I've entitled tonight's message,
Phineas. Now I would like you to turn
to Revelation chapter 2 and hold your finger there and turn to
Numbers chapter 25. What I just read about in 1 Corinthians
chapter 10 verse 8 is a reference to what took place in the book
of Numbers chapter 25. Now before this took place, three
chapters are devoted to Balaam. Balaam is the prototype of a
false prophet. He could even be seen as a type
of Satan. And I think it is interesting
from this morning's message, I didn't touch on it, but after
he said, enter in at the straight gate, what is the first warning
he gives? Beware of false prophets. And we're going to learn something
about what a false prophet is through this man, Balaam. Now,
like I said, this took place directly after Balaam. We read in verse 25 of chapter
24. And Balaam rose up and went,
returned to his place. And Balak also went his way. And Israel abode in Shittim,
And the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of
Moab. And they called the people unto
the sacrifices of their gods. And the people did eat and bowed
down to their gods. And Israel joined himself unto
Baalpeor. And the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Israel. Now look in Revelation chapter
2 for just a moment. The Lord Jesus refers to this
event. Revelation chapter 2 verse 14. He says to the church of Pergamos,
But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast them
there that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balaam
to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat
things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication." Now,
if you'll remember, Balaam said, curse Israel. Balaam said, I
can't do it. I can't curse whom God hadn't
cursed. So Balaam comes up with an idea. You see, he was a covetous
man. He was an unbelieving man. You know, all you gotta do to
be a false prophet is be an unbeliever. That's all it takes. He was a
covetous man, and he knew that if he could get the children
of Israel to go with the children of Moab, they would commit fornication
with him, they would worship their gods, and he wouldn't have
to curse Israel. God would remove himself from
Israel because of what they did. He knew that would take place.
And therefore, he counseled them to, here's what y'all need to
do. Mix your daughters with their sons, co-mingle, they'll end
up worshiping your gods. And this is what will take place.
And as a matter of fact, turn to numbers 31 verse 15. And Moses said unto them, Numbers
31 verse 15. And Moses said unto them, have
you saved all the women alive? Behold, these cause, this is
talking about what took place in Numbers chapter 25. Behold,
these cause the children of Israel through the counsel of Balaam.
See that? It was Balaam who counseled this.
To commit trespass against the Lord in the Maddal of Peor. And
there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. We
know from these scriptures that Balaam influenced them to do
this. He couldn't get God to curse
them, but he influenced them in this light. Now, Balaam is
the prototype of a false prophet. If you want to understand what
a false prophet is, understand this man, Balaam. He's mentioned
in Jude as the one the false prophets greedily go after with
the greed of Balaam. Balaam was a greedy man. He was
a covetous man. You see, he was not a believer.
He had no love for God. He had no love for the gospel.
Therefore, all he was concerned about is how he could be advantaged.
He was a greedy and a covetous man. And then Peter speaks of
those who are forsaken the right way and gone after astray following
the way of Balaam. He's mentioned three times in
the scripture as an example of what a false prophet is. And
I think this is so interesting. If you would read Numbers 22
through 24, that's the history of Balaam, you won't find one
thing he said that you would disagree with. I hope this week
perhaps you'll read Numbers 22 through 24. And he said some
very good things, as a matter of fact. He said some things
that were gospel statements. But he was an unbeliever. He had no love for God. He was
controlled by covetousness, and nothing he said was wrong. The Balaam, the king of Moab,
promised him great riches, and what drove this man was riches.
You see, he had no love for God. He had no love for Christ. He
was an unbelieving man. And I want to repeat this, all
it takes to be a false prophet is to not have a new nature,
to not have the new birth, to be a natural man. Now, Balaam
saw that the Lord would not curse Israel, so he counseled the Moabites
to seduce the children of Israel into committing fornication with
them, having their daughters with our sons, and this would
be the end of it. They ended up joining themselves,
that's verse two, and they called the people unto the sacrifices
of their gods, and the people did eat, and bowed down to their
gods, and Israel joined himself unto Baal Peor, and the anger
of the Lord was kindled against Israel. They'll compromise. They'll compromise. Now, the doctrine of Balaam is
the doctrine of compromise. If you let one thing go because
you think you can be advantaged by it, you don't have to deny
anything. Just leave it out. Just don't say it. Don't mention
it. You don't have to deny anything.
