Numbers 16:1-35 Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On… No man is indispensable to God. These men had no business to offer incense. God will not have the order of the Church or the order of the universe disturbed without penalty. Things are all fixed, whether you like it or not; the bounds of our habitation are fixed. He who would upset any axiom of God always goes down into the pit, the earth opens and swallows him up. That will be so until the end of time. It is so in literature, it is so in housekeeping, it is so in statesmanship, it is so in preaching. The whole order of creation is God's; why can we not simply, lovingly accept it, and say, Good is the will of the Lord? Why this chafing against the bars of the cage? Why this discontent with the foundations of things? The Lord placed me here, it is the only place I am fit for, or I have been qualified by Divine compassion and love for this position: good is the will of the Lord! Better that incense be not offered than that it be offered by unworthy hands. There is really nothing in the incense; it is in the motive, in the purpose, it is in the honest handling of the censer, that good is done by any service or by any ceremony. No bad man can preach. He can talk, he can say beautiful words, but he does not preach so as to get at the heart and at the conscience, and so as to bless all the deeper and inner springs of human life and human hope. Officialism is not piety. A man may have a censer, and yet have no right to it. A man may be robed in the clothes of the Church, but be naked before heaven, and be regarded by high heaven as a violator and an intruder. Whoever uses a censer gives himself more or less of publicity: by so much does he become a leader; and by so much as a man is a leader does God's anger burn hotly against him when he prostitutes his leadership. How many men were there? Two hundred and fifty. That was a great numerical loss. Yes, it was: but numerical losses may be moral gains. The congregation must be weighed as well as numbered. Some churches would be fuller if they were emptier. The Church of Christ would be stronger to-day if all nominal professors were shed off, if the earth would open and swallow them up every one. These were two hundred and fifty trespassers. Whatever they were outside the Church, they had no right to be within it in the sense which they now represent by this action. No true man was ever cut off, let me say again and again. The whole emphasis is upon the word "true." He may not be a great man or a brilliant man, he may be nothing of a genius, but if he be true, that is the only genius God desiderates as fundamental and permanent. (J. Parker, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men: |
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