Psalm 106, verse 28. All of these little stories
we're looking at, they've all been really short.
They're all up to this point. It brought us back
to Israel's time as they were brought out of
Egypt, how they wandered in the wilderness, their
constant disobedience, their grumbling, their
complaining. All of these stories are bad. These
are bad. Nothing good is happening in these stories
that we're looking at. This chapter is about
Israel's unfaithfulness to God. Remember the
previous chapter was that God was faithful to
his people, and then this chapter is a reminder
of their continued unfaithfulness. And so tonight
we are going to look at another passage, another
story that's also going to bring us back to the
Old Testament. looking in the Psalms and then
working our way back to where these stories are
found in the Old Testament. And this one's tonight.
It's got a lot of passages that we'll try to
look at. There's kind of a lot of connection
to this story. So let's pray, and then we'll
get started. God, we come to you. We thank you
for your good word. I pray that you help us to
understand what's going on here, that we see
the importance of your word, that these stories
are a reminder to us, warning to us, dear Lord,
that we pay attention to the things that we do
and the way that we act, dear Lord, that we would
be those who are obedient to you, that we don't
have to learn hard lessons, God. And I pray that
you just be with me as I preach and teach your
word, that it'll all be for your glory. In Jesus'
name I pray it. Amen. All right, Psalm 106, verse
28. It's talking about the Israelites here. It
says, They aligned themselves with Baal of Peor
and ate sacrifices offered to lifeless gods.
They provoked the Lord with their deeds, and
a plague broke out against them. But Phinehas
stood up and intervened, and the plague was stopped.
Now, again, this is like most of the other little
sections we've looked at, three verses, four
verses. A short little story. that draws us back
to kind of a bigger story that we see in the
Old Testament. Now, if you flip in the Old Testament
to Numbers chapter 25, Numbers chapter 25, and
I would encourage you this week for homework,
if you want to read the chapters before to get
a little bit of a background and see what's going
on or read the verses that come after to see
the whole story unfold. But we're going to look
at Numbers chapter 25. verses 1 through 13. This
is going to recall this story that we are talking
about. Now, the problem, as we see in Psalm 106,
is that the Israelites aligned themselves with
the Baal of Peor. Now, we see Baal mentioned
several times in the Old Testament. Usually,
it's attached to a place. In this particular
instance, it was attached to Peor. So Baal just
simply means Lord, the Lord of Peor, the God
that they worshipped, essentially. The false
god of the people of that area is really what
it's talking about. Now remember, God had told
his people that they were to have no other gods
before him. They weren't supposed to worship
idols. They weren't supposed to seek after other
gods. And that was the problem. They were doing
that. They had begun to seek out these other
gods. They were interacting with these other
gods. They had sexual immorality that was taking
place. They were eating food sacrificed to these
gods. Things were bad, and so we see God bring
his punishment on them. We see this plague mentioned
here, and we also see Phineas mentioned, that
he was the one who kind of stepped in for them.
Now, we've seen that theme throughout several
of these stories that we've looked at. God's
people disobedient, God's wrath comes on the
people, and there's somebody that steps in to
intervene for them. We see that with Aaron. We've
seen it with Moses. Now we see it with Phinehas.
Now we just get a little brief outline of the
story in Psalm 106, but Numbers 25 tells us the
rest of the story. In verse 1, it says, While
Israel was staying in the Acacia Grove, the people
began to have sexual relations with the women
of Moab. The women invited them to the sacrifices
of their gods, and the people ate and bowed in
worship to their gods. So Israel aligned itself
with Baal of Peor, and the Lord's anger burned
against Israel. All right, so we have the scene
set for us. What's the problem? God had told
his people not to marry these foreign women.
Now, is that because God is against foreign people?
Well, not exactly. Because if you look at the
genealogy of Jesus, for instance, one of the
names you see in there is Rahab. Well, she's
not a woman from Israel. She was a Canaanite.
And so God wasn't necessarily just against foreigners.
