Sermon Tone Analysis

The Agony of Seduction

Numbers 25

Let’s Make A Deal Intro

Recap:

2nd Generation Israelites are taking over, they are starting to win battles, and are close to entering the Promised Land.

Back in , the elders of the Moabites and Midianites saw how Israel had destroyed the Amorites, and were afraid of what was about to happen to them.

So Balak, who was the king of Moab, summoned Balaam to curse the Israelites so that they (the Israelites) would not defeat Moab.

God, however, prevented Balaam from cursing the Israelites, which of course, angered Balak and the Midianite elders.

Right here, is where the narrative in Numbers moves straight to what we are going to talk about today, but there is an important link that is not recorded in Numbers, but is recorded in other parts of Scripture that help us understand the rest of the set up for the scene we are examining today.

With God having thwarted the first sabotage attempt, according to , ; ; and , Balaam taught the Moabites and the Midianites how to use their women to seduce the Israelite men so that they (the Israelites men) would then be more vulnerable to offering their worship to another god, in this case Baal of Peor.

Balaam calculated that if the Israelites offered their worship to another god, that the God of the Universe would no longer be for them, and thusly the Israelites would be able to be defeated by Moab.

The Bible gives these details in a kind of flashback form:

Notice in 2nd Peter, where Peter is addressing the issue of false teachers, that he uses Balaam as a cautionary tale, saying that Balaam loved the ways of wickedness, and used seduction in order to solicit compliance and compromise.

And this is our big picture for today:

Seduction of the wrong thing leaves us open to suggestion of the wrong idea, which will lead us to sacrificing to the wrong god.

Seduction is rarely about the thing that is being offered in the seduction itself, almost always there is deeper, and much worse end game, and we are going to see this illustrated today in the Book of Numbers.

After we examine the Biblical narrative, we will pull out some practical application from God’s Word to help us remain on guard and protected against the seductions that we face today.

Let’s pray together as we go to the Scriptures.

Passage Breakdown

Numberse 25:1-3

Remember the big picture for today because it’s in full view in this passage:

Verse 1: The Seduction of the Wrong Thing

Verse 2a: The Suggestion of the Wrong Idea

Verse 2b: The Sacrifice to the Wrong god

And then, of course, verse 3 says the ultimate result/end.

The seduction worked, and now many of the Israelites are worshiping the false god, that is, Baal of Peor.

And that was the end game.

It is astonishing to think of the power of influence that sexual seduction has when we yield to it.

And what’s more, you don’t have to want to have sex to be seduced by sex.

A seduction is really nothing more than advertising.

This is not to diminish seduction, but that’s what it is.

An advertisement (seduction) promotes a product.

The suggestion then says that if you like what you see on the advertisement, you should do what the advertisement tells you to do.

But that suggestion never leads you to what you saw in the advertisement, it leads you to something wholly different, which is the idol behind the curtain.

And that idol hopes to capture you hook, line, and sinker so that you will always do what it tells you to.

We live in a culture that is hyper-sexualized.

We use sex to sell just about everything, from clothing to food, to diets so you can fit in the clothing in the first place, to cars, to music, to books, to medicine, to vacations, and on and on.

And its an incredibly powerful and effective seducer.

And what gods do we end up worshiping when we are entangled in these things?

For things like clothes, diets, even health stuff, its the god of pride and vanity.

For status and stuff, that’s the god that Jesus mentioned by name, Mammon.

And there are countless other gods and idols that we can think of, and many examples.

If we look back at these first three verses, we can see what the idol behind the curtain was, but we have the benefit of hindsight and a 30,000 foot view.

Its different when you’re facing it.

That does not mean we have an excuse, but it does mean that we need to be on guard and realize that

what the seduction is showing us is not at all what the idol intends to give us.

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God responds to this idol worship.

Now its important to note that this is an especially dire sin because it is the first time that Israel, for all their whining and complaining and scheming, had offered their worship to another god in this way.

Here is God’s response:

Numbers 25:

God’s Response: Kill the idol worshipers immediately, and do it in broad daylight.

Wow.

Why was God’s response so severe?

There are a few reasons.

If you think back a couple chapters, when God would get ready to wipe the Israelites out, Moses petitioned on their behalf.

