Then the Lord put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.” . . . “Balak the king of Moab has brought me from Aram, From the mountains of the east. ‘Come, curse Jacob for me, And come, denounce Israel!’ “How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how shall I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced? . . . Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, and look, you have blessed them bountifully!” So he answered and said, “Must I not take heed to speak what the Lord has put in my mouth?” . . . Then the Lord met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth, and said, “Go back to Balak, and thus you shall speak.” . . . Behold, I have received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it. Numbers 23:5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 16, 20, NKJV.
Dear God, as we sit in Your presence and think about all that You have done for us throughout our lives, we wonder how many times You have saved us from the evil judgment of others. May we find peace in knowing that You will always have the last word on Your child. In the Holy Name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
When I thought about these words from our devotional yesterday “every tongue which rises against you in judgment You shall condemn[,]” it brought to my mind the story of Balaam and Balak. Balak had hired Balaam to curse God’s people. Apparently, Balak, believed in calling on the powers of darkness to do his bidding. But as both Balaam and Balak were about to disover – God is always in control!
Balaam, from Mesopotamia, was once a prophet of God. However, his coveteousness had caused him to depart from the Lord while still going under the guise of a man of God. Balak, the king of the Moabites, had enlisted the help of the Midianites to defeat God’s people. They would join forces to try and bring this to pass. The Israelites had done them no harm, but their enemies had heard of the conquests obtained under the guidance of God from the time they left Egypt. Nations that had been put to flight by the Moabites had been conquered by these people and their Almighty God. Now Israel was encamped on the very borders of the land of the Moabites and was causing great consternation to these superstitious people.
Afraid that they might be attacked by this mighty people, whose God had manifested supernatural power in liberating them from Egyptian bondage, Balak decided that the perfect man for the job of helping them in defeating these possible enemies, would be Balaam. Word had gotten around that whoever Balaam “bless[ed] was blessed” and whoever he “curse[d] was cursed” (Numbers 22: 6c). So with this flattering salutation on their lips a committee representing both the Moabites and the Midianites approached this once-upon-a-time prophet of God.
Proverbs 26:28 declares the following: “. . . a flattering mouth works ruin.” Balaam was one whose life was literally ruined by flattering words. God appeared to him by night and told him not to go with these men to curse the people (Numbers 22:12). This of course did not make Balaam happy. I imagine he had already spent in his mind, the fortune he would receive from doing Balak this favor. Nevertheless, he went through the motions and refused the first offer. But Balak was not going to give up that easily. He obviously knew what Balaam’s weakness was, and he was going to “push the purse” as far as he could.
Have you heard someone say: “Make me an offer I cannot refuse”? Well, Balak was about to do just that.
When the second committee arrived and made their presentation Balaam’s response sounded very convincing: “‘”Although Balak was to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the command of the LORD my God, to do less or more. . .”‘”
(Numbers 22: 18, The New Oxfor Annotated Bible). So far so good. Then He did what so many of us do when we receive an answer from the Lord that we do not want to hear: we wait for another answer: “You remain here, as the others did, so that I may learn what more the Lord may say to me” (19. Emphasis provided).
The Lord allowed the disobedient “prophet” to accompany the men. But not before warning him that he would do what the Lord ordered him to do. And that is exactly what happened. Every time Balaam opened his mouth to curse God’s people, a blessing came out. All the sorcery in the world could not erase a blessing from God. All the sorcery in the world could not make a curse take effect on a people that God had already blessed!
Three times Balaam changed his position, thinking that depending on where he stood, depending from what angle he viewed God’s people, the curse would take effect. But it was to no avail. So three times what was intended to be a curse – became a blessing. Why? Because no one can curse what God has blessed! Not even the gates of hell can prevail against someone whom God has been blessed!