“Day 24 (Numbers 24)”

Friday, February 24, 2017

Balaam speaks for the third time and when the spirit of God came upon him, he praised God and Israel. Balak is enraged. He claps his hands, for emphasis I guess, and tells Balaam, “I said I would honor you, but, in fact, the Lord has kept you back from honor.” (Numbers 24:11).
 
That is laughable.  Balak wants to honor Balaam for cursing God’s people. God will not permit Balaam to  curse His people and God gets the blame for Balaam failing to receive honor from Balak. The very reason Balak wants Balaam to curse Israel is because he is afraid of Israel because of what Israel had done to the Amorites (Numbers 20:23). So he figures if Balaam curses Israel, Israel will not be able to harm the Moabites.
 
Balak misses who destroy the Amorites. It was not the Israelites who destroyed them. It was God. Israel was the instrument God used to destroy them. Cursing Israel is not going to stop God. Satan used this tactic earlier in the Bible narrative. He used this tactic with Eve. He blamed God for Eve being restrained from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Satan tells her it is God who is keeping you from fulfilment. Now Satan is using Balak to blame God for Balaam not getting the honor this puny Moabite offers him.
 
Balaam did what he wanted to do. But, God used him to praise and prevented him from cursing. How many times do we do what we want to do and then when it goes south we blame God for not giving us what we wanted? We blame God for failing to receive the applause we think we so richly deserve. We cry, “It is God who keep us from our due honor. It is God who keeps us from having our fun.”
 
Balak and Balaam show us God’s will, will be done in spite of what man wants to do. We can act in harmony with His will or we can cut ourselves against it. God is going to win!

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