 All right, well we're there in Numbers 25. That's gonna be our main passage for tonight, so we'll make sure to keep it placed there. This is definitely a Bible story, right? I mean, this is not what you're gonna hear at the Liberal Church with the little flannelgram of Jesus with the long hair and the robe on, and then you've got Phineas with two people stuck on his javelin, like the little Caesar's pizza pizza guy, right? You're not gonna have that at the Liberal Church. So this is a good Bible story, and I've always found this story interesting, and so I kind of wanted to study this out, study the life of Phineas, and see what we can learn from this, and how we can apply it today in our lives in 2021. So, first off, Phineas, this is not to be confused with the Phineas from First Samuel. Phineas, and Hoffney and Phineas were the other Phineas in the Bible. Those were children of Belial. Those were the sons of Eli the priest and First Samuel. This is a different Phineas. So this is the grandson of Aaron from Moses and Aaron. So just wanna separate those two Phineas in your mind. But a little background here of what's going on in Numbers 25. Aaron had passed away and died in Numbers chapter 20 just to get kind of a frame of what's happening. The children of Israel obviously in the wilderness. This is before they've crossed into the Promised Land. So when Aaron died, that job of the high priest was passed to his son Eliezer. Numbers 21 talks about the brazen serpent, right? The Israelites were plagued with snakes and the snake bites, and this is when Moses made the brass serpent and put it on the pole, which was a picture of Christ, right? They had to look to the serpent to be healed. So just kind of some background. And then the previous three chapters are actually the story of Balak, the king of Moab, and then Balam, also kind of another somewhat interesting character in the Bible with his donkey that talks to him and all this and that. So if you haven't read those chapters in Numbers, it's a very interesting chapter. Balak, the king of Moab is trying to persuade or pay or get Balam to curse Israel. But it doesn't really work out. Anyway, they end up going their separate ways, but that actually leads us to what's happening here in Numbers 25. So Numbers 25, just to get a little bit of background and understanding where we're at, let's look down at verse one, we'll kind of read through it a little bit and jump around. So verse one says, and Israel abode and chidim, and the people began to commit hordom with the daughters of Moab, and they called the people unto the sacrifices of their God, and the people did eat and bowed down to their God. So they're not living separated. They're intermingling with the people of the region, and Israel joined himself unto Baalpur, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. So they're not being separated. They're intermingling, this is why we see in the New Testament, especially the idea of separation. They're intermingling with the people, and often this is the problem with Israel even once they get into the promised land. If you would flip over real quick to Numbers 31, just a couple pages over, and it kind of explains how they got in this predicament like we talked with Balak and Balam. Numbers 31, if you look down at verse 16, says, behold, these caused the children of Israel, talking about the women. They were to kill all the people of the Midianites and to kill Balam, and they saved the women alive, or some of the women alive at least. And he says in Numbers 31, 16, behold, these caused the children of Israel through the council of Balam to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Pior, so in the matter of what we're talking about in Numbers 25. And there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. So it kind of explains that through what happened with Balam and Balak, that associating with the people of the region is what caused this plague to be happening that we see in Numbers 25. So back to Numbers 25. Let's look down at verse four and continue there. And the Lord said unto Moses, take all the heads of the people and hang them up before the Lord against the sun. That the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. Are they just supposed to just point them out and have them think about what they did? No. Moses said unto the judges of Israel, slay ye everyone his men, that were joined unto Bielpior. It's a very serious offense. The call is to take serious action. And behold, one of the children of Israel, this is Imri, came and brought unto his brethren, a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel. So he hears this. He hears this command and sees these people being taken to be put to death for what they did. He sees this and he says, you know what, no. And so he goes and gets a Midianite woman and he goes and we find out later he goes into a tent. And the problem was they were committing hordom with the daughters of Moab. So this is what he's doing as well. He's just spitting in the face of God's law and of Moses and the leader of that time. It says here, sorry, I lost my place. So he brought him in the sight of the congregation of the children of Israel, verse six, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. They wanted to get right, right? They had a repentant heart. They were wanting to get rid of the plague and solve this issue and turn back to God, the people of Israel. And when Phenehas, 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 and 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. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel. And those that died in the plague were 24,000. So again, this is a tremendous, very drastic moment, if you can imagine living in this time and somebody does this, right? Drastic times come for drastic measures and this is what we see here that Phenehas did. And I kind of wanted to study out Phenehas. So look through the Bible when he's mentioned. The first place, if you want to turn there is Exodus six. So the first time Phenehas is mentioned is in Exodus chapter six. So Exodus six, this is before the 10 plagues of Egypt, right? So Moses and Aaron are called, the burning bush happened. Aaron comes to help Moses and they're standing before Pharaoh. And Exodus six in verse 25 says, and Eliezer, Aaron's son, took him one of the daughters of Putiel to wife and she bear him Phenehas. These are the heads of the fathers of the Levites according to their families. So this is the first mention of him. I don't believe that he was necessarily born at this time. I think when Moses was writing down the first books of the Bible, he was doing so looking back at his life and I think he mentioned him there. We'll get to that in a little bit why I believe