Numbers 25:3 And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel.
The Deadliest Enemy
I imagine that most of us lock our doors at night. We want to lock danger out while we sleep. None of us would intentionally lock a danger in, but that is exactly what many people do when it comes to sin in their lives. They lock out things that they can see, but they don’t realize what they are locking within. They are lax about their own weaknesses.
Numbers 25 is the story of Israel, who locked an enemy in instead of locking an enemy out. Their enemy, Balak, wanted to curse them. God would not permit that, but they circumvented God’s protection by inviting the enemy to themselves.
Numbers 25:1 says, “And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.” The very people who wanted to curse them were the very people with whom they began to have immoral relationships. Israel then sacrificed and bowed to their gods. Verse 3 says, “And Israel joined herself unto Baal-peor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel.”
I don’t know what enemies are on your horizon today, but the deadliest enemy the devil could send you is the one you invite to yourself. That is exactly what Israel did here. In verse 18 the Bible makes reference to the wiles, the trickery, of the Midianites. Likewise, in Ephesians 6:11, the Bible says that we are “to stand against the wiles of the devil.” A devil who can fool you does not need to fight you. The king of Moab thought he could overcome Israel by force, but as it turned out, all he had to do was to fool them.
James 4:4 says, “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not the friendship of the world is enmity with God?” James is not talking about people who had been unfaithful in their marriages, but about spiritual adultery, people who had been unfaithful to their God. In this story in Numbers 25 the two are connected. Israel committed immorality with the daughters of Moab, and then they made sacrifices to their gods. They were adulterers on two counts, being unfaithful both to their marriages and to their God.
Here were a people who had been protected from external threat, but invited that threat into their very lives. God is not likely to protect you from an enemy you invite. We often worry about society, government, or evil influences outside the walls of our homes, yet we are relaxed about the world within, our own weaknesses. If the devil is going to attack you today, it is more likely to be something that is appealing to you that you will invite into your life than it is to be something that forces itself into your world.