We're going to go back to that
passage in Numbers, so you can put a ribbon there or a bookmark
or your bulletin or something so you can go back to it. But
I want you to go to the book of Jude to begin with the little
book of Jude. It just comes before Revelation. the book of Jude, the general
epistle of Jude, there is just one chapter. And I'll wait till all of you
get there, and then we'll seek God's face once again, especially on behalf of this
service. Let's bow together. Our Father, this is such a sobering
few moments that we have to spend together. We want to worship. We ask for the spirit of seriousness
and reverence and the spirit of worship, the attitude of worship. Lord, we're a feeble people,
a sinful people, laden with iniquities. We would
ask for forgiveness. We ask that you would wash us
in the blood of the Savior, the blood of atonement, of reconciliation. Lord, you must do the work within
us. We have gathered by your good
providence, you've directed our steps here, but Lord, we've got
to hear from you. As we begin the service, let
us hear the words of the Lord, the voice of the Lord, of your
loving kindness to your people. May the voices of false religion,
the voices of doubt, the voices of fear, Lord, let us not hear
those voices, but let us hear the voice of God. Let us hear
the word of God. We bow to no other word except
yours. And we need you to speak to our
hearts. Lord, we're so desperate. We
stand upon the verge of eternity. And Father, there are those that
we believe who are gathered here with us and perhaps some who
are watching that, Lord, they have no true understanding of
the gospel of substitution. They don't believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Oh God, we call upon you for
you're gracious and you're merciful. The scripture says you're slow
to anger, plenteous in mercy. And we beg of you to shower mercy
and grace upon those who don't know the Savior. And Lord, speak
to all of your people as well. Speak with a voice that goes
directly into our innermost being, that stirs the soul. For if the voice that These people
here today, if the only voice they hear is mine, nothing of any spiritual value
is ever going to come of it. Lord, you must speak, and we
ask you to speak with the voice that wakes the dead, the voice
that causes the heart to tremble. the voice that must speak life. We wait on you, Father, to send
your Spirit, the Spirit of the Lord Jesus, to do His work. Blessed for Jesus' sake, Amen. I want to begin in the book of
Jude, This is a man who is warning of apostasy, a departure from
the things of God, from the truth of the gospel. He is addressing
people that are on the verge of leaving the truth and embracing
error, and he speaks in words of warning. I certainly wanna be encouraging
to the children of God, to those who profess to believe him, but
we also must, as we go through the scriptures, and if we're
gonna be true, if a preacher's to be true to his calling, he
also has to warn people. And this is what Jude does in
this short book. He warns us, and I would begin
this morning with a warning, and I'm gonna take verse 11,
is where I'm going to take some words from. And actually the
title of this message is going to come from verse 11. I don't have the time to get into
an exposition of the book of Jude, of course, but he does
say concerning these who leave the gospel, who make a profession,
who act like they're believers, but they're not, especially those
who are in leadership positions, he says concerning them in verse
11, woe unto them. Woe unto them, he says, for they
have, and he tells us three things about them. Number one, they
have gone in the way of Cain. What does that mean? Well, what
do we know about Cain? Cain, he was an example of malice. He was an example of cruelty.
