Idolatry And The Plague

6 And indeed, one of the children of Israel came and presented to his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. 7 Now when Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand; 8 and 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 body. So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel. 9 And those who died in the plague were twenty-four thousand.

10 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: 11 “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the children of Israel, because he was zealous with My zeal among them, so that I did not consume the children of Israel in My zeal.”

So, what’s this all about? Commentator Warren Wiersbe tells us that “Balaam wasn’t able to curse Israel, but he knew how to defile them and seduce them into sin so great that [Yahweh] would judge them.”(8) “Balaam suggested to Balak that the Moabites and the Midianties convene a religious feast to honor Baal, and that they invite the Jews to attend. The feast, of course, would involve idolatry and abominable immorality, and would be a flagrant violation of Israel’s covenant with the Lord . . . What Balaam couldn’t do by appealing to the demons, he accomplished by appealing to the flesh and inviting the Jews to ‘enjoy themselves’ at Baal Peor, [and] this is the first recorded occasion in Scripture of Israel worshipping Baal.”(9)

Wiersbe goes on to say that “the Lord sent a plague that began to kill the people, so Moses moved into action. Following God’s orders, he commanded the judges in each tribe to kill the people who had led Israel into this terrible sin, and to expose their bodies as a warning to the rest of the people. But one special act of judgement helped to bring the plague to an end and save the rest of the nation,”(10) and we’re going to hone in on that “one special act” a little later in the message.

So, let’s dig into this passage a bit further. Verse 3 says, “So Israel was joined to Baal of Peor, and the anger of the LORD was aroused against Israel.” In order to understand what aroused the Lord’s anger and brought about the plague, we need to understand some things about Baal worship. So, allow me to take a moment to talk about Baal; and as I do, I’m going to identify some of the ways that “the spirit of Baal” is alive and well today in the United States of America.

Part of the spirit of Baal is selling out for a price. Just consider how greatly Balaam was influenced by money, in the fact that he would curse just about anyone if the commission were big enough. “In artistic depictions and archeological finds, Baal took the shape of a bull or ram.”(11) So, let me tell you, we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that on Wall Street there is a huge bronze sculpture of a bull standing 11 feet tall by 16 feet long, weighing 7,100 lbs. Wall Street is the powerhouse of the world economy; and like the worship of Baal, we find the worship of money on Wall Street.