“15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? 16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.”
Main Point: The people of God are characterized by sanctification.
In this chapter, God tells Israel to defeat the Midianites. Previously, they had a history with them in a plague and idol worship and a Midianite woman. Now, they are to destroy them. However, after destroying most of the things, they keep all of the women. Moses gets angry with them and has to remind them that their problems with Midian started because of women. Apparently the problem and plague was probably some kind of STD because Moses commands them to kill every woman that is not a virgin, but the virgins, they are allowed to keep. Moses knew there was a problem that hurt the people of God and it was common sense to him to get rid of the previous problem.
I need to remember this. When I see problems arise with my relationship with God, I need to identify the problem and keep from returning to it again. It would be crazy to go from such a low point, to a high point, just to return to the low point for the same reasons. Just like Israel had to identify the problem and keep from making the same mistakes, I must do the same in my relationship with God. Get rid of what gets in the way of my relationship with God.
This shows me that God saves sinners. Jesus righteousness on sinners is the gospel because it is definitely not our own righteousness. We are not good enough to get into heaven or remain saved. It is all on Jesus’ righteousness. We make the same mistakes over and over, but Jesus’ perfect righteousness characterizes my life.
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