Phil Johnson Interview (Part 1)

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Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

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Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

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In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

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By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

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King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry.

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Today we have something special for you. I know every day in No Compromise studio land is special, but today is something that is extraordinary, that's out of the ordinary.

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It is a message that's not preached by me. The message we're going to hear today is part one of the

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Rebellion of Korah, Numbers chapter 16, and it was a message preached by Phil Johnson, executive director for Grace to You, an elder at Grace Community Church serving alongside of John MacArthur.

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When Phil was here back in May of 2011, he preached a message called the

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Rebellion of Korah, Number 16. So today's part one, and the next week we'll look at part two, special message by Phil Johnson.

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And I think this message is wonderful for lots of reasons. Number one, it's from the

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Old Testament. Number two, it is a transchronological message, and so if you are in a church that has got some factions, some division, rebellion, gossip, slander, or if you've ever been in one, this message shows the way such a rebellion occurs, and how the rebellion is fomented and fostered, and how the rebellion actually takes place.

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And so we will learn it right from Number 16 with Phil Johnson today and the next week.

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And so today on No Compromise Radio, Numbers 16 with Phil Johnson. And as you're listening, you want to be saying to yourself,

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I want to be a unifier of the local church. 1 Corinthians 1, 2, 3, 4, all about church unity.

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Since Jesus died for me and it's His church, Lord, give me the strength, give me the power to do everything

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I can to uphold church unity, whether it's at my expense or anyone else's.

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Jesus Christ is so great that I want to be a part of unifying the body, not tearing it down.

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Phil Johnson, Numbers 16. 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 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 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 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 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.

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But if you have a beef about that, you can take it up with Mike. But actually, he did tell me that he has 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.

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And this is a crucial passage. This is the record of Korah's rebellion. This is a landmark event in Israel's history.

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And it established once and for all in the national consciousness of Israel what

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God thinks of rebellion. 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 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 a Greek word antilogia, which means 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.

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He sowed the seeds of rebellion in Israel. And the mutiny that he began was responsible for the destruction of many lives.

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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 an 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 that authority is to be questioned and distrusted and at all points possible resisted because authority is seen as an oppressive and evil thing.

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But that's not how scripture presents authority. 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, because it always comes under the guise of righteousness.

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It always pretends to defend what is right, 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, and all the marks of sinful rebellion are present here in this account of Korah.

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And I want to point them out to you as we go along. You've turned, hopefully, to Numbers 16, and we're going to go through this whole passage tonight, 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, 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? 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 tribe's 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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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.

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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 2, 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.

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For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them, why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the

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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? Who made this man to be a ruler and a king over us?

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They were simply calling for a little democracy. 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, and Moses sent to call

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Dathan and Abiram, the sons of... Oh, wait, I skipped a page here. I hate it when my notes stick together.

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Yeah, before we do that, look carefully at the substance of their complaint in verse 3, all in the congregation are holy, every one of them.

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And the Lord is among them. That is a clear reference to some very familiar biblical promises.

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Exodus 19, verse 6, where God says to all the 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.

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And they were taught to cling to. And the complaint of Korah was based on those biblical promises.

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But the promises are twisted out of context by Korah. 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.

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And everybody gets to say whatever he wants. That's what they're asking for here.

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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

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Scriptures. 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 leadership of Moses.

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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 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 and 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.

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And that becomes clear as you dig into this story. Let's see if we can get to the heart of why Korah led this rebellion.

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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.

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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 Elizaphan, 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 Korah in this rebellion.

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They also had reason to feel they had been unfairly snubbed. Who was the eldest son of Jacob?

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It was Reuben. And yet you may recall in Genesis 49, when Jacob was blessing his sons just before he died, instead of pronouncing a blessing on Reuben, he pronounced a curse.