Kill Sin before it Kills You
Numbers 25
Did you ever had a friend that you knew was bringing you down? They were definitely not a good influence on you? Some how you still liked them and the things they did, it was different and they challenged authority. In this particular passage we see Israel giving into stuff that really was against what God commanded them to do. It all started because of Balaam who was a sorcerer wanted to bring bad stuff upon Israel and could not curse them because God told him not to decided to bring Israel down another way, tempt them with idol worship. In Numbers 31:16 it was Balaam that encouraged the people of Midian to tempt the people of Israel. The people sent the women of Midian to tempt the men and get them involved in Baal worship. The sad thing is, Israel did. It says in verse 5 that they yoked themselves with these women and their false god, Baal. They would offer sacrifices to Baal and even bow down before him which means they were breaking the 1st Commandment, they shall have no other gods. Because of this sin there was a plague that broke out among the people in their sin.
Kill sin in your life
Moses was commanded by God to get rid of those who allowed this sin to take place and corrupt the camp. He hung the chiefs of the tribes because they were the ones responsible in allowing this idol worship. Not only were the chiefs of each family held responsible but the judges of Israel were commanded to kill the men who have yoked themselves with Baal and the Midian women. They were commanded to not have relations with the surrounding nations and the men of Israel were sinning against God.In order for us to conquer sin in our life it must be killed. Now we can not take a knife and start killing sin that way but we must eliminate it in ours. We need to constantly evaluate our lives and see what areas are weak and what areas there are sin so we can move on and not be weighed down by it.
Blatant sin
As Israel was being repentant of their sin a man blatantly took a Midian woman and brought her to his family as if he was trying to encourage his family into pagan worship. He took the woman in site all of Israel and most importantly in the eyes of God and disobeyed him. This is called blatant sin, when you know something is bad and you do it anyway. I think we all are guilty of this one time or another because temptation wins in our lives and that is why we need to fight temptation the right way, God’s way! Eleazar, Aaron’s son was so mad about this blatant sin in the camp that he took a spear and went to this man’s tent and killed him and this woman as they were in the act of sin. The plague that was happening upon Israel stopped because the sin stopped. The death toll for Israel was 24,000. Jesus said in Matthew 5:27–30 what we need to do with temptation and the answer is to get rid of it. We are faced with multiple types of temptation and we need to be able to stand against it (1st Corinthians 10:13). Sin is a plague in our lives and if we do not stand up against it, it will kill us. We need to not just let it be in our lives but we need to kill it and actually fight against sin. How do you value what this world says is ok? Do you view sin as sin or maybe do you view it as not that bad? The closer we are to sin the more it seems ok, and good. May we be able to fight it in our lives as well as encourage those around us to stay away from the snares that the Devil has for us to fall.
