Numbers 16:15-19—15 Then Moses was very angry, and said to the LORD, "Do not respect their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them, nor have I hurt one of them." 16 And Moses said to Korah, "Tomorrow, you and all your company be present before the LORD—you and they, as well as Aaron. 17 Let each take his censer and put incense in it, and each of you bring his censer before the LORD, two hundred and fifty censers; both you and Aaron, each with his censer." 18 So every man took his censer, put fire in it, laid incense on it, and stood at the door of the tabernacle of meeting with Moses and Aaron. 19 And Korah gathered all the congregation against them at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. Then the glory of the LORD appeared to all the congregation." We see so many times in the Pentateuch God making a distinction, a separation, a sanctifying of His people from sinners. The commandments about foods? To establish distinction. The commandments about fabrics? To establish distinction. Everything in the Law was to either show what God thought to be sin or to establish the people as distinct and unlike the neighboring nations. This is another place where God wants to show that He will decide who does what, how His people are to be led and by whom, and that, in the end, He is the Sovereign who will make the ultimate decisions.
Moses understood this. He understood and obeyed what God had commanded. He was the one with whom God spoke face to face. "Do not respect their offering. I have not taken one donkey from them, nor have I hurt one of them." He took nothing from these, and thus was under no obligation to favor them in the slightest. He has also done them no harm, showing that they could bring no charge against him. Moses was only devoted to one thing, and that was the glory of God. “Do not respect their offering.” Do not accept their incense, for it is as that of Nadab and Abihu. It is polluted by their pride and arrogance in their thinking that they know how to perform worship better than God does. It would not be a sweet aroma to YHVH, but rather a foul stench which would come up into His nostrils. As the works of man’s hands in exchange for salvation cannot appease the wrath of God, Moses cried out to God that He not accept the offerings given by these men who rebelled against God. As Paul would say in Acts 20:33—I have coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. Paul accepted no money as a gift for himself from anyone, just as Moses accepted nothing from these men of Korah.
So every man took his censer, put fire in it, laid incense on it, and stood at the door of the tabernacle of meeting with Moses and Aaron. Korah and company still had a chance to end this, to admit that Moses and Aaron were the ones chosen by God, and God would have passed over their temporary ignorance. But no—they pressed on, they took up a censer, put hot coals in it, and then the holy frankincense which God commanded, and went to the Tabernacle, to see which group God would choose. Korah and company did not even think that what happened to Nadab and Abihu would happen to them. At this point, the die was cast, and Korah and company were about to cross their Rubicon. The battle lines were drawn, each side was arrayed for the fight, and they were about to see whom God had chosen. And as it says in verse 17, it was 250 against 2. Again, God doesn’t care about the numbers. It could have been all 600,000 against 2, and God wouldn’t care. As Robert Hawker once said, “It is really astonishing, considering the badness of their cause, that Korah and his party should have been willing to put things to such an issue. But, Reader! When our hearts are hardened through the deceitfulness of sin, what judgments of GOD do we not brave? How often hath my stubborn unsubdued nature gone about to establish my own righteousness, instead of seeking the righteousness of GOD my Saviour?” Korah and company had seen the many miracles God had wrought, and still decided to fight against Him. They were as the men of Sodom groping at Lot’s door.
Numbers 16:19-27—20 And the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 21 "Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment." 22 Then they fell on their faces, and said, "O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and You be angry with all the congregation?" 23 So the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 24 “Speak to the congregation, saying, 'Get away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.'” 25 Then Moses rose and went to Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him. 26 And he spoke to the congregation, saying, "Depart now from the tents of these wicked men! Touch nothing of theirs, lest you be consumed in all their sins." 27 So they got away from around the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram; and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the door of their tents, with their wives, their sons, and their little children. Think of what went through Moses’ mind when God said this. He knows from these words that things are not going to end well for Korah and Dathan and Abiram and the other 245 men with them. “Separate yourselves”. “Get away from them. I’m getting ready to do something to them that will not be pleasant, and I don’t want you to be caught up in it.” He told Moses that He would consume them in a moment. It was going to happen quickly, and there would not be time for anyone nearby to get out of the way of it. And what was Moses’ and Aaron’s reaction? Did they say, “Yes! Can’t wait for this!”? Did they say “Good, they’ve got it coming!”? Did they say, “Come on God, I hope you punish them severely!”? No. They fell on their faces. Do we sometimes laugh, or at least snicker, when an unbeliever meets their demise, knowing that at the next moment they will be face to face with Almighty God, having to give an account for their lives and knowing they will be naked before Him, with nary a plea? Moses knew, from hearing what God said, that this would be the case for these men. It doesn’t say so in the text, but God may have given Moses a vision of what was going to happen.
