What does it mean to be blessed of God? Most often blessing is related to material wealth, stress free living, and all things going well. No doubt, to have what we need is a “blessing” that should lead us to thankfulness. In what category are we, however, when we lose our wealth, jobs, and health? Are we still blessed when the car breaks down, the roof leaks, our tooth breaks, our children rebel, and our spouse is contrary? Or are we then cursed?
There is a theology today that talks a lot about generational curses. It seems that all things unpleasant in life are the result of generational curses. These incantations and divinations of satan must be broken in the spiritual realm through power encounters.
I agree that in the first Adam humanity is cursed not with the curse of satan but with the curse of the wrath of God. In the first Adam, we are shut up to sin and locked in to futility. Riches become futile, houses become futile, trimming the hedges and mowing the grass becomes futile. In the last Adam, curse and futility has ended. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. (2 Corinthians 1:20 ESV)
Ultimately, blessing is not material; it is relational. You can be wealthy and not be blessed, and you can have the best family and not be blessed. If, however, you are in a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ, it is impossible that you could not be blessed. It is impossible that you could ever be cursed.
God will provide for His people if He has to reign manna down from heaven. If you love someone, you will provide for their needs. The provision, however, comes out of relationship. You don’t want to confuse the two. God’s provision for us flows out of the blessing of relationship to Him. Blessing, however, is not contingent on material provision but on being in relationship with God. Blessing is a standing!
I remember being 46 years of age and finding myself without a job and a place to live. My entire life had been pastoring or missions. Suddenly, everything I had worked for was gone. I did not even have the opportunity to supply preach. This was not for lack of trying. This went on for 5 years. The Father brought me to two life changing realizations. One, I was not in hell. Two, I was justified by Jesus not by preaching.
Listen the Psalmist, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. (Psalm 1:1-2 ESV)
Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. (Psalm 32:1-2 ESV)
You see then that blessing is a standing. It is a relationship.
Blessing is about mission. God has given His people everything they need bless the nations. God’s mission is to bring glory to Himself and to bless His people. We could say that like this: God’s mission is to glorify Himself by blessing His people. Blessing them with what? Blessing them with Himself! The book of Numbers shows us the extent to which God will go to keep His promise to bless His people and to bless the nations through His people with Himself.
What is always at stake in the storyline of the Bible, and in Numbers and in this text in Numbers, is the promise of God for the world (Dempster, 114). What may seem to be harsh responses of God in Numbers, and in Scripture as a whole, (plagues, warfare, the old generation perishing in the wildreness) is His answers to the challenges of His intent to bless the nations.
Numbers 22-25 mark a transition in the book. Israel makes their final camp in the Plains of Moab before entering the Promised Land (22:1). These chapters bring the first major section of the book to a close and tie up loose ends. The old generation of Israelites and the pagan nations will make yet another attack on the God’s promise to bless the nations that will utterly fail.
In this text, we see that God’s blessing on His people and through them to the world cannot fail. If you are in covenant relationship with God you are blessed, and His blessing will never fail.
Because God is sovereign, He able to accomplish all of His purpose. You can see His sovereignty all through this text, but I want to point out a few examples. Neither Balak nor Balaam have any concept of God that is remotely true of Him. They do not understand the sovereignty of God.
Balak is a pagan. He fears the rattling of the leaves. God had commanded Israel for the sake of Lot to not attack Moab and Ammon (Deut 2:9, 19).
Yet, Balak is afraid of Israel. Although he didn’t name Israel (22:5b) to Balaam, surely, he knew the family connection. When Israel defeated two Amorite kings, Balak knew he was no match for Israel. It is not that Israel wanted to attack him; He wanted to annihilate them. His fear is irrational.
Rather than embrace his family and be forever blessed, He will curse them and so bring cursing upon himself.
The most irrational thing in the world is for countries and peoples to persecute and close their borders to the people of God. It is to cut oneself off from blessing and commend oneself to cursing.
People often will cut themselves off from the people of God and exclude themselves from blessing. If you cut yourself off from the church, you open yourself to the attack of satan.
