This is the final part in the Legacy sermon series. The theme or topic to this sermon is compromise. To begin the sermon, Pastor Jason opened with Numbers 25:1-9, which reads:
While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate the sacrificial meal and bowed down before these gods. So Israel yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor. And the LORD’s anger burned against them.
The LORD said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the LORD, so that the LORD’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel.”
So Moses said to Israel’s judges, “Each of you must put to death those of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.”
Then an Israelite man brought into the camp a Midianite woman right before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his hand and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000. (NIV)Basically, what's going on here is that these Moabite women came into the Israelite camp, and the bottom line is the Israelite men started worshiping their god and sleeping with the women. A plague strikes the people and God tells Moses how to atone for the Israelites' sins and stop the plague. Then, this Israelite man parades this Midianite woman into his tent "right before the eyes of Moses." Phinehas, Aaron's grandson, sees this, grabs a spear, follows the two into the tent, and spears them through. The plague stopped, but 24,000 people had already died.
How did this happen? How did God's children get to this point where twenty-four thousand were killed for their sins? Let's rewind.
It all starts with Balaam. Balaam - a sorcerer - was not an Israelite, but he recognized the power of God. To make a long story short, Balak, king of Moab, summons Balaam and tells him to curse Israel. That way, when they attacked Moab, the Israelites would fail - Balak knew God was fighting for Israel and had seen what they'd done to the Amorites. After several attempts, Balaam is successful only in blessing Israel - he even curses Moab. Balak sends him away, but Balaam does give him one piece of advise: If you want to take down the Israeiltes, get them to compromise.
You see, the sin of the Israelites was not an instantaneous thing. The Moabite women came into their camp and started by just having dinner with the Israeiltes - harmless enough, so the Israelites thought. Then, the men started trying these women's religion. Finally, they had "yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor" [The Moabite god] and were sleeping with the enemy (quite literally).
According to Pastor Jason, there is a car commercial - GMC he thought - that says, "When you never compromise, you have nothing to hide." Most people, however, have many things they wish to hide, habits they don't want others to know about. A pastor who Pastor Jason knows would says that one of the best feelings in the world is to walk around with no regret or shame.
Compromise begins - regret and shame begin - by testing other religions, because that's what American culture (and I'm sure not just American culture) is. Last sermon (Legacy Part 4), Pastor Jason talked about knowing the enemies strategies. Here is another one. The enemy wants to get you to just get a taste of the culture. He knows that when you do, you will begin to compromise more and more until you have no idea how you got so far away from who you want to be.
Switching gears, let's take a moment to look at Phinehas. What would cause him to follow this man and woman into their tent and stab them through on the spot? Pastor Jason thinks Phinehas found his motivation in the people dying all around him. He had probably just watched his own friends fall dead and decided enough is enough; I'm going to end this right now. We face the same situation today. The enemy has drug our friends - our generation - into this culture and we're seeing people dying and tearing up their lives as a result. Well, enough is enough.
If it isn't apparent, the lesson in this sermon is to watch out for compromise. You can convince yourself of anything. It is so easy to rationalize an action you know is wrong to begin with. Now, Pastor Jason addressed a counterargument at this point. Isn't there forgiveness for my sins? Well, yes, of course. However, is it truly repentance if you deliberately disobey God because you know He's going to forgive you?
"Culture is striving to adopt you," Pastor Jason said. Culture promises this glamorous life that it can't deliver. Romans 6:23 says, "The wages of sin is death," not because God's going to strike you down, but because sin can't produce anything but death in the end. Just as you can't get apples from an orange tree, you'll never get life from sin.
Pastor Jason encourages everyone to get real practical with this. Think: What does it look like in your life to live for God with everything? What compromises have you made in your life that keep you from God and how are you going to change that? Maybe you need to remove your computer from your room for the next month, because you haven't been visiting sites that would please God. Maybe you need to stop hanging around some friends who always manage to get you to disobey God. Whatever it looks like for you, now is the time to start living for God wholeheartedly.
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