Just leave it out. That is what Balaam did. He didn't say to them, God's
gonna curse Israel or you do something. No, just here's all
you need to do. Go into them and they will end
up compromising. You don't have to use error.
You don't have to say anything. Just don't say anything. Leave out and remain silent on
any aspect of the gospel. Now I understand this. If I willfully,
leave out some aspect of the gospel. I don't care what it
is. If I leave out some aspect of the gospel for my personal
advantage, I've compromised and I've proved myself to be a false
prophet. That's what Balaam was. He's
the man the New Testament uses to exemplify to us what a false
prophet is. The people of the Lord said,
beware of false prophets. What drove Balaam was no love
for God, no desire for his glory, no zeal for his glory. The bottom
line is he had no love for God. He had no love for Christ. He
didn't believe the gospel. So he was willing to get the
children of Israel to compromise in order to have the Lord's anger
come upon them, which it certainly did. Now, in Numbers 25, and
remember, this is what the Lord warned them about in Revelation
2, verse 14. He said, Balaam taught the children
of Israel to, turn back there, I can't remember
exactly what it says. Verse 14, but I have a few things
against thee, because thou hast them there that hold the doctrine
of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before
the children of Israel. And two things, to eat things
sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication. Now those
two things really represent something. They were no doubt committing
physical fornication, which is sinful, it's evil, it's sex outside
of the marriage covenant. But what this is representing,
eat things sacrificed to idols, draw nourishment from that which
is false and idolatrous. You can benefit from that. You
can profit from that. and to go outside the marriage
covenant, go outside the covenant of God's grace to find comfort
and peace. He was influencing the people
to do this. So let's go back to Numbers 25. Now remember, all of this was
through Balaam's advice, Balaam's counsel. In Israel, Abodah and
Shittim, The people began to commit whoredom with the daughters
of Moab, and they called the people unto the sacrifice of
their gods. And the people did eat and bowed
down to their gods after all they had seen, after all the
Lord had done for them. Look how easily they were swayed. But Israel joined himself unto
Baal Peor, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against them
after all the Lord had done for them. Let me read a passage from
Psalm 106 verses 28 and 29. The Psalmist says, they joined
themselves to Baal Peor and ate the sacrifices of the dead. Dead religion, dead works, that
which brings on death. They provoked him to anger with
their inventions and the plague broke out upon them. Now let's
go on reading in verse four of Numbers chapter 25. And the Lord
said unto Moses, take all the heads of the people and hang
them up before the Lord against the sun that the fierce anger
of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. The head of every
tribe was hung up and put to death before the Lord. Moses said unto the judges of
Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baal
Peor. Verse six, And behold, one of the children
of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianites woman. of the children of Moab. In the
very sight of Moses, so brazen, he didn't care. And in the sight
of all the congregation of the children of Israel who were weeping
before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, a lot of
people had been killed. They'd seen a lot of their leaders
slaughtered. They were horrified over what was taking place. They
were weeping over what was taking place. They saw their sin had
brought this on them by joining themselves to Belpior. And all
of a sudden this guy comes in with what brought the Lord's
wrath in the first place. And does it brazenly in front
of everybody and goes into his tent. Verse seven. And when Phinehas son of Eleazar,
the son of Aaron, he was Aaron's grandson, saw it, he rose up
from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand and
he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both
of them through, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly. And what happened because of
that event? This man going into a tent, taking a javelin, and
striking it through these two people, so they both died. The
scripture says the plague was stayed from the children of Israel. Now, already 23, 24,000 people
had died from this plague. I mean, you think of the devastation
of that. That many had already died. That's a whole lot of people
And all of a sudden, when he did this thing and took this
javelin and threw it through these two people, which was the
cause of the judgment in the first place, the plague was stayed. And those that died in the plague
were 20 and 4,000. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, Phinehas, the son of Eliezer, the son of Aaron, the
priest, hath turned away my wrath, turned my wrath away from the
children of Israel, for he was zealous for my sake among them,
that I consume not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore,
behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace, and he shall have it
and his seat after him, even the covenant of an everlasting
priesthood. Not the Aaronic priesthood, the
priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, that eternal priesthood. Because he was zealous for his
God and made an atonement for the children of Israel. Now what
a type of Christ Phinehas is in this. By the death of Christ,
he put to death the cause of death. What a glorious type of
Christ. When the javelin of God's justice
was thrust through him, he put to death the cause of death.
