Open your Bibles to number 16.
This is a passage, as Todd said, it's about Korah, who is a Levite,
and it's about Dathan and Avira, who were the tribe of Reuben. And this is a particularly referenced scripture in both
the New and the Old Testament. So there's some significance
to what happened here in this story. And I'd like us to look
at it, and it is a story that we will see where God's wrath
is poured out on men. And we need to see why his wrath
is poured out on these men. I need to know how I can be before
him and his wrath cannot be poured out on me. because that's the
condition that I'm in and that you're in at this point. And
so I want us to examine this passage of scripture and look
at what happened here. And in this story it will tell
us a little bit about hell, it'll tell us about rebellion, and
it'll also tell us about one who stood between the living
and the dead. So I open this by asking a few questions that
you may already know but I'll ask them anyway. What is the
one requirement for entry into hell? One requirement is death. Is there anyone in here who's
not going to die? What is the requirement for death
to lay hold on you? Sin. Sin is the reason that death
comes. Is there anybody in here who
does not have sin? So you can see the problem that
we're all faced with at this point. If something is not done
with my sin or done about your sin, God justly will send us
all to hell. And this is the darkness of the
reality of what we are as men and women. Hell is an awful place,
it's a place of imagination. Nobody's seen it, nobody can
describe it. We have ideas in our head, but
yet it's a real place. We know very little about it,
but what we do know about it is it's separation from God. It's where he's not. There's
no crying out to God where he hears my cries if I'm someone
who's in hell. Hell is a place for punishment
for sin. There's no end to that punishment,
it's an eternal punishment because there's nothing that God can
do to be satisfied with punishing you enough because of what you
are, a sinner. Hell is a place of memory and
we see that in the scripture where the rich man who awoke
in hell and the only things that he spoke about were the things
that he remembered. not that he was sorry, not that
he was repenting, is that all was memories, times past, friends
that he'll miss, and opportunities lost. So the God of the Bible
does send men and women to hell, and it's critically important
that you and I find out why. What is it that caused, in this
passage we'll read about, these men and women to be sent to hell?
Now, as I said already, Korah, he was the great-grandson of
Levi. And who were the Levites? Levites
were the priests that served in the temple. So everything
that's laid out in the wall that talked about what they had to
do, service in the temple, where there were no seats, they were
constantly doing something. That tribe, those sons of Jacob,
were the ones who served in the temple. Now, this story is also
about Dathan and Abiram. These were some grandsons of
Reuben, and I think we talked a little bit about Reuben this
morning. What were the two things that were tied with Reuben? First is, you will not excel,
that's what his father told him, because you're unstable. Unstable
is water. So, we've got an unstable group
paired with priests, lineage that served in the temple. And
so, we're going to look at this whole chapter, and I'm going
to paraphrase some of it for length's sake, but I want us
to read a lot of this to understand what happened here. So, in verse
1 of chapter 16 of Numbers, it says, Now Korah the son of Izhar,
the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan of Aaron, the
sons of Eliab and On, and the son of Peleth, the son of Reuben,
took men And they rose up before Moses, and a certain of the children
of Israel, 250 princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation,
men of renown. And they gathered themselves
together against Moses and against Aaron. And they said unto them,
you take too much upon you, seeing that all the congregation are
holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them. Why then
do you lift yourselves up above the congregation of the Lord?"
And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face." Now what we're
going to see here in this story is that there are going to be
three charges that are going to be leveled against Korah,
Dathan, and Abiram and these 250 people that were with them.
