Welcome to this Daily PBJ devotional. Read Numbers 25, Isaiah 15, and Psalm 130 to keep going in the Old Testament reading schedule for this year. This devotional is about Numbers 25. While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab. who also invited them to the sacrifices for their gods. And the people ate and bowed down to these gods. So Israel joined in worshiping Baal-a-peor, and the anger of the Lord burned against them. Then the Lord said to Moses, Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight before the Lord, so that his fierce anger may turn away from Israel. So Moses told the judges of Israel, Each of you must kill all of his men who have joined in worshiping Baal-a-peor. Just then an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses, and the whole congregation of Israel, while they were weeping at the entrance to the tent of meeting. On seeing this, Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, got up from the assembly, took a spear in his hand, followed the Israelite into his tent, and drove the spear through both of them, through the Israelite and on through the belly of the woman. So the plague against Israel was halted, but those who died in the plague numbered 24,000. Then the Lord said to Moses, Phinehas, son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my wrath away from the Israelites, for he was zealous for my sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in my zeal. Declare, therefore, that I am granting him my covenant of peace. It will be a covenant of permanent priesthood for him and his descendants, because he was zealous for his God and made atonement for the Israelites. The name of the Israelite who was slain with the Midianite woman was Zimri son of Salu, the leader of the Simeonite family, and the name of the slain Midianite woman was Cosby, the daughter of Zur, a tribal chief of a Midianite family. And the Lord said to Moses, Attack the Midianites and strike them dead, for they assailed you deceitfully when they seduced you in the matter of Peor, and their sister Cosby, the daughter of the Midianite leader, the woman who was killed on the day the plague came because of Peor. This is God's word. The end of the previous chapter, Numbers 23, verse 26, says, This gives the impression that Balaam couldn't find a way to curse Israel, so he and Balak just went their separate ways. At the beginning of today's chapter, Numbers 25, we read, this is from the NIV, but the words are, While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women, who invited them to sacrifice to their gods. That's verse 1 in the NIV. This sounds like a separate event from the preceding chapters, but it isn't. The place mentioned in verse 1, Shittim, is, according to Numbers 33, verse 49, along the Jordan. which is also where they were when Balaam and Balak and these incidents involving them began. You can see Numbers 22 verse 1 for that. So the location where the events of Numbers 25 happened is the same location where Balak tried to get Balaam to curse Israel. Furthermore, Revelation 2 verse 14 refers to, quote, the teaching of Balaam who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality. And that's the end of the quote from Revelation 3, 14. But these words indicate that Israel sinned sexually and in idolatry here in Numbers 25 because Balaam taught Balak to entice Israel into sin in this way. In other words, Balaam himself couldn't call down a curse on Israel because that would involve asking God to do something that was against his revealed will. But Balaam could bring a curse on Israel if he could get them to sin. Sex was a gateway sin to idolatry, according to chapter 25 verse 2, and that brought a curse down upon the people of God. Verse 3b says, And the Lord's anger burned against them. The result then was the death penalty for those who sinned, and death by plague for 24,000 others. Sin and its consequences then severely weakened the nation of Israel. Maybe it wasn't so bad as a curse, but it was bad nonetheless. The lesson here for us is that if Satan wants to hurt you, hurt our church, and hurt the cause of Christ, and he does, then successfully enticing us to sin is an effective way to do that. Maybe it isn't as damaging as a direct strike such as Job experienced, but it is an effective way to hurt the Lord's work. We need to guard our hearts and our lives against sin for many reasons. It is displeasing to God, dishonoring to the Lord, damaging to our spiritual life, and more. But one result of sin that maybe you don't think about much is the damage it can do to the Lord's Church and to His cause. If you are living in unrepentant sin today, the best way to contain the damage is to come forward and repent. Proverbs 28.13 in the NIV says this, whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy. If you're playing with sin in your mind, going over and over in your head what it would be like, how nobody would ever know and so on, then please consider how much damage your sin can do to you, your family, our church, and more, and turn away from that sin, refusing to play with it mentally any longer. If you found this devotional helpful, please go to my website dailypbj.com and sign up to receive it every day in your email. 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