that. But it's interesting to note there in Exodus seven, the next chapter, it tells that Moses is 80 years old and Aaron is 83 years old. And we'll get to that in a little bit. I kind of want to see where Phenehas is at in the Bible and then also kind of get an idea of how old he was during this Numbers 25 event. So the next major event we see is this Numbers 25, the deal with the Javelin and the Midianites woman. Also another notable event that Phenehas is a part of is in Joshua 22, if you want to turn there please. Joshua 22. So Joshua 22, this is after Israel has entered the Promised Land. They have conquered quite a few kingdoms. Jericho most notably was one of the first ones they did in Jericho. But also there's a list of 30 some kings that were conquered in the book of Joshua. So Joshua 22, what has happened here is the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh have gone back to their land in Gilead where they wanted to settle and they set up an altar there next to Jordan. And the people of Israel, the other side, they see this and they think that they're abandoning the Bible, abandoning God and they're ready to go to war with them. So there's this big divide between the country and look down at Joshua 22 and verse 13 and we'll kind of skip through this just to get an idea of what happened in Phenehas's role. Says in verse 13, And the children of Israel sent unto the children of Reuben and unto the children of Gad and to the half tribe of Manasseh into the land of Gilead, Phenehas, the son of Eleazar the priest. So they sent Phenehas in there and with him 10 princes verse 14 of each chief house, a prince throughout all the tribes of Israel. I skipped down to verse 16 and this is what the message that they bring them from Israel. Thus say at the whole congregation of the Lord what a trespass is this that you have committed against the God of Israel to turn away this day from following the Lord and that you have builded you an altar that you might rebel this day against the Lord. Verse 17 is kind of interesting because it actually references what just happened in Numbers 25, the incidents of Baal Pior. Is the iniquity of Pior too little for us from which we are not cleansed until this day although there was a plague in the congregation of the Lord. This event is still fresh in their mind and this is quite a few years after this has happened. This is well into the promised land probably at least a decade has passed maybe more and I mean obviously you know somebody javelins two people together it's a pretty notable event it's gonna stand out in your mind and we can't really blame them but it's interesting that they mentioned it to get to hear when Phenehas is mentioned as well. And skip down to verse 30 and when Phenehas the priest and the princes of the congregation and heads of the thousands of Israel which were with him heard the words that the children of Reuben and the children of Gad and the children of Manasseh spake it pleased them. So they explained themselves and what they did and what they meant to do by it and it all was kind of a big misunderstanding and so it ended up working out. Verse 31 in Phenehas the son of Eleazar the priest said unto the children of Reuben and to the children of Gad and to the children of Manasseh this day we perceive that the Lord is among you because you have not committed this trespass against the Lord now you've delivered the children of Israel out of the hand of the Lord. And Phenehas the son of Eleazar the priest and the princes returned from the children of Reuben and from the children of Gad out of the land of Gilead under the land of Canaan to the children of Israel and brought them word again. So Phenehas and these 10 diplomats from the tribe of Israel they're chosen as the intercessor or the moderator to go through and figure out what's going on. So we can see that Phenehas has a lot of clout he's the high priest at the time I believe he's a high priest. Yeah Phenehas the priest, excuse me and so he has a lot of clout with the children of Israel like he's a mediator he's the one that's gonna go through and see what's going on before they go to war. So that was the second notable event in the life of Phenehas. So obviously his birth or when he's first mentioned but then we have numbers 25 and we have here in Joshua 22. The last time that we see Phenehas in action is actually in Judges chapter 20 if you wanna turn there please Judges chapter 20. So this also is in the Promised Land this is quite late in the you know quite a while after the Promised Land crossing Jordan. Judges 20 obviously comes after Judges 19. This is the infamous story of you know the sodomites that abuse the concubine until she dies and then the husband of this concubine cuts her up in pieces and sends her body to the rest of the tribe of Israel to show what Benjamin, the tribe of Benjamin has allowed to exist in their tribe all the wickedness there. So in Judges 20 they're going to war with Benjamin they're fighting against Benjamin they have a couple battles they don't win some of these battles and so they're going before the Lord. Look down at Judges 20 verse 27. And the children of Israel inquired of the Lord for the Ark of the Covenant of God was there in those days and Phenehas, the son of Elias or the son of Aaron stood before it in those days. So Phenehas is standing before the Ark of the Covenant of God in those days. So we see there's not a whole lot mentioned of him but we do see that he's active in his role as the high priest in the end of the book of Judges. And this again is quite a ways into the Promised Land. So that kind of begs the question, well how old is Phenehas in Numbers chapter 25? Because you know if he's a 45 year old man doing this versus if he's a younger man that kind of plays into things. So turn with me to Numbers chapter 14. There's two bottlenecks that we can kind of use to narrow down how old he is. And I don't want to bog you down with Numbers but I think it's important to kind of understand this and see this. So Numbers 14, the children of Israel were wandering in the wilderness and they got to the Promised Land and they were, they sent out spies to go into the Promised Land. So Joshua the son of Nun, Caleb the son of Daphuni and they were among the spies that went into the Promised Land to search it out. Most of the people said, oh it's too big, the people are too big, we're like grasshoppers in their side, it's, there's too many, they're too mighty for us. Whereas Joshua and Caleb said, no we can do it, Lord's gonna fight for us, we can do this, we can do this, let's have faith in the Lord. So Numbers 14 and verse 29, we see the punishment for most of the group doubting the Lord. Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and all that were numbered of you according to your whole number from 20 years old and upward which have murmured against me, doubtless ye shall not come into the land concerning which I swear to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Japhuna and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in and they shall know the land which ye have despised. But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness and your children shall wander in the wilderness 40 years. So we see there's a cutoff, so at this time anybody that's 20 years old and older is not gonna get into the promised land. That's the cutoff they're here. So we're 19 and younger from this point in Numbers 14 are gonna go into the promised land except for Joshua and Caleb, right? So we can assume that Joshua and Caleb probably in their mid-20s at this point because they're the exception, right? Now, like it says here, but verse 33, and your children shall wander in the wilderness 40 years. So this is the punishment. 40 more years are gonna pass before they get to the promised land. And bear your hordoms until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness after the number of the days in which ye search the land even 40 days each day for a year shall ye bear your iniquities. Even 40 years and ye shall know my breach of promise. So that kind of gives us a framework of how old these people could have been that made it into the promised land. So if we take 40 years and we know, well, hold on, let me get to that in a second. So Moses we saw back in Exodus six and seven, he was 80 years old when he started, when he was talking there in front of Pharaoh before the 10 plagues and everything else. Deuteronomy 34 tells us that Moses died at 120 years old, okay? He dies at 120 years, that's 40 years from the time he's in Egypt before Pharaoh to the time he dies. And he did not make it in the promised land, right? He didn't get to cross Jordan. He smote the rock twice when he was supposed to speak to the rock. And for that, God said, you're not going into the promised land. He took him up onto Mount Peska and he got to see the promised land from Pharaoh but he didn't get to go in himself. Okay, and that was when they were in Moab. Deuteronomy 34, I'll just read real quick. Verse five says, so Moses, the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. Skip verse six and verse seven, it says Moses was 120 years old when he died. So that's telling us, okay, so that's a 40 year period from the time of Egypt before the plagues to the time that Moses dies. So I want to make this clear. I don't want to make it confusing, but I think it's important to kind of know these numbers here. Now, who else do we see in the promised land? Well, we do see in Joshua 24, if you could turn there please, Joshua 24. Obviously Joshua makes it into the promised land, right? He takes over for Moses and he leads the children of Israel across the Jordan into the promised land. They fight the battle of Jericho and conquer many kings. Joshua 24 and verse 29, the Bible kind of gives us another clue and we'll tie all these together in a little bit here. And it says, and it came to pass after these things that Joshua the son of nine, the servant of the Lord died being 110 years old. So Joshua dies at 110. Skip two or three verses to verse 33. And it says, and Eleazar the son of Aaron died and they buried him in a hill that pertained to Phineas's son, which was given him to Mount Ephraim. So there it says that Eleazar dies and this is in the end of the book of Joshua. Joshua 24, right? When Joshua dies, before the judges take place, right? Even Judges chapter one, two, and three kind of recount Joshua dying in the beginning of this that kind of overlap a little bit there. But we see that Eleazar made it all the way to the end of the book of Joshua. So we know that Eleazar must have been under 20 years old at the cutoff in Numbers 14, does that make sense? So he made it into the promised land because he wasn't over 20 years old then. So we can assume, not trying to get bogged down on the weeds with these numbers, but we can assume that Eleazar was probably somewhere in his mid teens back in Numbers 14, okay? 40 years later, he's in his mid 50s, upper 50s when he goes into the promised land. But his son Phineas, how old was he in Numbers 25? What does that tell us? Well, Eleazar made it on the promised land. So Phineas must have been either younger or not even born yet back in Numbers 14. And since we see Phineas all the way into judges 20, and if you add up some of the years that the judges served and the time frames that are given in the book of judges, that's quite a bit of time. People this time, they're living 110, 120 years old. So Phineas, from what I'm guessing, Phineas in the book of Numbers 25 in this event with the Midianites woman, he's probably in his mid teens, 15 to 20 years old. He's a pretty young man at this point. He's not 45 years old, he's not 35 years old, but he's a pretty young man at this point. And I do think this is important and I hope we didn't distract too much with all these Numbers, but I think it's important to understand where he was, what made him to be the person he was at this point in his life, and where that took him the rest of his life as we see those other mentions in the Bible in the book of Joshua and the book of Judges. So him as a teenager, one thing we can think of, he grew up in the desert, he probably was born in the wilderness. That's why I think he wasn't born back in the mentioned in Exodus 6. There's a couple other characters in the Bible that were born in the wilderness, right? John the Baptist, he was trained in the wilderness, he grew up in the wilderness. There's a lot of good things that come in that, good things that come from having struggles from a young point in your life. Jesus obviously was tempted in the desert, but we see that Paul from our study in Galatians was also spent some time in the wilderness of Arabia, being taught the things of God. And so there's a lot of good learning that could have gone in with Phineas, I'm sure his parents and his grandparents were telling them the stories of the plagues in Egypt and how God delivered him mightily. And so he's growing up with this, just being washed with this great Bible preaching from what they had at that time. Now, we think about that today, 15 years, maybe 18 years old when he stands up and takes a stand like this against wickedness. How about the teenagers of today? Like brother Jared mentioned this morning, I mean, today's society, the cross section of society of teenagers, not that long ago they were eating tide pods, right? Little pieces of detergent, they were like, that was a thing that the kids were doing, right? Nobody's