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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
God met with him, and Balaam said, "I have prepared seven altars, and on each altar I have offered a bull and a ram."
The Lord put a message in Balaam's mouth and said, "Go back to Balak and give him this message."
So he went back to him and found him standing beside his offering, with all the princes of Moab. Then Balaam uttered his oracle:
"Balak brought me from Aram, the king of Moab from the eastern mountains. 'Come,' he said, 'curse Jacob for me; come, denounce Israel.'
How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?
From the rocky peaks I see them, from the heights I view them. I see a people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations.
Who can count the dust of Jacob or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my end be like theirs!"
Balak said to Balaam, "What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have done nothing but bless them!"
He answered, "Must I not speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?"
Numbers 23:4-12
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
As we continue our study of Numbers, chapter 23, let’s reset the scene.
Balak, the king of Moab, has constructed seven sacrificial altars as requested by Balaam, the diviner he had summoned to place a curse on the people of Israel. On each altar, a bull and a ram were offered up. This is where things were as Balaam went to God, seeking further guidance from Him.
As we move onto our passage for today, we see the Lord delivering this message that Balaam was to share with Balak, who was expecting a curse to spoken. He was not alone for the scriptures tell us that “all the princes of Moab” were also there, standing by the offering.
Here were the words from the Lord, given to Balak through Balaam:
"Balak brought me from Aram, the king of Moab from the eastern mountains. 'Come,' he said, 'curse Jacob for me; come, denounce Israel.'
How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?
From the rocky peaks I see them, from the heights I view them. I see a people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations.
Who can count the dust of Jacob or number the fourth part of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my end be like theirs!"
To Balaam’s credit, he said just what the Lord told him to say. He obediently followed God’s orders and his message caught Balak off guard, angering him as he said:
"What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have done nothing but bless them!"
In response to this, Balaam simply says:
"Must I not speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?"
In other words, Balaam was telling the Moabite king, “What else would you expect me to do but say to you what God has said?” By this point, there was no doubt in Balaam’s mind that he was dealing with a real God, unlike the false ones he had made a living off of proclaiming as a diviner. In fact, I don’t believe that Balaam ever really had contact with a god at all before but he found out that pretending that he did was good for business. It kept him employed and well paid by others.
But this God, the God of Israel, was real. He was alive and active as well as powerful, demanding, and transforming. This God could make a donkey speak, and an angel appear that couldn’t be seen by all. This God could get deep down into Balaam’s very heart and soul, causing him to enter into self-examination to see the person he really was.
As we see in our passage for today, Balaam’s very words support his inability to carry out Balak’s wishes as he said:
“How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?”
In other words, if the almighty God of Israel found no reason to condemn His people then how could Balaam do so? After all, what authority did he have to curse or denounce others anyways? He was just as much a sinner as any other human being.
So in the end, Balaam concluded that he would rather be for the Israelite people than against them and so he chose to partner with their God rather than the pagans who tried to entice him to do wrong with their riches.
Friends, when we truly come to the place where we are following Jesus Christ, we too come to a place where we stop judging others and passing judgment. We become new creations, throwing off our former selves when we partnered with the world and it’s sinful ways (2 Corinthians 5:17) and embracing a life defined by righteousness and holiness only found in the One who proclaimed that He was the Way and the Truth and the Life, the only One who can bring someone to God the Father (John 14:6). With that, we find our way to “die the death of the righteous” as Balaam hoped he would.
You know, this all took me back to a time in life shortly after my divorce. It was a time when I was playing the blame game, laying all fault on my ex-wife for the infidelity she committed. But in that place, the Lord entered into my life and my heart, convicting me so I would see that in the end translation, I was just as guilty as she was for we were both sinners in need of a Savior, sinners desperately in need of His mercy and grace. This conviction got my attention and opened my eyes to how I had failed to lead my family spiritually and this slowly led things down the road of destruction. The Lord caused me to realize that I had not truly loved my wife as Christ loved the church. I had not done nearly enough to make her realize that she was a real blessing from the Lord to me.
In other words, I had failed just as much as she had. I had no right to curse or denounce her.
Friends, today I praise God that He gave me a second chance in life to make amends for my past mistakes and I have made the most of it. No longer do I quickly move to judge others or condemn because it’s not my place. For like Balaam saw, who am I to judge when I am just as much a sinner as the next person?
And so I in times when I feel temptation to criticize, I turn my life over to Jesus with all my heart, mind and soul. I make Him my treasure in life over everything else because He said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).
For when it comes right down to it, Jesus was the One who led me to the place of forgiveness and reconciliation, to a spirit of mercy and grace and love because He has showed it to me in what He did to save my soul. I’m just so grateful that He and the Father worked to help me see who I truly was and am so I can strive to be better and be who I was made to truly be in Them, just as God was trying to do with Balaam.
My prayer for you today is that you will allow the Lord to do the same in your life. For that to happen, you will need to humbly open up your mind to your sinfulness and accept the fact that you need to change. You have to desire to want a better life than this world has to offer, willing to radically alter the direction of your life toward Jesus.
You also need to see that what you’re living for in life, isn’t in the here and now but rather something far greater, something eternal. For when you place your belief in Jesus and allow Him to take who you are and lead you to where you need to be, living as He did, then death no longer has any power over you (1 Corinthians 15:54-57). Rather than an end, it is simply a glorious beginning of the best life ever, shared with Christ and God forever.
When it comes down to your everlasting destiny, there are really only two options: Hell or Heaven. If you haven’t done so already, come to Jesus and He will save you from the eternal torment and suffering in the former while showing you a life that is beyond measure in the latter, now and for all eternity.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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