LOYALTY TO GOD'S LAW
Psalm 106: 13-31
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A PRESBYTERIAN PSALTER - by Pastor Max A Forsythe |
This "national" psalm of Israel, contains a lengthy confession of Israel's sins through the whole historical period that Israel was one political unit. Our focus today is on one period of that history, the time spent in the wilderness. While the focus of this psalm portion is upon the loyal action of Phinehas, in defending the honor of our God, there were many previous disloyalties on the part of Israel that led up to the incident in question. So that you do not remain confused, perhaps I need to recite the sordid events of chapter twenty-five in the book of Numbers.
On the way to the promised land, the Moabite people were met. The Moabite king had trembled at their numbers and before their God. He even hired Balaam to prophecy against Israel. When Balaam's prophecies turn sour, to the king's way of thinking, another tack was taken to undermine the Israelite threat. The priestess whores of Moab were sent out to entice the men of Israel. Now, even in our time the traffic of their trade has not been made into an organized religion like the ancient worship of Ishtar, Venus or Aphrodite. She was one imaginary goddess with several names which the Western world has been successful in abrogating from our culture. The difference in the houses of ill repute is in their standing in the community. Seedy motels in our day are perhaps the principle place of practice. Imagine instead, temples and palaces dedicated to such unwholesome activities.
The stench of death seems to be widely associated with these activities. Numbers reports that 24,000 Israelites were carried away in a plague. I have to wonder if this wasn't some AIDs like disease that killed the participants of the Moabite orgies. Years ago, before AIDs became widely known, I once had a student who proclaimed outloud that while he had herpes, no one much cared. He supposed that in time everyone would have the disease and it wouldn't matter. I assured him that he was mistaken, there were still a sizable number of people who didn't have to worry about his disease. Well, he claimed confidently, he knew a lot of people and he didn't know any one who hadn't had an opportunity to be infected. One prim and proper young lady snapped at him, it would be a cold frozen day somewhere, before he knew her and she and her friends intended to avoid the medical complication, for sure! A few years later, our faculty was lectured about the growing AIDs problem and a lot more people than I expected were looking back five or ten years. They must of thought that everyone was exposed, because they were jealous that five or six of us had nothing to worry about.
Such wanton behavior had also spread through the Israelite camp. The Lord instructed Moses to execute the key people involved. Moses called the judges and ordered them to have the Lord's command carried out. It would appear that the leaders were reluctant to carry out their orders until an Israelite man brought one of the Madonna like creatures right into the camp past the Tent of Meeting while prayers were being offered. And here is where Phinehas loyally accepted the Lord's command and carried it out. He grabbed a spear, went into the tent and pinned both the Israelite and the Moabite to the ground, killing them both. At that point, the plague was lifted even though large numbers had died. Phinehas was honored and remembered from that time onward. And in our psalm, in verse thirty-one we read that his action "was credited to him as righteousness for endless generations to come".
Now we have to remember that until the time of Christ, the punishment of death was allowed and common for the sin of adultery. The chapter in Numbers is clear that the Israelite in question took the Moabite women home to his family. Phinehas acted promptly to enforce the Law of God. In Numbers we see that he was of the priestly family in the line of Aaron. None of our New Covenant commentators suppose that this action merited him salvation. That, he already had. He acted simply in zeal for the Law of the Lord.
Blatantly, obviously, the Israelite man had rubbed his sin in the face of the authorities like some drug runners who once approached the US border at eighty miles an hour, crashed through the barrier and were amazed that the Border Patrol gave chase! After all, they thought they were beyond observation since they had sacrificed a human and boiled him up with a concoction of drugs to magically make themselves and their car invisible.
Now, we need to look at the rest of this psalm portion to see how Israel got to this sorry state necessitating the righteous work of Phinehas. We see the state of many souls in verse thirteen where we read that "they soon forgot what [God] had done and did not wait for his counsel." As we read on we see that the Israelites had many cravings and tested God repeatedly. Several rebellions flared up, Dathan, Abiram and others were killed in punishment. Still, Israel wanted a familiar god, one who reminded them of the sacred bull in Egypt. In their cravings they exchanged the Glory of God for mere idols . God would have destroyed them had not Moses stood in the breach. But, nothing it seemed made an impression on these people of the Exodus, they continued to grumble and refused to obey God. Even God's judgment did not phase them.
They would fall in the desert, their descendants would fall among the nations where they were to be scattered. Still, this rebellious people yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor and ate the sacrifices offered to lifeless gods. Their wickedness provoked God to send a plague which appears to have carried away the worst of the lot. Such is the course of natural man. By contrast we see the elect character of Phinehas who believed the Lord and obeyed Him, even when he had to act in judgment on his own people.
Now let us be careful as we consider the actions of Phinehas. What he did was within the laws of Moses and Moses' God. People well knew the prohibition against adultery and the deathly consequences of that time. Let us not even imagine that Paul Hill and others like him are acting within the acknowledged laws of the United States. Certainly, it is sad that our laws are so very far off the biblical mark; however, within the context of the New Covenant our hands are more restricted. Even in this Old Covenant report, Phinehas had a public standing and the authority of his position to enforce God's law. Generally, we do not have that, but must pray for and elect public officials like those in Cincinnati who know what crimes are in the area of law before us. And like Phinehas, the County Prosecutor in that county is not afraid to enforce the moral law which is still on the books.
Please understand, unless we are entrusted with the sword of position and authority of the State, we are not to take the law into our own hands. But at the very least, like Phinehas we can know the Law of God, hold it in our hearts and set an example for our neighbors by obeying God's Law. Our loyalty, like that of Phinehas may then prove the righteousness that is counted as ours through the salvation given to us in Christ. By such fruits may God's cause advance. If we are faithful, even the wicked will take note, some perhaps to be converted and others perhaps encouraged to hold back the wicked deeds. In Charleston, South Carolina, there is a Police Chief who has been extremely successful in holding back wickedness. No, he's not impaling anyone, he is just applying common sense on the streets. He has so many police and citizen patrols out, that the wicked are intimidated from blatantly performing their unlawful deeds. May we learn from Phinehas' example and encourage lawful enforcers to do their duty in our day and time. Amen.
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Resources Used: |
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Alexander, Joseph A. |
Commentary on Psalms. | |
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Kidner, Derek. |
Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries: Psalms. | |
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Spurgeon, C.H. |
The Treasury of David. | |
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IBS: The Holy Bible, New International Version (1984) | ||
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Psm 106c |
09 July 95 | |