Title: Ex 15:11, "Who is like Thee among the gods, O LORD
Author: Theodore S. Enke
Last saved by: Theodore Enke
Company: Conejo Koinonia Church

Sunday, September 20, 2026

1 Kings 14:6, And it came about when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet coming in the doorway, that he said, "Come in, wife of Jeroboam, why do you pretend to be another woman? For I am sent to you with a harsh message. 
	We are at a point in our reading wherein the prophet of The Lord was tasked with delivering the Word from God that was neither pleasant to give nor easy to receive. This entire episode reflects that anguish that is put into place because of the hardness of heart of mankind to be obedient and pliable before God. 
	As a preface, as a pastor over a portion of the flock of God’s people, there is often joy in our hearts as we prepare for our time together with those whom God has brought into this fellowship. There is an anxious anticipation to be with each other in prayer and in worship unto Our Lord. Much of the time spent in preparation in the Word is so enjoyable and so encouraging, detailing that which, we pray, The Holy Spirit opens up for the growth and the feeding and the nourishment of His people. 
We so enjoy our time together praying and celebrating the goodness of God in the answered prayers and the manner of His loving-kindness being detailed. This is even when some of those times are difficult, as with memorial services, or counseling as parents, or as soon-to-be married betrothed.
	In these times, there are matters that require firmness and comfort and grace and mercy and encouragement and gentle yet consistent pointing to the Lord in the setting aside of self-interests, etc. Always, there is that expressed loving heart of Christ Jesus that is manifested and held forth as the goal and the focal truth of the why and the wherefore of what is taking place. There is also the sharing of what may have to take place in order for Christ to become the center of every relationship, especially in terms of the oneness of marriage.
We also share together in The Lord’s comfort in the midst of those times of grief and anguish. There is a gracious peace that envelops us as we are reassured of the fact that our earthly loss will never diminish or tarnish our heavenly gain in Christ Jesus. 
Especially when we minister to the prisoners, there is that ultimate pointing to the obedience to God and to His Word that overrides the every interaction. We have most often left those prison walls uplifted and rejoicing in how God is proving Himself in the darkest of situations. 
	This morning’s account, however, is that of when a man or woman of God is required to bring forth that verdict of The Lord upon those who have deliberately acted in opposition to what was required of them. This is a time in which the Word of God is very directly applied in detailing the consequences of the actions of one who could and should have chosen to honor the precepts and the instructions of The Lord.
However they may have deliberately and maliciously acted in direct opposition to that which should have been done. Often and most bitterly, it accompanies their malicious attitudes and malignant whispering and attitudes that lead others astray. This will be evidenced through actions and disdainful mockery of all that is good and pure and holy. This is a call to an accounting of that defiant and deliberate disobedience to what is right and proper. 
	These are not times of joy and delight and jubilation together in The Lord. Rather, they are filled with tremendous sadness and horror at the consequences that are so pronounced upon those who are mired and steeped in such malfeasance. For those called upon by God to give such voice to the severity of the outcomes so forth-coming, it is ever painful and difficult. Yet it must be done in the core responsibility as so charged by God! 
	I will most sadly state that I take no delight or pleasure in those times of severe correction. I have spent much effort and energy and argument before God concerning each matter at hand! I have earnestly sought after The Lord if there would be any other way that it could be approached. 
Yet it always comes back to that by which we all must live. Not my will, but Thine be done! How often have I found myself crying out to God about the entire situation, seeking Him to take away this burden of responsibility from the weight smashing down upon my skull. 
My pleas have been along the line that I take no delight in this, Lord, but as You so tell me I must deliver this doom upon the head of this or that one. I will do so in Your Name and in obedience to You. But please Lord, be merciful to the every degree that shows forth Your Holiness, Your Righteousness, Your Justice, Your Grace, Your Mercy, Your heart! You always bring to the forefront the fact that You do not delight in the death of any, but would have all receive the salvation that You have freely and manifestly offered in Christ Jesus.
	As an additional aside, with all thankfulness in my heart before God, I have not been tasked by Him with this fundamental responsibility very often. There have only been a mere handful of times that it has been put upon me in this role as pastor. 
As well, it seems to take more out of me in the manner of preparation and delivery, but that does not lessen the harshness of the task. What God says needs to be said, is pronounced with the full vigor of that which must be proclaimed with a heart that prays and beseeches God for the sake of the eternal salvation of the one upon whom this Word is voiced. Our prayer is continually that a brother or sister will be won, rather than lost. Only The Lord knows! 
	As such, it is appropriate to consider a number of times in scripture when this has taken place. It is this pronouncement of The Word of God against that which has been so foul and abhorrent in the course of the leading away of those members of the flock by a person of leadership or influence. 
This can not be permitted by God, and He takes it so seriously that the death and destruction of the perpetrator are often the holy and righteous result. The protection and accuracy of the witness and the testimony of God are always to be considered as of vital urgency! That fundamentally includes the manner in which the people of God are shepherded as unto Him and not unto our own, foul and selfish endeavors and self-aggrandizement and sordid gain!
	It brings to mind the situation in the desert regions with Moses, and Aaron, and the sons of Israel. There was an uprising against the leadership of Moses by a faction of the Levites who thought they knew better than the prophet of God how to offer the sacrifices and to lead the people. These were Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. At one point, because a large number of the congregation of Israelites was being swayed to turn against Moses and Aaron, God was ready to consume them all. However, Moses and Aaron were before Jehovah on their faces beseeching for the majority of the Israelites. They were asking God to relent from that which was being pronounced as the doom of the people. 
