Numbers 16
SATAN has been watching the camp of the children of Israel as it progressed from, place to place under the pillar of cloud, and he has, as we have seen from time to time, found men and women who were ready enough to do his bidding, and God has had to punish them, even by taking away their lives in judgment.
And now as the journeys’ end gets near, Satan gets more daring in his schemes as this chapter shows. Men who were noted in the camp, religious workers and great ones among the people, gather followers, and come before the two men whom God had appointed as the King and the Priest over His people for their pilgrimage from Egypt to Canaan. Korah, Dathan and Abiram, and those with them, deny in their words that God has given Moses and Aaron the leadership of the people; they are no better than the rest, for all are holy, so these new leaders tell the two who hold their appointment from God Himself.
Now as Moses and Aaron are “types” of the Lord Jesus, and we know how Satan hates Him, we can see that to reject the leader God has given, is a most serious thing.
It is what Satan is moving men, high in the religious world today, to do; for there are not a few now telling us that the Lord Jesus’ birth into this world was just like ours, so that He must then have been born with a sinful nature like our own. They are denying many other things too, which every true believer in the Lord Jesus knows are true, because God’s Word says so. And the end of it all is, to put Jesus out, and to put man in His place; and that is what the world is coming to, —to set up a man in the place of God. (2 Thess. 2:44Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. (2 Thessalonians 2:4).)
The end of verse 10 shows what Korah and his company wanted, and Moses and Aaron, instead of arguing with them turn to God for a decision. With them there was no uncertainty, and a fearful death swallowed up those wicked men, the earth opening to receive the one group; and fire coming out from God’s dwelling place, the tabernacle, to destroy the others.
There were others left, however, and a dreadful disease was sent among the rebels the next day. How solemn! They knew the kindness of God; His patience had been great, but the unrepentant are punished! Now is the day of salvation, but judgment is coming on this poor world.
ML 02/24/1924