And he did not want this burning wrath of God to fall on the entirety of the camp. "O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and You be angry with all the congregation?" Would He be right to be angry with the whole of the people? Wouldn’t be the first time, and would not be on the biggest scale. Romans 5:12—Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin. Did you or I receive a direct command from God Himself? Were you or I commanded not to eat the fruit of one particular tree? No. But Adam was. He heard from God Himself that he was not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of God and Evil. But when Eve succumbed to the first lie (“Hath God indeed said?”), she gave to Adam to eat. But rather than correcting her and instructing her that they should not eat of that tree, he ate anyway. And what happened? One man sinned, and God was angry with all of humanity. “Shall one man sin, and You be angry with all the congregation?” Moses here echoes Abram’s prayer to God in Genesis 18:23—“Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked?” Would He have been right and just to do so? Of course. Would He have been right and just to not do so? Of course. What was the final verdict? He destroyed the entire city, after Lot and his family were escaped from there. Moses and Abram, the men with whom God spoke most closely and as friends, were devout men of God, who sought always, with few exceptions, to live the way He wanted them to. And when they failed, they asked for forgiveness and repented of their sins. They were righteous men, who sought to please God. And what do we know about the prayers of a righteous man? James 5:16—The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Phillip Schaff wrote, “Prayer, in order to prevail, must proceed from an earnest heart, and be made by a righteous man; that is, by a good, sincere, true-hearted man.” Moses was such a righteous, good, sincere, true hearted man.
“Speak to the congregation, saying, 'Get away from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.'” Words that are echoed, to a degree, in the New Testament. These sinful men in our text represented sin, and Moses pled with the people to flee from them, lest they be caught up with them. We are encouraged as believers in Christ to avoid sin, to not look long at sin, and even, in one verse, to flee from sin (1st Corinthians 6:18). A man who is considered to be a faithful man of God has recently been found to be in an “inappropriate relationship” with a woman who is not his wife. We don’t know everything this entails (God knows), but one thing can be assumed: he was near to sin, he saw sin, and did not remove himself from the situation until it was too late. He was near to the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, and instead of fleeing he kept himself nearby and got caught up in their sin. Much like Solomon, the wisest man ever, whose wives turned his heart after other gods; and his heart was not loyal to the LORD his God, as was the heart of his father David (1st Kings 11:4). I call this “The Solomon Paradox”™: how the wisest man ever did some of the dumbest things. David, the man after God’s own heart, was not immune from the desires of the flesh. 2nd Samuel 11:1-4—1 It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. 2 Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king's house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold. 3 So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, "Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?" 4 Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her. David could have had any number of wives and concubines. But instead, he took his friend’s little ewe lamb, and killed him for it. And in all three of these cases, the consequences were visited on the men. David’s son Absalom laid with his concubines; Solomon’s son Jeroboam led all Israel to sin; and Steve Lawson has lost his ministry. Because they did not flee from the tents of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.
Unlike the members of the people of Israel who did get away. So they got away from around the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. What instruction do we read in Revelation 18:4—And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.” These people removed themselves from the tents of Korah and company, and the angel in Revelation 18 warns the people to come out of Babylon the Great. Why? “Lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues.” Do not be near to unbelievers when they are doing what is contrary to God, lest you be caught up in their malicious deeds. 1st Corinthians 15:33—Do not be deceived: "Evil company corrupts good habits." There is no clearer example of this than in Proverbs 1:10-18—10 My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. 11 If they say, "Come with us, Let us lie in wait to shed blood; let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause; 12 let us swallow them alive like Sheol, and whole, like those who go down to the Pit; 13 we shall find all kinds of precious possessions, we shall fill our houses with spoil; 14 cast in your lot among us, let us all have one purse"—15 my son, do not walk in the way with them, keep your foot from their path; 16 for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood. 17 Surely, in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird; 18 but they lie in wait for their own blood, they lurk secretly for their own lives. Remember being in high school, maybe hanging around with an unsavory bunch? They liked to do things and go places they shouldn’t be? You decide to tag along one day. And they start breaking windows at an old, abandoned business. Suddenly the police arrive. And whether you were sharing in their hooliganism or not, guess who gets scooped up and put in the back of a cruiser? Then you had to call mom and dad to explain. If mom and dad were good parents, you got punished. Is God a good parent? When those who despise Him do something abhorrent to Him, they may think they are being crafty and secretive, but God sees all, and they lie in wait for their own blood, they lurk secretly for their own lives. They are heaping up wrath for themselves.
Numbers 16:28-35—28 And Moses said: "By this you shall know that the LORD has sent me to do all these works, for I have not done them of my own will. 29 If these men die naturally like all men, or if they are visited by the common fate of all men, then the LORD has not sent me. 30 But if the LORD creates a new thing, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the pit, then you will understand that these men have rejected the LORD." 31 Now it came to pass, as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground split apart under them, 32 and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods. 33 So they and all those with them went down alive into the pit; the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the assembly. 34 Then all Israel who were around them fled at their cry, for they said, "Lest the earth swallow us up also!" 35 And a fire came out from the LORD and consumed the two hundred and fifty men who were offering incense. The moment of truth. The moment when two men of God would stand against 250 prideful men of their father the devil, to see which one God would choose. And it is clearly shown here that it is God, in His will, not man nor the will of man, who chooses prophets and priests. These men, who thought of themselves as something, were brought down into the depths of the earth to make this very thing known.