Balak sent emissaries (about a 400 mile trip) to an internationally known pagan seer that we know in this text by the name of Balaam to hire him to come and curse a people whom he does not name (22:5b). Balak hopes to weaken Israel with a curse and then attack and destroy Israel. He knows Balaam as one who blesses and the blessed and curses the cursed (21:6). His plan is simple. Turn the gods against Israel and defeat them.
Balaam consults with God about cursing this people and God says, You shall not go with them (22:12). Balak sends a second more impressive emissary to Balaam. Again Balaam consults God. God says, Rise, go with them; but only do what I tell you (22:20).
Then God’s anger was kindled against Balaam because he went with them (22:22), and the Angel of the Lord blocked his way. With this we have one of the funniest stories in the Bible. Balaam is a professional, internationally known seer, but he is less discerning than his donkey. 3 times the Angel blocked his way, and 3 times he beat his donkey. Then the Lord opened the mouth of His donkey and what ensues is a conversation between Balaam and His donkey that Balaam does not think is odd at all (22:22-30). Verse 30 is revealing. The donkey questions Balaam and the KJV translated his answer as Nay. Who is the real donkey?
The Lord opened Balaam’s eyes and reminded him again, Go with the men, but speak only the word that I tell you (22:35).
Balaam’s dealings with the emissaries of Balak show that he wanted to curse this unnamed people. He wanted the honorarium that he was promised (22:17 compare with 24:11). In God’s dealings with Balaam, it has become clear that he can only say what God would allow him to say. When God forbade him to go with the first emissary, that should have been the end of it. He persisted and thus invited the curse of God in his own life. God gave Balaam enough freedom to incur His wrath, but no freedom to do anything that was not in keeping with His interest in blessing the nations.
In the words of Luther to Erasmus, their thought of God were too human.
Balaam entertaining the second emissary is all based on the idea that God has opposed this before but may have changed his mind. In his mind, God was wishy-washy. He may say one thing and do another, say one thing one day and another thing the next day.
They thought that, through their offering, rites, spells, divinations, and incantations, God could be manipulated into doing what they wanted him to do.
hey offered 3 sets of sacrifices on 7 altars, two animals on each altar. That is 21 bulls and 21 rams. What god would not be impressed with that? God will not be used. He will not be manipulated. He will not hear us for our much speaking, for our eloquent speech, or for our ascetic practices. Balaam was a mantic who read the innards of animals. At every reading, the God of Israel put a word in his mouth that he could not help but speak (23:12, 26; 24:12-13).
The first round of sacrifices (which were wholly pagan; these offering we not like the offerings in the Israelite camp) took place at Bamoth-baal from a place where a few of the people could be seen (22:41-23:1). When that didn’t work, they moved to Pisgah and repeated the offerings (23:13-14). When that didn’t work, Balak took Balaam to Baal-Peor to make offerings from yet another vantage point (23:27-28).
It was at Peor that Balaam finally realize the futility of his endeavor to curse Israel (24:1-2). God is sovereign, and He is One. He is faithful and true. What a lesson in divinity for Balaam! The God in this place is the same as the God in that place is the same as the God in yet another place. What He says in one place is the same as what he says in another place. Balaam realized that the oracles he was receiving were not the result of divinations but of an encounter with a God with whom he was totally unfamiliar. (24:1-2)
It is striking to think that all of the powers of darkness were working to curse God’s people in the camp of Israel, and God’s people were completely unaware of it. They would learn of this story only later, maybe from the Moabites or maybe from Balaam himself before they killed him. You have Balak, Balaam, a donkey, and God. The donkey has a better grasp on reality than Balak and Balaam. God has sovereignly turned every effort of the enemy to curse into blessing for His people. Blessing is in relation to God, and nothing can hinder it.
God is absolutely sovereign and because He is His blessing to the nations is unchangeable and unstoppable. The devil is on God’s leash. God frustrates every purpose of satan to curse His people and the nations and even through the devil’s diabolical schemes God’s blesses the nations.
As we work our way through Numbers and the inability of the old generation to repent, the Balaam text reconnects us to the promise God made to Abraham. In Genesis 12:1-3, God gave Abraham a promise, ratified that promise in a covenant (Gen 15 and 17), and confirmed it in an oath (Gen. 22) (Gentry and Wellum, Kingdom through Covenants, 228-29).
