Rooting Out the Seed of Rebellion

I wanted to share something from Numbers, but before I go there, I want to ask you a question. I don't know if we recognize that God's Classification of sin is different sometimes than our classification of sin We may think it's the same we may use our use our human logic But God's classification of sin is very different and I want to show you an example of that from Jude chapter 1 verse 11 Jude is the second last book in the Bible and there's Jude shares some things about three sinners in that verse and as we study scripture if If we set aside our human logic and say God I Want to understand your logic the Bible says in Isaiah 55 That God's ways are higher than our ways how different from the heaven is from the earth That's how different God's ways are from our ways. So we have to recognize that when God Looks at things he looks at things very differently than we would so you look at this passage in Jude 1 verse 11 He criticizes three people and he rebukes three people here in this verse. He says war to them For they have gone the way of Cain Then they have rushed headlong into the era of Balaam and Perished in the rebellion of Korah Now there are three people there Cain Balaam and Korah. I would ask you think about those three people You know what they did Cain what did Cain do He committed murder It's a pretty horrible thing What did Balaam do? Balaam cursed the Israelites and caused the Israelites to stumble it says in Revelation chapter 2 That he caused the Israelites to commit acts of immorality By putting a stumbling block in front of the Israelites What did Korah do? Korah rebelled against Moses. I think about those three sins murder causing somebody to sin sexually and standing up against somebody who is God's authority How would you classify those three sins? Would you classify it in the opposite order? Well, it's kind of bad to stand up to a man of God and say well, he's wrong. Okay But to cause somebody else to sin sexually to tempt somebody to be more immoral sexually, that's worse And then to commit murder, that's the worst But you see the opposite Order in which God looks at it and God is saying war to these people They first go in this way of Cain he's talking again to people in the church That's what we've got to understand because the people in the church gets are so scared of murder. They'll never do it They may dress immodestly. They may flirt in their conversations with other people's wives or with other women They may do that never commit murder, but it's called stumbling blocks in the way they treat other women maybe Could go both ways So that's less serious for the men of God and women of God and least serious is the fact that they'll say well Who's godly authority anybody can do whatever they want. We're all men of God. We're all women of God. We all hear from God That is the tendency you tend to find in Christianity inspect yourself. How close are you to committing murder? Hope not very close at all How close are you to talking flirtatiously to somebody at work to provoking other people to lust? Through leading people on maybe a lot closer How close are we to disregarding? spiritual authority Understanding who's a godly person very close We see that God's ways are much higher But as we inspect our lives in the church, we find that the order is correct Now if we're all out in the world Where there is no spirit of God living in us, then maybe the order could be different Please don't commit murder at least don't kill people but for people in the church It starts off with those kind of sins, but then we start to excuse the more Normal sins or not that bad and that's the great great great danger we're not as We're not as susceptible to the sin of Cain as we are to the sin of Balaam and We are most likely to fall into the sin of Korah what we find that the sin of Korah is punished the worst. Did you know that God never killed Cain? after he killed Abel Never did it. He said well, you're gonna be banished. You're gonna have a mark on your body, but Neither with Balaam. God judged Balaam a few years later and the Israelites ended up killing him but Korah Right then Swallowed up into the middle of the earth in Numbers chapter 16. You see how God took the sin of Korah so much more Seriously than the sin of Cain You won't see that if you think with your logic God's ways are much higher than our ways. That is why it's so important for us to Understand God's ways not just be logical So I wanted to show you Numbers chapter 16 Numbers chapter 16. I wanted to share with you just a couple of thoughts Numbers chapter 16 is the rebellion of Korah. This is the story where Korah and a couple of other families rose up against Moses Verse 16 verse 1 Numbers chapter 16 verse 1. It says Korah who is of particular He was actually Moses's cousin if I'm not mistaken close relative Took action. That's what it says in verse 1. He finally had enough. He basically said that In verse 3, he says you've gone far enough. I've pretty much had it with you Moses and You see what he says here. It's interesting. What is what what provoked him? He says all the congregation are holy. All of us are children of God. All of us here are all equally holy Every one of them and the Lord is in all our midst. There's no difference Moses between you and me Why do you Moses exalt yourself above everybody else That's that was the sin of Korah. That's what provoked him. He says look, we're all Christians. We're all children of God