When Moses heard the challenge of Korah, Dathan and Abiram with the princes against his and Aaron's God-given leadership, claiming all the congregation was holy, he fell face-down before God. His falling was a silent, humble appeal to God in anguish in that emergency, leaving the answer with God to show who belonged to Him and was holy. Opposition to him as merely a human leader was in fact rebellion against God as leader and against Christ as the invisible leader, an insult to the Spirit of God by those who thought they were serving God. It repeated on a narrower stage the same pride and ambition that prompted Lucifer to complain of God's government and seek to overthrow heaven's order, a spirit Satan still infuses into men to arouse desire for self-exaltation. The course brought disastrous judgment from God upon those who took part, and it stands chronicled as instruction and admonition for those living near the close of time not to follow its example of unbelief.
Historical Setting of Rebellion
The verse belongs to the uprising of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram with certain of the children of Israel, joined by two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown. What Moses heard that made him fall on his face was their challenge to his and Aaron's God-given leadership, claiming the whole congregation was holy and asking why Moses and Aaron exalted themselves above them, a challenge that gained many sympathizers.
When Aaron and Miriam had been honored with a part in the work as mouthpiece and helpers, they thought they were equal to Moses and essential to the whole and felt credit should go to them rather than all honor to Moses. Against that self-exaltation Moses stands meek and humble, pruned of impetuous ambition and self-trust in shepherd solitude, no longer trusting high Egyptian education or his own ability in speech and planning, making God alone his trust and finding strength alone in God.
The rebellion ended at that time with brethren dying before the Lord by plague, yet forty years later at Kadesh in the desert of Zin when water ceased, the thirsting multitude murmured in continued unbelief and wished they had died with those brethren in a land with no seed, figs, vines, pomegranates, or water. The falling on the face on hearing Dathan and Abiram serves as the comparison for later rebellious courses.
Moses Humble Response to God
When the challenge to his and Aaron's leadership became clear, Moses fell face-down in silent appeal to God. He humbled himself before God in the emergency, anguished as he listened to the accusations even before the people. His falling on his face was not defense of self but turning the case over to God.
His answer was that God Himself would show who belonged to Him and who was holy. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram had claimed the whole congregation was holy and asked why Moses and Aaron exalted themselves above them, and that challenge was rebellion against what God had given Moses to do. The same answer of bowing before God was given later when the congregation murmured for water where the living stream had ceased to test faith. Moses and Aaron then left the assembly, went to the door of the tabernacle and bowed down, the glory of the Lord appeared, and instruction came to take the rod, gather the assembly, and speak to the rock to give water for the people and their animals. The earlier rebellion had ended with brethren dying before the Lord by plague, and the thirsting people called those dead their brethren and wished they had died with them rather than thirst in a wilderness with no seed, figs, vines, pomegranates, or water.
Nature of the Rebellion
To oppose Moses as if he were only a human leader was in fact to rebel against what God had given Moses to do, to reject God as leader and Christ as the invisible leader, to reject God's chosen instrument, and to insult the Spirit of God, while those who did so wrongly believed they were serving God. On a narrower stage this repeated the same spirit that led to Satan's rebellion in heaven, where pride and ambition prompted Lucifer to complain of God's government and to seek to overthrow the order established in heaven, and since his fall he seeks to infuse the same envy and discontent and distrust and ambition for position and honor into men, working upon Korah, Dathan, and Abiram to arouse desire for self-exaltation and to excite envy, distrust, and rebellion. That rebellion works secretly and in darkness by falsehoods and enmity and evil-surmisings and satanic representations to gain sympathy, worked by satanic agencies while called the Holy Spirit, and Christ came to the world not to aid Satan in working up rebellion but to put rebellion down.
It results from separation from God so that the heart is no longer under the subduing power of the Holy Spirit, revealing Satan's attributes in oppressing fellow men with an influence contrary to truth and justice and righteousness, doing despite to the Holy Spirit, and venturing on in the same course after warnings from God have come again and again and been cast aside. The very same spirit is indulged by men entrusted with weighty responsibilities who have no living connection with God, and is shown in institutions in the desire of one to control all others and in the relation of workers to one another, and was shown by the Jews in the days of Christ. The rebels are actuated by firm self-complacency, pride, prejudice, backsliding, and unwillingness to accept and acknowledge light and truth sent from heaven, with unsanctified independence, contempt for the word of the Lord in mockery and disgust, lightness, trifling, jesting and joking, and refusal to seek God, while Satan blinds eyes and perverts judgment. They are deceived but consent to deception by placing themselves in his power.