And the first two are listed here. The first charge that's
leveled against them here was they stood up against Moses,
God's prophet. And they stood up against Aaron,
God's high priest. They were against them. The second
charge They say in verse three, he says, we're as holy as you
are. You take too much upon yourself. So what he was saying is, he
was talking to Aaron here. He was saying, because think
about what did the high priest do? High priest is the one who
is able to go into the holy of holies. The high priest is the
only one whom God would have any business with. They were
the only ones who could go in. And so he's saying, you take
too much upon yourselves, because remember, the Levites were the
ones all serving in the temple, but Aaron being the high priest,
he was the one who could go in. So they were saying, you are
no better than we are, and we can go in and speak to God just
like you can. That's exactly what they were
saying. So Moses tells them, he says, we're gonna find out
then who's holy, who the Lord will hear, and who he will allow
to approach unto him. And so if we look here over in
verse 8, Moses said unto Korah, Seemeth it but a small thing
unto you, that the God of Israel hath separated you from the congregation
of Israel, to bring you near unto himself, to do the service
of the tabernacle of the Lord, and to stand before the congregation
to minister unto them? And he hath brought thee near
unto him, and all thy brethren, the sons of Levi, with thee,
and seek ye the priesthood also? For which cause both you and
all thy company are gathered together against the Lord? And
what is Aaron, that you should murmur against him? So he tells
us here, you know, it says first of all that they're gathered
against Moses and Aaron. And here Moses replies to him,
he says, not only are you gathered against us, but you're gathered
against the Lord in this. What you're doing is rebelling
against him. You're murmuring against Aaron. Who's Aaron? He's
the high priest. He's the only one who can approach
unto God. And they were murmuring against
him. This is what it was all about. This is at the crux of
the issue. They opposed the high priest.
And in verse 12 here, this is the third charge. And Moses sent
to call Dathan and Byron. These were the two other guys
that led in this rebellion, the sons of Eliab, which said, we
will not come up. So the first charge was against
Moses and Aaron. The second was we're as holy
as you are. And the third here is that when called, they would
not hearken unto the words of God's servant. So I wanna look
at these three charges. I really wanna examine each of
these and see what is so heinous in these that we'll see later
cause God to pour out his wrath on these men. Why are they so
heinous? Well first, the first one, being
against Aaron, the high priest. They sought to overthrow the
authority and the purpose of the high priest. What was the
purpose to the high priest? First, he was the one who offered
the sacrifices for the sins of the people. That's a really important
job. I need sacrifices to be made
for my sins. That's what his job was. That's
what his calling was, was to do that for the people. Secondly,
what else do we know about the high priest? It tells us there
was only one. There wasn't more than one high
priest. There was only one. God would only deal with one
man. That was the high priest. Anybody else who went in there,
they were killed. If they went inside the veil
into the Holy of Holies, God would kill them on the spot.
Have you ever seen, growing up in cartoons, the big long hook
with the shepherd's hook on the end where they yank somebody
off? That comes from in that day where men would go into the
Holy of Holies and they would be killed. They'd pull them out
with that hook. That's what that was for. Because
they would die and they couldn't go in there to pull the body
out. That's what that hook was for. So anyone who comes into
the presence of God, in and of themselves, in your sin, God
will kill you. And that's what this is picturing.
It's only the high priest could come before Him. So next, he
crossed into the veil, the separation that exists between God and men.
Why is there a separation between God and men? As men and women,
we're sinners. God hates sin. God will have
nothing to do with sinners. He won't hear us. He won't have
anything to do with us other than pouring out His wrath upon
us. And so there was a veil to separate
so that we could not come into His presence. He won't hear what
I have to say. And the last thing is he offered
sacrifice for the people to God. And what was in there? The ark,
the mercy seat, where he sprinkled the blood. God was looking for
the blood. Now, consider this. In what they
were rebelling against, if the high priest is taken away, which
is what they were trying to do by saying, you take too much
on yourself, then what is the significance of sin and its effects?
What it's saying is, it's not so bad so that anybody can come
into God's presence. We don't need a high priest,
we can come to him in and of ourselves. It doesn't tell, first,
how holy God is, and second, it doesn't tell a story of how
bad sin is. So we have to have the high priest,
and God would only deal with the high priest, and he's no
different today. God will only hear his great
high priest. and the people sought to do away
with this great high priest." Now, this is not the first time
and nor would it be the last time for this sin to come about. Now, this is a very old sin.
