted to rebel against those whom God has placed in authority over you.
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Someone says, well, but don't we believe in the priesthood of the believer? Don't we believe God has made us all kings and priests in Christ?
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Yes, but that was exactly Korah's claim, wasn't it? God had made Israel a kingdom of priests.
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So why couldn't the nation be run by democratic rule? Many people think the church should be run by a democracy, but that is not the pattern of church leadership set forth in the
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New Testament. God has ordered the church so that godly, gifted men are given the responsibility of leadership.
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And the doctrine of the priesthood of the believer does not overturn God's appointed structure of authority in the
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New Testament Church any more than it did in Old Testament Israel. And that's why near the end of the epistle to the
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Hebrews, the writer of that letter admonished his readers with these words,
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Hebrews 13, 17, Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give account.
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Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.
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And that's just one verse of many that tell us to obey, submit. Our leaders will give account to God.
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There's no room in those words to justify an uprising or rebellion of any kind against God -appointed leaders.
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Now invariably someone will ask, well what about the Protestant Reformation? Wasn't that a rebellion against established ecclesiastical authority?
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No, actually it wasn't. And if you read the record of the Protestant Reformation, you'll discover that the rupture between Roman Catholics and Protestants came when
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Catholics disfellowshipped men from the church for raising questions about the gospel.
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The questions were about doctrine and not primarily about authority in the church. And it certainly wasn't a rebellion.
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None of the leading reformers set out to lead a church split or to manufacture division or to lead a rebellion.
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But they were ultimately disfellowshipped by evil men who had no tolerance for the gospel.
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Do people in authority ever misuse their authority? Of course. Are men of God ever wrong?
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Certainly. Moses himself was wrong on more than one occasion. Does that ever justify the sort of rebellion
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Korah tried to incite? No, it doesn't. It is never the right response to stir up people against duly appointed
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God -ordained leaders and to seek redress of wrongs by fomenting a rebellion.
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Nothing in Scripture ever, ever permits that or sanctions it or overlooks it.
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But it's always condemned. Every such rebellion that ever occurs in Scripture is explicitly condemned.
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There is not one example of a righteous rebellion anywhere in the Bible because no such thing exists.
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Rebellion is always ungodly. And God himself will deal with the wickedness of unrighteous rulers in his own time.
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He did this, for example, with Pharaoh. He punished even Moses when Moses sinned.
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And we're not to sit passively silent when our leaders sin. But the right response is the response
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Nathan took with David. He went to him privately and confronted him. He didn't organize a mutiny. John the
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Baptist did the same thing with Herod. He went to him and confronted him directly to his face.
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He didn't organize a mutiny. Later, Absalom mutinied against David, but God judged him severely for it.
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Rebellion, Scripture says, is like the sin of witchcraft, 1 Samuel 15 23.
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Think about that. Rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft. That suggests that rebellion is as overtly satanic as the black arts.
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And that ought to give us reason to pause and think carefully before we are ever tempted to rebel, even if we try to convince ourselves that by rebelling we're defending some high moral principle.
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Rebellion is never the high road morally. It may be the way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
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Let's pray. Lord, we confess that we are rebels at heart.
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That's the essence of our sin, a rebellion against you. Purge us of that tendency,
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Lord. Help us to be submissive people. Help us to be people who respect the authority that you've ordained.
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And we pray, Lord, that you would bless us in our obedience, even when those in authority over us are wrong or behave in an evil way.
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May we, like Christ, commit ourselves to you who judge righteously. We pray in Jesus' name,