Num Numbers Book of Numbers, Opis
What have we learned so far from the Holy Bible? Some very disturbing revelations about the human condition, to be sure. We have learned that man is prone to evil (Ex 32:22), that humankind as seen from G-dʼs point of view is blindly stubborn and recalcitrant against authority (Ex 32:9; 33:3,5; 34:9). Recalcitrant means hard to deal with and unyielding. But something more ominous has entered the picture in the book of Numbers. It turns out that the human condition is more depraved than we had seen in Leviticus, where out of corrupt human hearts had come sodomy (Lv 18:22; 20:13), bestiality, fornication, incest, and all manner of crimes worthy of death. But now in Num chp 14 we see man himself as a proud rebel who even has the arrogance to murmur and rise up in revolt against G-d his Creator and Savior. And for this crime the death sentence comes in Num 14:29, “Your corpses shall fall in this midbar.” The wages of sin is death. See Prov 14:12: There is a derech that seemeth yashar unto an ish, but the acharit (latter end, future) thereof are the drakhim of mavet. Mavet in the midbar! The guilty are condemned already. Already the ax is falling. Already the pit is dug. Already they are condemned. Already the terror of Mt Sinai is condemning the sinner, spearing the fornicator in his tent, executing the sodomites in their bed of iniquity. Already every mouth is stopped and the whole world is brought guilty before Hashem. There is none righteous, no not one. The man who fornicates in his heart with the harlot is guilty with the man actually in her bed. In Num chapter 25, we find a Hebrew man taking a Midianite woman into his tent to “shack up” with her there — that was the now very dated term once used before fornication became politically correct — “shacking up.” Instead of making the woman oneʼs wife, one makes her his whore. But in Numbers chapter 25, only Pinchas the son of El'azar the son of Aharon the kohen was indignant. However, G-d was indignant and G-dʼs plague was at the door of their tent, ready to strike the fornicators. In Numbers we see G-dʼs wrath is ready to rain down on an unclean people. Every pornographic, lecherous, unclean wanton, with lust in deed or even in the imaginations of the evil heart, stands condemned already. Today we look around the prison yard of this world and witness a modern arrogant population of fornicators and homosexuals and pedophiles, brazenly bold, shamelessly parading their perversion and lasciviousness. They are careless of the condemnation of the Divine order from on High, that those who do such things will receive the death penalty they deserve. Millions of aborted fetuses litter the alleyways of the worldʼs lust. With reprobate minds, modern rebels excuse their wantonness. Even though their evil deeds keep testifying against them, they remain uncontrite, unrepentant. They refuse to forsake their sin. Their wickedness should humble them, but, instead, they illegitimately accuse others, even G-d, and this goes on year after year, while they raise up an illegitimate generation of heathen offspring like themselves. And the generations of evil-doers are all the while oblivious of the fact that the death sentence has already come down from the Governor in Heaven. And the death sentence says to us one thing: condemned already! Mother and rebel daughter, condemned already! Father and rebel son, condemned already! The wrath of G-d is revealed from heaven against all fornication and debauchery. Jeremiah saw that a terrible burning fiery Holocaust of Exile was coming on his people and on Solomonʼs Temple. He saw the idolatry and spiritual harlotry of his generation, which was very much like our own evil generation. It overwhelmed him. He says, I sat alone, because of Thy hand, for Thou hast filled me with indignation. (Jer 15:17) Rav Sha'ul says to the Kehillah in Corinth, It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you. And you're not aghast! You're not indignant! Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Malchut Hashem (the Kingdom of G-d 1C 6:9-11)! But you are proud! Shouldn't you have rather mourned? Do you not know to shun the fornicator so that he will wake up and realize he is already condemned to the fire of Gehinnom and must therefore flee fornication? The heart of man is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked, who can know it? (Jer 17:9) And all our righteousness is like filthy rags (Isa 64:6). Sin is like a wanton woman. Her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell. We are lured to her bed of fornication by our own lusts, but in the end, her lovers are in the depths of hell, and she is bitter as wormwood. We are abandoned to our evil desires, punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the L-rd. The wicked shall be turned into hell, into shame and everlasting contempt (Dan 12:2). Why will you die, O sinner? The sinners in Zion are afraid. Who can bear everlasting burnings? Moshiach is coming! He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Do you not know that Moshiach came the first time mercifully to drink your portion of the wine of the wrath of G-d, the wrath you deserve? He was wounded for our transgressions, for our stubborn rebellion and uncleanness. How can you resist the G-d Who loves you and pursues you? He wants to pull you out of the fire so that you will be able to pull others out of the fire! But you are resisting Him, not realizing you are already guilty, already at the point of igniting and bursting into flames, condemned already. The fires of G-dʼs wrath are already igniting in you, around you. Whoever has not believed is condemned already. Will you cry out for mercy, for clemency, for forgiveness? Do you realize and admit that you are a “dead man walking,” no matter how religious or pious you try to be? Do you understand that you deserve G-dʼs chastisement, and yet in the mercy of G-d, the chastisement that brought us peace was upon Moshiach Tzidkeinu? Remember Lotʼs wife. Instead of turning away in repentance and fleeing in remorse at sin, she looked back lingeringly at sin to her own destruction. Unless you repent you will all alike perish.