What makes you think you're somebody special? What makes you think that you can hear from God more than I can? But it also is interesting also when I read this passage That what provoked What made Korah take action Maybe many things maybe many things it was clearly a bunch of things was clearly not one act But what made him finally say is enough is what happened before that Now if you go back to numbers 14 and numbers 13 and 14 you see that the Israelites were told to go and kill the Giants of the land and The spies came back in numbers 13 and said no most of the spies came back and said no this land is great But the Giants are too big. We should not go Joshua and Caleb were the only two who went and they stood up against Joshua and Caleb said we should not go and God Punished them and said look finally I've had enough None of you are gonna enter the promised land So they then went to try it to go in in their own strength and they failed God punished them They got beaten up by the enemies when they tried to go out in their own strength. That's in numbers 14 and Then at the end of numbers 15 you see a small little story in verse 32 numbers 15 verse 32 where a man was gathering wood on the Sabbath today and they brought him to Moses and Aaron and They put him in custody Because it had not been declared what they should do with him Then the next day the Lord told Moses. This is what you got to do. You got a stone him So Moses had the whole congregation That's what the Lord's command was can you imagine the scene the whole congregation taking this man outside and Moses saying now all of us need to take stones and stone this man that's what it says and the sold all congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death and Moses Said as a result of this we're gonna have to change also the way we dress You read that passage. He says now we're gonna add something to all of our clothing now because this is such a serious issue that has happened and Then you see that the next verse after that is where Korah says now we have to take action Enough is enough a small little sin, which we thought was a small little sin was the final provocation and What I noticed in there is that When there's an unresolved issue in our lives It can be a small little thing That the Lord asks us to do when godly man decides to do something that can provoke us and then can cause us to finally have all of that junk come to the service and for it to come out and then it ends up with Widespread rebellion that God ends up having to swallow them into the earth but where it started from was because a Small sin must have Korah must have thought now you see what this man was doing in verse 32. He was just gathering wood How big a deal is that on the Sabbath day? Just to be gathering wood and we could think that the punishment for gathering wood Should be well, maybe give him a stern warning but because it was such a holy thing that God was trying to establish in Sovereignty and God was saying I want this to be a sign. That's what he says about Sabbath. I want this to be a sign That I have set you apart He wanted that small little thing to be a sign one day of the week Keep it holy and this man was gathering wood and in Exodus 25. We read that that God said I Want this day to be holy one day of the week because this is going to be the sign that I set you apart That you don't work on Sundays that you don't labor on Sundays. That was no again. This is the old covenant This is not the new agreement. We can work seven days of the week But that was the sign that God said you people you're going to be known For your Christianity by that one little sign and when somebody assaulted that sign the punishment was really really strong What I love about this passage even though the Exodus chapter I think it was at 25 clearly states what the punishment for breaking the Sabbath is What I love about this passage is it says in verse 34. They put him in custody Because it had not been declared what should be done to them See when I read the Lord was very clear what you should do to somebody who works on the Sabbath You must stone him. It was very clear And I don't know the reason for this But for whatever reason Moses and Aaron said look we're not going to decide right away We're going to go to the Lord and then it says very clearly that the Lord said to Moses God spoke to Moses and said address the sin and address it in this way Moses he was even though he was the man of God Even though he was the leader of the people he before he passed judgment on something. He listened And oftentimes when we see other people sinning when we think we see everything about a situation It is extremely important for us to take a step back and listen to what God is trying to tell us Because God has a lot to show us about his ways see because our tendency is to examine the entire situation using human logic and We will investigate Cain's sin and Balaam's sin and Korah's sin and we'll give Korah a slap on the wrist we'll tell Balaam not to break bread for three months and we will put Cain in jail for the rest of his life. That's how we would meet our punishment But God says my ways are different especially in the church And so we have to understand Lord when I'm dealing with the situation when I look at things logically I may not be able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together But I'm dealing with a church where it's God's way not my way and I cannot say Lord I have to figure out all of this