getting ready to stand up and make a stand, let alone to stand for the things of God, let alone to stand for the principles of the Bible. Couple years back, my wife and I, we got to visit, we went to France, went through Europe a little bit and we got to stop by the beach at Normandy where D-Day happened. June 6, 1944 is when the Americans and others came on to the beach at Normandy, stormed the beach. We got to see, you saw the beach there and they had all the different places where people landed. The U-boats, the crosses and pieces were still in the water to prevent the boats from landing. And you could see the machine gun turrets where everybody was on the cliffs, just, I mean, it was fishing a barrel. And you could see the craters in the ground that were 20, 30 yards wide and 10 or 12 yards deep from the shells that came in and just bombed people that made it up the beach. And then you could see the hedges between each field and the fields were fairly small. So you had maybe a couple hundred yards to the next hedge and as they're trying to advance inland, they don't know if there's a machine gun or a tank sitting on the other side of that hedge and they're just trying to get through. There's a cemetery there in Normandy. It's an American cemetery, American War Cemetery. There's 9,833 people buried there and we got to tour that and that was really a powerful thing to see. It's all crosses lined up at the cemetery. It's a beautiful place. It's overlooking the beach and everything. But one of the things they told us when we were there, almost 10,000 people there, the youngest person buried there was 16. The oldest person I think was in their early 70s. But the average age of the people buried there was 19 or 20. There's a very young section of the population. I think here in the stories from the war and from history, they said the life expectancy when that boat ramp dropped was about two minutes. So if you made it two minutes, you were over half, you did better than 50% of the population. And we can kind of compare, this is 1944 and like was mentioned in the sermon this morning, were we a more righteous nation then or are we more righteous today? I think the answer's pretty clear, right? We can see that in our young people population. You know, not saying nothing against the young people in this church, but just the cross section of society today has declined quite a bit. And what these people went through back in the 40s or back in Phineas' day, I think it can make us think and make us be grateful for what we do have the time of peace, but also the time of peace does breed soft people too. So we need to appreciate a little bit of hardship and get some zeal in our lives. So now Phineas, right? He had this zeal that the Bible tells that he took action, quite deliberate action. So what did God think of Phineas' actions? Well, flip back if you went to Numbers 25, we'll kind of look at that again and keep reading there in Numbers 25. So Numbers 25, we'll start again at verse 10, says, and the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consume not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore say, behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace, and he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God and made an atonement for the children of Israel. God liked it, God liked what Phineas did. He was proud of the situation and it turned God's wrath away from the people. It stayed the plague, right? It says, how many people died in the plague? It said that the plague was stayed based on what Phineas did, based on the action that he took. Then the chapter goes on to list the people, which is kind of an interesting take. It really calls out the people that were involved in the sins, Zimri and Cosbri, so that's something to note and keep in mind. A lot of times, our sin will be noted out and people will be able to see it. But look, Zeal in our lives, so Phineas had a great deal of Zeal that he took action. So Zeal in our lives, what would that look like? Well, let's get an idea of Zeal from a couple more spots in the Bible. I'll just read for you 2 Kings 10. It's a really good story from Jehu. He says to a man in verse 16, and he said, come with me and see my Zeal for the Lord. So they made him ride in his chariot. And then from that point on, they're doing many conquests and conquering and there's a lot of action and conquests for the Lord that goes on there. Psalm 119, verse 139. Psalm 119 is a great book based on the word of God. It's a book of the Bible glorifying the word of God. And it says, my Zeal, in verse 139, hath consumed me because my enemies have forgotten my words. So usually Zeal in the Bible, based on these couple of incidents as we see, it's an intense passion coupled with some kind of action. It's not just, oh, I feel strongly about this, but there's actually actively doing something toward it. And especially when it's something to do with people forgetting the word or living godlessly or not living according to the Bible, right? Actually, the dictionary.com definition of Zeal is fervent fervor for a person, cause or object, eager desire or endeavor. This one's interesting, enthusiastic diligence. Diligence was a topic that came up about a year and a half ago from a couple sermons, right? Perseverance over time, right? There's a time aspect to this, to be excited about something for a time. A sentiment for Zeal is intensity or passion. An interesting one, an antonym, which is an opposite. So it means the opposite of Zeal. An interesting antonym is apathy, right? That was the cycle of nations that was described earlier, right? You have bondage and captivity and out of that comes great spiritual revival. Out of that comes liberty. Out of that comes prosperity. Out of that comes apathy. And then out of apathy comes bondage. It's that cycle that we see and we don't have a whole lot of Zeal, especially as a nation, but even the Christian population, saved Christian population, I mean, we're here in this church, we're zealous for God, we're zealous for the things of God, but by and large, the United States of America does not have Zeal for the things of God, okay? So how do we have Zeal in our lives? Do we take up what Phineas did? We all sharpen up our javelins and we go out and start writing the wrongs and putting things into action? No, no, we shouldn't do that. Turn with me to Romans chapter 12. There's a lot in the Bible that talks about this, turning the other cheek, suffer to be defrauded, these types of things. We're gonna look at two of them real quick and we do have to remember where Phineas lived and the time that he lived. In his day, Moses was the ruler of this tribe of people, the group of people wandering through the wilderness. The Levitical