Listen to Genesis 12:1-3, Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” (Genesis 12:1-3 ESV)
Notice how Numbers 22-24 picks up the themes of the Abrahamic covenant. In 22:6 Balak says of Balaam, For I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed. In 22:12 God said to Balaam, You shall not curse the people for they are blessed. Balaam gave 7 oracles, and in each one God filled his mouth with blessing for His people (23:8; 23:20; 24: 9). Balak is furious and upbraids Balaam after his first 3 oracles (23:11; 23:25; 24:10).
Numbers 22-24, in fact the whole book of Numbers, also picks up on the great nation theme in God’s promise to Abraham. Balak described Israel as a people that cover the face of the earth (22:5). The fact that Balak took Balaam to 3 different vantage points from which he could see only factions of the people connects us to the promise to Abraham. Balaam picks up this theme in his oracles (23:10; 24:5-7).
It is stunning that this pagan prophet even goes further and takes the promise to Abraham to its ultimate fulfillment in the Messiah. The covenant with Abraham was renewed with Isaac and Jacob. Prior to Jacob’s death, he blessed his sons saying, Gather yourselves, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come (Gen 49:1). In Balaam’s final oracles, he tells Balak, who didn’t want to hear it, “what this people will do to your people in the latter days.” In 24:17, he uses the same language that Jacob uses in blessing Judah (Gen. 49: 10).
Through the offspring of Abraham all the nations were to be blessed (Gen 22:18). Paul said that Abraham’s offspring is Christ and all those who have faith like Abraham (Rom 4:13-16; Gal 3:7-9).
It is as though this Balaam text shouts to the people of God that the Promise stands. They have experienced one disaster after another since Sinai. One may ask is hope for the people of God? This text shows that their failure before the law did not void the unilateral promise God made to Abraham to bless His people and through them to bless the nations.
This text shows that God’s blessing to His people cannot be thwarted by the failure to keep the law and by the attempts of pagans to curse them, but it begs the question, how can God bless a sinful people and rebellious nations?
Numbers 25 at first glance seems disconnected from chapters 22-24, but it directly flows out of the context. While we are not told the connection in the Numbers 25, we are told of it throughout the Scripture. First, Numbers 31 give us some information. At some point after Balaam’s failure to curse Israel, he suggested to the Midianites that they should entice Israel to idolatry. Both the Midianites and Balaam fell under the judgment of God (Numbers 31:8, 16). They sought to stand in the way of God’s blessing to the nations and fell under the judgment of God.
So hideous was Balaam and this event at Peor in the nostrils of God and to the biblical writers that it is mentioned not only in Numbers 31 but in Joshua 13:22; 24:9; Nehemiah 13:2; II Pet 2:15; and Rev. 2:14.
Numbers 25 is the book end for the “golden calf” event of Exodus 32. While Moses was on the Mountain, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play (Ex. 32:6). On the mountain with Balaam and Balak, God had blessed His people and 25:1 says, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. As at Sinai, Moses was instructed to kill the guilty (25:3-5).
An unspeakable evil took place as soon as Moses gave the command to kill those men who had yoked themselves to Baal of Peor (25:5). The shock of it is marked by the word Behold (25:6). A man of Israel, Zimri (25: 14), brought a Midianite woman, Cozbi (25:15), in the sight of Moses and the congregation and engaged in ritual fornication.
The text says he brought her to his family (brother) to participate in this abomination. The whole question with verse 6 centers around what the adverb clause at the end of the verse modifies. Linguistically, it could modify the verbs came and brought. If so we are being shown the unspeakable hideousness of this sin. Ronald Allen (EBC, 918-19) asserts that weeping is a euphemism for the laughing and excitement of their pagan sexual encounter. He indicates that the text means they were engaged in such pagan revelry at the Tent of Meeting.
The biblical writers would at times use euphemistic language out of reverence for God when writing of unspeakable evil. Several examples of this can be found in other OT texts (I Kings 21:10, 13; Job 1:5, 11; 2:5, 9; Psa 10:3). To illustrate look at Job 1:5. In the footnote at the bottom of the page, you will see that the Hebrew text says bless rather than curse. The biblical writers could not bring themselves use the word curse next to the Name of God.
