Title: WHAT’S GOING ON?

Focus: Take to heart God’s way with you and his people throughout history.

Function: To move the people to fear the Lord with a holy reverence.

Text: Numbers 25:1-18; 31:1-24

Ignorance is a curse. Ignorance of God’s way with his people throughout history is a great curse on the Christian church today. A lack of knowledge and holy fear of God and his dealings with his people undermines Christian witness, dishonors the Lord Jesus, and incurs God’s wrath upon the church. Do I have your attention?

This past week, I read that the executive committee of the Evangelical Lutheran church of Kenya has expressed strong shock and dismay at the ordination of a lesbian as bishop in the Church of Sweden. It turns out that a Rev. Eva Brune was ordained as bishop in early November. Under Swedish law, she lives in a civil union partnership with another woman, who is also a Church of Sweden pastor (See REC News Exchange, Dec. 2009).

In response to the Lutheran Church of Kenya’s shock and dismay, church officials in Sweden explained the matter as follows: “In Sweden, ordaining gays and lesbians isn’t so hot an issue…We have had clergy living in same-sex partnerships for 30 years in parts of the country.” The archbishop of Sweden concluded his response by saying, “Everyone has to decide for themselves. The model that Sweden and its national Lutheran Church espouse is not one that should be exported, and it should not be imposed on churches in other countries.”

We hear such sentiment not only in Sweden, but in many other parts of the world as well. Cohabitation before marriage, same-sex marriages, and ordaining clergy in such relationships are also becoming common practices in North America. And many folks like you and me are asking the question, What’s going on?

Tonight I want to emphasize that Christians must take to heart God’s way with us today and with his people in the past. We must learn to fear the Lord with a holy reverence. And that means that we must take seriously God’s way and dealing with his people, both now and in the past.

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Tonight we conclude our series of reflections on Balaam’s and Israel’s wilderness shenanigans. Balak, the King of Moab, as well as the kings of Midian, pleaded with Balaam, a professional sorcerer, to curse the Israelites as they are about to enter and take over the land of Canaan. The curses are supposed to paralyze the Israelites to a point where the Moabites and Midianites can defeat them militarily.

God, however, prevented Balaam from cursing the Israelites. In fact, God moved Balaam to pronounce blessings on God’s people. Of course, as a result, the kings of Moab and Midian are unhappy with Balaam. And Balaam is not happy either, for his reputation is being destroyed and his pocket book remains empty.

So what does Balaam do? He comes up with a way to destroy the Israelites’ allegiance to their God. If curses can’t touch the Israelites, how about—fornication, idolatry, and accommodation? So it happens that Moabite and Midianite women invite a whole generation of Israelites to indulge in sexual immorality. These women appeal to the sexual appetite of God’s people. As these Israelites bond with these prostitutes—for that’s what many of them are, temple prostitutes—they also begin to indulge in the religious practices of the Moabites and Midianites. They participate in Baal worship on Mount Peor, and they eat and drink the food offered to the Baals. What’s more, instead of remaining a distinct people, the Israelites now accommodate to the pagan culture around them; and they assimilate the worldly practices into their own nation.

Thus the Israelites practice sexual immorality and idolatry. And as a result they commit spiritual adultery—that is, they disobey the Lord; they dismiss God’s covenant love and promises and commands. Worldly, sinful practices are corrupting God’s people; God’s holiness is thrown into the wind of fornication, pagan feasts and festivals and cultural accommodation.

Here’s the great irony. While God is protecting them from Balaam’s attempt to curse them, his very own people are provoking the Lord with their fornication and idolatry. While God forces Balaam to bless the Israelites, the Israelites provoke God’s holiness and incur God’s wrath on them.

God sends a plague among the Israelites as punishment. The Israelites are dying like “flies”—24.000 of them. The judges or leaders of Israel are reluctant to punish the evildoers. They complain and weep and wail before Moses, and before the Lord by the Tent of Meeting.

So brazen is Israel’s disobedience and disrespect for God’s holiness and covenant law, that Zimri, son of Salu, the leader of a Simeonite family takes--in plain sight of the priests of the tabernacle--Cozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader into his tent to copulate. It is only when Phinehas, the grandson of Aaron the priest, kills this couple in the tent, that God turns his wrath away from his own people. In subsequent chapters we learn that God’s wrath now will be unleashed on the Moabites and Midianites and Balaam for tempting and corrupting the Israelites.

Thus we notice that God is holy; his justice calls for punishment of evildoers. God does not condone sinful conduct that makes mockery of his covenant love and mercy, nor does God take lightly any disobedience that makes mockery of his holy will or law.

These wilderness shenanigans took place centuries ago. “So what?” you ask. I say, “Take to heart God’s way with you today and with his people in the past. Fear the Lord with a holy reverence.”

“But why must we take these ancient stories seriously,” you ask. I will tell you why these O.T. stories of God and his way with his people matter!

But first, we sing a song: “Spirit of God, Who Dwells within My Heart.” Then we shall read I Corinthians 10:1-13.