law was in full effect. So everything was done according to the Old Testament law. That was how things were done then. We see in the New Testament even when Jesus was on the scene, in John chapter eight, with the woman taken in adultery. Many people will mistakenly think that he abolished the death penalty there, but no, they put her in front of him and said, hey, she should be put to death, right? What do you say? They did that trying to catch him, trying to have something to accuse him by. If he said, yeah, put her to death, well, he's right on the Mosaic law, but the Romans would put him in jail, take care of him that way. He couldn't say that, but he couldn't say, no, don't put her to death because that's not what the Mosaic law said. So they were trying to accuse him, right? He didn't abolish the death penalty, but they weren't allowed to do that under Roman rule. So Romans 12, look down at verse 17. Recompense to no man evil for evil, provide things honest in the sight of all men, if it be possible, as much as Liath in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place under wrath for it is written vengeance is mine, I will repay, sayeth the Lord. Okay, this is a promise of God. He's gonna do it, he's gonna do it better than we would be able to do it. He's gonna do it more completely and more honestly. And it's frustrating to see what's going on in the world, right? You see the abortion pandemic that's going on that, I mean, 75, 80 million children have been killed since 1973. You see that happening in society today. You see the glorification of all this garbage and the different movements and the sodomy and the lack of marriage and just the degradation of society. You see it happening and it's easy to get angry, but vengeance is mine, I will repay, sayeth the Lord. He's the one that's gonna be out there, writing those wrongs, punishing people correctly. Go to 2nd Corinthians 10. We'll look at another one. And again, in the New Testament, in the book of John, this is just to talk about this while you guys are flipping to 2nd Corinthians, the Jews brought Jesus before Pilate, right? And Pilate says, you guys crucify him. And the Jews said to him in John 1831, it's not lawful for us to put any man to death. So when they were under Roman law, they couldn't enforce the Old Testament law, okay? And that's kind of where we're at today, right? The Bible is not what our country's ran on. It's run on the constitution or what's left of it, right? Not a whole lot left in the 1st or 2nd or 4th Amendments anymore. But, so back in 2nd Corinthians 10, verse one, now I, myself, beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ who in presence and base among you, but being absent and bold toward you. But I beseech you that I may not be bold when I'm present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the point down of strongholds. We'll have confidence in those weapons, the spiritual weapons that we have, not our carnal warfare. It's supposed to be spiritual warfare that we're engaging in. That's the call for us here. So I don't wanna separate what Phineas did versus our call here in 2021. We have to recognize where we're at and what our higher powers technically are for us. Now, we are not to enforce the Old Testament law. All that to say this, we're not to enforce the Old Testament law, but we are to remember that the Old Testament law is perfect. It is exactly what Christ wants to be done. He wants a country to be governed just like that, the death penalties, the punishments for this, the punishments for that, everything. That's what God wants to be done. So all that to say this, how do we have zeal in our lives today, like Phineas had? How can we apply what we see in Phineas to what we have today? Okay, go back to Numbers 25, please. And we'll look at this again. Numbers 25, we'll go down to verse six. Bible says, And behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel. Everybody saw what was going on. Everybody had just heard what was supposed to happen. Everybody heard Moses tell everybody, hey, go kill all these people that were joined unto Bailpure, that were worshiping this false God. And everybody saw that. Everybody saw that man take that woman and go into the tent. They were all weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, the Bible says. But somebody saw it and did something about it. Somebody saw all that and stood up. And when Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest saw it, he rose up from among the congregation and he took a javelin in his hand. Okay, and again, we're not to take physical marriage, we're not to enforce the law in this way, but he saw it and he did something about it. Oftentimes we see stuff and we might not say anything about it. We might not be so bold to speak out. Maybe we're with some of our family members and somebody's doing something that's not right. We can speak up. We can say, hey, that's not right. There's something about the sodomites or LGBT garbage comes up in the conversation. We can say, that's pretty disgusting. I think that's disgusting. The governor knew some recall, right? One of the candidates on the ballot is Bruce Jenner. They go by the name of Caitlyn. He's a transgender. I think it's perfectly, it's astonishing to me how many Republicans are, well, his policies are actually pretty decent. I think it's okay if something like that comes up in conversation for us to say, yeah, I'm definitely not voting for somebody who mutilates themselves and wants us to participate in his fantasy. I think it's okay that we at least say something. Now we need to be sure, well, I heard a sermon a while back and this is kind of an interesting little side. I want to show you. The guy was talking about him and his family going out to dinner and this is of course pre COVID and everything else. We had dinner time, you could go to a restaurant, but there was a booth and the lady on the other side of the booth was having a drink and they had a little kid that was five or six years old and he was like, you know, being a kid and kind of peeking around and the kid said to that lady, God doesn't like that, you know, and the lady kind of took it, you know, from a little kid. She kind of took it well or whatever, but it's kind of neat seeing that sometimes from a kid's perspective, they see things and they'll see things pretty quick. Whereas we're maybe a little more ashamed or we're timid and we don't want to offend or we don't want to, you know, step on people's toes. So we might not say something, but little kids often will say something like that. Little kids will say things like, you know, my dad can beat up your dad or my dad can beat up everybody. Little kids are pretty proud of their parents usually and we should be