Numbers 25:1-5 Bible Study | Episode 803

November 6, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Numbers 25:1-5  Bible Study | Episode #803

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in numbers, chapter 25. Numbers, chapter 25. It is one of those chapters that has great importance just as far as understanding God and his view of the worship of other gods, and also understanding, well, the enticement of the enemy, the enticement of the world to leave the proper worship of God, the seeking of God and the seeking of the world, and the realization that once you do that, you begin to go down a slippery slope and you are eventually worshipping other gods rather than worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Moses, the God of Israel, the goddess who is Lord of heaven, and Jesus. You're worshiping other gods, and God does not. Well, it's just one of those things where God just doesn't. He has no room for that. He will leave. No, he leaves no space for that opportunity. He understands that we can easily be. We can easily be guided in the wrong direction, but he just does not leave that as a chance or an opportunity to take place. And it says, verse 25 of verse one of chapter 25. Now, IsRael remained in the Acacia grove. And that place in most of your bibles is going to be called s h I t t I m, Shittim. And it is a place that has an interesting name, especially in our language, but it is a place that is known for from now on. And it's mentioned several other times. There's other other times that this place comes into play, but it is the place where Israel turned toward worshiping other gods. And it says, and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. Now, that is a double entendre right there, because it's two things. First of all, they began to have relations with the women of Moab, but they. But the more important picture is they begin to worship other gods there. And by the way, those two pictures, even though they're a double entendre here, they're actually the same thing scripturally. They're the same idea in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The idea of harlotry or chasing after other, other women is also the picture of chasing after other gods. And that picture is just carries throughout scripture. And it really is pushed home here in this passage, it says, and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. And notice, and it doesn't say, and it just immediately they invited the people to sacrifice to the sacrifices of their gods. So they began to commit harmony with other, with the women of Moab, not with the men, with the women. So that means it was the, it was the men of Israel with the women of Moab. And it doesn't, it really doesn't even divide it up and say, okay, they were having relations with them, and then they sacrificed other God. They actually ride together. So let's read it again. As it, as it just says now, Israel remained in the Acacia grove, and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. Moab. They invited the people to the sacrifice of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So if you'll notice that the move here is as if they are doing both of them together. And by the way, really, that's what goes on. When you begin to, when you begin to give yourself to the world, when you begin to give yourself to that which is pagan, that which is clearly out of line with scripture, that which is not godly. And let me say this, there's no one here. There's no one here online, and there's no one, when I'm teaching this publicly in the church, there's no one there that doesn't have the experience of chasing after the world and beginning to worship the world, which would include other gods of this world, there's no one here who doesn't have that experience in their heart and mind. We know what it is like to wander away from God and to chase after the world. We know what that's like. The problem is we don't realize the depths that it takes us to. Whenever we chase after the world and don't chase after goddess, it drags us down to a place that we didn't really want to go to. In fact, that process always takes us farther than we want to go, and it cost us more than we wanted to pay. And then ultimately, it causes us to stay longer than we ever wanted to be there. And so when we go through the idea, the process of chasing after these other gods, when we do that, we, we put ourselves in a position where we are paying far more than we ever imagined we'd pay, and the cost is so, so great. We go farther down the road that we were just gonna, you know, go over and look over the cliff and fill. You know, we're all the way at the bottom of the cliff, and it's taken us far more time than we ever imagined we would. And the climb back up to where we were is so painful, so difficult. Well, that's what happens here. And sometimes the cost is enormous, an enormous cost. God told him to have no other gods before him, and they were enticed away by the women of Moabite. And in the midst of that enticement, that enticement toward the world, that enticement toward these people, in the middle of that enticement, they began to worship their gods. They were offered them. They bowed down. They worshiped him. So Israel was joined to Baal. Peor. This is their God, Baal. He's a Baal God of peor. Baal is Baal. So many times people struggle with what is Baal. Baal is not an individual goddess. Baal is like a demigod. Baal doesn't mean an individual God that they worship. The Baal gods are the literal gods from the pagan hierarchode. They are, they are demigods. As far as they're concerned. What they really are is fallen angels. And he says, so Israel was drawn to Baal peor. And at Baal appeared, and the anger of the Lord was roused against Israel. Well, look, I mean, our God's jealous God. There's just no way to get around that. And this, this play with the world a little bit always costs. It always, it always ends this way. It always ends in you putting yourself in a position where you're out of the protection of God, you're out of the protection of the Holy Spirit. You are, you are, you're putting yourself in danger. And let me say this again. We all know what that's like. We all, we all have done it. We all have wandered away from God, and many of us have found ourselves really and truly giving in and bowing down to what is clearly not God. And some stay there, and ultimately some are or die there. But the danger is real. And this is, and the reason it's so stark here is there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of ambiguity here. God anger was roused against Israel. And it says, the Lord said to Moses, take all the leaders of the people and hang the offenders before the Lord. Hmm. I mean, it's not even. There's no grace here. There's no grace here. Now, there's always grace in Jesus Christ. But you need to understand that God takes this very seriously. The worship of other gods is distinctly an anathema to God. He will not have it. So he said, take all the leaders of the people and hang the offenders before the Lord out in the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel. Now, what really literally happened here is this anger. This fierce anger of the Lord caused a plague to happen in Israel. It caused there to be a sickness, a illness that began to run through the camp. And so God said, take all the offenders and hang them before me so that my anger can burn against them and not burn against the whole camp of Israel. And so Moses said to the judge of Israel, every one of you kill his men who were joined to baal of peor. So God said, I mean, God told them to hang him before him. And, and they stepped up and they just, they took them and they hung them. They killed them. Just. That's. That's what happened. There's not any. There's not any. There's not any appeals. There's no. There's no. No talking about it. It's the same as when they had the golden calf and the Levites, the sons of Levi went through and, and put to the sword all the people who had worshiped the golden calf. I mean, it's the same situation. God's. God is, is removing them from the people. He's not. He's not playing games with it. And, and, and as far as we are as a body and as far as the church is as a whole, you can't add into these worldly ideas and these worldly understandings. You can't add them in. You have to be a people of the word and a people by the word. We have to do that now. There's depth to understanding. It is helping people walk in it. But you see so many people, and I see the hurt and the pain of those who have suffered from this. Chasing after the World, giving in to the World. It is. It is. It is a painful experience, and it has been one for me, myself. So we all know it. And, and we realize that that's why God is so. His anger burns against this. He will not have it. And so we're going to kind of deal with this next two days. A little bit, in a little bit more detail, we're going to see Mine Haas, who is the new chief priest. He's going to come in and he's going to be zealous for God. And he's going to show himself to be zealous for God. And then we're going to see how God deals with the Midianites, those who brought this upon them. And so we, we need to, as we, as we think about this, we need to, we need to realize that we do serve a jealous God. And jealousy is not a Negative Thing. If he has a right to a certain Relationship with you. There's nothing wrong with when, when we have covenant Relationships with each other, with us expecting that Covenant Relationship to be, to be maintained. And we also know that our hearts wander away from it. And so we must diligently, regularly set our hearts toward God. And that's a daily process for every one of us. So as you go during the day, I want you to remember that you serve a God that does all the wonderful things that he promises, but he also is jealous for you. And he wants you to give yourself totally over to him. And that's a great place to be. Chasing after the world is never ever anything that I want to be a part of.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today. In Jesus name.