He abandoned the worship of God for his own way. Now, as we're introduced to Cain,
this man Cain in Genesis chapter four, at first sight, he seems
to be a good fellow. It's as though he's going to
church because he's going to worship God. He's going to turn
off for an offering unto God. And he goes with his brother
Abel. And no doubt Cain is with his
family and Abel is with his family. And they go to, if you'll permit
me to put it this way, they go to church. And so as we first
look at him, we say, this is a good guy. But he's the very
first individual who left the gospel, who seemed to give some
agreement to it, but he forsakes the gospel. Now he had been He
had been instructed, as had Abel, that the right way to come to
God is by blood sacrifice. Because we know all the way through
the Word of God, the way to come to God is by an innocent victim
dying in the stead of the guilty. Right? That's what's taught all
the way through the Scriptures. And indeed, that's what God taught
Adam and Eve there at the end of Genesis chapter 3. And so
here comes and he's the older brother and
then Abel comes and here they go to church together. But he
presents an offering unto God that had no blood. There was
no death. There was no satisfaction of
justice. And he reveals his inward character
that he was envious, he was jealous, and he hated his brother. And
of course he rose up and he killed his brother. And Jude tells us that these
instigators of false religion who have left the gospel, he
said they've gone in the way of What was the way of Cain? The way of salvation by works. Secondly, and I must go quickly,
and I'll just say this in addition to Cain, the veneer of religion
at first, it covered his rottenness. He had a veneer of religion. I hope we've got more than a
veneer of religion. Those people who killed the Lord
Jesus, they were full of malice toward him, but they had a veneer
of religion. They looked good. Why? When they were in the temple,
when they were going to their respective synagogues, you would
have said, these are some of the finest people on earth. Aren't
they good people? But they killed the Son of God.
And see, this is what we learned from this man, Cain. He looked
good to begin with, but he believed salvation by works. Do good for
God and God will do good for you. No, salvation is by substitution,
by satisfaction. So, Jude says these who have
apostatized, they've gone in the way of Cain. Secondly, he
says, they ran greedily after the heir of Balaam. This sets
forth another characteristic of false prophets and apostates,
their covetousness and seductive desires. Who was Balaam? Well, without going into great
detail, I'll just tell you this. He was a preacher for a hire.
That's who he was. He was a prophet for hire. And he had some unusual powers. There's no question about that.
And he sold himself to the highest
bidder, who were the Moabites. He wanted money. He craved money.
And eventually, though he couldn't curse Israel, because this is
what the king and the Moabites wanted him to do, curse Israel.
That's what I want you to do, pronounce a curse against Israel.
He said, I can't curse those whom God has blessed. And he
got more money, he got more goods and cattle and sheep and so forth
from the Moabites. And finally, he said, I can't
curse them, but I can tell you how you can get them. You send
your women in among their men and you cause them to commit
adultery and let those women lead them into idolatry and then
God will take care of them. And he was right because God
did punish Israel because they followed the Moabites into immorality
and idolatry, idolatry. He says they've run greedily
after the era of Balaam. And then thirdly, he tells us
of these apostates, and of course, this is what I want to get to,
and they perished in the gainsaying of Korah. And of course, the
New Testament spelling for that is Kore, C-O-R-E. And we know he's talking about
the same man that Ron read to us about back in Numbers chapter
16. This sets forth their objection to authority, their desire to
divide, their dissatisfaction with their own positions, They're
envious of the positions of others. You see, Korah, he was a ringleader
in an uprising against Moses and against Aaron. Now, go back
with me then with that introduction being given to you, and I'll
use that as a title, the gainsaying of Korah. And gainsaying, by
the way, means to speak against. to speak against. Go back then
to Numbers and we'll go to chapter 16. Here's the game saying of this
man, Korah. He wasn't and his followers were
not satisfied with the position they occupied in Israel. but
they envied the positions of Moses and of Aaron. They objected
to the authority of these men. They objected to Moses being
the prophet of God. They wanted to be prophets. And
specifically, they objected to the high priesthood of Aaron. They wanted to be priests. So as we look here in Numbers,
and you're back in chapter 16 I'm sure, I'm actually going
to be dealing with the entire chapter both this morning and
