Rev. David Holwick ZJ Make It Count, #17
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
November 13, 2011
Numbers 25:6-13
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I. There are several ways to handle sinners.
A. The Penn State debacle.
1) By now most of you heard what happened at Penn State.
About 9 years ago, an assistant coach was caught
molesting a 10-year-old boy.
It was reported to the college authorities.
And they did nothing about it.
Other incidents occurred.
Law enforcement was never notified.
Apparently the school and the head coach were more
concerned about their reputation than the welfare
of these children.
2) David VanHorn, a graduate, was incensed about it last week.
a) He thought the sermon last week was appropriate.
b) This one is more so.
B. What-ifs and could-have-beens.
1) Had they reported it to the authorities immediately....
a) Several young boys would have been spared abuse.
b) The perpetrator would have been able to get treatment.
c) The football program would have been embarrassed, but
survived.
d) People would have gotten over it.
2) What happens because they kicked it down the road.
a) Several young boys have been abused.
b) The perpetrator might be able to get treatment, but
it is unlikely he can change at this point.
c) A famous coach's reputation is in shambles.
d) People will probably go to jail.
C. Phinehas would not have kicked it down the road.
1) Football has fans; Phinehas was a fanatic.
2) The priest's single goal was to protect God's honor.
a) He took drastic action.
b) He received a dramatic promise.
3) What would happen if we followed Phinehas today?
II. One man gets to the point.
A. The rebellion at Peor had grave consequences.
1) The men had been seduced by the Moabite women and ended up
worshipping their gods.
2) God commanded Moses to execute all the tribal leaders.
a) Moses diluted it to executing those directly involved.
b) Even that was not carried out.
1> They just kicked it down the road.
2> Then God sent a plague on the entire nation so
everyone ended up suffering.
3> Moses and the other leaders were reduced to tears.
3) While they wept, one Jew did something really brazen.
a) He brought a foreign woman into the camp, taking her
right past the tabernacle tent.
1> Verse 14 tells us both of them were from elite
families.
2> The language may signify he had married her; at
any rate he is intimate with her.
B. One man, Phinehas, did what needed to be done.
1) He was a grandson of the high priest, Aaron.
a) But that didn't prove anything about his character.
b) His two uncles had been killed by God for their sin.
2) Phinehas grabbed a spear and ran the sinners through.
a) One stab got both of them.
3) Immediately, the plague against the people stopped.
C. God commends him for it. 25:11
1) Phinehas was zealous for God's honor.
a) God's wrath was turned away because of it.
b) In verse 13 it actually says the killing of the sinners
had an atoning effect for the nation.
2) Phinehas is given a special covenant.
a) Unlike his corrupt uncles, Phinehas will be the founder
of a dynasty of priests.
b) He appears elsewhere in the Bible as a representative
of true faith who is sent to trouble spots.
D. Phinehas became God's Enforcer.
1) After the conquest of the Promised Land, the tribes on
the eastern bank of the Jordan put up an altar.
a) The rest of the Jews thought they were trying to
split off and become their own country.
b) Who was sent to challenge them? Phinehas. Josh 22:11
1> It has a favorable outcome. Josh 22:31
2) Later, when a horrible crime happened at Gibeah, the Jews
asked Phinehas to give them God's direction. Judg 20:27
III. What would we do with a Phinehas today?
A. Righteous wrath against sinners raises lots of alarm bells.
1) The Taliban likes to slaughter sinners.
a) Just being a Christian makes you a sinner in their eyes.
b) They behead blasphemers and stone adulterers.
2) In America, we think of the book "The Scarlet Letter."
a) A righteous community of Puritans persecutes a woman
who made a mistake.
b) But the worst sinner is the local preacher who got her
pregnant, yet gets off scot-free.
c) Hawthorne's book was a reaction against the harsh
morality of Puritanism.
3) Many people view Baptists like this - we want to judge them.
B. Churches in early America were very serious about sin.
1) It was customary to meet on a Saturday once a month to
rebuke church members who had strayed.
a) At such meetings church members accused offenders of
specific sins.
1> The accused usually confessed guilt.
2> When the accused either denied guilt, the church
appointed a committee to investigate the matter.
3> At a later meeting, the committee reported its
findings and the membership voted on the verdict
and penalty.
b) Excommunication (disfellowshipping) did not have to be
permanent.
1> Many of those who were excommunicated later
repented and were accepted back into the church.
2> Matthew 18 provided the framework for the process.
2) It was taken very seriously.
According to Professor Greg Wills, between 1781 and 1860,
Baptists in Georgia excluded more than 40,000 members.
Across the nation in this period they excluded between
one and two percent of their membership every year.
