Phinehas, the son of Eliezer, which was a righteous man, was a righteous son.
In fact, he executed righteousness in such a way, because he was so zealous for God,
he actually rescued the nation.
Whereas you have Phinehas, the son of Eli, who is actually destroying the nation.
Look at verse number 1 of Numbers 25.
It says here, And Israel abode and shit him, and the people began to commit whoredom with
the daughters of Moab.
And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their God, and the people did eat and bow
down to their gods.
And Israel joined himself unto Belpeor, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against
Israel.
So we see idolatry taking place, and God says, I'm going to destroy these people for this.
And the Lord said in verse 4 unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them
up before the Lord against the sun.
How's that for your God is just all love and all gracious?
I mean, he's like, I got the solution.
Take their heads, hang them up before the sun, against the sun, that the fierce anger
of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.
And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined
unto Belpeor.
And behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a media
nightish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the
children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
So what is taking place here?
You have this major transgression being taking place where they're serving a false God.
God's already mad.
He's already upset.
They're committing idolatry.
And then what do they do?
They add unto their sin.
They add unto their transgression.
They treasure up more wrath by this guy taking a media nightish woman, and what is he doing?
He's going to fornicate with her in the sight of all the people in his own tent.
Just cherry on top.
Okay.
Look what it says in verse seven, and when Phinehas the son of Eliezer the son of Aaron
the priest saw it, he rose up from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand.
He's not part of the Olympics here.
This is not because he's going to go extra second.
Verse eight, he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through
the man of Israel and the woman through her belly.
I'm just reading the Bible.
This is pretty graphic, but it's what God put here.
So the plague was staged from the children of Israel.
So what did he do?
He went in and he made human shish kebab.
He basically saw, and look, the elephant in the room was what?
The fact that this guy was committing a wicked act in front of God, Moses, and everyone.
This elephant was in the room, and when Phinehas the son of Eliezer, he came and he took care
of it.
Immediately.
You know, that wouldn't be politically correct today to do something like that.
I can hear Baptists all across the city, hey you should have done that a different way.
You could have been a little nicer.
You could have just said, hey guys, maybe we could do some marriage counseling.
You guys should get married and let's do some discipleship for a while.
And no, he's like, we're going to thrust both of you through so we can stay the plague of
God.
I don't think he should have done that.
Well let's keep reading here.
Verse 8 says, and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them
through the man of Israel, the woman through her belly.
So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel, and those that died in the plague
were twenty and four thousand.
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Phinehas the son of Eliezer, the son of Aaron the priest,
hath done wrongly, hath offended me, no, hath turned my wrath away from the children of
Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children
of Israel in my jealousy.
You know what he said?
I'm not going to destroy all of you because that guy right there was zealous for my sake.