tonight. This morning I'll deal with a
large portion of it and try to summarize it for you. And then
this evening, I've got kind of the end of the chapter, I've
got a message on that as well. So let me just ask you questions
so that we can get better acquainted with this very interesting portion
of Old Testament history. But it's more than just Old Testament
history. There are gospel lessons, vital
gospel lessons that we need to discern from this. First question
is, who was Korah and his associates? Let me reread what Ron read to
you, especially verses one and two. Now, Korah, the son of Ishar,
Numbers 16 verse one, Nicorah 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, the sons of Reuben, they took men
and rose up before Moses with certain of the children of Israel,
250 princes, very important, very influential men in Israel. They were famous in the congregation,
they were men But this man Korah, he's the
mastermind. He's the one who's kind of behind
it all and he's in rebellion against Moses and against Aaron. Now of this man Korah, we know
he was a descendant of Levi. So he was a Levite. very important. He was a Levite, and being a
Levite, he himself had very important duties to which he had to perform,
duties which he had to attend to. The Levites had specific
duties regarding the tabernacle. They were entrusted with the
care of the tabernacle, the guardianship of the tabernacle. They were
the ones who transported the tabernacle, not on wagons, but
on their own shoulders. In fact, hold your place there
and go back with me to Numbers chapter four. So the Levites,
they were in themselves very important men. They had vital
jobs and responsibilities concerning the tabernacle. Look at Numbers
chapter four, and we need to understand, especially this man
Korah, his position. He's not an insignificant man
in Israel, but he aspired to be greater. Seek ye great things
for yourself, seek them not. That's what Jeremiah says. Now
look at chapter four of Numbers. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
and unto Aaron, saying, that's verse one, take the sum of the
sons of Kohath, and of course this takes in This takes in Korah,
from among the sons of Levi, after their families, by the
house of their fathers, from 30 years old and upward unto
50 years old. How long can a Levite serve?
From 30 years old to 50 years old. So their term of service
was 20 years. And that would also apply, of
course, to Korah. All that enter into the host
to do the work in the tabernacle of the congregation, this shall
be the service of the sons of Kohath in the tabernacle of the
congregation about the most holy things. And when the camp set
it forward, Aaron shall come. and his sons, and they shall
take down the covering veil and cover the ark of the testimony
with it." And then we read on down, which I don't have time
to do now, and I would like you to read it later, but not now. It was the responsibility of
Aaron and his sons to disassemble, or rather to cover over all the
vessels of the tabernacle. That's their duty. Now we get
down to verse 13. And they shall steal Aaron and
his sons, they shall take away the ashes from the altar, they
shall spread a purple cloth thereon, and they shall put it upon all
the vessels thereof, wherewith they minister about it, even
the, watch. The censers, the flesh hooks,
the shovels, the basins, all the vessels of the altar, they
shall spread upon in a covering of badger skins and put to the
staves of it. And when Aaron and his sons had
made an end of covering the sanctuary, they covered everything, got
everything covered. and all the vessels of the sanctuary
as the camp is set to go forward. After that, that's when the Levites,
the sons of Kohath, shall come in to bear it. But they shall
not touch any holy thing lest they die. These things are the
burden of the sons of Kohath in the tabernacle of the congregation. Aaron and his boys, they'll cover
everything. And then, this man Korah, and many others like him, the
Levites, then they'd come in and they'd pick up everything
and they'd transport it wherever Moses said. Moses would lead
the way, following the pillar of cloud by day or the pillar
of fire by night. He would follow. And then when
that stopped, then Moses would say, okay, it's time to make
camp again. And then, uh, The Levites would
put down the furniture and all the things that they were carrying,
all the boards, everything. And then Aaron and his sons would
take the vessels and then they'd uncover them and set them up.
Not only that, but look back in chapter one. Look back in
chapter one, and I'll begin reading at verse 50. So now we're beginning
to understand the Levites, hey, they had very important positions,
right? They had jobs to do. No, they're
not the priesthood, but they had duties to which they were
assigned by God. I look here in chapter one of
Numbers. Look at verse 50. But thou shall
appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the testimony.