Moses even stayed God’s judgment on the grounds that the opposing armies would think that God couldn’t get the job done if everybody just dropped dead.

And when Moses himself wanted to wipe out the Israelites, it was God who was patient (God was always patient, over-patient is more like it) and told Moses to show them kindness and mercy.

But this is different.

There is no petition for mercy.

The Israelites have crossed a major line by offering sacrifices to a false god

And by participating in the sexual immorality that was a part of that pagan worship practice.

In addition to the idol worship, there is also the problem of sexual immorality.

It is true that sin is sin is sin in terms of God’s eternal justice.

He, through Christ, conquered all sin at the cross, and forgave us of all sin.

And so while sexual sin is just as eternally damning as stealing a paperclip in terms of God’s perfect and holy justice, sexual sin is entirely different in its consequences and effects.

Consider Paul’s words in :

In other words, do not unite the Temple of the Holy Spirit (that’s your body) with the temple of a false god.

And when you are tempted sexually, flee!

Run!

At all costs get out of there!

Why is this?

The consequences of this kind of sin reach farther and wider than those of other sins, and so the damage is greater to all, and especially the one who commits the sin.

Why is this?

Well, for example, I’ve done a fair share of marital and pre-marital counseling.

I’ve been able to help some marriages repair, and I’ve been there when they’ve fallen apart too.

And in all my time, I never had a couple on the verge of divorce because their spouse can’t stop stealing office supplies.

But sexual sin has destroyed families all over the world, and probably some in this room.

Furthermore, in the passage we just read, Paul says words like “bought” and “belong” and “mastered” with respect to our bodies.

One of the contrasts and cautions that he is making is that God is a good master to belong to, after all, he bought you on the cross at Calvary.

But sin, and in particular sexual sin is a deceitful and destructive master, and it will dominate you to your detriment and the detriment of those you love if you offer yourself to it.

Bottom line,

do not unite the Temple of the Holy Spirit (that’s your body) with the temple of a false god.

Sadly, the Israelites would do just this in a very bold and brazen way that we will see now.

This is an incredible scene.

Here is Moses and the Israelites, likely in shock and disbelief, and certainly upset over the immorality that has infected their people, and a prominent Israelite man, and prominent Midianite woman (that means, these were people of influence who would be recognizable to many - we learn this from verses 14 and 15 of ), walk right past them and to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, the functional Israelite temple at the time.

And in so doing literally united the Temple of God with the temple of a false god, certainly sexually, but also demonstrably given the location of this specific pagan worship act.

The Moabite/Midianite plan had seen some success as various Israelites were now worshiping Baal of Peor the false god instead of the God of the Universe.

And remember, that was the goal of this seduction.

Now, before we think that this is something that only happened long ago, this kind of thing is happening in the church today where we are not only bringing sin, including sexual sin, into the camp (so to speak), but bragging about it, and flaunting it from the pulpit in some examples.

One of the gods of our culture is the god of political correctness, and the god of political correctness has skillfully used sex and sexuality as a doorway to entice our country, including some professing Christians, to bend their knees to PC-ism.

Playing on Christian compassion, this seduction suggests that maybe God didn’t really mean the things He said in Scripture, and maybe His meanings should be reinterpreted, etc.

But we know we aren’t following the Lord when we yield to this seduction because in case after case, its not the Bible that compels our actions, its the tenants of so-called political correctness, which means that PC is the idol behind the curtain that is using sexual temptations of all kinds to get us, Christians, to bow down to it.

And when professing Christians, and our churches embrace this, it is not altogether different from what the Israelite man and Midianite woman did here in Numbers.

There are entire denominations that have radically altered their doctrine, and by extension their theology, in response to the sexual immorality that we face in our culture today.

And isn’t it a curious thing that its only the Christians who are told to be silent about matters of sexual morality or immorality, that is, unless we agree with popular culture that sexual immorality is a civil right.

It is amazing that as a nation we are promoting the very things that bring about God’s swift and severe judgment as civil rights.

Now, I don’t know about you, but that’s kind of depressing isn’t it?

But I bring this up because sometimes we think that Christians today don’t deal with the same kinds of seductions and attacks that believers did in biblical times, and its important to remember that these kinds of attacks on God’s people continue, albeit in different forms and contexts, but nonetheless continue, even to this day.

And it does affect each and every one of us.