He told his people to love the foreigners and
to be kind to them on some occasions. But there
were also plenty of these foreigners that they
came up against that were evil people. And justice
was served. God oftentimes would tell his people
to destroy these people, not because he didn't
like certain people, but because many times these
people were doing a lot of evil stuff, like really
serious evil stuff. They weren't innocent people.
And so God didn't just not want his people to
associate with foreign women. The reason why
he gave such commands is there was a reason,
and that is because these foreign women were
going to lure the Israelite men away from God.
Now, here's something that you guys may not be
aware of, but this is a newsflash. Men like women,
and they'll do just about anything for women.
Now, I don't know if y 'all figured that out
yet. but I suspect you probably have. Man, you
know that's to be true, because one day you've
had your eye on a girl before, and you pretty
much would say or do anything you could to get
to spend time with them. I remember one day,
Jennings, there was a hog that was killed. He
was going to skin it, and I knew Michelle was
going to be at their house. That's before we
got married, and I volunteered to go help skin
the hog. Now, what do I know about skinning a
hog? I mean, you might as well have told me to
go out there and build an Eiffel Tower. But I
was like, oh, yeah, I'll come over there and
help because I wanted to hopefully get this.
And so we get over there, and then you know what
he says? I'm getting off track. He says, well,
we're going to take this down to one of my buddies
in Gillsburg and do it. And I was like, Gillsburg?
I don't want to go to Gillsburg to skin a hog.
So anyway, the point being is men will do whatever
it takes to be close to a woman, and women can
kind of have their way and tell men what to do,
and men will just kind of cave in and do it.
And these women, well, they were worshiping false
gods and they were doing a lot of evil things.
And God didn't want the men of Israel to be led
astray. But they were led astray. They started
hanging out with these foreign women. They started
giving in to sexual immorality and doing things
they shouldn't have done. And pretty soon they
start worshiping the gods of these foreign women.
All right, verse 4. The Lord said to Moses, Take
all the leaders of the people and execute them
in broad daylight before the Lord, so that his
burning anger may turn away from Israel. So Moses
told Israel's judges, Kill each of the men who
align themselves with Baal of Peor. An Israelite
man came bringing in a Midianite woman to his
relatives in the sight of Moses and the whole
Israelite community while they were weeping at
the entrance of the tent. All right, so God's
not happy with what's taking place here. This
is very serious. God said, don't do it. They
did it. They were led astray. The most important
thing, don't have any other gods before me. And
now these men of Israel have got other gods before
God. So God tells Moses, all right, these people
who are doing these things, they need to be killed.
It's a death sentence. It's pretty serious. God
takes this serious. After the fact, this dude
comes up. He's got a foreign wife, a Midianite
wife, and just bebops right up in the middle
of the crowd in front of everybody. Now, having
a Midianite wife is not necessarily a bad thing.
Even Moses' wife was a Midianite. Again, the
problem was maybe not so much that the women
were foreign, but that the foreign women had
false gods. Now, you know, there are foreign
women who... who fear God. Rahab, I just used
that example, she's one of them. She was a foreign
woman, and even though maybe the rest of the
people in her group didn't fear God, she did,
and guess what? God spared her. So what God really
wants is people who fear him and serve him. There
certainly were foreigners who did love God and
fear him and serve him, and he didn't just say,
get out of here, you're a foreigner. But the
real problem was most of these folks didn't worship
God and fear God. They worshiped their false
gods. And so this Israelite man and this Midianite
woman, Come up in the middle of the crowd. Verse
7. When Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron,
the priest, saw this, he got up from the assembly,
took a spear in his hand, followed the Israelite
man into the tent, and drove it through both
the Israelite man and the woman through her belly.
Then the plague on the Israelites was stopped.
Now that was pretty serious stuff right there.
Phinehas, the son of Aaron, he takes matters
into his own hands. He said, okay, this was the
command of God that the men of Israel who were
guilty of this need to be killed. And he goes
in and he kills this man and he kills this woman.
It's pretty serious. God does not take sin lightly.