And you think, I can't recall a time before this when this
happened. Let me give you some examples.
What did the servant tell Eve when she was in the garden that
eating the fruit would do? He said, it'll make you like
God. Not like you are now. You can't come into his presence.
You can't speak to him. You're not his equal. But if
you eat the fruit, you're like God and you can come into his
presence. And so what this was signifying
is that we don't want to be beneath God. We don't want that separation
to exist. We want to be able to come to
him as an equal. And so what happened when she
and Adam ate the fruit? The results were they became
fallen sinners. And here we all are because of
it. Why did Cain bring the fruit of the ground? He brought the
fruit of the ground because he sought acceptance on his own
terms. He had no regard for the sacrifice. This was the work of the high
priest. They brought the sacrifice. The sacrifice signified death
for sin. There's no death in the fruit
of the ground. He wanted to come by his own
way. So he saw no value in the sacrifice at all. There's no
value to Cain in the blood. And so what did God do with him?
He said, you're cursed for the rest of your days and all your
seed. Uzziah, remember King Uzziah, he deemed himself fit to go in
and bypass the high priest to offer sacrifice in the temple.
And they stood him up to his face and said, it appertaineth
not unto thee, Uzziah. You don't want to come in here.
This is not for you. You're the king. You're not the
priest. You can't come into the presence of God." And what did
it do to him? It said immediately he became
a leper. He became unclean. So you see,
there's something to this coming into the presence of God when
I have no right to be there. He will only hear it here at
his high priest. Saul, King Saul, they were getting
ready to go into battle and the one thing they needed was the
Lord's blessing before they went into this battle or they knew
they would get killed. So Saul was waiting on Samuel.
Samuel didn't come. So Saul said, I'm going to offer
the blood sacrifice because he's not here because we have to have
this or else we're all going to die. He offered the blood
sacrifice and then in walked Samuel. He said, what are you
done? So what happened to Saul because
of that? Saul was taken out of his kingship because of that.
He lost the kingship. He lost the Lord's favor in this
because he offered the sacrifice and he had no right to do it.
The Lord said, I hated them there for what they did in Gilgal.
So the Lord has a particular hatred for those who go around
the high priest and offer a sacrifice that's not the blood. And so
he had no right. He assumed that God changed because
his circumstances dictated something different, a different need.
And that's what these men and women were doing, were standing
up to Moses and Aaron. This is why God takes this so
seriously and deals so harshly with those who overstep the high
priest. It violates the type. This is all given as a picture
of our great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the
point of all this. He was the king, he's the prophet,
but he's also the high priest. He is the sacrifice for the people. He offered the sacrifice, the
sacrifice of himself. What greater sacrifice could
he have offered? This is the blood that only the
Father accepts. There's only one of these sacrifices.
No other sacrifice needed because of who died. He is the eternal
Godhead in a body. He's all we will ever see as
our High Priest, as our God, as our Savior, as our friend.
He's the only thing that we'll ever see, Jesus of Nazareth. He's the High Priest. And he
said, I'm the only way to the Father. The only way to the Father
in the Old Testament here was through the veil into the Holy
of Holies. He was the High Priest, the only
means by which someone could get to the Father. He said, no
man cometh unto the Father but by me. The only way into the
Holy of Holies, the only way through the veil, the only way
into God's presence was through the high priest. And for you
and I to have any communion with God and to be able to speak to
him, it must go through his high priest. And men hated this picture
in Aaron. They hated him. They hated Moses. They hated Jesus of Nazareth.
