Let us turn to God's Word and
we turn to that portion that we were reading in the book of
Numbers, Numbers chapter 23 and reading again verses 21, 22 and
23. Numbers chapter 23 and verses
21, 22 and 23. and 23, the words of Balaam. He hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. The Lord his God is
with him, and the shout of a king is among them. God's brought
them out of Egypt. He hath, as it were, the strength
of a unicorn. Surely there is no enchantment
against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel. According to this time it shall
be said of Jacob and of Israel what hath God wrought." It's a strange incident of course
that we have in the history of the children of Israel, this
that concerns the strange, mysterious character Balaam. He was not a true prophet of
the Lord, he was but a soothsayer, and so he is described in the
book of Joshua, there in chapter 13 and verse 22 we read Balaam,
also the son of Beor, the soothsayer, did the children of Israel slay
with the swords among them that were slain by them. He was really an enemy of God
and an enemy of the people of God. He was a soothsayer. In
other words, he was one who professed that he could foretell future
events and he is employed of course by this lower British
King Bala to come and to pronounce judgments and curses upon the
children of Israel. But he's unable to do such a
thing, in fact the words that we've just read These words that
he speaks here in verse 21, 22 and 23 are true words. And here at the end of verse
23 we have this great statement, What hath God wrought? What hath God wrought? As he
considers the people that God had delivered out of that cruel
bondage which was Egypt, the people that God had brought to
himself at Mount Sinai, entered into covenant with, having brought
them of course previously through the Red Sea and then subsequently
directing them through 40 years of wilderness wandering and then
bringing them over Jordan and into the land of promise and
giving them possession of the land. And all that the man can
therefore say is to acknowledge God's goodness to his people,
his goodness to the children of Israel. According to this
time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, what hath God
wrought? Of course the people are atypical
people, they are a type of God's spiritual Israel are not all
Israel that are of Israel. We are told in the epistle to
the Romans there was ever that true remnants in the midst of
the nation and in all God's dealings with the nation, in general the
nation as a whole, we are to draw lessons and apply to those
who are truly the spiritual seed of Jacob and of Isaac and of
Abraham. And as we come to consider these
words tonight, particularly that statement, what has God wrought,
I want us to consider it in terms of those who are the justified,
those who are the true Israel of God, justified sinners. If we relate the end of verse
23 back to what we have at the beginning of verse 21, He has
not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness
in Israel. What has God wrought? And so to consider this people,
the people of God, as those who are the justified. Who is the
one who is the author of that justification? It is, of course,
the Lord God himself, as Paul asks there in Romans chapter
8, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect. It is God that justifies. There is no charge to be laid
against those who are the election of grace. He has not beheld iniquity. In Jacob neither hath he seen
perverseness in Israel. We're familiar, I'm sure, with
this great doctrine of justification. It is, of course, really a judicial
term, or a forensic act, we might say. It has to do with the work
of the court of law. It has to do with the responsibility
of those who are the judges, and we are reminded of that.
in what is written there at the beginning of Deuteronomy chapter
25 concerning the work of the judges in Israel. If there be
a controversy between men and they come unto judgment, that
the judges may judge them, then they shall justify the righteous
and condemn the wicked. Here is what the judge is to
do then. He is to pronounce the righteous,
to be innocent, to justify the righteous man, and he is to pronounce
condemnation upon the transgressor, the one who has broken the law,
the one who is the wicked man. Now, with regards to all who
are born into this world, we know that all are born in that
state where they are dead, in trespasses and in sins, they
are not just. All are born as sinners, partakers
of a sinful nature which is inherited from Abraham. And though that
sin has come down the generations, there is not a just man upon
the earth that doeth good and sinneth not, says the preacher
in Ecclesiastes chapter 7. Not a just man. but a justified
man upon the earth. There's none in the judge, the
great judge of all the earth, the Lord God himself can pronounce
as a justified man when we consider what man is by nature. And God,
of course, as a judge, is a just judge. He can only speak truth
as we see here in verse 19. God is not a man. that he should
lie neither the son of man that he should repent as he said it
and shall he not do it or as he spoke of it and shall he not
make it good God can only declare that that is true and so if all
are sinners then all are to be pronounced guilty and none are
to be justified God I say is such a God as is just and right
in all his ways and in all his works. And even this man Moses
acknowledges that great truth in the song of Moses there in
Deuteronomy 32. I will publish the name of the
Lord, he says, ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the Rock. His work is perfect. For all His ways are judgment,
a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is He. Yet God, I say, is the one who
is the author of justification. And so how is it that such a
just, righteous, holy God can ever pronounce those who in their
very natures are sinners, how can He pronounce them to be the
justified? Go and look at the words of the
wise man in Proverbs, Proverbs 17 and verse 15. He that justifieth
the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even both are an abomination
unto the Lord. The man who justifies the wicked
is an abomination unto the Lord. How then can such The pronouncement as
this be made concerning God's Israel, he hath not beheld iniquity
in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. We must come then secondly to
consider how this justification has been accomplished. If God
is the judge, if this man Galen is not speaking the truth of
God's words. How is it that such a just God
can make such a pronouncement as we have here in verse 21?
