Love Israel

Guest (Male): Shalom and welcome to Ve-ahavta Yisrael, a Hebrew phrase which means "you shall love Israel." We hope you'll stay with us for the next 30 minutes as our teacher, Dr. Baruch, shares his expository teaching from the Bible. Dr. Baruch is the senior lecturer at the Zera Avraham Institute based in Israel. Although all courses are taught in Hebrew at the institute, Dr. Baruch is pleased to share this weekly address in English. To find out more about our work in Israel, please visit us on the web at loveisrael.org. That's one word, loveisrael.org. Now, here's Baruch with today's lesson.

Dr. Baruch Korman: Well, we are going to see an unusual occurrence in what we're going to study today. Now, I made mention to you that we have seen how Bilam was not a faithful individual. We have seen how in the Word of God, how he demonstrated a faithlessness. What I want us to do is to look at a few places in the New Testament, especially in the book of Revelation. I want you to see a New Covenant perspective for understanding this one, Bilam.

Now, we are going to see that although last week in our study in Numbers chapter 24, there seemed to be some changes in him. But what I want you to see is that still, when we look at it from a New Testament perspective, this man was not faithful at all. So, I want us to look at the book of Revelation and I want us to see what the Word of God says concerning him in a few places. So, one is in chapter two. Let's look at Revelation chapter two and verse 14.

"But I have against you a few things: that you have there people who are holding to the doctrine—and it's the word Torah—the doctrine of Bilam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, causing them that they should eat from the sacrifices of idolatry and commit sexual immorality." This is one place. Let's look at another one. Look with me, if you would, to the book of Jude. In Hebrew, it's called Yehuda. I want you to see a very important verse, verse 11.

"Woe to them, for in the way of Cain they have walked, and for a payment they were committed to the error of Bilam." It says here concerning this one that they did something, and that is they were like also Korach, who perished in rebellion. So, we see when we look at the New Testament, these individuals—and I'm speaking about Bilam and the one who hired him, Balak, the king of Moab—were not good individuals. This confirms what we have said many times about Bilam from our study in the book of Numbers.

Now, let's go to our primary passage. Look with me to the book of Numbers, chapter 25. In this section, we're going to study verses one through nine. "And Israel dwelt in Shittim." Now, Shittim is a place, but it's also a material. We can see, for example, when we talk about the Ark of the Covenant, which represents the presence of God, and inside the Ark of the Covenant, there were the commandments of God. We see that the Ark was made of Et Shittim, that is, acacia wood. This is where the children of Israel were, in the very place where wood was taken in order to build the Ark of the Covenant.

Looking again at verse one, "the children of Israel dwelt in Shittim, that is, in Acacia, and the people began to—" we have a word for sexual immorality. Now, this word is also related to harlotry, and it says "with the daughters of Moab." Who is the king that we've spoken of throughout these last few chapters? We're talking about Balak, who was the king of Moab. Now we see, based upon what we learn from other places in the Scripture—one had to do with Revelation chapter two—indeed, in the end, this Bilam did something else.

As we saw from that passage in Revelation 2, he taught how to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, and they succumbed to their desires, committing idolatry. This is what is happening here. They committed Zanut, harlotry, which refers to idolatry, and they did it with the daughters of Moab, who were related to the king of Moab, or Balak. Look at verse two. "They called the people—" and what's important is this. Hebrew can be a very specific language.

We see here that the subject "they"—how it's recorded in the Word of God—tells us that the "they" are all feminine. What's the subject? We just concluded with at the end of verse one: the daughters of Moab. It was these daughters of Moab who called the people to make these sacrifices to their idols. What happened? The people ate, and they bowed down to their gods. Now, these gods are idolatrous gods. What happened to the children of Israel here? Look at verse three. "And Israel was fastened—" it's a word of being joined together.

Israel, literally, was fastened to Baal Peor. This is a place of idolatry. Because of the children of Israel performing idolatry, notice what it says: "And the hot anger of the Lord was against Israel." So, we see very clearly here, God was not pleased with the children of Israel. There's no mistaking it. It's because of their harlotry, their spiritual fornication or idolatry. They turned away from their God and they began to practice idolatry, and therefore we're going to see that there's an outcome to that.