They said, we'll not have this man to reign over us. They hated
that God viewed them as too sinful, too corrupt, and beneath him
and beneath Aaron to come into his presence. And that's why
they said, you take too much on yourself. How about you? Is a priest required for you? Must you have the Lord Jesus
Christ intercede for you or else you'll die? You must or you will
die. And this is, and I pray that
the Lord shows each of us our great need of him because if
we don't have him for this, we're lost. So bypassing the high priest
is the great sin that was committed here by trying to overthrow Aaron
and cause him to be on the equal levels as the people were. The
second thing was, they said, we're just as holy as you. And
this is an utter misunderstanding of holiness. Holiness is that
which is other. It's different from what I am.
It's perfect because I'm not. It's sinless because I'm full
of sin. The scripture speaks of a holy
one, not ones. There is a holy one. And if you
or I are ever holy, it's because we're in him. There's nothing
that you or I do that's holy. Holiness speaks of a nature.
It's something that you're born with. You have to be born again
into this holy nature. We're born in our sins and that's
all we can do. But if the Lord births us again
through his Holy Spirit, we have a holy nature. This speaks of
being sinless. Whosoever is born of God doth
not commit sin. And he can't commit sin because
he's born of God. So we know this is what the holy
nature is. But the issue here is they assume
themselves to be fit. They assume themselves to be
able to come and to be able to approach God just like Aaron.
And this is what all false religion claims to do when they bring
their works, the things that they've sacrificed for God, their
efforts, the choice of their will, the things, you know, I
chose to believe, I chose to accept Jesus my Lord and Savior.
This lets us know that they think whatever they bring, it's gonna
be good enough. I meant well in doing it. God
can't expect perfection. Well, he does. God said that
he is holy and he said, be ye holy for I am holy. That doesn't
mean be good enough. It means be holy. The only way
that you or I can be holy is to have this new nature that
is given from the Holy Spirit. So they felt that they were holy
just like God's servant coming into them. And the last one,
they would not come when they were called. They were witnessed
to deliverance. Remember, these are the children
of Israel that came out of Egypt. Think about all the things that
they saw. They saw the serpent on the pole. They went through
the Red Sea that was parted. They saw Pharaoh's army crash
down. They saw the plagues. They saw
manna. They had water come out of the
rock. All these things they saw. But yet they wouldn't come when
they were called. They saw the miracles. They ate
the manna. They witnessed the types, the pictures. Moses and
Aaron communing with God. They saw that they even told
Moses, we don't want to talk to God. You go talk to him when
they heard the thunderings and the lightnings coming out of
Mount Sinai. They said, you talk to him for us. So they saw that
God only spoke with Aaron and Moses. Despite all this, The
imagination of the heart of men is only evil continually. That's all it can do. And when
a rebel hardens his heart like this, and they said, I won't
come, despite all the warnings, despite all the light that was
given to them through signs and wonders and miracles, they said,
we're not coming. Moses said, I want to talk to
you, let's talk about this, what you're doing, and what it is
you're saying before the Lord in this way. They said, we're
not gonna hear. This is when the lights go out
on the road to hell. I blot out my own eyes, because
I will not hear, I will not listen, and I will go my own way. And
the Lord might just let you do that. And this is the danger
of what he allowed these people to do here. Now, our pastor is
a man. And he's full of faults and failures
and infirmities just like you and I are. But when he gives
me counsel out of the word of God, I listen. I fear going against
his counsel because I know when he gives me counsel out of God's
word, God give him that. And I need to listen to what
he has to say. And he's God's servant and I don't take that
lightly. These men had no regard for God's servant and no regard
for his counsel. They said, we're not going to
listen. Well, let's pick it back up in our story to see where
we're at. In verse 19, this is what's happened when they wouldn't
come. Quorah gathered together all the congregation against
them under the door of the tabernacle. And the glory of the Lord appeared
unto all the congregation. And the Lord spake unto Moses
and Aaron saying, Separate yourselves from among this congregation,
that I may consume them in a moment.' And 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?