In self-deception they thought themselves righteous and regarded those who faithfully reproved their sins as actuated by Satan, being stubborn in their own opinions and deciding their judgment was better than that of Moses, and charging Moses with doing great injury to Israel. That stubborn trust in one's own judgment persisted even after God's judgments in a marked manner destroyed the leaders and princes, when the survivors came to Moses the next morning saying he had killed the people of the Lord. Satan leads persons to imitate Korah, Dathan, and Abiram by raising insurrection among God's people and rising in opposition to plain testimony and to reproof of wrongs, claiming that those on whom God has laid the burden of His work exalt themselves above the people and that their counsels and reproofs are uncalled for. Especially they oppose the plain testimony God would have borne in rebuking hurtful indulgences such as tea, coffee, snuff, and tobacco, which irritate those who will not destroy their idols.
Many remain undecided between conviction of truth and self-indulgence, weakened by indecision until appetite prevails and slow poisons pervert the sense of sacred things, until they decide not to deny self whatever the consequence. That decision raises a wall of separation between them and those cleansing themselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and perfecting holiness in the fear of God, so the straight testimonies cause them uneasiness and they war against them as untrue, claim the people are all right and that the reproving testimonies make the trouble. When the rebellious unfurl their banner, all the disaffected rally around the standard, and all the spiritually defective, the lame, the halt, and the blind, unite to scatter and sow discord.
Divine Judgment and Vindication
The rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram against Moses and the leaders God had appointed was sin against the Lord, a wicked course marked by God that brought disastrous results to all who took part in it. It was rejection of God's chosen instrument and of Christ as their invisible leader, and an insult to the Spirit of God, followed by judgment in which Korah and those who perished with him justly suffered according to their works. They were deceived by Satan, yet they consented to that deception by placing themselves in his power, and their history stands as a warning against selfishness and disloyalty to God's cause.
Even after God in a marked manner destroyed the leaders and princes and the people fled to their tents in horror, the rebellion was not cured, for stubborn trust in one's own judgment persisted. The depth of disaffection appeared the next morning when the survivors came to Moses and Aaron saying he had killed the people of the Lord, stubborn in their own opinions and deciding their judgment was better than Moses' while charging him with doing great injury to Israel. For that false charge, sin, exultation, and presumptuous wickedness, thousands more were killed. The people later recognized that their accusations were wrong and that Moses and Aaron had been right.
God sustained Aaron in the holy office of the priesthood as consecrated high priest, and confirmed it by making his rod bud, blossom, and yield almonds. That rod was kept as a lasting warning against further rebellion and murmuring. The chapter shows the difference between work done in self and work done in God, for self-directed work will not stand while work done in God will endure. The disaffection and opposition of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram cannot destroy a work that is of God.
Those who oppose the work and light God has given, though having evidence and light, walk not in the Lord's light but in the sparks of their own kindling. They are left by God to fall into the ditch and to lie down in darkness and sorrow, as was the end of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. They will share that leaving and fall unless they fall on the Rock and are broken.
Warning for the Last Days
The uprising that made Moses fall on his face was that of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown. That rebellion works secretly and in darkness by falsehoods and enmity and evil-surmisings and satanic representations to gain sympathy, worked by satanic agencies while called the Holy Spirit, and Christ came not to aid Satan in working up rebellion but to put rebellion down. The facts of that rebellion with all its objectionable features were faithfully chronicled and preserved to pass into history, and the chapter was written for instruction and admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come, especially those who live near the close of time. It is therefore to be read carefully and prayerfully and studied so that its lessons may be learned, including the need for genuine repentance, and so that its example of unbelief is not followed. Genuine rebellion is hardly ever curable and must be called by its right name as rebellion and apostasy.
For the last-day church this is a warning against following false prophets with heresies who if possible would deceive the very elect. It is a warning against taking the great leader of apostasy and naming him Christ our Righteousness, and against letting a few men undeceive believers from light long given. Those so misled show they have not sunk the shaft deep into the mines of truth and cannot distinguish precious ore from base material, the false from the genuine, or the voice of the true Shepherd from that of a stranger, and they need to humble themselves before God and sincerely repent, to be known by their fruits.