Chapter one, verse 50. And over all things that belong
to it, they shall bear the tabernacle and all the vessels thereof,
and they shall minister unto it, and they shall encamp round
about the tabernacle. And when the tabernacle set it
forward, the Levites shall take it down. And when the tabernacle
is to be pitched, the Levites shall set it up, and the stranger
that cometh nigh shall be put to death. And the children of
Israel shall pitch their tents, every man by his own camp, and
every man by his own standard throughout their host. But the
Levites," this includes Korah, But the Levites, they shall pitch
round about the tabernacle of testimony, that there be no wrath
upon the congregation of the children of Israel, and the Levites,
they shall keep the charge of the tabernacle of the testimony.
In other words, they were the guards of the tabernacle. Who's
gonna guard the tabernacle? You see those men out there?
Anybody in Israel, in any camp, they could look out at night,
if they were camped at night, they could look out and of course
there was light because the Lord was a pillar of fire by night.
They could look out there and they could see, look at all those
Levites around the tabernacle and guarding it and watching
over everything. We can rest easy. Now, go back
to our text in Numbers chapter 16. So we know that this man
Korah, he has a very important position. It's not a position
to be taken lightly. He must bear, he and his associates
must bear the vessels of the tabernacle, even though they
were covered, they could still touch the staves of it, the handles
of the things. And they'd carry everything.
Nothing was carried on by a wagon pulled by oxen. The Levites carried
everything. This is the way God ordained
it. The priesthood ministered to God for the people. And the
Levites, they were the ones who served, as it were, the priesthood
to get everything ready. They don't have light jobs. They're
very significant positions that they held. In fact, Moses said
this to Korah. Look at verse nine, back in our
text in chapter 16. He said, "'Seemeth it a small
thing unto you "'that the God of Israel hath separated you
"'from the congregation of Israel "'to bring you near to himself,
"'to do the service of the tabernacle of the Lord, "'and to stand before
the congregation "'to minister unto them?' Is that a small thing?
Do you realize what a responsibility you have? And God gave it to
you. Look at verse 10. And he hath
brought thee near to him, and all thy brethren, the sons of
Levi with thee. Would you also seek the priesthood? So that's what you really want.
You're not satisfied with where God puts you. Oh, to be satisfied
with where God puts us. To be faithful in the position
that God puts us in. So this is this man Korah. And then he recruited evidently
these other men. That would be Dathan and Abiram,
the sons of Eliab, and another man, his name is On. And it's interesting, you don't
read of On anymore. It is thought by most that When
Moses started talking to Korah about the evil that he was doing,
that on said, I'm out of here. And so you don't read of him
being part of the judgment. But notice this, these are the
sons of Reuben. Now, what do we know about Reuben? We know about Levi, that's the
priestly tribe, and those are the ones who serve about the
holy thing. That's the tribe of Levi. Very
significant thing. And then there's the tribe of
Reuben. What do we know about Reuben?
He's the firstborn. He's the firstborn. And up until
that time that God gave his law, In the family, the priesthood
and the leadership of the family went to who? The firstborn. So Reuben would have been, and
indeed he was, used to being in authority and so were his
offspring. But then when God sets up things,
when he gave the law, when he set up his, the way that he would
have things to be done, it would be the Levites who would minister
to him. But you know who would be the
governor or the leader or where the kings would come from? You
see, Reuben and the Reubenites would think, it'll come to us.
Well, why would you think that? Because Reuben was the firstborn. But it doesn't go to Reuben.
Who'd it go to? Judah, Judah. Our Lord came forth from Judah. He is that one who rules over
all. The king, the king would come
from Judah, Shiloh, Messiah. Well, the Reubenites then, let
me kind of see if I can make it simple for you. The Reubenites
would especially have difficulty with Moses. And you can understand because
Moses, what tribe's he from? Levi. He's Aaron's brother. So he is of the tribe of Levi. And here he is, he's been elevated
to being as governor over Israel. I wouldn't say king, because
they had no king but the Lord. The Lord is their king. But Moses
is the governor. He has the role of leadership. And this was a thorn in the sides
of those who were descendants of Reuben. That's why they opposed
Moses. It was his leadership. We will
not have this man rule over us. That's what the Reubenites said.