Title: WHY GOD’S STORY MATTERS

Focus: God is holy. Christians honor God by actively and obediently remembering God’s dealings with us today and with his people in the past.

Function: To move the people to fear the Lord with a holy reverence.

Text: I Corinthians 10:1-13

“History is bunk,” so said Henry Ford, Detroit’s automaker at the beginning of the last century. Many Americans seem to agree with him. Knowledge of history and learning from history are not very high on the list of American schools today.

Thus it does not come as a surprise that many American Christians are ignorant of the O.T. stories in the Bible. These stories are supposedly irrelevant for us today. “After all,” (so we hear) “We are N.T. Christians; we live under the new covenant of grace. The O.T. Law and its civil stipulations and ceremonial decrees are no longer valid. We do not worship the God of the O.T—who appears more like a war-god, a God of vengeance. No, we follow Jesus and worship the God of love--” so goes the argument.

And many Christians and churches are buying into the argument. Rare are sermons on God’s story in the O.T. And rare are the public readings of holy Scriptures in America’s churches today. As a result, the Christian church is loosing its identity as the holy people of God. Our witness is waning; our faith is weakening; our souls are starving. And God is mocked!

That’s why I say tonight:

God is holy! Christians honor God by actively and obediently remembering God’s dealings with us today and with his people in the past. Fear the Lord with a holy reverence!

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Earlier I said, “Ignorance is a curse. Ignorance of God’s way with his people throughout history is a great curse on the Christian church today.” Listen to Paul speaking to Gentile Christians in the church of Corinth: “…I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact…that our forefathers were all under the cloud and they all passed through the sea.”

Here, the Apostle Paul connects Gentile Christians with the Jews—with sons and daughters of Abraham. Paul says to us that those Jews are part of our family; they are our “forebears.” Christians—whether Gentile or Jewish—are connected with the life and history of God’s people as recorded in the O.T. That means that God’s dealing with them in the past is part of our history, our story. By God’s grace, Gentiles Christians are grafted into the vine called ‘Israel.’

New Testament Christians have much in common with Old Testament believers. Christians, for example, participate in the life of the Church by means of two sacraments: baptism and the Eucharist. The Lord’s Supper ties us to the Lord Jesus, who is the Bread of Life, and who nurtures our faith by communicating his own presence to us through Word and Spirit.

The waters of baptism remind us that we have died to sin, that we leave behind a life of disobedience and rebellion, and that we rise up to a new life of love and obedience, as we pilgrimage through life on our way to the new heavens and new earth. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are the sacraments that incorporate us into the body of Christ or the people of God today.

Now these two fundamental characteristics have been part of God’s people in the O.T. era as well. In fact, these characteristics bind us with the O.T. people and their story recorded in the Scriptures.

Listen to Paul: “(our forefathers)…were all under the cloud and they all passed through the sea. (This is the Exodus event). They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.” The O.T. people of God, then, had a God-appointed Mediator who led them to the Promised Land by way of “baptism,” by way of crossing the Red Sea and by way of rescuing them from a life of tyranny and bondage under Pharaoh. Moses, the mediator of God’s O.T. people foreshadows our Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, who accompanies us today.

Listen again to Paul’s words and his reference to the spiritual food we also have today: “(Our forebears)…all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.”

In other words, as the O.T. people experienced the very presence of God’s Son in the visible form of Moses, their mediator, and in the invisible form of God’s Spirit leading his people, so we experience today the spiritually-communicated presence of God’s Son, as we partake of the Lord’s Supper, and as we sojourn through life.

We are inseparably connected with the story of God—dealing with his people in the past, as well as with us today. Therefore, we may not claim or display ignorance of such facts or close our eyes and ears to God’s story and the wilderness shenanigans of Israel and the nations of the world.

Do you see now why the stories matter? They function as (vs. 6, 11, 13a) “…examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things…” as our forebears did. They function as warnings to beware of temptation, and they remind us powerfully that God is faithful, just, and holy. God cannot be mocked! And God’s people must revere him as the Holy One!

Christians, then, must be aware of temptations. Satan is like a roaring lion, always on the prowl. And we must be aware that we are by nature sinful and inclined to rebel against God and do our own things. Listen to Paul:

(vs. 7) “Do not be idolaters, as some of them were: as it is written: ‘The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.’” In other words, flee from idolatry!

(vs.8) “We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of the did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.” In other words, beware of fornication and adultery. (vs.9) “We should not test the Lord, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes.” In other words, trust—do not contest—the Word of the Lord. (vs.10) “Do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.” In other words, learn from God’s way of dealing with the Egyptians and the Israelites and with David and the people in the Promised Land. History is NOT bunk. Ignorance is NOT bliss. It’s a curse.

Think! In a culture that is corrupting the church, in a narcissistic world that makes the Self (people) the center of the world, in a multi-cultural environment where all religions supposedly have validity and equal power to lead us to a saving relationship with God—in such a world and culture, you and I as Christians must take our cues from God’s dealings with his people in the past.

The good news is this: God is faithful. As Paul reminds us today: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

So then, take to heart God’s way with you and his people throughout history. Do not mock him! Fear the Lord with a holy fear.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.