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the congregation,
saying, Get you up from about the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan
and Abiram. And Moses rose up and went unto
Dathan and Abiram, and the elders of Israel followed him. And he
spake unto the congregation, saying, Depart, I pray you, from
the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs,
lest you be consumed in all their sins. This is the culmination
of their rebellion. God said, Get away from them. Separate yourselves from them.
Don't be associated with anything that they're associated with.
They felt themselves fit to approach unto God. They felt themselves
that they didn't need a high priest. And let me be really
clear about this. Any man who tells you that grace
is free, but you've got to practice holy living, get away from that
man. That person has no idea what
grace is at all. This picture's what the Lord
is telling Moses to get the children of Israel away from these people.
They have no idea what they're talking about. Because somebody
who believes in grace, but yet tells you, you have to practice
holy living in order to be saved, tells you, first of all, they
don't believe in grace. Because otherwise, why is there a call
to holy living being required? Second, it tells you that they're
blind to what holiness is in the first place. Holiness is
in nature. This reveals that they don't
believe in two natures. It believes if you can decide
to practice holy living, it's different than you deciding to
practice sin. So it lets you know that they
don't believe in two natures. And third thing is, any child
of God who knows the price, you know the price that was required
to pay for your sin. the body, the blood, the suffering
of the Lord Jesus Christ. For one sin, he had to come and
be made flesh and be humiliated and rejected of men and be punched
in the face and be spit on and his beard ripped out and nailed
to a pole to bleed out and die. That was required for one sin
for one person. Any child of God who knows what
it took to pay for that sin, you'd never want to sin again.
To reduce it down to a series of do's and don'ts, I drank one
glass of wine, not three, that spits on the work of Christ.
This is not holy living. This is works. This is not grace. The work of Christ is complete.
It's perfect. Nothing to be added to it. And
for anyone to say that to perform holy living adds to it or gives
you something you didn't have, it tells you the work of Christ
is not finished. It's not complete. Get away from
the man that tells you that. This is the picture of what Moses
is saying to these people. Get away from them. Picture what's happened here.
These are two camps that have been separated. So they got up,
in verse 27, they got up from the tabernacle of Korah, Dathan,
and Abiram on every side. And they came out and stood in
the door of their tents, and their wives, and their sons,
and their little children. Now you picture this. How many
of the children of Israel are intermingled with these people?
They all pull away. They're looking like you're looking
at me, looking at each other. wondering what's gonna happen,
standing in the doors of the tents, standing in their families,
some standing on the Lord's side, some who are standing opposed
to Moses and Aaron, the high priests and the prophet. And
I can imagine a quiet falls over and they're just looking at each
other, waiting to see what's gonna happen. Yet at this time,
what we don't hear is a cry for mercy, cry for saying, wait a
minute, I was wrong. I spoke out when I shouldn't.
We shouldn't be against Moses and Aaron. This was wrong. Forgive
us. Have mercy on us. None of these
things. They were resolute in their rebellion
and they stuck with it. And what happens? in verse 29, or in verse 28 Moses
said, hereby you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all
these works. For I have not done them of my own mind. If these
men die, the common death of all men, or if they be visited,
the visitation of all men, then the Lord hath not sent me. But
if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open up her mouth
and swallow them up with all that appertain unto them, and
they go down quick into the pit, you shall understand that these
men have provoked the Lord. And it came to pass, as he had
made an end to speaking all these words, that the ground clave
asunder that was under them. And the earth opened her mouth
and swallowed them up, and their houses. And all the men that
appertained unto Korah, and all their goods, and they that appertained
unto them, went down alive into the pit. And the earth closed
in upon them, and they perished from among the congregation.
And all Israel that were around them fled at the cry of them,
for they said, lest the earth swallow us up also. And they
came at a fire from the Lord and consumed 250 men that offered
incense. These men were delivered, men,
women, were delivered into hell that very moment. The Lord opened
up the ground, swallowed them up in their rebellion. And the
same will happen to all those who oppose the authority of the
great high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. God has no toleration
for men and women who do not regard his son as everything.