And that's what people have said about our Lord Jesus. This has
always been the issue with the opponents of, the enemies of
Christ. We won't have this man to rule
over us. That was the issue in the Garden
of Eden. The rule of the Lord. This was the issue at the cross
of Calvary. You, you're a man. You, we know
your mother, father, your brothers and sisters. We won't have you
rule over us. But he does, because God's made
him king of kings and Lord of lords. So the Reubenites, their
objection was to Moses. He's the head, he's the leader. Wait a minute, we come from the
firstborn tribe. So they were envious of Moses'
position as the leader. But when it came to Korah, he's
envious of Aaron. because he's of the tribe of
Levi. And of course, they came to Moses,
and this is what they had to say. So now we know who Corin
and his associates were. And by the way, 250 others joined
them. These were men of renown, people
famous, you know, in any, city or region or state or nation. There are people who kind of
rise up as leaders, men of renown. That's the way it was with these
here in verse 2. And so they said to Korah, we're
with you. You can count on us. We're on
your side. And so they all go to Moses.
If we look at verse two, and here's the second question, now
that we know who they are, here's the second question, what was
their sin? Look at verse two, chapter 16. And they gathered
themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and they said
unto them, you take too much upon you. Well now, wait a minute,
Moses didn't take this position. He didn't take the position of
authority. In fact, he didn't want it. He didn't want it. And when God said, I'm going
to send you, Moses said, I can't even talk. I'm tongue-tied. You want to send somebody else.
It is not a position to which he aspired. It was one God designated
for him. And the same with Aaron. He didn't
seek this position. But here's the accusation in
verse three, you take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation
are holy. Now, here's what Cora is saying. Moses, you're the leader and
you're the, he had a very important office in addition to being a
leader. He's a prophet. He's a prophet. That which God
had to say to the congregation, he said to Moses, and then Moses
gave the word to the congregation. He is the prophet. Aaron, he is the high priest. He dealt with God on behalf of
the people. So, you understand? Moses dealt
with the people on behalf of God. He's got the Word of God. God said, I'll give you the words
to speak. You speak the things that I tell
you to speak. Whereas Aaron deals with God
on behalf of the people. What did he do? He offered sacrifices. Every sacrifice pointing to the
sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. But the blood of bulls and goats
could never put away sin. They pictured the work of the
Lord Jesus. You see, when our Savior came
into the world, He died God's sacrifice for sin. All those
other ones, they were pictures of Him. They were types of Christ,
we'll say. There were portraits of him.
But the blood of all of those animals that were sacrificed,
and rivers of blood flowed in Israel. We know that from when
they began to offer sacrifices. None of them could put away sin.
But this man, when he came, he put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. And Aaron, he was the one, the
high priest, who labored on behalf of Israel, offering the sacrifices
and burning the incense. Well, what was the significance
of the incense? We know the significance of the
sacrifices. Sacrifices were offered on the
brazen altar. That's a big piece of furniture.
As soon as you walked by the tabernacle, that's what you saw. Look at this massive altar, brazen
altar. Look at the smoke coming off
of it. Always smoke coming off of it
because that's where God was worshipped. There was the morning
sacrifice and the evening sacrifice. And if you had lived back then,
if I had lived back then, I'd brought my wife and my children,
my grandchildren, we'd go up to the door of the tabernacle
and we'd say to the priest, I want to worship God. We know we're
sinners. We know we've broken God's law
outwardly and inwardly. And this is the best lamb I got
in my flock. This is the best. In fact, we've
named this lamb. He's so precious to us. But we're
bringing the very best lamb to God to be offered by you as a
sacrifice to God, as a sin offering, a sin offering for us. And we know we're not fit to
come to God. We're sinful people, we're wretched
people, but we're bringing this animal. I want you to kill it.
We're going to stand here and we're going to watch while you
kill that animal. You shed its blood and then you
put its carcass up on the fire. And as that smoke goes up to
God, it goes up to God as a propitiation Can you remember that big word?