And we see that in this example. All right, let's
read on a little further. At the end of verse
8. Then the plague on the Israelites was stopped,
but those who died in the plague numbered 24
,000. All right, now this is a theme that we've
kind of seen. We've seen it in some of our past
examples with Aaron and with Moses. They were
disobedient. A plague came on the people, and
there had to be some type of intercession there.
There had to be some type of atonement that was
made. Somebody had to step in on behalf of God's
people, or they were going to be destroyed. And
in these other instances, we see that a lot of
people die. I mean, not all of them. There were
probably a few million, a couple of million at
least, Israelites at this time. And we see some
big numbers of them dying, 24 ,000 that are mentioned
here that die from this plague. Now, this same
story is also referenced very briefly in the
New Testament. Now here's why I like this story
that we're looking at in Psalms. This story is
a good example of how a lot of passages throughout
the Bible kind of tie together in a cool way,
and you see how things tie together. So we see
this story referenced in Psalm, which brings
us back to Numbers 25, and then it also points
us forward to 1 Corinthians 10, verses 7 and
8, where Paul uses this example for the Corinthians.
He says, Don't become idolaters, as some of them
were, as it is written. The people sat down to
eat and drink and got up to play. Let us not
commit sexual immorality, as some of them did.
And in a single day, 23 ,000 fell dead. Now,
Paul is referencing this story here. Now, you
may be saying, well, the number's 25. It said
24 ,000. 1 Corinthians 10, it says 23 ,000. Well,
you'd be right. And it could be that there was
just some error in copying through the years
and maybe what Paul was looking at had a different
number. Or maybe 23 ,000 died in one day and
the other 1 ,000 died another day. Because Paul
says 23 ,000 in a single day and Numbers says
24 ,000 died total. So maybe some of them, the
bulk of them died in one day and maybe there
were a few. But even though those numbers don't
line up perfectly, this is the story that Paul
is referencing here. These are the events that
Paul is referencing. All right, back to Numbers
25 in verse 10. The Lord spoke to Moses, Phinehas,
son of Eleazar, son of Aaron. The priest, I'm
sorry, I told you all Phinehas was the son of
Aaron a while ago, son of Eleazar, my mistake.
Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, the priest
had turned back my wrath from the Israelites
because he was zealous among them with my zeal.
So I did not destroy the Israelites in my zeal.
Therefore... I grant him my covenant of peace.
It will be a covenant of perpetual priesthood
for him and his future descendants because he
was zealous for his God and made atonement for
the Israelites. All right, so Phinehas steps
up. He's the one that spares the people. Yeah,
a lot of them die, but he steps up and he makes
atonement for the people. We're starting to see
a theme here as we go through Psalm 106. And
these stories we're looking at, The theme that
keeps repeating itself is, is God's people sin,
and someone else steps in and makes atonement.
This is the third person that's done such a thing.
Aaron was first, then Moses, and now Phineas
has made atonement for the people. Now, this
atonement was justice being served. That is,
these people had committed some sin that God
said not to commit, and the punishment had to
take place. Justice had to be served for atonement
to be made. And so we see this theme in the Old
Testament that should, as we have read through
the Scripture, if you ever have or maybe you
haven't, but when you read through the New Testament,
you should start to see some connections that
Jesus is the intercessor for us. He is the one
who makes atonement for us. He is the one who
pays the price for us, all right? Justice had
to be served in this story for there to be atonement.
Now justice has to be served. God is a just God
and justice has to be served. Now in our case,
we don't have a priest coming and using his spear
to strike us dead. In our case, it's Jesus who
took the punishment on our behalf. It's Jesus
who paid the price so that atonement could occur
for you and I. So we see this theme of continual
unfaithfulness for God's people, and there continually
being a man who stands in the gap. We saw that
language used of Moses a couple of weeks ago.
A man who stands in the gap. Now, you may remember
when we talked about Moses that Moses said, I'm
going to go before God and I'm going to see if
I can make atonement for you. And he goes before
God, but what God says is that... Moses is not
able to make atonement for the people. The people
are going to suffer the consequences of what
they've done. Now, in some way, I believe that
God's wrath was kind of subdued by Moses interceding
for the people, but Moses in and of himself was
incapable of making atonement. The atonement
that was needed for humanity is not something
that Moses could offer up, even though he had
a heart to do it. And he said, God, If you won't
forgive them, then take my name from your book.
