Num 31:1+2, Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Take full vengeance for the sons of Israel on the Midianites; afterward you will be gathered to your people." 
	With this morning’s reading, we now return to the narrative of the people’s preparation to move into the Promised Land. The old generation had died out and the second generation was ready to cross the Jordan. The intervening chapters highlighted how they were to honor the Lord with the sacrifices and the treatment of His Holiness. It was an interjected, yet vital break in the story as it was unfolding. 
There is a sense of bitter sweetness in this morning’s text as we consider that it was the end of Moses’ leadership of this nation with which he had so earnestly and valiantly struggled. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Take full vengeance for the sons of Israel on the Midianites; afterward you will be gathered to your people." 
When this battle was concluded, the leadership would be completely given to Joshua. Moses’ life would be concluded. We begin the reading with that emotional sadness as of the loss of one whom we have watched develop into a great prophet of the Lord. We have been with him from his precarious birth in Egypt through his learning to listen to and to obey the Lord’s commands. Most especially enthralling to us has been the fact of His directly meeting with the Lord, face to face. Moses has acted honorably, even to the point of willingness to lay his life down for the sake of the people whom he had led forth under the direct intervention and guidance of God. It is all coming to the end. 
We find ourselves thinking what could have been if only Moses had not, in his anger and his frustration, violated the Holiness of God by striking the rock at the waters of Meribah. As a result, after all the conflict with the people, and his intercession on the behalf of the people before the Lord, Moses would not be part of the nation that entered into the Promised Land. His life would be concluded before the culmination of all that he had worked for and suffered for and desired after with the whole of his being. 
After that bitter sweet aside, we pick up with the continuance of the sequence of events linked back to Numbers Chapter 25. It is there, if you will remember, that the first generation committed their final act of rebellion against God. It is recounted as follows in Num 25:1-3. Num 25:1-3, While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. For they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the Lord was angry against Israel. 
	The people of God began to participate in the idolatrous and adulterous activities of the Midianites’ carnal worship of Baal of Peor. They utterly turned their hearts away from God, even to the point of desecrating His Holiness with their immorality at the very entrance of the Tent of Meeting. They were profaning and desecrating the sanctuary of the Lord God Almighty with their vile and lewd worship of the foreign gods, and the Lord Jehovah would not have it. He struck them with the plague that ended the lives of the last of that first generation. This culminated with the heroism of Phinehas when he killed both Zimri and Cozbi in the midst of their debauchery at the very entrance of the Tent of meeting. 
	As a result of the idolatrous seduction and deception practiced by the Midianites on the people of God, the Lord ended Chapter 25 with the following command. Numbers 25, verses 17+18, "Be hostile to the Midianites and strike them; for they have been hostile to you with their tricks, with which they have deceived you in the affair of Peor, and in the affair of Cozbi, the daughter of the leader of Midian, their sister who was slain on the day of the plague because of Peor." 
	The intervening chapters stressed the manner in which the Holiness of God was to be absolutely and resolutely cherished, thus emphasizing how the second generation was to revere and to honor Yahweh, Alone! He, only, is worthy of all praise and adoration and sacrifice and worship. In His Holy and righteous anger, the Lord then called His people to strike the Midianites fully for their sacrilegious actions against Him. The Israelites were the means of God’s retribution against the vile defamers who had tried to wrest away the relationship which He had established with His Own Chosen Nation. This would show the whole of creation that God went forward with His People and would avenge Himself upon any who would try to stand in His way, attempting to vainly thwart or pervert His plan and His purposes.  
We are brought to the focus that God demanded that His people take full vengeance on the Midianites. The Israelites would not go forth with the full army, but only a 1,000 men from each tribe, along with Phinehas and the holy objects of the Lord. He was the hero priest who, because of his valiant stand for the Lord, stayed the plague which resulted in the final deaths of that first generation. This was a holy war, holy as unto the Lord and unto His place of honor and reverence in the hearts of those who would march forth for His testimony in this battle. 
This army of the select soldiers completely overwhelmed and annihilated the Midianite forces. They put to death all those kings and leaders and every man arrayed before them. This especially included the death of the instigator of the defilement, Balaam son of Beor. It is also notated that Cozbi’s father, Zur was singled out and killed. Cozbi was the priestess of Baal who was speared in her defilement of revelry with Zimri at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting. When the battle was concluded, all the Midianite men were killed and the army of the Israelites returned with their spoils of war which included the Midianite women and children.
When the army came back, they were not met with what was probably their expected congratulation for a victorious job well done. Rather, as we read in Num 31:14-18, Moses dealt with them in wrath. 
Num 31:14-18, And Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, who had come from service in the war. And Moses said to them, "Have you spared all the women? "Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.    
	This command is utterly shocking to read and to contemplate. We are caught off guard with the severity of what was demanded. We can somewhat understand the absolute killing of every male in battle, but now the Lord required the death of all the mothers and the male children at the hands of these soldiers. It causes us to question how we would respond to such a demand were we there at that point.