Now look in verse 41. the very next day. You saw what
they just saw. They ran away. The next day,
all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses
and against Aaron, saying, You have killed the people of the
Lord. And it came to pass, when the congregation was gathered
against Moses and against Aaron, that they looked towards the
tabernacle of the congregation, and behold, the cloud covered
it. And the glory of the Lord appeared
And Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of the congregation.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Get you up from among
this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment.
And they fell on their faces. This is the very next day. They saw these men, women, children,
their families, swallowed up. for speaking out against the
Lord, and here they are the next day, finger in their face, you
killed the people of the Lord. This tells you how hopeless our
condition is. This tells you how enslaved we
are to the nature of sin. Not only is it illogical and
stupid what they were doing, they can't help it because it's
all that they can do. This is controlling everything
about them. So this tells you how badly our state is before
God, that after seeing that, that they would do that. Let's
pick up in verse 46. And Moses said unto Aaron, take
a censer and put fire therein from off the altar. what was
off of the altar, that's where the sacrifice was. Get the fire
from the sacrifice and put on incense and go quickly into the
congregation and make an atonement for them for there is wrath gone
out from the Lord and the playing has begun. And Aaron did as the
Moses commanded, and ran into the midst of the congregation.
And behold, the plague was begun among the people, and he put
on incense and made an atonement for the people. And he stood
between the dead and the living, and the plague was stayed." Now
what you see here out of Aaron is a characteristic I don't know
that I would have in this moment. He had all these people oppose
him first. The Lord swallowed them up in
the earth and killed them. And then he had all the people
again the next day up in his face saying, you've done this.
You've killed the people of the Lord. Aaron was a hundred years
old at this time, and yet you see the love of Aaron. What love
there was in him in saying, Lord, don't destroy all these people.
have mercy on them. I'm going to get fire from off
the altar and run into the midst of them because the plague's
coming and you can see the... I mean, you could probably see
people dropping dead as this cloud moved through the camp.
People were dropping dead left and right and wherever that censer
was, the smoke coming off that censer, the fire from the altar,
from the sacrifice. The sacrifice is the only thing
that'll stop the wrath of God. The smoke coming off the censer,
these are the prayers, the sweet incense that the Lord can look
upon as this is the accepted sacrifice. This was the only
thing that separated the living from the dead. The love of Aaron
coming in here, bringing the sacrifice to hold up in front
of the Lord. He could have stood in front of the Lord and pled
for their forgiveness, it would have done no good. Without the
sacrifice, without the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
there is no stopping the plague. The plague is here, we're infected,
and we're gonna die. But apart from the sacrifice,
the sacrifice causes us to live. It said the sacrifice here, the
smoke from the incense, is what separated the dead from the living.
This truly shows us the love and character of the Lord Jesus
Christ. despite us being ungodly rebels,
he became our sacrifice. He didn't just wave it, he became
our sacrifice. He came here despite us being
what we are. Even now, he stands between the
living and the dead. There's some in here that are
the living, but lest we presume, there may be some in here also
who are the dead and don't know it. The Lord Jesus Christ is
the difference. His work is all my righteousness. It's the only righteousness there
is. It's the only righteousness that God will accept. He is the
difference. His death is all that is required
for forgiveness of sins. The scripture says it's Christ
that died. I stand justified, I stand holy, unblameable, and
clean before God in his sight. And that's the sight that matters.
You might think what you will of me, it doesn't matter what
you think of me. It matters what God thinks. God will only hear
his son, he will only accept his sacrifice, and he's looking
for the blood. And that's what happened here
when Aaron ran in here and separated the living from the dead. But, interestingly enough, our
story doesn't end here. It seems it would be over because,
you know, the chapters ended and we don't hear anymore about
Korra because they all died in this, you know, wrath of God
opening up the earth. And we see Aaron run in to save
the remnant of the people so the Lord didn't consume them
all. We see the mercy of God and the love of God in the person
of Aaron as the high priest who pictures our great high priest.