Even though Moses had the heart to atone for
those sins, he didn't really have the ability.
But Jesus does have the ability. There was some
atonement that was made through the sacrifices
and through the people that spoke up and did
what they did for justice to be served in the
case of Phinehas or whatever was going to be
offered before the Lord. There was some atonement
that was made, but it was not a perfect atonement.
It would atone for a little while, but it could
never atone someone's sin for eternity. It never
could fully pay the price that our sin deserved.
And that's why Jesus is so perfect. Now, these
guys that served the Lord, they were righteous
here. Phinehas is called a righteous man. It
was credited to him for righteousness for what
he did. Well, these were godly men, but it took
God himself to pay the price for us through Jesus
Christ. to be the atonement that we needed. And
so there's some beauty in this story because
we say, golly, when we look through Psalm 106,
why are these people so unfaithful? Why are we
so unfaithful? I mean, we're in pretty bad shape.
And praise the Lord, we have somebody that's
even better than Moses and better than Aaron
and better than Phinehas, somebody who was nailed
to a cross for us in Jesus Christ. And so these
verses serve as a warning in a sense, like, hey,
don't do this. Okay, Jesus has died on a cross
so our sins can be forgiven, but we see that
God took these sins pretty serious, and, well,
guess what? He still takes sin pretty serious
today, so we should think about these things.
And, you know, as Paul says in the New Testament,
well, just because grace abounds all the more
doesn't mean that we just sin all the more so
that grace can abound all the more. Like, we
have to understand the price that Jesus paid
was a powerful price. It does atone for our sins,
but... It's not a license to sin. That grace
should change our heart and transform our lives.
And so we see that beautiful theme through these
stories. Now, one other kind of bonus to this
passage. This is no extra charge. But talking
about how stories kind of tie together. Well,
if you go back and you read the chapters around
Numbers 25 before that, you see the story of
Balaam. Now, you may remember that story. You
may have heard it or maybe not. But Balaam was
a guy that there was another guy who wanted Balaam
to curse Israel. And he was going to get paid
to do it. And the Lord wouldn't let Balaam curse
Israel. We see several times that... He just
can't do it. I think it's three or four times
that he tries to do it. You may recall the most
memorable part of the story is Balaam's donkey
talks to him. Long story short, Balaam is supposed
to curse Israel, but yet he never curses Israel.
But by the time we get to the New Testament,
we see Balaam is not talked about in a very good
light. Now, I'll read over just a few scriptures
real quickly from the New Testament. that talk
about Balaam, that talk about all these things
are in the same time frame when Balaam is being
discussed. In 2 Peter 2, verses 15 and 16, it
says, They have gone astray by abandoning the
straight path and have followed the path of Balaam,
the son of Boser, who loved the wages of unrighteousness
but received a rebuke for his transgression.
A donkey that could not talk spoke with a human
voice. and restrained the prophet's irrationality.
All right? So this was a warning that Peter was
given to these false teachers. And he was saying
that these false teachers were like Balaam in
the Old Testament. And Balaam is not spoken of
in a very good term here. He says that he's one
who loved the wages of unrighteousness. Well,
wait a minute. If you go back and you read the
story, Balaam doesn't... Doesn't curse Israel.
So what's going on? Why is he looked at so negatively?
Well, we see another example. In Jude, verse
11. Woe to them, for they have traveled in the
way of Cain, have abandoned themselves to the
error of Balaam for profit, and have perished
in Korah's rebellion. Again, Jude's talking about
some evil folks here, and he's comparing them
to some folks that we know in the Old Testament.
Cain, Cain and Abel. Cain killed his brother.
That's pretty evil. Balaam, who we're talking
about, who's the main focus here. Well, he abandoned
himself to the heir of prophet, it says. And
then Korah. You may remember just a couple of
weeks ago we talked about Korah's rebellion.
