Num 25:12+13, Therefore say, 'Behold, I give him My covenant of peace; and it shall be for him and his descendants after him, a covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the sons of Israel.'" 
	We are now at a critical juncture in the reading of the history of the Children of Israel and their relationship with the Lord God Almighty. This is not a simple chapter to read and to understand. There is a vital decision made that points to both the need for the utter and absolute reverence of the holiness of God as well as to the Lord’s manifestation of His atoning heart for His people. We have an end of the old generation with its heart of impudent rebellion against the Lord, and the establishment of the new heart of commitment and consecration that is the type of the Christ to come. 
We will again spend extended time with Dr. Ronald B. Allen, and his learned expertise in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary. We do so in order to gain a more concise and detailed understanding of the fact that the whole history of humanity’s relationship with God hung in the balance of the decision that was made by the priest, Phinehas. This is far too critical a matter to merely read and then forget as just a minor event in the course of how the Children of Israel behaved before the Holy Lord God Jehovah.  
	Quoting Dr. Allen then, So now we come to the ultimate rebellion of Israel in the desert. The time is the end of the forty-year period of their desert experience. The place is the staging area for the conquest of the land of Canaan. The issue is that of apostasy from the Lord by participation in the debased, sexually centered Canaanite religious rites of Baal worship- that which would become the bane of Israel’s experience in the land. This chapter is an end and a beginning. It marks the end of the first generation; it also points to the beginning of a whole new series of wicked acts that will finally lead to Israel’s punishment….All the rebellions up to this point described in the Book of Numbers have centered in murmurings against the Lord and against his servants Moses and Aaron. The people have provoked the anger of the Lord by grumbling about water and food and by refusing to believe that He was able to deliver on His promise to bring them into the land of Canaan. But this chapter is unique in the record of the experience of Israel in their move from Sinai to Moab – it describes their involvement in the worship of another deity.
	There is nothing in 24:25 to prepare us for the suddenness of 25:1. This chapter is the last word on the old generation. This is the end; the new is coming. The events in this chapter are no mere petty sins on Israel’s part. Israel’s engagement in the sexually centered worship of Baal was not only the evil of immorality; it was a breach of covenant with the Lord, a worship of the gods of the land (v.3), and a foretaste of the ruin of the people in the unfolding of their history. That this terrible evil followed so closely on the heels of the blessings of the Lord pronounced through the improbable prophet Balaam is most lamentable. End quote.
	It is hard to understand that the very redeemed people of God would immediately whore themselves unto the false deity of the Canaanites. It is a shock to our senses as we flow forward from the fact that Balaam could not curse them. We recognize that they were protected by God from the forces of the other nations harming them. However, the utterly abysmal reality is that they put themselves into the very place that those nations had tried to bring down upon them. The tribes of Israel opened their own hearts to the vileness of those nations surrounding them. They willingly chose to participate in the absolute vileness of Baal worship and thus subjected themselves to the plague of the retribution of God against their apostasy. 
When we consider that almost 10% of the people were slain as a result of this self-serving breach of the covenant which God had put into place with them, we are dumbfounded and stunned at the self-destruction and implosion that wipes out the remains of the old generation who had been released from slavery by the Lord.   
	Even the scribes, as pointed out by Dr. Allen, had a most difficult time recounting the horridness of what was involved in this traitorous betrayal of God by these, His own people. Particularly horrifying was the account of verse 6, as is so detailed by Dr. Allen. 
Quote, … I suspect the actions described here were so very shocking that the scribes of Scripture found it to be quite repellent and that the precise nature of the offense was softened somewhat through time. Perhaps the verse is best read this way:
	Then a certain Israelite man brought the Midianite woman to the Tent [of God] right before the eyes of Moses and the eyes of all the congregation of Israel; and they were sporting at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting….
	It seems likely to me, however, that the subject of the verb “weeping” is not Moses and the congregation but the sinning Israelite and his Midianite partner. The focus of action in the verse is on them, not Moses. What they did was before Moses, in his presence – under his nose! And what they did was to engage in a sexual embrace in the manner of Baal worship – right at the entrance of the holy Tent of God!
…The audacious action of this Israelite man is unparalleled and totally unexpected. The contempt for the holy things and the word of the Lord shown by Zimri and his Midianite lover, Cozbi (v.15), is unimaginable. This is a climax to the first section of the Book of Numbers; here is Israel at her worst. This provides an unhappy justification for the ways of the Lord; it also provides a theodicy of His judgment of the entire first generation.
	The man is a blasphemer in the strongest sense. His sin is a deliberate provocateur of the wrath of the Lord, flaunting and taunting holiness in an almost unbelievable crudity. The issue was so blatant, so outrageous, so unspeakable – I suggest that the ancients had to hide the meaning somewhat in code words. Those who read the text today find between the words that stand (which are awful enough) something that is truly an outrage against Majesty that is nearly unbelievable. 
	Most of those who saw this happening must have been so shocked that they were motionless. They must have been stunned by audacity, numbed by horror. Someone had to do something; finally, one man did act. Notice that the evil man in this verse is a Hebrew. It would have been bad enough had this been a foreign man with his foreign mate. But it was a prominent man from the congregation. This act, then, is the cause célèbre of v.1, the principal action of “playing the whore” with foreign women. This man’s disregard for the sacred is so outrageous as to shock us even today, in our jaded, secular age.