Now the cause of death here was them intermingling with the heathen
and ending up bowing before their gods and eating the sacrifice
of the dead. That was the cause of God's wrath
in the first place. And what does Phinehas do? He
kills the cause of God's wrath. He puts to death the cause of
God's wrath. And the plague was stayed. Now the true and the living God. I love to call him that. The
true and the living God. There's a lot of false dead gods
that are preached in our day, but there's one true and living
God. He's altogether righteous. He's
altogether just. Justice and judgment are the
habitation of His throne. This is the God of the Bible.
He said, I will by no means clear the guilty. And I love it that
He's like that. If He wasn't like that, what
would that make Him? An unjust God. of corrupt God, but that
shall never be. He said, I will by no means under
no circumstance whatsoever clear the guilty. If a human judge
cleared the guilty, we'd get him out of office. He's a corrupt
judge. He's an unjust judge, but thank
God he is absolutely just. Justice and judgment are the
habitation of his throne. Now, when these two people went
brazenly in the sight of Moses and the congregation into the
tent, they were saying, I don't care about God, I don't care
about his character, I don't care about his glory, I have
no love for him, no concern for him. Phinehas loved God. I want you to understand this,
the key behind zeal is love. If I love him, I'll be zealous
for his glory and for his honor. Phineas loved God. He loved all
of his attributes. He had a zeal for God and he
could not bear it when men sought to diminish God's character.
And when he saw these men had no love or reverence for any
of his attributes. Look what verse 13 says about
this man. He shall have it, this covenant
of peace. and his seed after him, even in the covenant of
an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God. And
he made an atonement for the children of Israel." Now, zealous,
jealous. Ought not we to be utterly zealous
for the glory of God, for the honor of Jesus Christ? Yes, sir,
we should. Phineas was. God says this with
regard to himself. He says, I am a jealous God. Exodus 34 verse 14. It says that
in more places than one. God says, I am a jealous God. God is intolerant of rivals. Those who would detract from
his glory are his enemies. And it's right that it should
be that way because of the transcended excellency and glory of this
person. Turn with me for a moment to
Exodus chapter 20. I want you to see the commandment against
idolatry. Verse four, thou shalt not make unto thee
any graven image, or any likeness of anything that's in heaven
above, or that's in the earth beneath, or that's in the water
under the earth, any religious trinkets, anything material,
physical that is to be used to help us worship God. Now, what's
behind that? Verse 5, thou shalt not bow down
thyself to them, Nor serve him, for I, the Lord thy God, am a
what? Jealous God. Intolerant of rivals. This is who he is. And it ought
to be that way because of who he is. Somebody says, why is
he so jealous? Because he's holy. That's why. Because he's altogether
glorious because of who he is. Now let's go on reading. I the
Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the
fathers upon the children and to the third and fourth generation
of them that," what's that next? Hate me. What's behind idolatry,
a false image, a false idea of God? Hatred of the living God. Verse six, showing mercy into
the thousands of them that love me. There's the difference. One
hates, one loves him. And keep my commandments. Now the children of Israel had
compromised to the point of joining themselves to these false gods
through the action of these two people. And Phinehas, consumed
with a zeal for God's glory, out of love for God, put them
to death. And if you think he was wrong
and overreacting, it's because you, or if I think that, it's
because we have very little understanding of the glory of God. He put them to death. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ was
consumed with a zeal for his father. Don't you love that?
in John chapter 2 when he made a whip and drove the people out
of the temple and it said, for the zeal of thine house, this
was John's comment, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me
up. He was eaten up with the zeal
for his father's glory. And we are called to throw the
javelin through that which detracts from his glory. Now, what he
did when he threw that javelin through those two people, it
was said that the plague was stayed. The plague was stopped. And I love to think of the moment
Christ Jesus died, the plague was stopped. It was stayed. He was delivered for our offenses.