the same way with our father and God the father, right? We should be proud of him and what he does in our lives and what his commandments are for us in our lives and what he says is right and wrong. We should be proud of that. So we need to make sure that, you know, we can be bold, we can speak out at things. If we think over the last 100 years, if Christians in America had spoken out against certain things, maybe we wouldn't be in the mess that we are today. Maybe we can help persuade, you know, we're to be salt and light. We're to help preserve and cause the flavor of the community around us, right? We're not to be in the dark and hiding our little candle and not, no, we're to be out there proclaiming the good news of Christ, proclaiming the gospel. But more than that, preserving society and being lights into society and how we should behave and how we should act and what's right and wrong. Turn to, if you would, the first Timothy five. First Timothy five. So we should stand up for principles. This is how we can apply zeal. We can stand up for these principles that we have. We can stand up for the principles of the Bible, for church, for soul winning, all these things. One principle, one thing that we might start doing is standing up for living separated lives, living peculiar lives, how the Bible tells us to live. First Timothy five verse 14 is kind of a, one that's talked about a lot. I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children and guide the house. And this is a very clear statement of what God thinks women should be doing, especially younger women. This is his, I mean, I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children and guide the house. This is a very clear statement of what God desires for women. But if we start, you know, we learn this and we apply it to our lives and we maybe as a man you say, okay, you know what, my wife's gonna stay home and she's gonna guide the house and we're gonna homeschool our kids or if you're a single man or woman you're looking for somebody that fits this model or will appreciate this model, right? The second part of that verse is gonna be very important. In fact, maybe more important than the first part of the verse. Give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. Because if, oh no, my wife's gonna stay home and she's gonna take care of the kids, there's gonna be a lot of people and a lot of people that are actually maybe pretty close to you or used to be pretty close to you, family members or people that you might, your wife might esteem highly or use a young lady might esteem highly that'll be like, well, you could just do so much more with your life. You have a four year degree. Why don't you, you're just gonna waste that four year degree or you spent so much time studying this or you have this, you could do so much more with your life. How wicked is that? Somebody that's trying to put in practice the things that the Bible tells them and somebody that they esteem highly, maybe their mother, maybe their sister or friend or whatever is just cutting the legs out from under them. The Bible says there, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully. We ought to make sure that, especially as men that we're protecting our wives, our daughters from these types of things. If we're single, we need to make sure that we're shoring ourselves up, that we don't let these things attack us and get us down. We need to stay strong in the word of God and stand up and have some zeal for the principles of God. Ephesians 6 verse 19, I'll just read it for you. It says, And for me that utterance may be given unto me, this is Paul speaking, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. So this is another way we could use that zeal in our lives is to boldly preach the gospel. I mean, obviously we are real soul-winning most of us here. We want to be out there soul-winning. This is a command of the Bible that we should be out soul-winning. And I want to have a caveat here with this whole zeal thing. Like Brother Jared said in the soul-winning tip, soul-winning is kind of an aside. We want to be zealous soul-winners in that we are fervently excited about soul-winning, that we're energetic towards soul-winning and going out and getting people saved. But we don't want to be cramming things down people's throat. We want to make sure that we're doing it in a proper perspective, right? When we're knocking doors, we're uninvited guests. We're inviting them to church. We're looking for the right fish. We're looking for the people that are wanting to know the truth. So we don't want to be cramming it down their throats. But what I'm talking about zeal in our personal relationships is just zeal in preserving society, zeal in other family members that we might have, saved or otherwise. No, that's not right. Sodomy is not right. Divorce is not right. We can stand out and say some of these things, right? There's this big thing about, well, we don't want to be offensive and we don't want to, but everybody out there believes something, right? Everybody believes they something when they die. Maybe they don't know, maybe they don't know what they believe or they believe they go to nirvana or whatever the case is. But everybody believes something. Well, we believe something too. Why can't we share our idea with them? What's so wrong with that? I mean, from the 60s on, the sodomites, I mean, they used to be in the closet, right? They're no longer in the closet. They're out parading in the streets. But so many Christians have traded place with them. Well, now we're in the closet and we're ashamed to speak out or ashamed to say what needs to be said about that kind of stuff. We don't need to be ashamed about that stuff. Everybody has beliefs. We can share our beliefs. Our beliefs are just as valid, in fact, more so than everybody else's, right? So we don't want to be proud and have this boasting knowledge that leads us to pride. But we want to help preserve society and it's okay to be, we ought not be ashamed of the things of the Bible and the things of God, okay? So I want to get this, make sure that we're in the right perspective on this. So why should we have zeal in our lives now? Why should we have zeal in our lives? Go back to numbers 25. We'll just go to a couple more places here. Numbers 25, we'll flip down again to verse 10. I'm sorry, verse 12. Number 25 and verse 12. So this, God just commanded him for being zealous. He says in verse 12, wherefore say, behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace and he shall have it and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood because he was zealous for his God and made an atonement for the children of Israel. God liked what Phineas did and in fact he rewarded him with