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    Today’s reading in Numbers is a powerful lesson against rebellion. Korah and his followers were Levites, members of a tribe specially chosen by God to minister before Him on behalf of the Israelite nation. As such, they had a special understanding of God and His will that perhaps the whole community did not possess. It was in this state of grace that Korah and his followers rebelled, placing their own rationalizations before the commands of the Almighty Lord.
    In our modern times, we Christians are in danger of the same kind of rebellion that Korah led so many years ago. Too many Christians convince themselves that the Word cannot possibly mean what it says. They rationalize that God could not possibly expect us to believe all of what the Bible says, let alone put that word into practice.
    Hence they rebel, replacing God’s good news of Grace with the rationality of their own minds, and in doing so they risk a fate as great as that of Korah, if not now, then on the last day. It is not for nothing that Jesus pronounced his warning of the end times in Matthew 25:31-46
    But praise be to God that avoiding this rebellion is as simple as staying in His Word. By the Holy Spirit through the Word, we can see that our own sinful intellect wants us to deny God, His gifts, and His blessings, and seek after our own understandings. Knowing this, we can rededicate ourselves to reading and understanding God’s Word, thereby taking another step along that path of faith from earth to Heaven.
DLH
