I don’t think any sin is more provoking to God than idolatry.
God hates idolatry.
Idolatry takes away from God’s glory and brings dishonor and shame to the Kingdom of Heaven.
Baal was the Moabite pagan fertility god.
The men of Israel were often enticed to worship Baal. This was the same god that Balaam and Balak had prepared the seven altars for when God would not let them curse Israel.
After Balaam had blessed Israel to the disgust and amazement of Balak who had hired him to curse Israel; Israel remained camped at the foot of the mountain outside of Moab in Shittim near the place of pagan rituals of idolatry.
Balaam sit down there and sulked because he had not received any pay for his services.
Balaam knew that he had angered Balak The King of Moab. He tried to smooth things over with him by giving him some advice on alternative ways to defeat Israel. Balaam advised Balak to prepare some houses full of fine food and put seductive women inside those houses and use them to draw the men of Israel to worship Baal.
Despite of his lack of successful information in the past; Balak listened to Balaam again.
This was how several of the Israelite men began to commit sexual immorality with the Moabite women. The women, positioned in places where the Israeli men passed by on the way to and from the camp, invited them to come inside to eat with them and once they were inside they persuaded them to sacrifice to their pagan gods in exchange for sexual favors.
The lustful men succored to the charms of these idolatrous women and ate sacrificial meals with them and bowed down before their pagan gods.
As the men of Israel yoked themselves to Baal of Peor; the LORD’s anger burned against them.
One thing that I notice here is the use of the word “yoke” in the passages of scripture that relate to idolatry and sexual morality.
To “yoke” means to “join together.”
The men of Israel joined together with other gods and in sexual morality with foreign women whom they were forbidden to join with.
This was a time when the Midianites were nomadic people. They were numerous among the Moabite population at that time; so some of these women were Moabites and some of them were Midianite. All of them were idolatrous.
The anger of the LORD showed up in the form of a plague which began to strike Israel and it seemed that the whole nation might succumb to its power.
The thing that stands out here is the fact that God had blessed Israel every time anyone had wanted to curse Israel. Nothing could ever make God let anyone curse Israel; but Israel was able to bring a curse upon themselves through acts of stupid disobedience.
God had laid every blessing before them and they disrespected those blessings and trampled the Name of God into the ground as they joined themselves in immoral sins with foreign women and they worshipped an idol that God abhorred more than any of the other idols.
They knew better than this because they had seen the power of God over Baal Poer with their own eyes when Balaam went up the mountain and could only bless Israel before these pagan altars; but they let their lust and their disloyalty to God consume them and they let themselves be tricked into bowing before a false god instead of the God who had only days ago shown them His power. They did what was right in the eyes of pagans instead of in the eyes of their God.
People of today are no different.
We let Satan tempt us and we bow to the false gods of the world. Then we let our lusts carry us to places we would never go to before. This is a rebellious attitude. It is an attitude that God does not ever want His people to have.
The nation of America reeks with this same rebelliousness today as people live in constant immorality and make up their own religion and call it the Word of God publicly in the market places and even in the House of God.
God is insulted.
In the case of these Israelites of long ago; God sent a plague that killed many.
Could that happen today?
What caused this plague that we are experiencing right now called the corona-virus?
Am I saying that God sent it because of our blatant disobedience and rebelliousness before Him?
No; I will not go that far; but it is always a possibility.
I WILL say it could be a possibility. Only God could answer that question correctly.
People do flaunt their immorality and their false worship before God though; even in the places that they call sacred.
Could it be possible?
Definitely, it could be a possibility.
Many would defend this by saying that God would not harm the innocent to punish the sinful; but I’m only looking at the times that we can read about in the wilderness from the Book of Numbers. It seems that this was happening back during those days.
The Moabites had tried war and witchcraft against Israel and neither of them had worked. In the end they used Israel’s own sins against them. It was a powerful weapon that angered God. Sexual immorality and idolatry were not all of the sins involved either.
Balaam’s love for money, and his excessive greediness was the key that turned the lock that seduced Israel. Balaam told Balak what to do to weaken the men of Israel into sin and rebellion. Balaam sold Israel to the enemy.
Sounds pretty bad doesn’t it?
Actually, it happens every day.
Men harm other human beings because they are greedy and selfish and care only for their own selves.
Balaam was the epitomey of selfishness and materialism. He sold souls to get what his greedy hands could not touch when Balak had asked him to curse Israel. When God turned around, Balaam devised another conniving plan to ruin Israel; and he did it only for money.
This evil plan of Balaam and Balak joined Israel to idolatry.
Whenever something is voluntarily joined, and both parties agree to this joining; it is very hard to break the yoke that is formed between them. These men would never have walked knowingly into this situation; but with the enticements of the women and the food of the idols; they joined themselves.
The men of Israel by “joining themselves to these women and bowing before their god; “ instantly separated themselves from God’s protection.
As far as God was concerned they had joined themselves to another country and were no longer Israelites. They did not belong to God anymore. It was that clear. They were just that rebellious. It was the same as treason.
