Before you read this story, allow me tell you a different story. A very short story. There was a huge congregation of people traveling. And these people were being guided every single step, every single meal by God.
God had built a special relationship with these people and which at the very beginning and clear do’s and don’ts that were to effectively guide their relationship.
Among these, were that these people shall not commit adultery with the neighboring communities. The reasoning was simple, if they indulged people that did not know the fear of God, they risked sliding the same path.
But this black people who had been slaves for a very long time in Egypt were easily enticed by the light-skin of the Moabites – present day Jordanians. There women’s hand had borne the brunt of slavery, it would be easy to imagine how tender the whores of Moab were.
Num 25:1 And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.
Disaster happened. Everyone that slept with those women was killed. At while this people were seeking repentance, one guy had the guts to actually walk into the camp with a Moabite prostitute, during the day, into his tent and they got busy.
Num 25:6 And, behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
Num 25:7 And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand;
Num 25:8 And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.
Num 25:9 And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.
OK, read that again. It took 24,000 people who had willingly chosen to go out and bring a woman INTO THE CAMP of the Lord, IN THE PRESENCE of the Lord, to contain the ANGER OF THE LORD. People think God does not get ANGRY. Oh my.
The number of people that would have died that day would have been far greater than 24,000, had Phinehas not had taken the action he did. How different today….
A jury has convicted an Atlanta truck driver accused of pouring boiling water over two gay men as the couple slept in February.
The jury deliberated for about 90 minutes Wednesday before finding Martin Blackwell guilty of eight counts of aggravated battery and two counts of aggravated assault, according to the Associated Press.
Blackwell was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
The 48-year-old wasn’t charged with a hate crime because Georgia is one of five states that do not have hate crime statutes. An FBI spokesman told Reuters that federal investigators are considering whether to charge Blackwell with a federal hate crime.
Anthony Gooden had told his family he was gay shortly before the attack, which happened as Gooden slept on a mattress in his mother’s living room next to Marquez Tolbert, according to the AP. The men had been dating for about six weeks.
Blackwell, a long-haul trucker who stayed at the house when he was in town, came in and saw the two unconscious men lying next to each other.
He went to the kitchen, pulled out a pot, filled it with water and set it to boil. Moments later, he poured the scalding water over the men, The Washington Post reported.
Tolbert must now wear compression garments 23 hours a day for the next two years, Gray wrote in an email to The Post, and is attending weekly counseling and physical therapy sessions to deal with his emotional and physical scars. It’s difficult for him to go outside because sunlight exacerbates the pain of his burns.
Gooden, who was burned even more severely, was in a medically induced coma for several weeks, Gray said. According to his GoFundMe page, more than 60 percent of his body was burned, and he had to undergo skin graft surgery to repair damage to his face, neck, back, arms, chest and head.
What if Martin Blackwell is our Phinehas, one who was to help contain the ANGER of the Lord.
Lev 18:22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
Lev 18:23 Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.
Lev 18:24 Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:
Lev 18:25 And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.Lev_20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
