Even in their experience of the presence of fire by night and cloud by day, representing the presence of God, and all the mistakes of the past, the 2nd generation of the Wilderness Wanderers still made wrong choices, still showed a lack of faith, still fell into the most flagrant disobedience.

Is the Christian church in general any different today on the borders of entering into the Heavenly Promised Land?

From the Sabbath Afternoon section, it says, "All God wanted to do, from the start, was bring them into the Promised Land; and time and again, all they were doing, by their choices, was making it so much more difficult for that to happen."

Isn't it also true of what God wanted to do back then, God now wants to do today?

A lot to think about as we go through this week's material.

One lesson this week is that what Satan fails to accomplish by force, he seeks to accomplish by feint and fraud.

Num. 25:4 says, "And Jehovah said to Moses, Take all the heads of the people and hang them up before Jehovah against the sun, so that the fierce anger of Jehovah may be turned away from Israel."

Does the words "hang them up" in the several English versions mean "to attach to something above with no support from below; suspend," or "to put to death by tying a rope about the neck and suddenly suspending the body"? I ask this because we have a different word for each of these meanings, while you have just one word which can be applied to both.

I understand the first meaning would refer to publicly exposing the body by fixing it on a stake after the person has been killed (which seems to be what Ellen White is saying in PP 455).

Could someone clarify that to me?

As I understand it, it is publicly exposing the body by fixing it on a stake after the person has been killed.

The phrase "hang them up before Jehovah" means that. If it was supposed to be the 2nd meaning - killing them by hanging them on a rope - that would be "hang them before Jehovah." The "up" makes a difference. You "hang" criminals; you "hang up" wet laundry.

THE FALSE PROPHETS WOULD LEAD US STRAIGHT INTO SUN WORSHIP--

We see all through Biblical history that one of the key elements in weaning a loyal people away from their loyalties to the true God is by infiltration. Send in some innocent looking people to bait and lead astray the unsuspecting.

Balaam knew why he couldn't curse Isreal:
Numbers 23.21
"God has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither has he seen perverseness in Israel: the LORD God is with them... there is no enchantment that will work against them."

So what does he do?
Entice them into sin and bring a curse upon them that way.

"Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel," REv. 2:15

2 Peter 2:1; False teachers, secretly introduce destructive heresies.

The idea is to come along side someone, pretending to have their best interest at heart, and be with them but secretly having an agenda to lead them into accepting something which will destroy their connection with God.

Arnold, thank you very much. The subject became clear to me now. The problem is our main version in Portuguese says that they should be hanged, which did not agree with what Ellen White says in PP - that they should have their bodies exposed.

One thing I think deserves to be emphasized in our SS class:

It was when the Israelites were in a condition of outward ease and security that they were led into sin. They failed to keep God ever before them, they neglected prayer and cherished a spirit of self-confidence. Ease and self-indulgence left the citadel of the soul unguarded, and debasing thoughts found entrance. It was the traitors within the walls that overthrew the strongholds of principle and betrayed Israel into the power of Satan. It is thus that Satan still seeks to compass the ruin of the soul. A long preparatory process, unknown to the world, goes on in the heart before the Christian commits open sin. The mind does not come down at once from purity and holiness to depravity, corruption, and crime. It takes time to degrade those formed in the image of God to the brutal or the satanic. By beholding we become changed. By the indulgence of impure thoughts man can so educate his mind that sin which he once loathed will become pleasant to him. {PP 459.1}

"Those who would not fall a prey to Satan's devices must guard well the avenues of the soul; they must avoid reading, seeing, or hearing that which will suggest impure thoughts" (MYP 285).

"Guard your heart more than anything else, because the source of your life flows from it" (Prov. 4:23, GW).

Did you notice that the commandment to kill them also included Balaam?