Propitiation, satisfaction of divine justice. As that smoke
goes up to God, He'll accept it on our behalf as He remembers
that blood of the covenant of the Lord Jesus, His only begotten
Son that will be shed sometime in the future. And that's where
the priest would kill that lamb and shed the blood and put that
carcass up there. That's the job of the priest.
But then as far as Aaron, who's the high priest, one day of the
year, and you know about this, Leviticus 16, the day of atonement,
one man did everything to appease the justice of God. He killed
the sacrifices, one for himself and one for Israel. And he went
into the Holy of Holies and he shed the blood that was necessary. But he also had the incense.
And let me get to the censer and the incense. When Aaron would
minister before God on behalf of the people and pray for them,
he could never, now listen, He could never enter into the presence
of God without blood. Blood that was acceptable to
God. And he could never enter in without
burning incense. And here's what he'd do, he'd
take his censer, he'd take some tongs, he'd go out to the brazen
altar, and on that censer, he'd take some hot coals, put them
in there. Where'd he get them hot coals?
From the place of sacrifice. That's significant now, from
that place of offering for sin. He'd put those on there. Then
he had some frankincense. He'd put that on there. And he'd
go in to the altar of incense. He'd wave that incense. This is for you, Lord. as the
smoke ascended up. This sacrifice is for you. It
came off the altar. And then on the day of atonement,
he'd go back into the Holy of Holies, sprinkle the mercy seed,
and before the mercy seed with blood seven times. But he still
had that censer, because it had those hot coals. Those hot coals
came from the altar. It came where the sacrifice was
offered. And that incense spoke to God,
pleasing things, that there's been a death of an innocent victim
in the stead of the guilty. And so God was appeased. His
anger was appeased for a while, that day of atonement. But the
next year, Aaron had to do all that all over again. because
that didn't settle the issue. But here's what I want you to
remember. Aaron ministered to God on behalf of the people. Moses ministered to the people
on behalf of God. Now he represented Christ, our
prophet. In fact, the Lord had said back
in the book of Deuteronomy, I'll raise up prophet unto you. And so when our Lord Jesus, he'd
be teaching, they'd say to him, or first of all, they said to
John the Baptist, are you that prophet? John the Baptist said,
I'm not that prophet. They were all looking for that
prophet, that prophet greater than Moses, that prophet who
would have the word of God. You see, the words that Moses
spoke to the people when he spoke for God, they weren't his words.
And you know, our Lord Jesus, himself being the righteous,
faithful servant of God, when he spoke to the people, he said,
the words that I speak unto you, they're not mine. They didn't
originate with me. I'm God's faithful servant. I
speak to you the word of God. He is the incarnate word who
came and delivered the people. word from God, and this written
word is all about Him as well. God who at sundry times spoke
unto the prophets through many prophets and spoke in various
ways, but there in Hebrews chapter one it says, in these last days
He's spoken unto us through His Son. He's God's prophet. Now
listen, if you're going to hear from God, you'll have to hear from God
through Jesus Christ. And you see, Korah would do away
with this prophet. You do away with Jesus Christ,
which is what many people do, you're not gonna hear anything
from God. And you will hear words from Jesus Christ one day, the
judge, depart from me, I never knew you. And if you reject his
priesthood, then you reject the only offering for sin. These
are the sins of Korah and these men who followed him. Well, what
happened to these rebels is the third question. Notice, and I didn't get Ron
to read these verses, but let's look at verse, start verse 12.
And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab,
which said, we will not come up. They said, we're not gonna
come meet you. They didn't even think he was
worthy to be spoken to. Is it a small thing that thou
hast brought us up out of the land that floweth with milk and
honey? Are you kidding me? Read that again. Is it a small
thing that thou hast brought us up out of the land that floweth
with milk and honey? Is that what Egypt was to them? To just kill us in the wilderness?
