Sermon preached at Our Savior on 3/7/10 for the 3rd Sunday in Lent. Sermon text: Numbers 16:23-40
It Could Happen to You
"Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you, if you're young at heart." We live in a time and place here in our nation where we think anything is possible. Any success, any reward, any blessing, can be ours if we just try hard enough or are fortunate enough or just keep at it.
We know the lottery has astronomical odds. Yet people keep playing. Why? Well, maybe they'll win! The New York lottery's slogan is "Hey, you never know." And people spend millions on something with almost impossible odds. The same goes for being a professional athlete or professional musician. It's very long odds to actually be able to make a good living doing those things. But so many dream, and so many keep after their goal. Maybe it could happen!
I'm not sure why, but it seems that many people have the opposite thought when it comes to bad or undesirable things happening to them. All the blessings we enjoy in our lives probably contribute to this idea. A horrible, incurable disease? It could never happen to me! After all, we have doctors who know so much advanced medicine all around us. Getting in a car accident? It could never happen to me! I've been driving for years without so much as a scratch! Having my money stolen in some sort of scam? It could never happen to me! I'm very smart about such things; I'm too careful about what I do with my money.
Famous last words, right? So many people think it could never happen to them. But these things do happen. And sometimes we need to prepare for these things to happen, or take steps to make sure they don't.
And the same danger is there for us spiritually. Look at the blessings we have! We are Christians! We believe in the one true God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe that the Bible is the true, inerrant and infallible Word of God. We belong to a church and church body that believes these things. We've got our names on the membership registry. What blessings we have! How good God has been to us! So the idea of falling away from our faith? It could never happen to me!
Ah, but it could! It could happen to you. We live in a world that's dangerous to our faith, a world where the devil prowls around like a roaring lion just waiting for someone to devour. (1 Pet. 5:8) We walk in danger all the way. Satan and all his evil, sinful forces have flaming arrows aimed directly for us. (Eph. 6:16) The odds, if you want to think of it that way, probably aren't in our favor. Our faith is in constant danger. If you think you're standing firm, be careful that you don't fall. (1 Cor. 10:12) Yes, it could happen to you.
As you can imagine, pointless wandering for 40 years can get people in a bad mood. That's probably what had happened here. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, along with about 250 others, rebelled against Moses and his brother Aaron. They thought Moses and Aaron were lording it over all the other people in the nation (Num. 16:3), and they blamed Moses for the problems the nation was having wandering in the desert. (Num. 16:13-14)
So to solve this fight, Moses suggested letting God pick the winner. He told Korah to get a bunch of his men to light censers (which were incense burners) and burn them before the Lord at the tabernacle. God would then decide who was right. (Num. 16:5-7)
Now, it doesn't seem that Korah and the rest of these men had always been constant troublemakers. They were well known leaders in their community. (Num. 16:2) People liked and respected them. They probably hadn't been planning a rebellion all their lives.
In fact, look how God had blessed them! God had chosen these people to be his own nation as Israelites. He had rescued them from slavery in Egypt. He had brought them through the waters of the Red Sea. He had fed them with manna on the ground and quail from the sky. He had allowed them to be respected community leaders with positions of importance in the nation. They probably would have never guessed that they'd be rebelling against their God-given leaders, against God himself. But that's what they did. It happened.
And it could happen to you. As I mentioned earlier, you have been greatly blessed. We live in a prosperous, safe country, where we can worship God freely. We have his Word widely available; we can read it, we can listen to it on cd, we can access it on the computer or even on our phone. We belong to a church and church body that takes God at his Word. We have the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper being administered right here. We have a beautiful church building and still relatively new addition. We have many different members with many different gifts helping each other and working together. We have our Lord's forgiveness for our sins and the comfort of salvation in heaven.
We've got it made! So we have nothing to worry about, right? Drifting away from the Bible? Falling away from the faith? Nah. Couldn't happen!
But it could. It could happen to you. Our lives feel like wandering in the wilderness sometimes. We wonder what the point of our lives is supposed to be. We get frustrated at the problems that come up. We struggle in relationships with others. We get angry when we don't get what we want. We sin and don't think it's a big deal at all.
You see how easy it is? We're in a good situation! God has chosen us! What could possibly happen? So we let our guard down. Reading the Bible becomes less important. The Lord's Supper becomes more about routine, or more about our preparation, and less about Jesus' gift. Church services become just something you do, just because, when you get a chance. Prayer becomes just something you talk about. And Jesus' forgiveness? Instead of our comfort and only hope, it becomes an excuse to do what we want.
Falling from faith happens to people. You probably know some of them. And no matter what you might think, it could happen to you. And the results are disastrous.
Look what happened in our text. God picked who was right, and it wasn't Korah and the others who rebelled. We read that "the ground under them split apart and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed th, with their households and all Korah's men and all their possessions. They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community. (Num. 16:31-33) How horrific! How awful! It's like a scene from some horror movie. And those people offering the incense to the Lord who had rebelled didn't escape either. "Fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense." (Num. 16:35) I don't think anyone who saw those scenes would've forgotten them anytime soon. Blessed people, people who had it all going for them -- they rebelled, and they lost it all.
Of course, when people lose their faith today, it's a lot less dramatic. No earthquakes. No fiery attacks from the Lord. People look normal. They go about their everyday lives. But really, what is happening is no less horrific, no less destructive. Loss of faith -- because that is the final result of these sins that go too far -- loss of faith means loss of salvation. Loss of eternal life. No horror movie can come close to that scene.
And I'm not trying to scare people here, but it could happen to you! That's the exact point that God made in our text, too. When those people offering incense had been burned up in the fire, it seems that all that was left of them was a pile of ashes and their bronze censers. So God commanded that the bronze from those censers be hammered and put on top of the altar in the tabernacle. (Num. 16:39) Why would he do this? "This was to remind the Israelites that no one except a descendant of Aaron should come to burn incense before the Lord." (Num. 16:40) Or, to put it another way, "It could happen to you."
Funny that the reminder was put right on the altar, though. Because that altar was meant to be a reminder of something else. Usually, it was blood that went on the altar, the blood of sacrifices. The message there was similar -- this blood could have been yours, but God is taking the blood of an animal in place of yours. God used his altar to teach his people how he forgave sins.
God uses that altar to remind us of another sacrifice. Jesus' blood was poured out on the altar of the cross. His life met the full force of God's wrath. And you know what, it could have been you meeting that wrath, paying with your life -- but it was Jesus. It could have been you paying the consequence of all your sins, but it was Jesus. It could have been you, suffering and dying. But it was Jesus.
If you think your sins are too great, if you think you will fall away because of all the wrong you've done, because of the rebellion you have committed, if you think, "God's love and forgiveness could never happen to me!" Look at Jesus. Look at that cross. Look at that empty tomb. It has happened to you. God's love happened to you in Christ.
He is your hope. He is your forgiveness. He is your not-guilty verdict when your rebellion should've made you guilty. Jesus is the life when you should have death. Fix your eyes on him! Run to his Word for the comfort of his forgiveness. Fall to your knees for his free mercy. Hunger and thirst for the comfort of his body and blood in the sacrament. He has heard you! No one who takes refuge in him is ever put to shame.
Will it happen to you? Can it happen to you? We might think we know the odds to lots of things in our lives. And we might be right and we might be wrong. But here are odds we can be sure of. On our own, we will fall away from our Savior. On our own, the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh, will be too much for us. So let's never try it on our own. Let's stay with our Savior. Let's stay with Jesus and his Word. With him, forgiveness, life, and salvation aren't something that could happen to you. With Jesus, they're already yours.
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