The same rebellion was acted over at Minneapolis in refusing the testimonies given through God's messenger and laboring to make them of none effect. Refusal to acknowledge the proper position placed by God and to heed the testimony is not despising the messenger but despising God's messengers, message, and word, showing contempt for the word of the Lord, and it is resistance to God's message and messengers. It is unsanctified independence that insults the Spirit of God, with a spirit of mockery and disgust, lightness, trifling, jesting and joking, and refusal to seek God, while Satan blinds eyes and perverts judgment, actuated by firm self-complacency, pride, prejudice, backsliding, and unwillingness to accept and acknowledge light and truth sent from heaven. Those who follow that course are deceived and deceiving others, strengthening the hands and minds of other opposers, and their influence through others is charged against them in the books of heaven, so that in the day of final accounts they will meet not only their own course of action but the result of their influence upon other minds.
Unless every soul repents of this sin, humbles pride, confesses prejudice, repents and is converted to be healed, and learns genuine repentance, they walk in darkness and in the sparks of their own kindling and shall lie down in sorrow. God will remove the candlestick out of its place from those who persist, while He remains with His messenger with grace and power to sustain him at his post of duty and will not leave nor forsake him. Moses is told to remain at his post while God sustains him.
Faithful Response Required Today
The chapter calls for decisive action against evil workers and for hearts to be decisively changed, for to tolerate such workers in the Lord's work dishonors God. To assail fellow workers and those God has appointed, to hold them up in a ridiculous light with ridicule and false charging and false witness until people lose confidence in them and count them no longer worthy of love and fellowship, to receive truth made ready through the labor of others and then reproach those entrusted with God's work, is an offense to God resembling the work of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Such false witness creates dissension, cuts off influence by false impressions and false sympathy, leads others into the same error, and endangers souls. Such work arising among God's people must not be met with silence that leaves people thinking the charge may be true or may not be true, thinking trusted brethren unworthy, or believing a lie. On every point accusers must be called to bring proof, every charge must be carefully investigated and settled with certainty, the people must be undeceived, and the filthy garments of unsubstantiated reproach must be removed from God's servant, doing justice both to accusers and to those misled.
The verse warns against refusing reproof, sympathizing with the wrongdoer, and standing between the offender and God. When God's servants do the disagreeable duty of correcting the erring, those who do not bear that burden and cannot see matters in the light presented must hold their peace and let the Almighty's arrows fall where He directs to pierce souls that have little sense of sin. It warns against going on year after year according to one's own mind and judgment in the face of all warnings, refusing to hear the Lord's voice, and threatening to sever all connection with brethren unless one's own terms are accepted. That course is dishonoring and stands on dangerous ground the Lord warns to keep off, and it is better for brethren of firm rectitude not to be made afraid by such threatenings nor to consent to such terms.
Claiming great light while not obeying it forfeits all right to claim sacred power as God's voice, as does mingling the work with men's devisings and selfishness, claiming to be especially exalted of God, hurting God's servants, the oil and the wine, and sustaining men whom God could not favor. The warning is against selfishness, disloyalty to God's cause, conceited plans, trying to improve on God's plans through human grasping, and misinterpreting and misapplying God's words to support baseless ideas, calling truth error and error truth, a wicked course marked by God and bringing judgment according to works. A spirit of criticism, false accusation, and resistance to discipline can bring rebellion into God's community. The rebellion stands as an example of drawing away from the church body, accusing fellow believers, using others' errors to build self up, and of ambition that could bring about a crisis like that in Moses' day, and it can deceive people into taking the wrong side in a pattern that can recur.
To be found among them at such a time means strengthening the gainsayer, unsettling minds and faith in the testimonies, and sowing impressions of unbelief in other minds that cannot be removed even if faith is recovered, laboring hard to do Satan's own work. Their oppressive spirit is the same spirit shown by people who separate from God, resist His warnings, misuse authority over others, and criticize work the Lord is guiding instead of changing their own thoughts and attitude. They need conversion to work in Christ's way, to hide self in Him and reject what is common and impure. The experience comes when ministers speak hasty, unadvised words that close the heart to divine influence and foster self-esteem and counteract practical godliness, when those who think they have been misused bear false witness and leaven minds with distrust and weaken faith in God's instrumentalities, when men question and doubt those God is teaching and plant hard-to-uproot seeds of doubt, when ministers show no confidence in ministering brethren and give Satan advantage to create distrust, envy, and evil-surmising, and when men listen to Satan and become fitful, impulsive, rash, reckless, and unfit for trust. Safety is in ministers being ensamples to the flock, encouraging a teachable and expectant spirit, living under the Holy Spirit's guidance, and being followed only as they follow Christ.