this covenant of peace and the covenant of an everlasting priesthood. Psalms 106, I'll just read it for you, is the last mention of Phineas in the Bible. Psalms 106 30 says, then stood up Phineas and executed judgment. And I think that's a very fitting description of what he did. He executed judgment. He was being judgy and so the plague was stayed and that was counted for righteousness, so excuse me and that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations forevermore. So it made it into the book of Psalms, which is kind of a neat thing to see that God really appreciated what he did here and this kind of goes through the Bible a couple of times. Turn with me to Ezra chapter seven. Remember in Numbers 25 it says, God gave him the covenant of an everlasting priesthood. He shall have it, this covenant of peace because he was zealous for his God. So this is kind of the reward that he got. And that is the goal, right? I mean, this is the goal of coming to a church like this. We're saved, we can never lose our salvation. We wanna do great things for God, but why come to a church like this that's family integrated, that places such a huge role on the young people? We wanna make sure that this choice of ours to live godly lives gets passed down generationally. And not just maybe our kids, but maybe our grandkids or great grandkids. We wanna see this generational transfer. We do see that in Phineas due to his zeal. Because of his zeal, God gave him this blessing. Look down at Ezra chapter seven and verse number one. Now after these things in the reign of art exerces, king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Saraya, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkayah, the son of Shalem, the son of Zadok, the son of Ahaitub, the son of Amariah, the son of Azariah, the son of Meraioth, the son of Zariah, the son of Uzzi, the son of Bukai, the son of Abushaya, Abushua, the son of Phineas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest. We see that lineage passed down. Ezra was the great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandchild of Phineas. We see also some notable priests in there. Zadok the priest was a pretty notable one in the time of Solomon, right? And a couple other names that we recognize there. So we see this promise that God gave to him back in numbers 25 of this everlasting priesthood. We see that fulfilled in the book of Ezra. And that's the goal, right? That's the goal to pass this on. Well, Phineas, due to his zeal, was blessed with this promise, this covenant to pass it on generationally. So that's one reason. God likes it and there's some rewards potentially for having a zealous life, right? Our kids are gonna see that. That's gonna rub off on them. They're gonna be zealous for the things of God. Hopefully our grandkids, Lord willing, will be zealous for the things of God. But why else should we have some zeal in our life? Well, turn to the second Thessalonians too. Another reason that we should have some zeal in our life is to prepare. This is a post-trib, pre-rath church. The tribulation is coming, right? The next thing to happen is not Christ coming at any moment, it's we will go through some form of tribulation. And Matthew 24 says, for then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. It's gonna get pretty bad. We think back in 2018 and you thought of, if you knew in 2018 that 2020 was gonna bring what it did, what do you think we would have done? I'm probably, you know, maybe we would have had a little bit more toilet paper in the house, right? Maybe we'd have had a little bit extra food in the freezer, some meat in the freezer, some beans and rice or something, right? Maybe we would have been a little more prepared for what happened, the civil unrest, if you lived in a big city or something like that, right? Maybe it would have had a way to protect yourself or your family or have trained with that. Maybe you would have been more spiritually prepared. Maybe now that 2020, the government actually said it's illegal to go to church, maybe in 2018 we would have actually been in church more because it's easier to go to church when it's legal, it's harder to go to church when it's illegal. It's easier to go soul-winning when it's legal, it's harder to go to church, excuse me, soul-winning when it's illegal, right? Maybe we would have gotten involved in those things knowing what we know now, but we do know that something is coming, we know the tribulation is coming. We don't know if it's in 10 years or 100 years, we don't know, but we do know that it's coming. Second Thessalonians 2-1, Now we beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and by our gathering together unto him the rapture, that you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled neither by spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us as that day of Christ is at hand. Don't be worried thinking it could happen at any moment. Let no man deceive you by any means for that day shall not come except there come a falling away first and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. So you see a timeline of the end times things. So the next things we should be noticing is it getting worse and worse and worse for Christians which we saw a lot of in 2020. I used to think, man, the end times it's probably not for another couple of decades. You know, hopefully maybe in my son's time or my grandchildren's time down the road, but I don't know, this is the first time that a global thing has happened to this degree. We have family that live in Holland and it's a lockdown. They have curfew, they have everything else. Europe's really tight. I mean, America, there's pockets that are really bad, there's pockets that aren't, but this is the first time there's been a global thing and I'm not saying when it is, I don't know when it is. I pray that it's not for a while. I pray that we have more time, but the point I'm trying to make is it's not getting any easier. The struggles that we face today, the best time to be involved in soul winning in church and everything else was probably five years ago when it was easier to do it. This year was tougher, right? But the best time to start is today we can't go back in time and if we wait 10 years, so it's gonna be even worse. You think it's hard now? I mean, it's gonna be worse 10 years from now, right? So we need to make sure that we keep our zeal in perspective. It's easy to start these things now or easier to start them now than it will be a couple of months from now, a couple of years from now. Turn to Daniel chapter six. Daniel chapter six. And this kinda can point out, I guess what I'm trying to get at here. Daniel chapter six, obviously he's in the captivity. There's a couple of laws that are