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God Punished all of Korah, Dathan, Abiram's Families

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(Numbers 16:32)

and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households and all Korah's men and all their possessions.

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God raised Moses as the leader of Israel.
They lived in the desert and they followed God's commands and headed to Canaan.

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But among the Israelites, there were groups of people who did not want to follow Moses. Korah, Dathan, Abiram and On were the ones who did not want to follow Moses. These four people made a very bad plan. They were planning to remove Moses from the place of leadership.

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They gathered 250 people who all thought the same way.
Most of them were well-known intelligent people.
They gathered and went to Moses. Then, they complained.

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Their leader said to Moses and Aaron, "You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is with them. Why then do you lift yourselves to rule over the people as if you are the only ones who are holy?"

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Korah and the followers were people from the tribe of Levi. The people of the Levi tribe worked at the tabernacle of God and that was a special privilege from God. However, their hearts had become arrogant. They wanted to become priests and to be lifted up by the other people. But God allowed only the family of Aaron to become the priests.

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Moses did not say anything to them after hearing their words. Moses just fell facedown.
Then, Moses asked for the command of God.

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After a while, Moses told them.
"Tomorrow morning, the LORD will show us who belongs to HIM. God will tell us the people who can come near to HIM. Each one of you, bring your censers and gather again."

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Moses spoke fearful words and pointed out the wrong doings of that group.
"You Levites have gone too far. God has given you special favor so you are working at the LORD's tabernacle but your arrogance is too much. You are wanting the place that only the priest can have, which God has not given to you. You are going against God, who made that place."

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So the next morning, the opposing group brought the censers in their hands and gathered at the tabernacle. Moses had received the command from God so he warned the people.

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After hearing Moses' warning, the other people kept their distance from the tents of the opposing people. The family of the opposing people were standing in front of their tents.

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"You will know that I am not doing all these things to lift up myself. You will know that it was the LORD who sent me to do all these things. The things that God will do to them will become the proof of that."

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Right after saying that, the ground where the families of the opposing groups were standing split apart and swallowed all of their tents and all of their people. All of the other people who saw that were very surprised so they ran away from that place.

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At that moment, fire fell down from the sky. The fire fell down to the 250 opposing people who were holding the censers. All of the people in that place died right away by the fire. Moses was raised by God and the group of Korah, who opposed Moses got punished by God.

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Korah and the followers received grace of God but they looked down on that grace. They were very arrogant so that they wanted to have the things that Moses and Aaron only had. So God punished them. They tried to have the things that God did not allow them. That is why God punished them.

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In order for us not to make these kinds of mistakes, we should ask the help of the Holy Spirit. If we don't thank the grace of God and if we do bad things to get what others have, God will not be happy about it. God allows more thankfulness to those people who are grateful about the things that they have.