But the number of church trials was even greater.
Only about half of the offenders received excommunication
while the rest repented.
Baptists on average disciplined between 3 and 4 percent
of their membership every year.
#34302
For our church, that would be one person every 2 months!
C. The principle was known as church discipline.
1) By keeping close tabs, they protected the entire congregation.
a) The goal was always supposed to be repentance and
reconciliation.
b) Church discipline was considered the third mark of a
true church.
2) Something happened about 150 years ago.
a) Church discipline essentially evaporated.
b) Several reasons are given:
1> Individual rights became more important than group
obligations. No one is going to tell me what to
do!
2> People were more mobile so if you kicked them out of
your church, they went elsewhere.
3> Abuses and hypocrisy in how discipline was handled
put a damper on it.
4> If early America lived by "Be holy for the Lord is
holy," later America lived by "Judge not lest ye
be judged."
IV. Church discipline makes a comeback.
A. Some conservative churches are trying to bring back discipline.
1) A few even make new members sign contracts when they join.
2) These churches say their members are more serious and
committed to the Lord.
B. One man credits church discipline with saving his life.
John Fluharty loved to gamble.
But in August 2005 he accepted Jesus as his Savior and joined a
church, Buck Run Baptist in Frankfort, Kentucky.
For three months he was pure -- then he started gambling again.
Within three months his problem escalated to a new level.
John's wife went on a vacation in Florida, leaving him at home.
While she was away, he gambled 20 hours a day the entire week.
When he ran out of personal funds, he used a company credit card
and lost more than $20,000.
So he began embezzling from his employer by selling their
products on the side and keeping the profits for himself.
Over several months he embezzled about $250,000.
He continually lied to cover everything up.
In July his company discovered the theft and fired him.
He was devastated.
His wife called their pastor.
John lied to him, but a short time later the Holy Spirit
pricked his conscience.
He confessed everything both to his employer and to the pastor.
His pastor explained to Fluharty that the best way to repent
from such a public sin was to confess to the church and
receive discipline in the form of a public rebuke.
John agreed.
He knew the only way to get right with God and to recover from
this addiction was to be open and honest with everyone.
When Sunday came, Fluharty walked to the front of the sanctuary
at the corporate prayer time and confessed to everyone.
The pastor announced to the church, "John has come forward to
confess sin in his life. He's committed criminal acts.
He is back full-force into his gambling addiction, and he's
asking the church for forgiveness and support.
And most importantly, he's asking God for forgiveness."
Then the pastor publicly rebuked him, letting him know "that
sin is not accepted."
The men of the church put their hands on John and prayed for him.
In the days following the church's rebuke, John Fluharty began
to grow spiritually.
He developed a prayer life he hadn't had before, and he entered
into accountability relationships within the congregation.
He joined a small men's group that met weekly to pray and
encourage one another to avoid sin.
John credits the public rebuke with putting him on a path to
recovery.
He says, "It's hard to have a church praying for you when they
don't know you have a problem."
Does public discipline cause too much shame and embarrassment?
John doesn't think so.
"You should be embarrassed about sin, and you should be ashamed
about sin," he says.
His pastor puts it this way:
"Sin always hurts. If we love people, we seek to deliver them
from sin.
And the cruelest thing we could do is leave them in sin.
Most people have an aversion to church discipline because they
feel like it really hurts people's feelings.
It's not their feelings I care about, it's their souls."
#34301
V. The Ultimate Phinehas is Jesus himself.
A. He also stood up for God's honor.
1) Recall how he whipped the moneychangers out of God's Temple
because it was supposed to be a house of prayer.
2) Jesus never failed to confront those who twisted the Bible
or betrayed it by their actions.
a) He preached a lot against sin - especially sin done
by very religious people.
b) It is through the teachings of Jesus that church
discipline has its foundation.
B. Jesus also brought atonement, as did Phinehas.
1) But Jesus achieved atonement with his own blood instead of
someone else's.
a) Christians need to remember this when they try
to reach wayward people.
b) It is not up to us to make them suffer, but only
to lead them back to God's grace.
2) Phinehas's atonement worked for one episode; Jesus' atonement
works for eternity.
3) Have YOU accepted his atonement?
a) Are you honoring him with the moral choices you make?
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#34301 “Gambling, Embezzlement and Church Discipline,” by David Roach,
Baptist Press, <http://www.baptistpress.org>, March 26, 2007.
#34302 “Baptist History Evidences Church Discipline,” by David Roach,
Baptist Press, <http://www.baptistpress.org>, March 26, 2007.
These and 35,000 others are part of the Kerux database that can be
downloaded, absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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