When Moses heard the challenge of Korah, Dathan and Abiram with the princes against his and Aaron's God-given leadership, claiming all the congregation was holy, he fell face-down before God. His falling was a silent, humble appeal to God in anguish in that emergency, leaving the answer with God to show who belonged to Him and was holy. Opposition to him as merely a human leader was in fact rebellion against God as leader and against Christ as the invisible leader, an insult to the Spirit of God by those who thought they were serving God. It repeated on a narrower stage the same pride and ambition that prompted Lucifer to complain of God's government and seek to overthrow heaven's order, a spirit Satan still infuses into men to arouse desire for self-exaltation. The course brought disastrous judgment from God upon those who took part, and it stands chronicled as instruction and admonition for those living near the close of time not to follow its example of unbelief.
Historical Setting of Rebellion
The verse belongs to the uprising of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram with certain of the children of Israel, joined by two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown. What Moses heard that made him fall on his face was their challenge to his and Aaron's God-given leadership, claiming the whole congregation was holy and asking why Moses and Aaron exalted themselves above them, a challenge that gained many sympathizers.
When Aaron and Miriam had been honored with a part in the work as mouthpiece and helpers, they thought they were equal to Moses and essential to the whole and felt credit should go to them rather than all honor to Moses. Against that self-exaltation Moses stands meek and humble, pruned of impetuous ambition and self-trust in shepherd solitude, no longer trusting high Egyptian education or his own ability in speech and planning, making God alone his trust and finding strength alone in God.
The rebellion ended at that time with brethren dying before the Lord by plague, yet forty years later at Kadesh in the desert of Zin when water ceased, the thirsting multitude murmured in continued unbelief and wished they had died with those brethren in a land with no seed, figs, vines, pomegranates, or water. The falling on the face on hearing Dathan and Abiram serves as the comparison for later rebellious courses.
Moses Humble Response to God
When the challenge to his and Aaron's leadership became clear, Moses fell face-down in silent appeal to God. He humbled himself before God in the emergency, anguished as he listened to the accusations even before the people. His falling on his face was not defense of self but turning the case over to God.
His answer was that God Himself would show who belonged to Him and who was holy. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram had claimed the whole congregation was holy and asked why Moses and Aaron exalted themselves above them, and that challenge was rebellion against what God had given Moses to do. The same answer of bowing before God was given later when the congregation murmured for water where the living stream had ceased to test faith. Moses and Aaron then left the assembly, went to the door of the tabernacle and bowed down, the glory of the Lord appeared, and instruction came to take the rod, gather the assembly, and speak to the rock to give water for the people and their animals. The earlier rebellion had ended with brethren dying before the Lord by plague, and the thirsting people called those dead their brethren and wished they had died with them rather than thirst in a wilderness with no seed, figs, vines, pomegranates, or water.
Nature of the Rebellion
To oppose Moses as if he were only a human leader was in fact to rebel against what God had given Moses to do, to reject God as leader and Christ as the invisible leader, to reject God's chosen instrument, and to insult the Spirit of God, while those who did so wrongly believed they were serving God.
On a narrower stage this repeated the same spirit that led to Satan's rebellion in heaven, where pride and ambition prompted Lucifer to complain of God's government and to seek to overthrow the order established in heaven, and since his fall he seeks to infuse the same envy and discontent and distrust and ambition for position and honor into men, working upon Korah, Dathan, and Abiram to arouse desire for self-exaltation and to excite envy, distrust, and rebellion.
That rebellion works secretly and in darkness by falsehoods and enmity and evil-surmisings and satanic representations to gain sympathy, worked by satanic agencies while called the Holy Spirit, and Christ came to the world not to aid Satan in working up rebellion but to put rebellion down.
It results from separation from God so that the heart is no longer under the subduing power of the Holy Spirit, revealing Satan's attributes in oppressing fellow men with an influence contrary to truth and justice and righteousness, doing despite to the Holy Spirit, and venturing on in the same course after warnings from God have come again and again and been cast aside.
The very same spirit is indulged by men entrusted with weighty responsibilities who have no living connection with God, and is shown in institutions in the desire of one to control all others and in the relation of workers to one another, and was shown by the Jews in the days of Christ.
The rebels are actuated by firm self-complacency, pride, prejudice, backsliding, and unwillingness to accept and acknowledge light and truth sent from heaven, with unsanctified independence, contempt for the word of the Lord in mockery and disgust, lightness, trifling, jesting and joking, and refusal to seek God, while Satan blinds eyes and perverts judgment.