logically I have to understand your ways and I know from scripture your ways are way different from my ways so I should go before the Lord and listen to him and Try to hear from him his way of thinking Dear brothers. This is not a complicated thought, but I wonder how often we do it We tend to gather all the information. We tend to think about all the situations and we pass our judgment We don't go before the Lord and we don't listen. I want to give you a practical example and it's got nothing to do with The Sabbath, but it is related. You know when I read this passage about little tassels being put at the edge of garments The thing that came to my mind is the practice of head covering that we preach in this church which is for that when men and women Sit in the church service according to 1 Corinthians 11 We should cover all human glory and God's glory must be exposed All of God's glory must be exposed all of Human glory must be covered and that's the way we understood head covering too That men and women both play a role in this where the men are proclaiming with their heads uncovered that God gets all the glory and Women on behalf of both the men and the women cover their heads as a demonstration of all human glory gets covered very simple Small little thing. It's like a tassel at the end of a robe. I remember that when we Bobby Jeremy and I were talking about this we were brand-new elders. Actually, we were not been elders for long But when we discussed this the way we discussed this we said let's go in each of us spend a few months I don't know what it was a month three months something and let's not talk about it with each other Let's study God's Word individually and see what the Bible has to say about it. I'm not gonna influence you You don't try to influence me Let's just each of us study God's Word When we came back together after the period of time that we decided to study on it There was not a second of disagreement. Just think about this. You got three different people We have not been united for that long. I had known Jeremy for 12-14 months same as Bobby They had not grown up in a culture of covering the head But they decided we decided to just study God's Word and just read it as simply as it sounds We can read other commentaries and this and that but we want to be influenced by God's Word As a result of that we came up with a document and different things like that What a couple of things that I noted about that is there was not even a second of disagreement among the three of us It was remarkable There are many other much more important issues you would think of That we have discussed over the last seven or eight years that we've had a lot more disagreement about But I will say that the practice of head covering is a very very small trivial part of the New Covenant But there was not a single second of disagreement in the way which we thought it needed to be applied God blessed us with a remarkable sense of unity to begin with And so it was out of that that we wrote that document and at that time There were a few people who left our church as a result of that and one of them I remember them coming to me and telling me we're really concerned of the way the way our church is going because of your Focusing on this and practicing it this way. He said I believe you're becoming Inward-looking I believe you're gonna become legalistic You're pushing these things which are small minor things. I knew this man for about two years. I knew longer than I've known Jeremy and Bobby. I asked him. Hey, look you've heard me speak For almost every week I was speaking to their small group. He had a small group I said you've heard me speak for several months or years. Have you ever heard me talk about this? You know, I talk long and hard about the love of God and about faith and things like that But because I talk about it once Maybe twice now you think we're being legalistic. I said, maybe you're right. I said here's a way we will test this whether it's true. Come back in ten years And let's see I Said maybe I don't know in two weeks two months not sure about it is but take some time Come back in ten years and you come back to me And if you think our church is becoming legalistic come and physically slap me and say Sunday, what were you thinking? I told you ten years ago. Don't lead the people of God the wrong way but If you come back in ten years, and you find that this church is not legalistic Even in their practice of it and if you find that this church is growing in love Then maybe We handle the Word of God correctly small little thing But I realized that the only way we can prove these things When we when we are wondering about different things that are happening is to listen and wait Give it time Because what I have found when I Have a problem with the way a man of God or the way a church leadership does certain things I may not understand it But if I give it time God will show me What is in me Most of all and God wants to show me what is in me And if I stand up in rebellion against it I'm not gonna ever see what is in me and God wants to show me what is in me most of all And I have found that when I submit to godly authority Even if they are wrong About a decision that they make the best thing about it is the fact that I chose to submit To the people I called my godly authority and God built the best virtue out of me, which is submission. I hope that all of us dear brothers and sisters will realize that rebellion Is Such a serious sin