Again, we turn to Dr. Ronald B. Allen in his writing on the Book of Numbers in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary for an explanation. This is with respect to the command of the Lord to kill the women and all the boys of Midian. It is a lengthy quote in order to deal with such a vital unease. 
Quote, The brutality demanded by this verse is nearly unimaginable – the killing of boys and babies. One has to ask, What separates this from the Egyptian killing of the Hebrew boy babies in Exodus 1? Since most women were married young in Biblical times, most women would have had to be killed as well. Here is the sort of text that troubles us deeply. It is one thing to kill a man. It is one thing to kill a woman in battle. It is one thing even to kill children in a frenzy of hatred. But this verse demands the calm, selective, purposeful killing of women and children after the battle was over. 
Verse 18 only increases our sense of unrest in this text. Those girls who were to be kept alive would have to be rather young. Since little girls were preserved, their mothers would have had to be killed.
Such stories are bound to raise questions about the morality of the OT. Ultimately, these questions are darts directed to the person of God. One cannot debate the “morality” of the OT apart from the “morality” of God Who is represented in these passages. And once one begins to ask, “Is God moral?” the very question damns the speaker. For who is man to be the instructor of the Lord? (Job 40:1+2, Then the Lord said to Job, "Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Let him who reproves God answer it.") This is not to say that these passages do not cause us to shriek with inner tension - for they do! But our shout had best not be an arrogant attack on Majesty. Ultimately, people of faith affirm – in the midst of the most negative environment - “The God of Israel will do right.”
	The only way to understand such a ghastly command is to realize what was at stake in the story of Baal Peor (Ch 25), the incident that gave rise to the holy war in the first place. This story is not just another account of sin and rebellion in the desert. Indeed, if the story of Baal Peor is not an unusual and remarkable account, then the punishment meted out in Chapter 31 is not in keeping with the crime.
	Numbers 25 is unique. It records an altogether new type of sin and rebellion – one that bears within itself the threat of the doom of the nation as a whole. As we know, from our distance, it was the very type of evil described in Chapter 25 that finally destroyed the Hebrew kingdoms in the land. While it is difficult to say such a thing, the destruction of the women and the boys was an act of God’s mercy – for Israel. There is a sense of perspective here that is so very difficult to grasp and yet which permeates the Word of God: Divine judgment is sure for the nations who are a threat to the existence of God’s people or who have rejected His grace. And that remains true in our own “sophisticated” day. The nations today, and the ungodly among all peoples, are at risk from the judgment of God. This is true whether they acknowledge it or not. One day that judgment will come. At that time there will be no weeping over women and boys who died in ancient Midian three and a half millennia ago; at that time the judgment of God will transcend anything ever written in the harshest Scripture. And God will still be merciful and holy, maintaining glory and honor in the midst of havoc and ruin. The God of Israel will still do right. End Quote.
When we consider that what was at stake was the defilement of the Holiness of God and that His righteous judgment was meted out as a direct result of man’s utter rejection and even animosity toward Him, we must stand back and declare that all that God does is righteous and pure and holy altogether. We are not ones who can judge God and His ways. We have no real picture of what it means to absolutely so detest God and Who He is that we would work with such audacity and venom against all that is holy and sacred, flaunting His name as being worthless and to be despised. That was the heart of this nation of Midian which came under the direct judgment of God through His Chosen Nation.
The Apostle Peter makes reference to what was at stake in this whole episode as detailed in 2 Peter 2:9-15. Please open to it and note how it parallels what was taking place in the camp of Israel at Baal Peor.
2 Peter 2:9-15, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties, whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed, suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you, having eyes full of adultery and that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children; forsaking the right way they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness… 
This is a most alarming picture of the sinfulness and vileness of this age that is arrayed against the Holiness and Purity of God. We are to be the witnesses of the majesty of God in our walk under His Banner, as were to be this Nation of Israel. And, just like the Children of Israel were the targets of the perversion of the Midianites, in the every attempt to seduce and defile the people of God, so are we the targets of this age’s every effort to utterly defame God’s Being of Holiness and Righteousness. Thankfully, as voiced by the Apostle Peter, the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation… as He did all those centuries ago through Phinehas and His so severe and righteous judgment on the entire Midianite nation. 
    	The Lord speaks directly to His church with regard to letting down our guards against the corruption concerning our testimony of Himself, in Rev 2:12-14. Please turn to this last book of the Bible.
Rev 2:12-14, "And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: The One who has the sharp two-edged sword says this: 'I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is; and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith, even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. 'But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit acts of immorality. 
We must be ever vigilant against those seductions and those teachings and those philosophies which promote anything and everything except the Cross of Jesus Christ. We are to be ever true to Him, Who has always and will forever be true to us. We need to hold unwaveringly steadfast to Christ and to His Word by the power and the direction and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, knowing that forever God will do right! So be it!
	Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Take full vengeance for the sons of Israel on the Midianites; afterward you will be gathered to your people." Amen.

					
This morning’s benediction is Prov 3:11+12. My son, do not reject the discipline of the Lord, Or loathe His reproof, For whom the Lord loves He reproves, Even as a father, the son in whom he delights. Amen.