Going too far

Read Numbers 16:1-35

Turn on the news today and you'd be hard pressed to not come across news of conflict. Conflicts exist all over the world today and we can hardly get through the first few minutes of any newscast and not find ourselves listening to conflict where one or more of the parties involved had gone too far.

Take a look at Numbers 16 and early on in the third verse we find this newsflash of conflict between the community leaders of Israel coming out and having one of the first recorded public protests known to man. There were 250 community leaders coming out in opposition to Moses and Aaron. Their claim against Moses and Aaron was this - "You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord's assembly?"

Moses and Aaron didn't take these charges lightly. They responded with a coming challenge from God who will make it clear we're told who is holy. They replied to these community leaders - "You Levites have gone too far!"

Reading the rest of the story we see God making it clear who is holy and who is not. The long and short of this story is this - those who are holy follow God. It's that simple. These community leaders were challenging God's anointed leaders. These community leaders were challenging God's divine direction for His people. And ultimately what happens is God pronounces judgment on these 250 men who were consumed by fire.

It is often difficult to connect Biblical stories to our daily lives, especially when it comes from the Old Testament book of Numbers. But the connection of this story to our lives is clear to see. What we need to remember from this story in our lives I believe is this - God wants us living holy lives, trusting His plan instead of our own. God wants us to know at some point if we're not careful we can go too far; we can go outside of God's will and if we do there are consequences. Again, make no mistake about it, consequences surround us but they are not always immediate. Think about it, some of our everyday behaviors may be dangerous and not safe for us but we don't always experience immediate consequences. Here's an example: ever drive through an intersection and realize --- oooopppsss, the light was red? I've done it, kind of zoned out and missed the light was red. And you know what happened? I was fortunate. No one was coming through the intersection at the same time I ran the light, so I was spared the natural immediate consequence. But if I continue to run red lights, my chances of a major accident increase dramatically.

Here's the point friends - live today realizing that at some point we can go too far outside of God's plans and consequences will follow. God wants us to be holy because He is holy. Read stories like Numbers 16 and connect the timeless truth to our lives personally and know God is a just God.