What right did Moses have to be in charge, anyway? Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, along with their 250 elders of the people, wanted equal status before God. The problem was that God wasn’t on the same page. After everything that God’s people had seen, I have to wonder what would possess these people to challenge Moses and, by extension, God himself? Wasn’t Miriam’s leprosy enough? Wasn’t the death of the ten spies enough? This theme won’t end here sadly as we go through Numbers.
What is even worse? This theme still continues in our lives. We know what our God requires of us, but we still rebel. Our way sounds better. And when our lives start to collapse around us in our failure, whom do we blame? Maybe we blame ourselves, during a moment of clarity. Maybe we blame the people around us. And maybe, we lash out at God.
We don’t have to look very far to see this in action. Here in the book of Numbers, and back in Genesis – at the very first sin – we find Adam blaming God for the sin. “The woman that you put here with me.”
How God deals with rebellion is another case study. Sometimes he demolishes the rebellion. In the New Testament church we find no such harsh reaction for sin, but that doesn’t mean that sin is any less serious. During the season of Lent, we see the true horror of sin and the consequences that we deserved, in the Passion Accounts.
Watch this week’s lesson in our Bible class, Counting of God: Rebellion.
Please click HERE for the Bible Class slides.