p. 72Ladies and Gentlemen,—
I have to direct your attention to a passage in the history of Israel’s journey from Egypt—better known, perhaps, than some we have been looking at for present purposes, though not more valuable. It is popular among Sunday scholars for its dramatic impressiveness. It is treasured among the upholders of law and order as a warning against rebellion. I now ask you to consider its narrative existence as a proof of the historic reality of the whole series of transactions of which it forms a part.
The record is (Num. xvi.) that certain leading men in the congregation raised a revolt against Moses and against Aaron, and were backed up by “two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown.” The cry raised was that Moses and Aaron “took too much upon them” in “lifting themselves above the congregation of the Lord.” The contention was that “all the congregation were holy, every one of them, as the Lord was among them.” Moses humbled himself p. 73 before such a formidable opposition, and proposed to them to submit the dispute to God, by all presenting themselves before the tabernacle with their censers, and allowing God to declare whom He chose to minister to Him in the priesthood. “What is Aaron,” said Moses, “that ye murmur against him? Ye are gathered together against the Lord.” Korah and his company were willing to come to the test. But Dathan and Abiram said, “We will not come up. Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, except thou make thyself a prince altogether over us?” Moses was angered at this unreasonable attitude, and said to God, “Respect not thou their offering. I have not taken one ass from them, neither have I hurt one of them.”
At the time appointed, Korah and his company came to the test. They not only brought a great company of priests, every man with his censer in his hand: but he “gathered all the congregation against Moses and Aaron” at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. The revolt reached a threatening height. It seemed likely that Moses and Aaron would be swept away before it, but at the critical moment “the glory of the Lord” shone blindingly from the tabernacle; and the voice of God commanded Moses and Aaron to separate themselves from the congregation that He might destroy them. Moses implored that the people might not be held responsible for the sin of the revolters. God heard his request, and gave the people permission to separate themselves from the revolters if they chose. Moses then went through the camp, followed by the faithful elders, commanding the people as they wished to be exempt from the destruction impending over Korah, p. 74 Dathan and Abiram, to get away from these men and touch nothing that was theirs. “Hereby,” said Moses, “ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these works, and that I have not done them of mine own mind. If these men die the common death of all men,. . . . then the Lord hath not sent me.” The people got away on all sides from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, who, with brazen countenance, stood at their tent doors with a laugh on their face. Then the ground clave asunder under them, and into the horrid chasm, the scornful crew was precipitated. A cry of terror rose. Suddenly, the rent closed up again, and all was quiet. The leaders of the revolt had perished. At the same moment a lightning flash from the Divine presence struck the whole insurrectionary phalanx of 250 censer-bearers dead on the spot where they stood in their imposing array. The congregation were struck with terror, but their sympathies with the revolters were not extinguished. Next day, murmurs again broke out. They attributed the calamities that had occurred to Moses and Aaron: “Ye have killed the people of the Lord.” Again they gathered threateningly against Moses and Aaron. Again the fiat of the Lord went forth against them. The plague raged among the people, and only at the intercession of Aaron was its ravages arrested, and not till 14,700 of the people had perished.
Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, what have you to say to such a narrative? Is it not at the same time very natural and very superhuman? Can any conceive it written by a fictionist? If you can, can you imagine the set of feelings that would lead him to invent such a fiction? The way to test the matter is to try and put yourselves in the position of the p. 75 narrator. Suppose yourselves acting the part of a serious historian of your own people: What could lead you to record such damaging things? It could not be gratifying to your own sense of patriotism: and you could not expect it to be pleasing to readers. It would minister to no taste of fancy or poetry. Only its truth could afford a sufficient motive to put such a story on record.
You must remember that it is only one of many such episodes: and you must remember that one and all of them stand related to great and serious and righteous and holy matters. They do not belong to amusing literature. They are not disconnected stories thrown in. They belong to the most prosaic book in the world. They relate to a people the most innocent of what is understood by taste and imagination among all peoples. They are but parts of a narrative woven into the most serious movement ever carried out upon the earth. They belong to the history of a nation still extant, and scattered among the nations exactly as foretold 3,000 years ago. They have the support of him who called himself the Light of the World and who has proved himself such even already by the light that has followed the dissemination of his name—the crucified and resurrected one who has given his name to the best part of mankind.
The whole connection and environment of the thing compels calm reason to recognize its truth. What other than a true history would represent the people of Israel accusing Moses and Aaron of “Slaying the people of the Lord” in the face of the manifest interposition of Divine power? It is human nature to the life as we find it: it is not human nature to imagine such a thing in a work of fiction. The whole narrative is disgraceful to Israel. Such a narrative p. 76 is never by a lying pen. If written by a pen of truth, then Korah, Dathan and Abiram rebelled, and were backed up by the whole congregation, and you have then to consider how it was possible that such a revolt could be quelled apart from superhuman means. Moses and Aaron had no soldiers. They had no power of any kind to withstand such a powerful uprising of men who had been made desperate by sentence of exile in the wilderness till death. They must have been carried away helplessly before it if some power superior to the rabble had not interposed. They were not carried away: they emerged at the head of the host at the end of the wilderness sojourn. How did two helpless men manage to withstand, to outride, the chronic rebellion of a reckless congregation. The narrative supplies an answer. Again and again Divine power came to their rescue. This is a reasonable answer, and accounts for everything that came after. Take it away, and you are unable to give a reasonable solution to a genuine historic problem. But it cannot be taken away. It is built into such a massive structure that it cannot be removed. It is so hard in its inherent substance that bits cannot even be chipped off it by the hardest unbelieving hammer.
The answer being true—that God defended Moses and Aaron from the insurrectionary tumults of a perverse race of people brought out of Egypt—then the whole Bible is necessarily true; for the work, in that case, was His, and He would not leave it till it was finished. It must be His, through all its stages, even onwards to that terrible culmination when all mankind will shrink like worms into their holes in the presence of the re-manifested power of God in all the earth.