Irrationality of Rebellion

“And it came to pass, when the congregation was gathered against Moses and against Aaron, that they looked toward the tabernacle of the congregation: and, behold, the cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD appeared.” (Nu 16:42 AV)

I read this and a question arose in my mind.  What is wrong with these people?  They just saw the earth open and swallow the household of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.  These three families were guilty of insurrection.  They accused Moses of bringing the nation of Israel out of Egypt solely for the purpose of being a prince over them.  They complained they hadn’t received any of the promises made.  It was their own fault.  They rejected the counsel of godly Caleb and Joshua.  It was their own fault they were wandering in the wilderness.  The LORD wanted to destroy the nation for this and Moses, again, stood in the gap.  He convinced the LORD to only punish the ring leaders.  Moses was the one who came up with the dramatic punishment of a sinkhole.  Down they went and the earth covered them up.  One would think the rest of the people would be terrified to try something like this again.  But no.  It only escalated the rebellion.  SO much so that a plague began among the people.  Fourteen thousand seven hundred people died.  The only thing that stopped it from getting worse was Aaron making atonement for the people with a golden censer in his hand.  If it wasn’t for Moses sending Aaron to make atonement, the number of dead would have been vastly greater.  So, what was their response?  More rebellion.  It wasn’t until Aaron’s rod that budded did the nation finally admit they went too far and they were all dead men.  Kind of prophetical seeing as how that generation would completely die off in the wilderness.

I don’t know exactly how to apply this to the saint other than to say that rebellion is a strong condition of the heart.  Rebellion causes us to do very irrational and hurtful things.  Not just to others.  But to ourselves.  Rebellion, in all its faces, still astounds me.  A program that is very popular accompanies several police departments as they perform their duties.  It is called Live PD.  There is a spin-off of this program called Cam PD.  I hadn’t watched it is a while.  The other day I was watching and the police had this domestic case where a driver tried to ram another car off the road.  This domestic case happened to be a homosexual who was upset that his sodomite ex-partner had ended the relationship.  The conversation between the perp and the police officer astounded me.  How someone could rationally explain his behavior as though any of it was justified befuddled me.  There wasn’t an edge o defiance in his voice.  It was pure warped rationality as though his behavior was to be considered completely normal.  Case after case like this is what boggles my mind.  How people can rationally explain their criminal behavior as though it is to be expected to be normal while normal behavior is to be seen as abnormal.  One common thread in all these cases is disrespect for authority.  Praise the LORD these law enforcement officers contain their emotions and act professionally.  More times than not, they treat the perp with the utmost respect even though they are being verbally abused and accused of all sorts of injustice.

The saint would look at that and praise the LORD Jesus saved them from all that.  As we should.  However, just because the LORD saved us from obvious and extreme forms of rebellion does not mean we have gained victory over it all.  Any time we know to do good and deliberately do the opposite, it is rebellion.  When we choose to be our own authority, it is rebellion.  When we wrest the scriptures and treat them as something to which it must conform to us, our way of thinking, or our opinions founded upon academics, we are in rebellion.  The shocker is when the seeds of rebellion mature, it doesn’t stop us from more.  Our lives begin to unravel as the web of untruth crumbles.  We do not stop and think of what these consequences mean.  Onward we go to more and more correction.  This rebellion is serious.  It is very destructive.  And it makes absolutely no sense.  The question is:  how much will we have to endure because of our disobedience before we will finally accept a rod that buds?