Title: Keep Your Fountain and Live
Text/ Numbers 16:1-40
The rebellion of Korah and his followers against Moses in the text teaches us that those who do not know the fraction will perish, whether they are individuals, families, or nations. God gave each person five talents, two talents, or one talent. God's equality is not a standardized product that comes out of a factory. How did God's equality use the talents each person received? is an absolute evaluation.
1. Each person has a fountain given by God
See 1 Corinthians 12:12ff. The body is one and has many members, and as the body has many members, yet is one body, so is Christ. No, if the whole body is an eye, where is it to hear, and if the whole body is to hear, where is it to smell? Now the members are many, but the body is one. If one member suffers, all the members suffer together; if one member is glorified, all the members rejoice together.
In this way, God has given each person a talent and worth. A politician, an artist, an activist, a businessman, a teacher, a scientist, etc. He has entrusted each person with the necessary and appropriate work, and has given them their fraction.
At the time of the Exodus, God appointed Moses as the political leader of Israel and Aaron as the religious leader. He also entrusted the Levites with the task of moving the tabernacle and preparing the sacrifices to Aaron, and entrusted the remaining 11 tribes with the military mission of protecting the tabernacle and defeating foreign enemies. He gave each of us a fraction to keep.
2. If each person exceeds their own fraction, they will perish.
Korah and his followers forgot their fraction and tried to destroy the God-ordained order of the Exodus. Their argument is very reasonable. first. Man is equal before God. second. God works equally equally with all people. third. But Moses and Aaron, why do you rule as kings of this people?
That is to say, it is correct. But behind their rational claims were the arrogance and treason that they wanted to become kings. Verse 10 makes it clear. They forgot my fountain and tried to usurp the priesthood. It was meant to elevate itself.
The Talmud contains the following story:
Korah and his followers were like this tail. Those who forget my fountain ruin me and the community.
3. The fraction received by each person has essentially no elevation.
There is nothing precious and lowly about the members attached to the body. All are precious. All the talents God has given are precious. There is no height. The master's praise to the servant who had received five and two talents was not wrong.
The work that Moses and Aaron were entrusted with, the work that Korah was entrusted with, and the work that other tribes entrusted to them are all precious tasks that must exist before God. Korah did not see the essence of the matter. Like a serpent's tail, he forgot the fraction that was given to him, threw away what he could do, and hoped for what he could not do, and he perished.
Keeping the fountain doesn't mean not advancing. This is not to say that you should be content with your reality now. The person who received the two talents became four talents by keeping the fraction of the two talents well. And he will also keep the fountain of four talents and become a man of eight talents. If a person who has received two talents pretends to have received five talents, they will be destroyed in one day. Keeping the fountain means that. I bless you in the name of the Lord that you will keep the fountain and listen to God's voice.
Word Fountain Church