But the story's not over. Turn over to Numbers chapter
26. There's an interesting piece
of information we're given here that we're not given in Numbers
16, but it's also a little summary of the history in verse 9. The
sons of Eliab and Nemuel, we didn't hear about him, but we
do know Dathan and Abiram. This is that Dathan and Abiram
which were famous in the congregation who strove against Moses and
against Aaron in the company of Korah when they strove against
the Lord. and the earth opened her mouth
and swallowed them up together with Korah. When the company
died, what time the fire devoured 250 men and they became a sign. Now if you'll turn with me, hold
your finger there and go to Psalm 46. Keep in numbers. Psalm 47, sorry. So remember it told us their
Korah, Dathan, Abiram, their families, their brethren, their
children, they were all swallowed up in this because they were
in their tents because the Lord said you get out from among them,
don't you be among them. But yet in verse 11 of chapter
26 in Numbers it says notwithstanding the children of Korah died not.
So what happened there? Have you ever noticed when you're
reading the Psalms, turn over to Psalm 47, there are 11 Psalms
that have this title, To the Chief Musician, a Psalm of the
Sons of Korah. The Sons of Korah wrote 11 of
the Psalms. Now you think about this. Their
father went down in infamy. He was the leader of this rebellion
who pictured bypassing of Lord Jesus Christ. And God dealt with
them exactly what they deserved, to be blotted out. But yet, he
preserved some of the sons of Korah. Why? Was it anything in
them? Were they different than some
of the other sons who were not part of that camp? No. In fact,
they were worse. They were part of the lineage
and family of the guy who started the whole rebellion. But yet
we find the Lord shows mercy upon people who don't deserve
mercy at all. They should have been swallowed
up by like everybody else. He doesn't tell us why he showed
mercy, but I'm glad he did. And I want us to read this Psalm. This lets you know exactly why
they wanted to pin this to let everybody know that the Lord
God is merciful. He'll show mercy even on a dead
dog like me. And so this Psalm 47, I think,
reflects that. He says, Oh, clap your hands,
all you people. Shout unto the God with the voice
of triumph. For the Lord, most high, is terrible,
wonderful. He is a great king over all the
earth. He shall subdue the people under
us and the nations under our feet. He shall choose our inheritance
for us. He did that for the sons of Korah,
didn't he? and the excellency of Jacob, whom he loved. God
has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the shout of a trumpet.
Sing praises unto God. Sing praises. Sing praises unto
our king. Sing praises, for the Lord God
is the king of all the earth. Sing ye praises with understanding.
God reigneth over the heathen. God sitteth upon the throne of
his holiness, and the princes of the people are gathered together,
even the people of God of Abraham, for the shields of the earth
belong unto God, for he is greatly exalted. So now do you ever wonder
when you see this by the sons of Korah? I have never understood
why it was indicated the sons of Korah wrote these. Now I understand
now. I understand now that God shows
these people mercy. These people should have been
swallowed up with the rebellion of their father, but yet he showed
them mercy. They wanted everybody to know
God preserved us and we magnify his name. We're not like our
old father over here. And what is that picture? This
picture is the new man and the old man, doesn't it? The old
man, Korah, he's gonna be put down. He's gonna be put into
the ground and with all his people that are like him, put him down
into the ground. But if the Lord is pleased to
reveal himself to you, and to give you a new spirit, to give
you a new nature, this new man, to be one of these sons of Korah,
you're gonna magnify his name. You're gonna tell everybody how
he showed you mercy, and you didn't deserve it. There's nothing
you did for him to keep you, and there's nothing you did for
him to warrant anything from you. But yet, you're happy, you
sing praises unto his name, and you want to see him magnified
and exalted. So may the Lord do right. And
thank God for the sons of Korah. And I hope that you and I, there's
some sons of Korah in here that He showed mercy on here too.