They are deceived but consent to deception by placing themselves in his power.
In self-deception they thought themselves righteous and regarded those who faithfully reproved their sins as actuated by Satan, being stubborn in their own opinions and deciding their judgment was better than that of Moses, and charging Moses with doing great injury to Israel.
That stubborn trust in one's own judgment persisted even after God's judgments in a marked manner destroyed the leaders and princes, when the survivors came to Moses the next morning saying he had killed the people of the Lord.
Satan leads persons to imitate Korah, Dathan, and Abiram by raising insurrection among God's people and rising in opposition to plain testimony and to reproof of wrongs, claiming that those on whom God has laid the burden of His work exalt themselves above the people and that their counsels and reproofs are uncalled for.
Especially they oppose the plain testimony God would have borne in rebuking hurtful indulgences such as tea, coffee, snuff, and tobacco, which irritate those who will not destroy their idols.
Many remain undecided between conviction of truth and self-indulgence, weakened by indecision until appetite prevails and slow poisons pervert the sense of sacred things, until they decide not to deny self whatever the consequence.
That decision raises a wall of separation between them and those cleansing themselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and perfecting holiness in the fear of God, so the straight testimonies cause them uneasiness and they war against them as untrue, claim the people are all right and that the reproving testimonies make the trouble.
When the rebellious unfurl their banner, all the disaffected rally around the standard, and all the spiritually defective, the lame, the halt, and the blind, unite to scatter and sow discord.
Divine Judgment and Vindication
The rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram against Moses and the leaders God had appointed was sin against the Lord, a wicked course marked by God that brought disastrous results to all who took part in it. It was rejection of God's chosen instrument and of Christ as their invisible leader, and an insult to the Spirit of God, followed by judgment in which Korah and those who perished with him justly suffered according to their works. They were deceived by Satan, yet they consented to that deception by placing themselves in his power, and their history stands as a warning against selfishness and disloyalty to God's cause.
Even after God in a marked manner destroyed the leaders and princes and the people fled to their tents in horror, the rebellion was not cured, for stubborn trust in one's own judgment persisted. The depth of disaffection appeared the next morning when the survivors came to Moses and Aaron saying he had killed the people of the Lord, stubborn in their own opinions and deciding their judgment was better than Moses' while charging him with doing great injury to Israel. For that false charge, sin, exultation, and presumptuous wickedness, thousands more were killed. The people later recognized that their accusations were wrong and that Moses and Aaron had been right.
God sustained Aaron in the holy office of the priesthood as consecrated high priest, and confirmed it by making his rod bud, blossom, and yield almonds. That rod was kept as a lasting warning against further rebellion and murmuring. The chapter shows the difference between work done in self and work done in God, for self-directed work will not stand while work done in God will endure. The disaffection and opposition of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram cannot destroy a work that is of God.
Those who oppose the work and light God has given, though having evidence and light, walk not in the Lord's light but in the sparks of their own kindling. They are left by God to fall into the ditch and to lie down in darkness and sorrow, as was the end of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. They will share that leaving and fall unless they fall on the Rock and are broken.
Warning for the Last Days
The uprising that made Moses fall on his face was that of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown. That rebellion works secretly and in darkness by falsehoods and enmity and evil-surmisings and satanic representations to gain sympathy, worked by satanic agencies while called the Holy Spirit, and Christ came not to aid Satan in working up rebellion but to put rebellion down. The facts of that rebellion with all its objectionable features were faithfully chronicled and preserved to pass into history, and the chapter was written for instruction and admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come, especially those who live near the close of time. It is therefore to be read carefully and prayerfully and studied so that its lessons may be learned, including the need for genuine repentance, and so that its example of unbelief is not followed. Genuine rebellion is hardly ever curable and must be called by its right name as rebellion and apostasy.
For the last-day church this is a warning against following false prophets with heresies who if possible would deceive the very elect. It is a warning against taking the great leader of apostasy and naming him Christ our Righteousness, and against letting a few men undeceive believers from light long given. Those so misled show they have not sunk the shaft deep into the mines of truth and cannot distinguish precious ore from base material, the false from the genuine, or the voice of the true Shepherd from that of a stranger, and they need to humble themselves before God and sincerely repent, to be known by their fruits.