He was raised again for our justification. He had such a zeal for his father
that he couldn't bear that his father be dishonored. He couldn't
bear that sin go unpunished. All the love he had for his father. And when the javelin of God's
justice went through him, the plague was stayed. Now, God's testimony concerning
this man after he did this, verse 10. And the Lord spake unto Moses,
saying, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the
priest, hath turned away my wrath away from the children of Israel.
Now, that's exactly what the Lord did for us, isn't it? While
he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consume not the
children of Israel in my jealousy. Verse 12, wherefore, behold,
I give unto him my covenant of peace. And that's speaking of the covenant
of grace. I love the way it's called the covenant of peace.
The only peace that I have in my heart that God loves me and
accepts me and has his favor toward me is because of the covenant
of peace where with Christ made my peace before God. There are
two covenants, covenant of works Salvation dependent upon me first
doing something before God will act for me. All that is is work. If you think, if I think there's
something I must do, I don't care what it is, if there's something
I must do before God will do something for me, that's the
covenant of works. That's salvation dependent upon
something I do. The covenant of peace is Jesus
Christ made my peace before God. When He died, my peace was accomplished. Oh, the joy and peace of believing. You and I, like Phineas, should
be concealed or consumed with a zeal for His glory because
we love Him. I love the Lord. I love how He is. I love His
attributes. I love His holiness. I love His
sovereignty. I love His justice. I love His
power. I love His wisdom. I love His
immutability. I love His independence. Every
attribute of God I love. I love Him. If it were in my
power to change one thing with regard to God, I wouldn't do
it because He's the perfect being altogether lovely. Now you couldn't
say that about any human being. If you knew Him, there's things
about Him you'd change. I guarantee you there's things
about me, Lynn, would change. And I wish I'd change forward. Going into one of those weird
things. But the point is, He's altogether lovely. He's altogether
glorious. Now, I'm not sitting here thinking,
oh, I really love the Lord in the sense of You know, I hate
it when somebody says, he really loved the Lord. I don't want
to be described by somebody who really loved the Lord. I want
to be described as somebody the Lord loves, like John, the disciple
whom Jesus loved. I don't want to talk about the
strength of my love. I just want to talk about the
glory of this person. You speak of him, you love him,
don't you? You love who he is. You love
his word. You love his way of salvation. He gave him the covenant
of peace. And the only ground of my peace
is that ground David spoke of when he said, although my house
be not so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, this is all my salvation. Is that all your salvation? Can
you say that with the same conviction David did? This covenant he made
with me, ordered in all things, and sure, this everlasting covenant
was made in eternity. That's all my salvation. And
it's all my desire. I don't want it to be any other
way. That is the peace of the believer. Verse 13. Verse 12, behold, I've given
him my covenant of peace and he shall have it. and his seed
after him." Now that, no doubt, is a type of Christ. Because
of what he did, he'll have it and his seed after him. That's
all of the elect. That's every believer. And he
shall have it and his seed after him, even the covenant of an
everlasting priesthood. Now I love this. You know the
priesthood of Aaron was temporary. It was temporary. It's come and
it's gone, but this is the eternal priesthood of our great Melchizedek,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore he is able to save
them to the uttermost, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession
for them. And this is an everlasting priesthood
that Christ, my everlasting priest, represents me. And he shall have
it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting
priesthood, because he gives two reasons. because he was zealous
for his God and made an atonement for the children of Israel. When I think of my zeal and when
I feel ashamed, it ought to be so much greater
But I'll tell you who had a zeal for His Father, the Lord Jesus
Christ. And here's what's glorious, His
zeal is my zeal. I'm not ashamed of that zeal.