that we have to start to find the beginnings of that in our heart Murder is a horrible sin. I hope you'll start to watch the beginnings of murder in your heart. God calls it anger What about the beginnings of rebellion in your heart? It is worse than murder. Let me show you this verse in 1 Samuel chapter 15 1 Samuel chapter 15 verse 23 1 Samuel chapter 15 verse 23 for rebellion is as bad as witchcraft Now you got this festival of Halloween coming up and And Halloween is connected with witchcraft. It's the holy day of another religion It's the most holy day of another religion that's very active called Wiccanism. They practice witchcraft so Christians Have a different opinion about witchcraft and they say well, I'm not gonna allow my children to be affected by that spirit That is there in Halloween Well, I got a question for you, do you see rebellion or the seed of rebellion the seed of insubordination The same way chances are we don't God's ways are not our ways We have to use God's ways to say Lord when I don't understand something about your ways But I don't understand the way a godly person does something. What is my first reaction? And I'll tell you this from my own life I mean, I've had many tests of having to submit now I speak as one of the elders in this church here But I've had to practice submission myself actively continuously, I have found that in my practice of submission What the Lord has taught me when I don't understand what godly authority does when I've seen The effect of let's say in my case Zaipunin's ministry and the way it has been used The biggest thing the Lord has shown me in that is this Sandeep what have you done for the Lord? What have you done for the Lord And I look at my life and I ask myself Lord, how many people have I brought to you? How many times have I how many people have I reached out for you? What has been the effect of my ministry? What has been that effect of that and I asked myself in soberness Lord helped me to respect Even if somebody else has the wrong doctrine When people are out there bringing the good news to a lot of people They may not have the perfect doctrine, but when they're out there spreading in good news about Jesus Christ helped me to be careful Whether or not I submit to them help me to be careful to speak out against them. I may disagree with them But especially with my own spiritual authority, let me realize that the seed of Rebellion that is in me is worse than murder. It's as bad as witchcraft so In addition to knowing how serious the sin of rebellion is So the end result of that is can be okay. No, I'm not gonna rebel against anybody. I'm just gonna not have anybody over me That's the other extreme But I find that I have to realize that submission is one of God's greatest virtues Submission in the work in the church is usually told by some people to say wives Submit to your husband's no submission is not wives to your husband's alone. Why is this submission? The submission is something for all people All of us need to submit One of the greatest virtues that all of us need to have is we are people of submission That should be one of the strongest muscles in our body and let me ask you that brothers as Well as sisters. Is that one of the strongest muscles in your body or do you tend to think well, I've got a brain I've got intelligence. I went to a good school I've got God's Word I've got the Holy Spirit and living with me. I can figure out God for myself Is there a role for a godly teacher in our life? Is there a role for people to instruct us It's as foolish as how long have we been Christians? Ten years, twelve years. Do we think we're all ready to go and fend for ourselves in the world? Do we know God? These are the questions that God has asked me as I've Seen the beginning seeds of rebellion that can come into my heart and I'm not brothers and sisters, please No, I'm not speaking at anybody here. This is what the Lord has been speaking to me. I am NOT right now Contemplating rebellion against any spiritual authority, but I'll tell you what I have seen. I have seen that I have not been careful to look for the seed of Rebellion in my heart the seed of rebellion. It starts very small and when that seed of Rebellion comes in it can become a root of bitterness a Root of selfish ambition that can start to creep in and then one day becomes a big tree. Dear brothers and sisters Let us judge ourselves And I'll ask myself Lord Jesus is the muscle of submission the strongest muscle in my body How am I demonstrating that how am I testing that out? Do I long to be under some spiritual authority who can point out the areas where I'm falling who can give me those Instructions that lead me on to life. Let me long to diligently come under that We must also be very careful about the kind of people we ask To be submitted to you should inspect their lives carefully. You should see the way they raise their children should see the way they The people around them what kind of other godly people around them in their lives Are they keeping the company with people who really want to follow God are they good in the way they deal with money Are their eyes sexually pure? Are they seeking to please people or are they seeking to please God? These are the things we should ask about the people before we submit to them But if we choose to submit to them then we should ask ourselves Lord I don't want the seed of rebellion to even come into our hearts. I want to fight it with all of my heart May God help us