Grace Bible Church
Pastor Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Tree of Life
Weekly Review
Dispensations of the Mosaic Law.
The Conspiracy Continues.
052817
We have now begun to meet some very interesting individuals in NUM 16:1-3, Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took action, and they rose up before Moses, together with some of the sons of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, chosen in the assembly, men of renown. And they assembled together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?”
Notice their rebellion.
First it starts with the rejection of spiritual authority on the part of a few and then it spreads to a total rejection of the Lord and Bible doctrine on the part of the whole. Everywhere that they went they blamed the Lord.
Their attitude was “The Lord had put them there to kill them.” This was always their attitude, and that is typical irrationality.
Now, first of all, why did the Holy Spirit choose to record this genealogy for us? Well, because this is exactly the same genealogy as Moses. Moses is the son of Levi, and the son of Kohath according to EXO 16, “And Moses and Korah were first cousins,” all of this illustrating that there was no superiority between the Tribes.
Moses and Aaron were brothers and their first cousin was Korah, and in their own way, they had their own inner personal family battles to deal with loaded down with familiarity. And so, verse 1, gives us all some insight into what is going on in the mind of Korah…a man filled with approbation lust and power lust.
Korah is a first cousin to Moses and we all know how it is when you grow up with people, you become very familiar with – this was part of the problem between Korah toward Moses.
As far as Korah was concerned is that he grew up with Moses and he’s just as qualified to do the same job. And he grew up with Aaron and Miriam and he considered himself superior to them. And, like many believers who hear doctrine, the doctrine hasn’t changed him at all.
Now, notice the last part of verse 1, NUM 16:1, Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took action,
The phrase “took action” means that they gained many Jews over to their conspiracy that they were creating at first, secretly against Moses then later on openly. Later on Moses will bring it to the light. And his associates were Dathan and Abiram, ended up backing out…so there were mainly three of them.
They formed the association or the “inner circle” for the conspiracy. All conspiracies thrive on “inner circles” and “cliques.” In fact, their action is mentioned in the next verse.
NUM 16:2, and they rose up before Moses, together with some of the sons of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, chosen or elected in the assembly, men of renown.
Now, this is a full bloom, well organized revolution and conspiracy. And so there were a lot of bitter people in Israel. There were a lot of failures and losers. And these are the type of people who can easily be swayed in a conspiracy; bitter people, failures and losers.
They are bitter because of their negativity and complaining against the Lord and His will for their life. And they are failures and losers who look for excuses of why they haven’t succeeded.
Whenever people fail in life or they are failures they are easy targets for conspiracies and revolt and deception.
NUM 16:2, and they rose up before Moses, together with some of the sons of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, chosen in the assembly, men of renown.
And please notice the last phrase in verse 2, who the conspirators swayed over to their conspiracy.
NUM 16:2…two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, chosen in the assembly, men of renown.
“Men of renown” means that these were men with good personalities or men of distinction or as one translation says: men of note. These were men who gave the appearance to the people that they were spiritual and that they were leaders.
However, as we will see, they were caterers to people. They were power hungry. They had approbation lust and power lust. They would complement the people and say what the people wanted to hear.
That is why they flattered the congregation in Israel. And these 250 princes had great personalities who mastered in flattery.
They were very sincere, very emotional, and as we will see, very arrogant! And they did establish compatibility with those who had become dissatisfied. Now then, please notice in verse 2 who elected these men.
NUM 16:2, and they rose up before Moses, together with some of the sons of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, chosen in the assembly, men of renown.
They were elected by the congregation. And many of the members of the congregation were people who all had an axe to grind. They were people who had rejected the doctrine coming from Moses. These were people who didn’t like the change that Moses, a man of doctrine, made.
And so, they wanted to go back to the slavery in Egypt. They wanted to go back to the way things use to be. They had the slave mentality. They didn’t want freedom because freedom demands responsibility. Just like today, many believers do not want freedom and liberty and privacy and grace, (why?) it’s too much pressure.
You are a believer-priest, which means a priest represents himself or herself before the Lord.
ROM 14:4-14, Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and stand he will, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One man regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, and he who eats, does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God. For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living. But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, And every tongue shall give praise to God.” So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way.
The point is that all of you are just as close to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ thru the power of the Spirit as is anyone else, including the pastor or the Pope or anyone that you think has the credentials to be close to the Lord.
We live in the Church-age and you have Equal Privilege and Equal Opportunity.
Now then —- Most believers today want a set of rules and do’s and don’ts to follow rather than the responsibility of being free and responsible for what they do with their freedom.
So these were people who listened to Moses, but frankly, they were looking for an excuse to reject his message. They were people who were jealous, vindictive, bitter, and implacable,
So, in verse three, we have the beginning of the revolution.
NUM 16:3, And they assembled together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, “You have gone far enough, for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is in their midst; so why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?”
Now, please notice the accusations in verse 3.
1. They said to Moses “you have gone far enough” = which means we’ve had with you. We will decide how far you can go, and you have gone far enough. Something must be done with you, Moses!
2. Then they also said: “for all the congregation are holy,” = we are just as good as you and can do the job you can. You see, here is the subtle competing and comparing which goes with any conspiracy. Moses wasn’t competing and comparing himself with them. He was doing his job, teaching the word of God.
However, in a conspiracy there are always those who are jealous, covetous, envious and lustful of what the victim of their conspiracy has.
3. “And the Lord is in our midst;” = we don’t need you, the Lord is with us also.
In a conspiracy involving believers, you will always hear the conspirators claiming that the Lord is with them or on their side. And in most cases they will even claim that the Lord told them to do it. Do you realize that if God wanted Moses removed all He would have to do is remove him?
He could have given Moses a disease. He could have taken Moses home early. He could have led the congregation to another man. In other words, if God wanted Moses removed, He didn’t need a conspiracy to do it, He would have done it Himself. And when God does something, it is always a right thing in a right way.
And that’s your evidence, a right thing must be done in a right way, if it’s from God. And so this is what they mean when they say “the Lord is in our midst.” They are saying that “God is the one that wants us to do this. He told us to do this!”
4. “Why do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?” = you make yourself higher than others, you’re unapproachable.
Now, these accusations were all lies. And by the way, Korah is speaking when it says in verse 3 “for all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is in their midst;
So, this is Korah at his best as a revolutionist. He is deceiving people and using them for personal gain. And he’s getting as many individuals involved in this as he can, so that the conspiracy will have some credibility and believability.
In other words, once you get people involved with a conspiracy, and I’m talking about people who don’t even know that it is a conspiracy,
but once you get people involved in a conspiracy through whatever means possible, like lying, and gossip, judging, defamation of character, etc. You do four things.
One, and don’t ever forget it, as some have and left this assembly and go absolutely nowhere else and say to God in effect, you’re not going to like my next statement, but they say to God: “Take your spiritual gift that You have given me and keep it Yourself!
Secondly, to get people involved you also bully people into supporting something that is evil without them even knowing it. However, as we will see, God the Holy Spirit will reveal to them the truth, through doctrine, if they desire.
Thirdly, you put them in a position of supporting the conspiracy, which is very difficult for them to get out of, unless, they make some drastic decisions — like separation.
Fourth, you cause them to get involved with the evil behind the conspiracy, which can be used AGAINST THEM in the future to keep them committed to the conspiracy, as well.
In other words, when the conspiracy begins to crumble, and it will in God’s time, but when it begins to crumble you remind people that they were also involved and therefore they need to help you out of the jam that you’re now in.