	God did relent from that complete destruction, but not from the removal of the cancerous infection brought into the camp by these rebellious men. They were to be dealt with severely and decisively despite the every entreaty of Moses and Aaron to the contrary. God could not continence such blatant refusal to obey and to honor both Jehovah and His prophet and friend, Moses. This fomenting of dissention and the effort to abandon that course which God had set forth for the blessing and the maintenance of His people could not be ignored!
Please open to Numbers Chapter 16, verses 16-35. In this passage we will see that when the people of God are at stake, when the testimony of the Altogether Awesome Lord God Almighty is belittled in the eyes of those who are to honor Him and to serve and care for His beloved people, there is a consequence that will reign down from heaven! Moses had to take the stand for the Lord despite the cost that would be terribly meted out upon these men who were fomenting rebellion and dishonor in the midst of the people of God. 
Even in the face of the certain doom that was to befall them, having seen firsthand what God had done to the army of Pharaoh at the Red Sea, these defilers stood defiantly at the doorways of their tents. They were daring God to do anything about their rebellious defilement of His precious people!
Num 16:16-35, And Moses said to Korah, "You and all your company be present before the Lord tomorrow, both you and they along with Aaron. And each of you take his firepan and put incense on it, and each of you bring his censer before the Lord, two hundred and fifty firepans; also you and Aaron shall each bring his firepan." So they each took his own censer and put fire on it, and laid incense on it; and they stood at the doorway of the tent of meeting, with Moses and Aaron. Thus Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the doorway of the tent of meeting. And the glory of the Lord appeared to all the congregation. Then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, "Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them instantly." But they fell on their faces, and said, "O God, Thou God of the spirits of all flesh, when one man sins, wilt Thou be angry with the entire congregation?" Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the congregation, saying, 'Get back from around the dwellings of Korah, Dathan and Abiram.'" Then Moses arose and went to Dathan and Abiram, with the elders of Israel following him, and he spoke to the congregation, saying, "Depart now from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing that belongs to them, lest you be swept away in all their sin." So they got back from around the dwellings of Korah, Dathan and Abiram; and Dathan and Abiram came out and stood at the doorway of their tents, along with their wives and their sons and their little ones. And Moses said, "By this you shall know that the Lord has sent me to do all these deeds; for this is not my doing. If these men die the death of all men, or if they suffer the fate of all men, then the Lord has not sent me. But if the Lord brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens its mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they descend alive into Sheol, then you will understand that these men have spurned the Lord." Then it came about as he finished speaking all these words, that the ground that was under them split open; and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who belonged to Korah, with their possessions. So they and all that belonged to them went down alive to Sheol; and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. And all Israel who were around them fled at their outcry, for they said, "The earth may swallow us up!" Fire also came forth from the Lord and consumed the two hundred and fifty men who were offering the incense. 
	The severity of this judgment against these families served as an example that would not be forgotten in the course of the instruction and admonition of the people of God. It would be referenced in the annuls of the history of the nation of Israel for future generations to consider and to accede to whenever there was a rebellious nature inherent in their actions and their grumblings. 
	Those Israelites were reminded of it by Moses in Deut 11:1-7. This was as they were being told that they were the generation who were to teach their children and their children’s children, and the following generations exactly what it meant to love the Lord and to obey and to honor Him, Alone. 
Deut 11:1-7, "You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and always keep His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments. And know this day that I am not speaking with your sons who have not known and who have not seen the discipline of the Lord your God — His greatness, His mighty hand, and His outstretched arm, and His signs and His works which He did in the midst of Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land; and what He did to Egypt's army, to its horses and its chariots, when He made the water of the Red Sea to engulf them while they were pursuing you, and the Lord completely destroyed them; and what He did to you in the wilderness until you came to this place; and what He did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben, when the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, among all Israel — but your own eyes have seen all the great work of the Lord which He did. 
	This example was brought forward into the teaching of the church of Jesus Christ in the first century by Jude. There was that constant use of this example in order to prevent future generations from making the same error of rebellious and defiant action against God. That is one of the reasons that God does have the under shepherds of His flock definitively and expressly stand against the errors and the rebellion of those who would try to lead astray His precious and redeemed ones! 
Consider the forcefulness of what Jude was told to write to those who would later read His letter, written to abate any thoughts that were other than that which would honor and reverence and obey The Lord God Almighty. Jude 10-13. But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed. Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. These men are those who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.
These are not easy words to read without the absolute sense of fear and trembling before the Holiness and the awesome Righteousness of Jehovah. Yet, as hard as they may be to read, imagine what was going on in the heart and the mind of Jude, as with Moses in the terms of having to lay these words of judgment against those to whom it would mean life or death. 
In the case of Korah, and Dathan, and Abiram, it was the swallowing up by the earth as it opened and they and their entire households were cast manifestly and horrifically into the bowels of the netherworld. They became those ghastly examples of what should never take place within the assembly of the people of God, who learn to obey and honor Him and His will. They are the representation of how we are not to be focused on our own destructive and rebellious stands of obstinacy and arrogance and prideful hatred of that which is holy and just and lovely in the sight of Jehovah!
Lord willing, next time we are together, we will continue forward with this consideration, not because it is wonderful and joyous to our hearts. Rather it is because it is necessary to understand that there are those times when the correction of God is required! 
It is never an easy thing for the minister over the flock to give voice to such difficult and disheartening words of correction. However, for the sake of the flock, for the further growth of the beloved into the fuller measure of our life in Jesus Christ, those thorny and rugged and chafing times must be faced obediently and steadfastly! So be it and amen!
And it came about when Ahijah heard the sound of her feet coming in the doorway, that he said, "Come in, wife of Jeroboam, why do you pretend to be another woman? For I am sent to you with a harsh message. Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Heb 4:12. For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Amen.