What is that first outcome? God was very angry against Israel. The word here for God is the Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey; the Lord was very angry against Israel. Look now to verse four. "And the Lord said to Moses: Take all the heads of the people and hang them unto the Lord before the sun." Now, this is allowing these dead men who are going to be hung to death to be placed out there before the sun in the light. This is a way of humiliation and shame.

There is a message here that we need to learn. Very simply, when we fall into our own desires, idolatry, what is the allure and the temptation of idolatry? Well, I know God won't give it to me, so I go to other gods, which are not gods at all. I worship, I bow down. Notice, what is the key thought here? This word Zanut, which is fornication, adultery, harlotry; all of that is a gratification of the flesh in an inappropriate manner. Because of that, we can expect this hot anger of the Lord against Israel.

Looking at verse four again, "And the Lord spoke to Moses: Take all the heads of the people, the leaders, those who are accountable, and hang them before the Lord, before the sun." Why? This punishment was going to have an outcome. What does it say? "To turn away the hot anger of the Lord from Israel." So, this first consequence—these men who were in leadership positions who did not lead the people well—they were going to be hung to death and they were going to be shamed. Based upon what Moses was told, it was going to, in the end, turn this hot anger of the Lord from Israel.

Look now to verse five. "And Moses said to the judges of Israel: Kill a man of his people, the ones who were fastened to Baal Peor." Now, this is all telling us something: there is accountability. Let me just simply say that this is lacking today among God's people. This is lacking today among many people's theology. What is that? Our God is a God of accountability. When there is sin in the camp, there is going to be a punishment. God is going to move; there is going to be that judgment. That's what we saw when God told Moses to take the leaders of the people and hang them before the sun.

Moses was instructed to expose their sinful practices in a public way and let the people see the consequences of these men not leading, but succumbing to the desires of the people. Moving again to verse five, "And Moses said to the judges of Israel: Kill a man from his people, the ones who have fastened, that is, were fastened or joined to Baal Peor." Look now to verse six. "Behold, a man from the children of Israel came and he drew near to his brethren and with a Midianite woman before the eyes of Moses and before all the congregation."

At this time, they were crying at the doorway of the tent of the meeting. Now, this was a sign of humility among the people. There's probably a reason for that, and that is they are now beginning to experience the consequence of their sin. How? These leaders were put to death. They were hung in a shameful way, and because of that, the people were responding not so much to their sin, but to the consequences of their sin, and that's why they were weeping. So, we don't see, in and of itself, a proper repentance.

Look how verse six begins. It says, "Behold." This means something important is about to be written. "A man from the children of Israel came, and he drew near before his brethren with a Midianite woman, before the eyes of Moses and before the eyes of all the congregation." This group was weeping at the doorway of the tent of meeting. But look at verse seven. In verse seven, we're going to see an individual who has a call upon his life and he is going to respond to what is going on. He's going to become an example of God's judgment.

"But Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, he saw, and what happened? He got up from the midst of the congregation and he took a spear in his hand." All of this is preparation for a visible outpouring of condemnation that is going to come from this man who is a priest. He's a son of Aaron, meaning from the priestly line, and his name is Phinehas, the son of Eleazar. That name Eleazar means "God has helped." We're seeing that Phinehas is going to be an individual that is going to show truth, demonstrate it, and is going to be someone that is helping God manifest God's displeasure for this idolatry.

Move on; let's find out what this man Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, actually did. Look at verse eight. "And he came behind the man of Israel to the tent." Now, look at this word. It's the word "Kuba," and it's unusual. This is the only place in all of the Old Testament that it's used. We looked at earlier, if you go back up, you see the phrase at the end of verse six where it says the people were weeping at the Petach Ohel Moed. We see a different word. When we're dealing with proper worship, the word that's used there for tent is "Ohel."

But when we're dealing with improper worship, that which is idolatrous, notice we see a different word. It's the word "Hakuba," the tent. It's being emphasized here because it's displeasing to God. What did Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, actually do? He came from behind this man of Israel to the tent, that is, where they were committing this idolatry. He pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman, piercing her through her stomach. Because of what he did, we go back to our call to worship: "And the plague was stopped from upon the children of Israel."