Except thou make thyself altogether a prince over us, it's your authority. And you'll notice that it's Dathan
and Abiram who said this, They're the Reubenites. They had trouble
with the authority of Moses. This is what they had difficulty
of. They despised his rule, which is what people despise with Jesus
Christ. They don't mind Jesus Christ
blessing the little children and healing the sick. That's
all right. In fact, our Lord Jesus asked
the Jews one time, said, for which of my good works do you
stone me? And they said, for good work
we stone you not, but because you being a man, you say you're
God. And being God, you're saying
you have dominion over us. Yes, He does have dominion over
you. And He's got dominion over me
too. He's got dominion over all things as a reward for His death
upon the cross of Calvary. God's made Him, Scripture says
in Acts, He's made Him a Prince and a Savior for to give repentance
of sin to Israel. Look at verse 14. Moreover, thou
hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and honey,
or given us inheritance of fields and vineyards. Wilt thou put
out the eyes of these men? We won't come up, and Moses was
mad. He said unto the Lord, respect
not their offering. That is significant there, and
we could really spend some time there, because if you go all
the way back to the book of Genesis chapter four, What is said about
Cain's offering? God had not respect to the offering
of Cain. God didn't regard it. God turned
away from it. And now Moses, he prays to the
Lord and says, Lord, turn away from their sacrifice. He says,
I hadn't taken one ass from them, neither have I heard any of them.
And Moses said unto Korah, be thou and all thy company before
the Lord thou and they and Aaron tomorrow. Tomorrow's the day.
and take every man his censer and put incense in them, and
bring them before the Lord, every man his censer, 250 censers,
thou also an heir, and each of you his censer." Now, wait a
minute, if you've been keeping up, if you read with me a little
bit ago, were they supposed to touch the censers? No. Moses said, go get you a censer.
That sealed their doom right there. Right? Put on your thinking
caps. Remember my fourth grade teacher.
Keep your elbows off the table and put your thinking cap on.
The Lord said, the Levites, you don't touch the holy things.
Go get your censer. Grabbed hold of that censer.
Grab and hold to death. Grab and hold to death. Nobody
can minister before the Lord but the priesthood. They took every man his censer
and put fire in them, laid incense their own, stood in the door
of the tabernacle of the congregation with Moses and Aaron and Korah
gathered all the congregation against them under the door of
the tabernacle of the congregation. Uh-oh, watch this. The glory
of the Lord appeared under the congregation. The Lord had been very much aware
of all these things going on. And now he makes himself known.
Here comes the Shekinah glory. And the Lord said to Moses and
Aaron, separate yourselves from this congregation. I'm going
to kill them all right now. Moses and Aaron loved the people.
Verse 22, they fell on their faces and said, Oh God, the God
of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin and wilt thou
be wroth with all the congregation? That man over there, Korah, he's
the ringleader. Don't kill them all, Lord. So
the Lord spoke to Moses and Ron read this to us. You tell all
the congregation to get away from these fellows. I got to
get away from them. And the next day, Korah and these
guys and the 250, they appeared and there was Aaron with Moses.
And Moses said, now this is the way it's going to be. Preach
to the congregation. This is the way it's going to
be, y'all. If these men die a natural death, they have a heart attack
or a stroke or something like that, then you'll know God didn't
send me. But if they die, an unusual death,
a death like you've never seen the likes of before and you won't
see the likes of it again. If this earth opens up and just
swallows them down to the pit, them and their families and their
little children, all of them together, then you'll know I'm
God's man. I'm God's preacher. I'm God's
prophet. I'm the leader of this group.
And Aaron, my brother, is the high priest who ministers to
God concerning holy things. And all of a sudden, we read
it, the ground opened up, and here are these people screaming
at the top of their lungs, Oh no! Lord have mercy! But no mercy is going to be shown.