America is slowly being seduced into the same situation. The gods of others rule over our homes and our families and our work places. We look the other way. We let them carry on as usual. Most never even notice. It happens every day.
God never changes.
Do you not think that He still gets angry when people commit pagan and immoral sins?
There is a verse in Revelation that clarifies this fact.
Revelation 2:14 states: But I have a few things against you; there are some among you who hold to the teachings of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality.
In this scripture passage Jesus is speaking to the church of Pergemum. It is a last-day prophecy that is being revealed. It is a warning for today.
We all would do well to go back and read Revelation Chapter Two every day and try to live out what Jesus is proclaiming to His Bride, His church.
Many of the men of Israel were not able to maintain these standards that God’s teachings require.
There is an interesting part to notice within these passages; Jesus does not say STOP, or CHANGE, though it is certainly implied. He says REPENT.
Repent means to turn around from missing the mark.
Which mark will you be aiming for in your daily life; the mark of God, or the mark of Satan?
We all have a choice.
When we do wrong; Jesus calls us to repentance. That is the first step. That is what was needed with Israel in this time of crisis; and that is what the church and every person who belongs to God must do today.
Otherwise; we have the wrath of God to face.
I don’t believe in frightening people into repentance.
I think people should come to God out of love; because they realize how much Jesus was willing to love them; that it was enough to die on the cross for them; but in the end, there is a frightening place that exists if we cannot find our way through love.
There is the wrath of God.
No child of God who is true to The Kingdom of Heaven is going to have to face that wrath. We are to overcome the world and obey the will of God. If you love God; you keep His commandments. The world-at-large is nowhere near that mark right now. The world stands right on the brink of making the very same mistakes of those gullible men of Israel.
They died in a plague because of God’s anger.
Am I actually being so bold as to say that all of the people who have died of corona-virus were rebellious sinners against God?
Heavens forbid that anyone should think such a thing as that!
I am NOT saying that at all.
What I AM saying is that sin is an infectious disease and everyone around it; even those who are innocent usually suffer; unless the sin is repented and done away with completely.
Moses knew this too.
He prayed to God and God told him to hang all of the leaders out in the open before the congregation.
Those who had offended were made public and it was kept open to the public where all could see the results that sin had on the world.
In other words; this wasn’t hidden because it would have been politically not correct to punish them.
Moses was never politically correct; that is because he was led by God.
God didn’t need a political party to present his case to.
God and God alone has the right and the power to decide right from wrong. He will always spell it out to His people, and everyone has a choice to follow God’s advice or to ignore it.
Which way will you go?
The people left in the congregation of Israel had clear evidence as to how their men had stood before God. They were all crying and weeping and repenting; knowing the truth and wishing it were not so.
A man was committing sexual immorality with a Midianite woman right there in the openness of the camp. Everyone knew this was going on at the same time God commanded Moses to demand that the leaders of Isreal be judged.
So Moses said to Israel’s judges, “Each of you must put to death those of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.”
When Moses said this a man came forth named Phinehas.
Phinehas was the son of Eleazer, who was the son of Aaron. In other words; Phinehas was Aaron’s grandson. This would have made him a priest of Israel.
Phinehas took a sword and drove it through the man and the woman who were committing the open sin in the camp.
When this happened; the plague stopped.
However, before that time there were 24,000 people who died.
I’m sure the innocent suffered right along with the guilty. Plagues do not distinguish the condition of a man’s soul. Plagues are merciless and do not allow grace to anyone. It is best to stop the plague as soon as you know what has caused it.
Phinehas did just that.
God then told Moses that Phinehas had turned his anger away from the Israelites.
Here I wish to point out that God’s anger is always righteous. He doesn’t react to sin for no reason.
This anger is not about the person that God is angry with; but it is about the sin itself.
God doesn’t punish people mercilessly by sending plagues; the people do this to themselves. They know that God is righteous and that everything in His nature will fight against any unrighteous sin.
God has given men the free ability to chose between good and evil.
The men who died; caused their own death; it wasn’t God’s choice.
The sinners, by their own personal choice to sin; chose their own punishment.
God’s wrath will never manifest against righteousness.
Israel punished Israel.
Because of the sins of a few; there was the suffering of many.
I feel sure that God was as relieved as the people were when Phinehas stepped up and did the right thing to end the sins of the camp.
God spoke to Moses and told him that since Phinehas was zealous for his honor; God would make a covenant of peace with him and that he and his people would have a lasting priesthood, and that they would be able to make atonement for Israel before God.
The Simeonite man who was killed was named Zimri. He was with the Midianite woman named Kozbi who was the daughter of Zur. She had been the daughter of a Midianite Chief. The Midianites and the Moabites would not be happy to hear of her death.
Because of the involvement of this Midianite woman God told the Israelites to treat the Midianites the same as the Moabites. The Midianites had joined in with Israel’s enemies against Israel; so they would be treated the same as their enemies were treated.
On hearing this statement I could not help but remember that verse so often quoted which is found in Numbers 24:9 which states:
“The nation is like a mighty lion; when it is sleeping, no one dares wake it. Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed, and whoever curses Israel will be cursed.”