Whether or not a euphemism is used in Number 25:6, the sin is unspeakably hideous, so hideous that a plague from the Lord breaks out and 24 thousand die. Like Aaron stayed the plague in Numbers 16 when the people complain after Korah’s rebellion, his grandson, Phinehas, stays the plague here by taking a spear and running it through Zimri and Cozbi. In this, Phinehas is a type of Christ.
So herendous is this sin that Zimri and Cozbi are mentioned by name and Balaam is mentioned 8 times throughout Scripture to warn those who position themselves in opposition to God’s blessing to the nations. Idolatry among the people of God cuts the nations off from blessings.
What do we learn from this text?
If the law did not void the Promise to Abraham, what purpose did it serve? Obviously, the people could not keep it. They had broken the law before Moses got down the mountain with it. The law does three things. It reveals the righteous character of God. The perfect reflection of the character of God is required to live before Him. The law reveals our sin. It establishes beyond doubt that we cannot stand before a holy God. The law necessitates a priesthood to intercede for sinners and make offerings for sins.
This text teaches that the Promise to Abraham stands to secure blessing for the nations because One, like Phinehas (25:10-13), the One Balaam spoke of (24:7, 17), has prevailed to turn the wrath of God from our souls. God sent his Son to live in perfect obedience before Him. He kept the law that we could not keep. He offered a better offering than Phinehas. He offered Himself in our behalf for our sin. He is the reason the promised blessing stands. He took the wrath of God upon Himself that we deserve, and He offers His perfect obedience to those who repent and believe.
In Numbers, unbelief was the root of Israel’s sin. Due to unbelief, the old generation would die in the wilderness (14:11). Unbelief was the root of their idolatry. The sin at Baal of Peor finished the old generation. Unbelief is the root of all sin. Unbelief is the root of my sin and your sin. Through faith in Christ alone, we are brought into the blessing of God.
It is interesting in this text that the Midianites experienced the immediate wrath of God (25:16-18). When you read of their end, you can’t help but think how terrible and unspeakable it is. You have to remember that they are those who desired to rob God of His glory in blessing the nations. It is a dangerous thing to put yourself between God and His blessing of the nations through Christ.
What about the Moabites (25:1)? They brought the curse of God upon themselves ultimately but not immediately. Balaam pronounced their ultimate curse (24:17), picking up the same language of Genesis 3:15 (of the seed of the woman crushing the serpent’s head). All nations who reject Christ and hinder His blessing of the nations—whether Moabites, Midianites, Canaanites, Americans, Africans, Europeans, Asians, Muslims,--will experience the displeasure of God.
If we think the scenes of conquest are intolerable in the OT, the final outbreak of God’s wrath is unparalleled in human history. These OT scenes are mercy to us and the nations. They are warnings to turn from sin to Christ.
But what of the Moabites? In Deut. 23:3-6 because they conspired with Balaam, they are forbidden to be a part of the congregation. Yet, God purposed to bless a Moabite and through that Moabite to bless the nations. Lee pointed out to us last week that Salmon and Rahab of Jericho had Boaz, Boaz married Ruth and Moabitess, they had Obed from whom came Jesse and then David from whom came Christ.
Don’t despair. What marvelous grace! We make a mistake when we read the OT without seeing God rolling out redemption for the nations. Through the biblical narrative from Abraham to Christ, we see the promise to bless the nations through the seed of Abraham, attacked, threatened, and God move out to protect safeguard His glory in blessing the nations.
God in His dealings with Israel and the surrounding nations was working to secure blessing for the nations. When Christ came all the nations gathered together against Him and murdered Him on a cross. They wanted to cut the nations off from blessing. When we think all hope is gone, God raised Him from the dead, securing eternal, unconditional, unilateral blessing to His glory for the nations.
God in this text disciplines His people and readies them to enter the Promised Land, a land of the now but not yet. It was theirs, but they had the nations with which to contend.
We are in the now but not yet. We are heirs of the world; Untold blessing is for the nations in Christ. We are marching through this world marked by a baptistery, a pulpit, and a table. We preach Christ, compelling the nations to make a public declaration of faith in Him and present affirmation of faith until all nations are gathered in His Kingdom.