As He is, so are we in the world. And when the Father looks at
every one of His people, They're zealous for my sake. They're
zealous for my glory. Like I said, when we think of
our zeal, we don't feel real good about it. But oh, the zeal
of the Lord Jesus Christ for his father's glory. Now, look
at this next statement made in verse 13. And oh, what a type
of Christ he is here. Not only was he zealous for his
God, he made an atonement for the children of Israel. What Phinehas did was a type
of Christ's atonement, his successful atonement. I want to give you
some words that the King James uses this word atonement and
how it translates it, and it gives us some idea of what this
means. You see, when Phinehas threw
that javelin through those two people, an atonement was made. The plague was stayed. It was
stopped. And that's exactly what the Lord
accomplished by His death on the cross. He made an atonement.
Let me read you these words. Purge. The best thing I can think of,
I can remember seeing TV commercials about laundry detergent. Purge
those stains away. You put them in dirty, they come
out clean, gone, they're there no longer. That's what his atonement
did. It purged our sins. When he had by himself purged
our sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. It's translated
reconciliation or reconciled. God's reason for anger has been
removed. And through the atoning work
of Christ, I come into God's presence. He's pleased. I'm pleased
with him. Reconciliation. It's translated
forgive. It's translated pacify. It's
translated be merciful. It's translated disenold. I like that word, don't you?
It's translated appeased. It's translated put off. It's
translated pardoned. Now, what Phineas did represents
the atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ. I love Luke chapter
9 verse 31 where Moses and Elijah were speaking to the Lord on
the Mount of Transfiguration and they spake of the decease
which he should accomplish. The accomplishment of his death.
His death is the only death like that. When I die, you know what
it's going to say? He was a sinner. He was a failure.
That's all it's going to say. Weak. But when the Lord died,
oh, what an accomplishment there was in his death. Now, turn with
me to Psalm 106. This will be the last scripture
we look at. Now, when we're taking the Lord's
table tonight, what we're doing is celebrating the atonement
He accomplished. Psalm 106, verse 28. They joined themselves unto Baal
Peor, speaking of this event we've been looking at. They joined
themselves also unto Baal Peor, ate the sacrifices of the dead.
Thus they provoked him to anger with their inventions and the
plague break in upon them. Then stood up Phinehas and executed
judgment so that the plague was stayed and that was counted unto
him for righteousness to all generations forevermore. Now
there's three things said about what Phinehas did. First, he
executed judgment. And isn't that exactly what was
going on on the cross? The execution of judgment. God making the way to be absolutely
just and justify the ungodly. The execution of judgment. And
through this execution of judgment, the plague was stayed. It was
stopped. Now there's nothing but favor.
There's nothing but grace. The plague was stayed. And then
we have this word with regard to imputation. Verse 31, and
that was counted unto him. And that's the word that is imputed
to him, reckoned to him. It was counted unto him for righteousness. unto all generations." Now, here
we have the imputation of righteousness. The only way God will impute
righteousness to me or you is if we are righteous. And if we
are righteous, He'll impute righteousness. And this is what the Lord did
on Calvary's tree. He made me righteous. So God imputes righteousness
to me. You see the imputation of righteousness
is God imputing righteousness to me even though I'm sinful.
No, it's God imputing righteousness to me because in Christ, I really
am righteous. This is not some kind of changing
ledgers. I am righteous and God imputes
righteousness to me and unto all generations, all of his seed,
all of the seed of the Lord Jesus Christ forevermore. May you and I be enabled by the
grace of God to imitate Phineas' zeal. And remember this, Phineas
is a glorious type of Christ and his atoning work, and that's
what we're going to be celebrating right now. When we take the bread
and when we take the wine, what I'd love for us to be enabled
to remember is atonement's been made. Justice has been executed. The
plague has been stayed. Righteousness is imputed. And oh, may we enter into the
joy of this as the Lord enables us. Oh, come pass the bread and
wine out.