	The point was that in joining the sexual frenzies of the sacrificial feasts of Baal, the man and his priestess-partner now act to transform the worship of the Lord into the type of sexual rites that were the mode of Canaan. Had this outrage not been stopped, there could never have been true worship in the Holy Place again. They were making the place of entrance into a bordello, the entrance of the meeting of God and man into a trysting place….
	It was the brazenness of the acts of these two that made them not just sinners but an abomination to the Lord. Here is a frontal assault on the true, high, and pure worship of the Lord that the priestly interests in the Book of Numbers stress repeatedly. Only an act of equal force to the nature of the affront will suffice. That powerful act came in the person of Phinehas. End quote.
	If Phinehas had not intervened, if he had not stood up for the holiness of the Lord and the sanctity of His Lordship and His Honor and His Majesty, the whole nation of Israel would likely have been utterly and justly wiped off the face of the earth. The history of the Christ to come and the blessing of God for all the nations was at stake, and this priest, this Phinehas chose to stand for the Lord instead of compromise with the world and its infidelity.  
	Concerning Phinehas, the priest, Dr. Allen states the following, quote …Ultimately, he is typical of Christ the Victor…. He is an early embodiment of “star” and “scepter” of 24:17, the smiter of Moab. He is the hand of God extended in rage against the profanation of His joy. Phinehas is one of the great heroes of faith in Scripture; though he is quite unknown to most of us, he is never forgotten by God. His zeal is that of one who fears the Lord, who waits on His mercy…, but who also acts when not to act would to be sin. 
    	…That Phinehas pierced through the two of them is forcefully stressed: (1) the knife or spear could not have been a little thing but could well have been a narrow, sharp blade; (2) there would have to be tremendous force to plunge the knife or spear through both bodies; (3) the emphasis on “both” stresses that they were oblivious to Phinehas, both caught up in their licentiousness, so that the knife would have gone through his back, out his sternum, and into her abdomen; and (4) with this the plague was stayed, indicating that this couple was not just an outrageous instance of debauchery – likely they were the instigators of the pagan rites!
	…Most surprisingly, by the action of Phinehas “atonement” was made for the people; for the plague was stopped (v.9). This chapter is a pivotal section in the theology of the Torah. End quote.
	We make a direct connection in the type of the priesthood that Phinehas represented in the covenant that God made with him for perpetuity and the priesthood of Jesus Christ, even down to ourselves as we look at scripture, if you will bear with me a little longer this morning. 
	Consider, first of all the description of what the priest is to be as recounted in Mal 2:4-7. Mal 2:4-7, "Then you will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that My covenant may continue with Levi," says the Lord of hosts. "My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him as an object of reverence; so he revered Me, and stood in awe of My name. "True instruction was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found on his lips; he walked with Me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many back from iniquity. "For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. 
    	And Malachi continues with the prophecy of this true priesthood of Christ in Mal 3:1-6. Mal 3:1-6, "Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming," says the Lord of hosts. "But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. "And He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness. "Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord, as in the days of old and as in former years. "Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against those who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage earner in his wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien, and do not fear Me," says the Lord of hosts. "For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed. 
    	The Writer to the Hebrews picks up this declaration and description of the true priesthood of Jesus for us in Heb 7:14-28, if you would please turn to it. The priesthood of Jesus brought the greater atonement than that of the atonement that Phinehas’s action provided for the Children of Israel, by virtue of the perfect sacrifice of Christ’s own blood for all those who will believe upon Him as both Savior and Lord. 
Heb 7:14-28, For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests. And this is clearer still, if another priest arises according to the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become such not on the basis of a law of physical requirement, but according to the power of an indestructible life. For it is witnessed of Him, "Thou art a priest forever According to the order of Melchizedek." For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness (for the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God. And inasmuch as it was not without an oath (for they indeed became priests without an oath, but He with an oath through the One who said to Him, "The Lord has sworn And will not change His mind, 'Thou art a priest forever'"); so much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. And the former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers, because they were prevented by death from continuing, but He, on the other hand, because He abides forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Hence, also, He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever. 
	The Apostle Peter then, in 1 Peter 2:4-10, describes how we, the redeemed saints of the Lord are being made to be priests with the heart of Phinehas, who stand for the testimony of the Lord against all the assaults of the nations because we are now being built into that priesthood as Christ’s own people. 1 Peter 2:4-10, And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in Scripture: "Behold I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed." This precious value, then, is for you who believe. But for those who disbelieve, "The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone," and, "A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense"; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 
	Our final passage of this morning is from John in Rev 1:4-6. In it is the reinforcement that through the perfect work of Jesus, we are all made to be priests to Our God. The covenant of peace instituted by God with Phinehas now includes all who are brought into the priestly lineage through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 
	Rev 1:4-6, John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne; and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood, and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father; to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. 
	Therefore say, 'Behold, I give him My covenant of peace; and it shall be for him and his descendants after him, a covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the sons of Israel.'" Amen.

	
This morning’s benediction is Neh 9:6. "Thou alone art the Lord. Thou hast made the heavens, The heaven of heavens with all their host, The earth and all that is on it, The seas and all that is in them. Thou dost give life to all of them And the heavenly host bows down before Thee. Amen.