The same rebellion was acted over at Minneapolis in refusing the testimonies given through God's messenger and laboring to make them of none effect. Refusal to acknowledge the proper position placed by God and to heed the testimony is not despising the messenger but despising God's messengers, message, and word, showing contempt for the word of the Lord, and it is resistance to God's message and messengers. It is unsanctified independence that insults the Spirit of God, with a spirit of mockery and disgust, lightness, trifling, jesting and joking, and refusal to seek God, while Satan blinds eyes and perverts judgment, actuated by firm self-complacency, pride, prejudice, backsliding, and unwillingness to accept and acknowledge light and truth sent from heaven. Those who follow that course are deceived and deceiving others, strengthening the hands and minds of other opposers, and their influence through others is charged against them in the books of heaven, so that in the day of final accounts they will meet not only their own course of action but the result of their influence upon other minds.
Unless every soul repents of this sin, humbles pride, confesses prejudice, repents and is converted to be healed, and learns genuine repentance, they walk in darkness and in the sparks of their own kindling and shall lie down in sorrow. God will remove the candlestick out of its place from those who persist, while He remains with His messenger with grace and power to sustain him at his post of duty and will not leave nor forsake him. Moses is told to remain at his post while God sustains him.
Faithful Response Required Today
The chapter calls for decisive action against evil workers and for hearts to be decisively changed, for to tolerate such workers in the Lord's work dishonors God. To assail fellow workers and those God has appointed, to hold them up in a ridiculous light with ridicule and false charging and false witness until people lose confidence in them and count them no longer worthy of love and fellowship, to receive truth made ready through the labor of others and then reproach those entrusted with God's work, is an offense to God resembling the work of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Such false witness creates dissension, cuts off influence by false impressions and false sympathy, leads others into the same error, and endangers souls. Such work arising among God's people must not be met with silence that leaves people thinking the charge may be true or may not be true, thinking trusted brethren unworthy, or believing a lie. On every point accusers must be called to bring proof, every charge must be carefully investigated and settled with certainty, the people must be undeceived, and the filthy garments of unsubstantiated reproach must be removed from God's servant, doing justice both to accusers and to those misled.
The verse warns against refusing reproof, sympathizing with the wrongdoer, and standing between the offender and God. When God's servants do the disagreeable duty of correcting the erring, those who do not bear that burden and cannot see matters in the light presented must hold their peace and let the Almighty's arrows fall where He directs to pierce souls that have little sense of sin. It warns against going on year after year according to one's own mind and judgment in the face of all warnings, refusing to hear the Lord's voice, and threatening to sever all connection with brethren unless one's own terms are accepted. That course is dishonoring and stands on dangerous ground the Lord warns to keep off, and it is better for brethren of firm rectitude not to be made afraid by such threatenings nor to consent to such terms.
Claiming great light while not obeying it forfeits all right to claim sacred power as God's voice, as does mingling the work with men's devisings and selfishness, claiming to be especially exalted of God, hurting God's servants, the oil and the wine, and sustaining men whom God could not favor. The warning is against selfishness, disloyalty to God's cause, conceited plans, trying to improve on God's plans through human grasping, and misinterpreting and misapplying God's words to support baseless ideas, calling truth error and error truth, a wicked course marked by God and bringing judgment according to works. A spirit of criticism, false accusation, and resistance to discipline can bring rebellion into God's community. The rebellion stands as an example of drawing away from the church body, accusing fellow believers, using others' errors to build self up, and of ambition that could bring about a crisis like that in Moses' day, and it can deceive people into taking the wrong side in a pattern that can recur.
To be found among them at such a time means strengthening the gainsayer, unsettling minds and faith in the testimonies, and sowing impressions of unbelief in other minds that cannot be removed even if faith is recovered, laboring hard to do Satan's own work. Their oppressive spirit is the same spirit shown by people who separate from God, resist His warnings, misuse authority over others, and criticize work the Lord is guiding instead of changing their own thoughts and attitude. They need conversion to work in Christ's way, to hide self in Him and reject what is common and impure. The experience comes when ministers speak hasty, unadvised words that close the heart to divine influence and foster self-esteem and counteract practical godliness, when those who think they have been misused bear false witness and leaven minds with distrust and weaken faith in God's instrumentalities, when men question and doubt those God is teaching and plant hard-to-uproot seeds of doubt, when ministers show no confidence in ministering brethren and give Satan advantage to create distrust, envy, and evil-surmising, and when men listen to Satan and become fitful, impulsive, rash, reckless, and unfit for trust. Safety is in ministers being ensamples to the flock, encouraging a teachable and expectant spirit, living under the Holy Spirit's guidance, and being followed only as they follow Christ.