There are many today who reckon themselves to be prophets, who speak great swelling words that are contrary to what God has said. They tell people that they will be rich and prosperous, that they will never be sick, that if they just believe enough, they can have more health, wealth and prosperity than they could ever imagine. And of course they draw big crowds, because they tell people what they want to hear. These are the ones that Paul warned us about in his second letter to Timothy. After all, who wouldn’t want to hear smooth words of flattery, that everything that comes into our lives will be good and smooth? 2nd Timothy 4:3-4—3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. It is no different today than it was then, and has been no different at any point in between. How many times in Israel’s history did the people turn away from God to worship Ba'al or Asherah or Molech? And today, how many times do people turn away from God to follow a god of their own choosing? In both instances, these were nothing more than worshipping the flesh. People don’t want to hear hard truths, when the lies are so much easier to hear and to tolerate. And these are the things these modern-day “prophets” are spewing to the people that follow them.
But what will happen to these “prophets”? What will be their destination once their flesh fails and they go down to the grave? It will be as these, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the men with Korah, with all their goods. And will they be alone in their torment? No, they will be joined by all those who followed them, who came to them with itching ears, who followed their Godless teachings, and who did not follow the ways of righteousness; who saw Jesus as an ATM to give them all they wanted, and who gave God no glory, but served and worshipped their faith in themselves and sought to create for themselves a life of luxury and ease. All those with them went down alive into the pit; the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the assembly. John Piper said rightly about this ungodly health, wealth and prosperity “gospel”—
“I don’t know what you feel about the prosperity gospel—the health, wealth and prosperity gospel—but I’ll tell you what I feel about it—Hatred. It is not the gospel, and it’s being exported from this country to Africa and Asia, selling a bill of goods to the poorest of the poor: ‘Believe this message and your pigs won’t die and your wife won’t have miscarriages, and you’ll have rings on your fingers and coats on your back.’ That’s coming out of America—the people that ought to be giving our money and our time and our lives, instead selling them a bunch of crap called ‘gospel.’”
Instead of telling people the truth—that we are all sinners in the eyes of God and we need the righteousness of Christ to be acceptable to the eternally holy and righteous God—they are telling people that Jesus only came to make their lives more comfortable, to give them material riches and not that He came to give them eternal riches in Heaven. What good will their material wealth be to them once they are standing before Almighty God, who will ask them why He should let them into His Kingdom? Instead of thinking that our faith will make us rich in this life, let us consider the eternal riches that Christ can give us if we repent of our sins and turn to God and ask forgiveness for our sins! And let us see Christ as the one who will lead us through pain and heartache, when our faith is not enough to prevent calamity from befalling our family.
“I’ll tell you what makes Jesus look beautiful,” Piper told them. “It’s when you smash your car, and your little girl goes flying through the windshield, and lands dead on the street . . . and you say through the deepest possible pain, ‘God is enough.’”
1st Timothy 6:7, 10—7 We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out…10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
Those who prop themselves up falsely as prophets will meet an eternal fate that will be unimaginable. Not only will they die, as all men do, but they will be judged more harshly than any sinner, since he (or she) took upon himself (or herself) a mantle reserved for those whom God actually called. God is not slack, and He will punish them in due time when He is ready. And God is not to be mocked, as He will visit on all who mock Him a punishment beyond anything one could imagine. Jesus had stern words for such. Matthew 7:21-23—21 “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' 23 And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'” Even those who do “good things” will not be forgiven of their sins by the “good works” that they have done, but only by faith in Christ and love for God and neighbor.
And those who support and prop up these false prophets, there end will be the same. And a fire came out from the LORD and consumed the two hundred and fifty men who were offering incense. Not only were Korah and Dathan and Abiram pulled down into the earth, but those supporting them were burned up with fire. Another warning to not be caught up with those who are rebelling against God. Even after seeing the wonders that God had done among them and for them, they still kept groping at the door. We are warned about men like these in Titus 3:10-11—10 Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, 11 knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned. The Apostle John would not even suffer his disciples to be under the same roof as a known heretic. In his work “Against Heresies”, Irenaeus wrote—
There are also those who heard from him that John, the disciple of the Lord, going to bathe at Ephesus, and perceiving Cerinthus within, rushed out of the bath-house without bathing, exclaiming, "Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is within." And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, "Dost thou know me?" "I do know thee, the first-born of Satan." Such was the horror which the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth.
Let us always flee from those who preach heresy, and run to Christ, the only one who has words of eternal life! (John 6:68). 2nd Peter 2:1-3—1 But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber. Those who flatter you with smooth words easy to hear and to digest will bring you down into judgment with them!
Part 2 next week