I don't want to die! Not my kids! All of them together,
go down in the pit. Ground closed up. And I reckon
the 250 fellows who were also up on them said, didn't get us. Oh, the Lord's got something
reserved for you. That's your kind of glory. Sent
out a lightning of fire! Burned them all to a crisp. Listen, do not seek to do away
with Jesus Christ, God's prophet and God's high priest. God will
kill you over it. You'll die forever in hell. That's for sure. That's what
we learn from this. He speaks to us for God. Christ does. Here's the words
of God. Everything you need to know about
God, about yourself, about salvation, you learn from the Lord Jesus
Christ. And He alone ministers to God
for us. He is the sacrifice. He offered
the sacrifice to God that satisfied God and actually put away the
sins of all of His people. He's the only way you can come
to God. Don't try to come another way. You'll die. I'm warning you, you'll die. And then this is interesting.
I'll give you this to close. Look at verse 36. And the Lord
spake to Moses saying, now, I want you to speak to Eleazar. He's
the son of Aaron, the priest. Tell him to take up the censers
of the burning. Could Eleazar touch those censers? Well, sure he could. He's a priest. Take them all up, scatter thou
the fire yonder for they are hallowed. You see that fire right
there that's still burning? Consuming the bodies of those
250, yeah. Well, put the censers in there
and melt them down. The fuel for the fire of their
bodies. and let them make broad plates
for a covering of the altar. For they offered them before
the Lord, therefore they are hallowed. and they shall be a
sign to the children of Israel. And Eliezer the priest took the
brazen censers wherewith they that had burnt had offered, and
they were made broad plates for a covering for the altar. The
Lord said to Moses, it'll be a memorial to the children of
Israel that no stranger which is not of the seed of Aaron come
nigh, come near to offer incense before the Lord, that he be not
as Korah and as his company as the Lord said to him by the hand
of Moses. Just make a covering for the
brazen altar. And every time people walk by
when that brazen altar is getting ready to be moved, and they see
that covering, and one of your kids says, where'd that covering
come from? Let me tell you a story. Let
me tell you where that covering come from. And talked to his
child, said, listen, don't be a fool. Don't be a fool. Hear the words of God's prophet.
follow God's high priest. Because God killed people who
denied the authority of His prophet, His preacher, Moses, and His
high priest. What a reminder. But this evening, I'm going to
preach on that last section And you can read it this afternoon.
Did the Israelites learn anything from all this? God help us to learn. May the
Lord put His Word in our hearts for His glory and for our good. Oh, Christ Jesus is the prophet
we need. Lord, teach me. And he's the high priest we need.
He said, I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the life. No man cometh
unto the Father but by me. Mary's not the way. Some dead
saint is not the way. You try to come to God that way,
one of these days God will, in a sense, open the ground up and
swallow you to the pit. It just won't work. He takes
great offense. Oh, hear me. God takes great
offense when you turn against His Son. Because He said, this
is My beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased. Oh, God make me
well pleased with Christ. And in Him, I'm righteous. I'm forgiven. I'm accepted. Well, let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for the lessons
of the gospel that are found here in this marvelous portion
of scripture. May we be good hearers of the
word and doers of the word too. We flee to that one who is the
ruler, the prophet, the prince in Israel, even our Lord Jesus
Christ, and bow to his authority and learn from him. The Savior
said, come unto me, all the labor and heavy laden, I'll give you
rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. And we're not gonna
learn from him if we don't hear his voice. Lord, speak to us
through Christ, through this written word. And we come to
you through him who is our high priest. Lord, we present nothing
to you but the blood of Christ Jesus, his merits only. That's how we come to you. And
in him, we're accepted. Teach us, oh God. Send us away
this morning thinking of serious things. These are such heavy,
heavy subjects. We're so caught up in frivolous
things in this world. There's a God to be worshiped.
There's a savior to be believed. There's an eternity to spend
somewhere. There's a death that we've got
to die. Oh, God, bring us to Christ,
who is the true prophet and the true high priest. In his name,
I ask these things, amen.