passed, right? The fiery furnace has happened and everything else and Daniel had purposed in his heart not to eat the king's meat. So we could tell Daniel's a man of principle, a man of purpose, a man of integrity, a man of God. Daniel six, there's a law pass that says you can't pray. Daniel six verse 10. Now when Daniel knew the writing was signed, he went into his house and his window's being opened in his chamber towards Jerusalem. He kneeled upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as he did a four time. That's the important part of that verse. It didn't say he did all those things just because the law was passed, just because now it's illegal. So he's gonna do them because he wasn't doing them before. No, he did these things before and now that it's illegal he's gonna continue doing those things. We ought to understand the principle of the higher powers. If the government says you can't go to church, well, we need to do what the Bible says. We need to be looking at what the Bible tells us to do and then apply that through that filter. So let's keep that in mind. As we're having zeal, we wanna make sure that we're doing the best that we can today when it's easier than it will be in a couple of years. Turn to Jeremiah 12. Turn to Jeremiah 12 and we'll end here. So I wanna keep these things in mind. Soul winning, reading our Bible. Someday the King James Bible might be illegal. Someday soul winning is probably gonna be illegal. Someday church is gonna be illegal again or I don't know maybe it is still, I don't know. But we're here, right? We're here and aim in for that. So we need to make sure that we're doing the things that we can do now that we're implementing these changes now. Sometimes we come to church and there's preaching against sin or preaching against things that we used to think were right and we find out they're wrong or preaching against things and man, we come away and it's, oh, it wasn't encouraging. This was, I come from a liberal church and that was such an encouraging message and it was uplifting and all this and that. But church should be something where we're training and we're practicing and we're getting better and we're getting better, right? If we hear preaching on a certain sin and we deal with it and we find out what the Bible says and we wrestle with it and we implement a change in our life, the next time we hear preaching on that same sin or that same lack of whatever that we were doing, then it can be an encouragement because we fix that problem, right? It's no longer getting us down. Now it's an encouragement. Well, I took care of that. That's good to hear it again. Okay, look at the battles I've overcome. Look at the things that we've improved, right? That should be the implementation of these biblical principles and the encouragement that we get from that. So Jeremiah 12. This is kind of an interesting pat, part of the Bible. Jeremiah is talking to God and he says here in verse one, Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee, yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments. Wherefore doth the wicked, of the way of the wicked prosper? So he's asking God some of these questions. He's like, look, Lord, I get it, but why are the wicked prosperous? Wherefore are they happy? They deal very treacherously. They seem to be happy yet they're living these terrible lives. Thou hast planted them. Ye, thou hast, then they have taken root. They grow, ye, they bring forth fruit. Thou art near in their mouth and far from their reins. He's like, look, they seem like they're prospering. They're not near you at all, but they seem like they're doing well. But thou, O Lord, knowest me, thou hast seen me and tried my heart toward thee. And this is what he asked them to do, pull them out like sheep for the slaughter and prepare them for the day of the slaughter. How long shall the land mourn and the herbs of every field wither for the wickedness of them that dwell therein? The beasts are consumed in the birds because they say he shall not see our last end. Jeremiah is pleading with God, like, man, God, it's so bad. Why are the wicked prospering? And we see that today, right? The abortion holocaust that's going on, the filth in the media, the filth in just the public school system, the socialism, the gender garbage that's out there, people eating tide pods. I mean, it's just, it's all these things. It's just, you see society going down this downward spiral, right? And it seems to us, man, how long, oh Lord? I mean, we know he's long suffering, but it seems like it's just getting worse and worse and worse. God answers them in verse five. If thou has run with the footman and they have weary thee, how can thou contend with the horses? He says, if you're getting tired now, it's gonna get a lot worse, right? We know the tribulation's coming. If we're getting weary now, it's gonna get worse. How can we stand in the tribulation period? And if the land, if in the land of peace, we're in thou trust us, they weary thee? And then how would they'll do in the swelling of Jordan? If you're living in this land of peace and you're getting tired from all the stuff and they're wearying you and you're feeling worn down and discouraged all the time, how are you gonna do when there's floods happening? How are you gonna do when it's really bad in the swelling of Jordan, right? So we need to take this into consideration. We live today in 2021 America. We live here today. And yeah, it's pretty bad out there. It's pretty bad out there. But we need to apply the things of the Bible to our lives and we should do so in a zealous way. We should take what we learn and put it into action. And it's okay to speak up about some of these things. We ought not be ashamed of the things of God. We ought not be ashamed of what the Bible teaches we should do. We ought not be ashamed of the life that we choose to live. Maybe our wives stay home. We dress a certain way. We don't wash certain things. We don't go to Disneyland, whatever it is. We ought not be ashamed of those things to speak up about those things, okay? So let's take what we learned from Phineas. Let's apply it to our lives. We wanna be the salt and light of society. And that's the ultimate goal, right? I mean, we don't know when the end time's coming. It could be five years from now. It could be a couple hundred years from now. And we just wanna make sure that we're ready. And if we're ready and it never comes, then our kids are ready. And if it never comes from them, then their kids are ready. We wanna have that zeal to push on that generational fervor for the Lord. That generational zeal for the things of God. So let's keep that in mind. Let's try and apply that in our lives. Let's be zealous. Let's bow our head in a word of prayer.