So, what do we see? We see that Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, had a call upon his life. He was called to serve God, and this is what he was doing here. He was acting in obedience because he knew the danger and the displeasure from God when God's people turn away from Him and engage in idolatry. Let me just simply say that when we enter into the end times, we're going to find there's going to be a leader, a world leader. This is the one called the false prophet, also known as the Antichrist.

He is going to lead people into idolatry. Let me just simply say, without any apology or any doubt, when we deal with the religion of the Antichrist, it is not Islam. The religion of that Antichrist empire is going to be idolatry. Why? Because idolatry speaks to our fleshly, our carnal nature and what we want. The problem is this: we are no longer free once we have entered into that New Covenant through the blood of Messiah. We are no longer free to go after what we want, because we're a new creation in the Messiah.

What does Paul say? The former things, how we used to think, all of that has passed away. Behold, all things are new. This word "new" is a Kingdom word. We should be committed to Kingdom things. So, we become that new creation. We're committed to Kingdom truth and displaying and exemplifying a Kingdom character. But the children of Israel, they were not doing that. They fell into idolatry. Why? Well, just what we learned: because of a Sachar. What is that? A payment. It's a word for some type of remuneration.

Because of that, we see that Bilam taught Balak how to place a stumbling block before the children of Israel, getting them into doing idolatry. What was the outcome of that? Let's go now to our last verse. Look at verse nine. "And the dead ones that were in this plague, this striking, were 24,000 people." Imagine that. Because of idolatry, 24,000 people lost their life because of this plague that God sent to discipline and to judge the people.

Again, we have to have this proper perspective because God's judgment brings about a change. God's judgment manifests God's order among His people. So, judgment is a good thing. As I've said many times, we need to have a heavenly perspective, not an earthly perspective. A heavenly perspective agrees. We look, for example, in the book of Revelation and chapter 19, and we find that heaven was praising God because of His righteous judgment. Not just judgment, but a righteous judgment.

I want to close with something that I've said earlier, and that is we need to understand the biblical word in the New Testament for vengeance. We know from an Old Testament standpoint, the Bible says vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. So vengeance is not appropriate for me or for you or for any human being. Vengeance biblically belongs to the Lord. Why is that? When we look at the Greek word for vengeance, we see that it is comprised of two Greek words.

The first is a prefix, "ek." What is "ek"? "Ek" is to bring out or from. So, we're going to see something. Vengeance, when God acts and brings about vengeance, it brings out not just the word "ek" for out of or from, but the next word has to do with righteousness. It is only—hear this—it is only God's vengeance that can bring about a righteous change. Not my retribution, not my revenge, but it's only God's vengeance.

That's why vengeance belongs to Him and not you and me. We let our emotion, we let our desires, our flesh get in the way. God never does. God always does the right thing. So, vengeance belongs to Him because God's vengeance brings out righteousness. Why is that important? Because God's vengeance, which is related to His judgment, is going to bring about a Kingdom outcome whereby the righteousness of God is going to be seen. We all know the verse from Matthew chapter six where it says, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness."

Righteousness is a call, a commitment that we should have to behave righteously because in Messiah, we become the righteousness of God. What does that mean? It means that through righteous behavior, we can manifest the glory of God, and that's what we're called to do. Always. In every thought, in every word, in every action, we are called to manifest God's righteousness, and when we do, it will have a glorious outcome. People will see God's working in our life and understand and see the outcome of righteous behavior, which is the glory of God. Well, I'll stop with that until next week, and we press on in this same chapter, chapter 25 of the book of Numbers. Until then, may God bless you. Shalom from Israel.

Guest (Male): Well, we hope you will benefit from today's message and share it with others. Please plan to join us each week at this time and on this channel for a broadcast of loveisrael.org. Again, to find out more about us, please visit our website, loveisrael.org. There you will find articles and numerous other lectures by Baruch. These teachings are in video form. You may download them or watch them in streaming video. Until next week, may the Lord bless you in our Messiah Yeshua, that is Jesus, as you walk with him. Shalom from Israel.