Got Plagues?

When they arrived in the land of Gilead, they said to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, “The whole community of the LORD demands to know why you are betraying the God of Israel. How could you turn away from the LORD and build an altar for yourselves in rebellion against him? Was our sin at Peor not enough? To this day we are not fully cleansed of it, even after the plague that struck the entire community of the LORD. And yet today you are turning away from following the LORD. If you rebel against the LORD today, he will be angry with all of us tomorrow. [Joshua 22.15-18]

I wanted to focus today on the sentence in the passage above that says, "To this day we are not fully cleansed of it."

The reference here (sin at Peor) is to the story we know as "Balaam's talking donkey." While this made a great childhood Sunday School lesson (and still does today), it is ironically a nasty story of sexual perversion and betrayal of God and His Word. It has everything to do with seduction and lust in the worst kind of way.  At Balaam's advice, the women of Moab seduced the men of Israel into sexual relations that did not stop there, but progressed into full-blown worship of Baal.

Phinehas, who, in the context of the passage of today's post, and who led this entourage against the eastern tribes, was intimately aware of Israel's sin at Peor because it was he who drove a spear all the way through an Israelite man and into the Moabite woman he was having sex with! This action was noted to have stopped the plague God had unleashed upon Israel for their betrayal (see Numbers 25).

So, with this established, what did Phinehas mean when he said, "To this day we are not fully cleansed of it"?

I would like to suggest two things in answer to the question above. One, the sin of seduction into Baal worship had not been entirely eradicated, and two, because that sin remained, there also remained whatever sickness or disease that was associated with it (that, in context of Numbers 25 resulted in the deaths of 24,000 people).

Phinehas, was obviously drawing a conclusion that the sin remained because the plague remained to some extent. Remember, it was this same Phinehas who drove the spear into the openly rebellious man and woman - we must not think for a moment that anyone would have been so brazenly open in committing this same sin knowing how Phinehas responded the first time! It is safe to conclude that the sin continued very discreetly, but the plague continued openly - and that is how Phinehas knew Israel was not yet fully cleansed of that sin.

I wonder what plagues remain among us today because we secretly hold on to rebellious sin? I wonder just how fierce will be the wrath of God upon those who hold to sin in spite of the shedding of Jesus' blood to redeem them?

Father, the implications of the passage noted here are serious. Plagues have become commonplace among us today and we are not the wiser (sin-wise) for it. Forgive us for thinking for even a moment that we can hold to any sin and expect to enjoy any blessing from You.