That's one of these stories of Psalm 106. He
got a group of folks together and said, Hey,
we don't like Moses. We're going to rebel against
him. And these are some evil folks that Judah's
saying, Hey, these folks I'm talking about, they're
like Cain. They're like Balaam. They're like
Korah. Okay, again, Balaam is not a good guy.
All right, let's look at one more example in
the New Testament. Revelation 2, verse 14. This
is in the letter to Pergamum, and Balaam is used
as a warning. Now, they were doing pretty good
in some areas, but then there was this warning
that they needed to pay attention to. It says,
but I have a few things against you. You have
some there who hold to the teaching of Balaam,
who taught Balak to place a stumbling block in
front of the Israelites to eat meat, sacrifice
to idols, and to commit sexual immorality. Okay,
so here, some of the folks in Pergamum are being
compared to Balaam. Now, Balaam was supposed
to curse Israel. He didn't curse Israel, but
he sure is looked out in a negative light, but
this verse tells us what he did wrong. It says
that he taught Balak to place a stumbling block
in front of the Israelites. Okay, so he didn't
curse them, but he said, here's how you can get
them to stumble, and they did stumble. And how
did they stumble in Numbers 25? Sexual immorality
and eating food offered to idols. And Balaam
was responsible for that. Now, if you continue
reading the little past, Numbers 25 and Numbers
31, here's what it says in Numbers 31, verses
15 and 16. This is after the main verses about
Balaam before. And now we see in the Old Testament
where it tells us what Balaam did. He says, Have
you let every female live, he asked them, yet
they are the ones who at Balaam's advice incited
the Israelites to unfaithfulness against the
Lord in the Peor incident so that the plague
came against the Lord's community. So even though
Balaam never just outright cursed God's people
like Balak wanted him to, Balaam was responsible.
Because in his advice, he said, here's how you
can get them. Here's how you can get them with
these foreign women. So by the time we flip a
few chapters on over in Numbers 31, we see the
story that we're looking at in Psalm 106, the
story that we just looked at in Numbers 25. We
see these stories coming back full circle. And
so we see a lot of stories tying into each other
here. In the Old Testament, in the New Testament,
Balaam and Phinehas and... All this stuff, it
all ties together. And that's the beauty of God's
Word. That's why it's important for us to read
God's Word and to try to read the whole Bible
at some point in our life. Like, I get it. It's
a lot of stuff. And there's a lot of stuff we'll
read as we read through the Bible that we say,
man, I don't get that. I don't understand that.
But there's little stories and little pieces
that we pick up along the way. And as we begin
to go back and really study and dig in deep to
God's Word, we start maybe to see some of these
pieces come together and see how these things
tie together. And a lot of things in the Old
Testament, or New Testament, bring us back to
the Old Testament. And a lot of things in the
New Testament point us forward to Jesus Christ.
I would say everything in the Old Testament points
us forward to Jesus Christ. And so Psalm 106
is... It is rich in these Old Testament stories
that we've looked at, most of them coming from
the book of Numbers. It is a rich and vibrant
reminder to us about the importance of not giving
in to sin, but most importantly, it's a reminder
to us of what it means to have one who makes
atonement for us. We see glimpses of people who
attempt to do that in the Old Testament and to
some degree are successful. But ultimately, they
point us to Jesus Christ, who is perfectly successful
in every way to atone for us. Let's pray. God,
we come to you. We thank you for your word. We
thank you for this story. It's kind of heavy,
but I thank you for letting us be able to study
it and ponder on it tonight and to see how your
word ties together. We thank you for these examples
of what these leaders that we're looking at,
Moses and Aaron and Phinehas, what their leadership
looks like and how... Dear Lord, leaders should
be ready to do what you call them to and to make
atonement for the people. But we thank you first
and foremost for Jesus Christ, the ultimate atonement
that's been made for us, dear Lord, the one who
took the punishment that we deserve. God, we
deserve that same punishment as that Israelite
man and Midianite woman in the story, dear Lord.
But we thank you that Jesus made atonement by
taking that punishment for us. And I ask these
things in Jesus' name. Amen.