Israel had already begun to worship the idols of Midian and Moab. God’s wrath brought punishment on his people, and Moses failed to fully obey God’s command. God had commanded swift retribution on the chiefs, and it didn’t come.

Phinehas’ zeal saved the day. As priest he saw the dishonour to God’s name and did something about it there and then. The zeal of this one man turned back God’s wrath from Israel, but only after 24,000 had died.

God commended Phinehas, but not was he commended, but he received a covenant of peace from God – a perpetual covenant of priesthood to successive generations. What a commendation!

All this was because of one man’s zeal for God’s honour. It is wonderful how one man’s desire to please God can bring blessing to many sinners!

Phinehas thought of God’s honour first and foremost, and that made the difference. God loves to see his people stand up and stand out for him. The blessing on the people seems almost incidental to the story: all God’s pleasure was in the one man who negated the sins of the many by his zeal.

Can our nation be saved by one man’s zeal for God?

I believe so.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 27th, 2003 at 12:00 am and is filed under Devotional. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.