THE THEME OF THIS DEVOTION:
LEADERSHIP ALWAYS EXPERIENCES A CRISIS OF CONTENTION. ONE MUST BE PREPARED TO DEAL WITH IT IF S/HE IS TO FUNCTION AS AN EFFECTIVE LEADER. ONE MUST BE ABOVE REPROACH IF HIS/HER LEADERSHIP IS TO BE OF A GODLY CHARACTER.
NUMBERS 16:8-15
VERSE 15:
VA’YACHAR LE’MOSHE ME’OD VA’YOMER EL-YHVH
This distressed Moses greatly And he said to the LORD
AL-TEY’FEN EL-MIN’CHA’TAM
Do not turn toward their offering
LO CHAMOR ECHAD MEY’HEM NA’SA’TI
Not a single donkey have I taken from them
VE’LO HA’REY’OTI ET-ACHAD MEY’HEM
Nor have I hurt one of them.
Dathan and Abiram, the sons of one man named Eliab (“God is my father”), lifted up a complaint that Moses had taken them and the people from a land flowing with milk and honey (Egypt) and had not taken them to the land of Promise (Canaan) which is characterized by that same ascription—a land flowing with milk and honey.
This was a slap in the face of the One Who gave the Promise by way of the servants of that One—Moses and Aaron.
Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft—it exalts man over God. The sons of Eliab were united in their stiff resistance to the leadership of the miracle-worker whom God had used as his Rod to deliver the children of the Promise from the cruel domination of the world system.
Moses asked God to not turn toward their religious practice—though it had the surface appearance of the same devotion as that of Moses. Hypocrisy and Tares-among-Wheat is the sad reality of religious observance in this temporary phase of the prophetic unfolding of the world. May we cleanse ourselves from such serpentine things.
Furthermore, Moses said to God that the service he had rendered to them on behalf of the LORD was upright—Moses had not used his power to gain any personal advantage or to administer painful discipline upon the people.
There is a constant struggle between the Cain of humanistic religion and its love of the world and the Abel practice of revealed faith and its spirit of devotion to the Heavenly Realm. We must put away from us ungodly practice. We must follow in the footsteps of Jesus.
Take care by brother, my sister, that your heart not give way to longing for the system of the world from which you have been miraculously extracted by the Gospel of Salvation and by the discipline of the Kingdom of Heaven. You are now a New Creation. Endure the Wilderness, for it is your pathway to the Inheritance of the Saints in Light.
(First John 1; Revelation 21-22)