We must look at how this justification has been accomplished. And again,
it's indicated in those words that we've already made some
reference to in Romans chapter 8. Romans 8 and verse 33, but
also verse 34, Paul asks the question, who shall lay anything
to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies. God
is the author of justification. But don't let Paul continue.
Who shall condemn? It is Christ, the Divine Father
that is risen again. God is not only the author, God
is also the one who has accomplished the justification of his spiritual
Israel. Who can condemn? Christ has died. And Christ has not only died,
Christ is risen again. The Lord Jesus Christ is that
one who has come, of course, and he has come as the saviour
of the sinner, He has come as the surety of the sinner. He has come to be the sinner's
substitute and to bear in his own person that punishment that
was due to the sinner. All this is a great truth, is
it not, that the Lord Jesus Christ is the surety of a better testament,
a better covenant. He has come and he has taken
upon himself the responsibility for his people. The responsibility
of all their sins is come to be their surety. It is a precious
truth, is it not? This truth of suretyship. Now,
we see it in the scriptures. Remember in the history of the
children of Jacob when His brethren turned against Joseph
and sold him into bondage in Egypt, and there, oh, in the
providence of God, Joseph is exalted to a position of influence. In spite of all the terrible
reverses that come into his life, he finds himself now in the place
of authority. And in those years of great famine,
and it's not just in the land of Egypt, it's in all the lands
around the base Egypt and so Jacob must send his sons into
Egypt in order to obtain corn and Joseph's brethren come to
him and they don't recognise him but he knows them and he
enquires concerning their brother Benjamin and he says should they
come again they would not be able to see his face except they
bring Benjamin with them and although he gives them the cord
and returns the money together with the cord he detains Simeon
also and they go back to their father but then when that provision
runs out they must go again and in Genesis 43 When Jacob desires
that they go, they remind their father, these men, that they
must take Benjamin with them, or the man will not see their
face. And poor Jacob, he feels so bereft. He lost his son Joseph. Simeon was no more. And now they
want to take Benjamin also. And it's Judah. Judah who comes
forward and says that he will stand. and he will stand, he
says, as a surety for his brother Benjamin. In other words, if
anything befalls Benjamin, then Judah is altogether responsible
to his father. In Genesis 43.9, I will be a
surety for him. He says to Jacob, that my hand
shall now require him If I bring him not unto thee, and set him
before thee, then let me bear the blame forever. That's the
work of the short. And what he says to his own father,
he subsequently repeats the same to his brother Joseph. When they
come before the man in the next chapter, chapter 44, And verse
32, Thy servant became surety for the LORD unto my father,
saying, If I bring him not unto thee, then I shall bear the blame
to my father for ever. This is Judah, and of course
the Lord Jesus Christ comes of the tribe of Judah. In this,
is not Judah really a type of the Lord Jesus Christ? Christ
is the one who is the great surety for his people who will bear
their responsibility, take the blame for them. And Christ, of
course, is surety for those who are not in their fallen nature
his brethren. They might be his brethren in
terms of the eternal covenant of grace, but they are in that
state of alienation in their natures and their enemies and
their strangers too. And the wise man in the book
of Proverbs states quite plainly, he that is surety for a stranger
shall smart for it. He that is surety for a stranger
shall smart for it. And he that hateth suretyship
says the wise man is wise. The Lord Jesus is that one who
comes and willingly stands as surety for the strange. And sinners need such a surety
as the Lord Jesus Christ. Although the sinner needs one
to come and to take on all his responsibilities before the Holy
Law of God. And how Job is brought to realise
that. He is greatly how he cries out
to God, lay down now, put me in a shorty with thee, says to
God, who is he that will strike hands with me. In Job 17 and
verse 3, this is his prayer, this is his plea to God, for
that one would come and be my shorty. And so it was that the
Lord Jesus Christ did come. Job did not cry in vain. Job did not cry in vain. God
hears the prayers of His children. When the fullness of the time
was come, God sent forth His Son, made under the law, to redeem
them that were under the law, that they might receive the adoption
of sons. Oh, the Lord Jesus Christ is
that One who comes then as the surety. who will stand for his
people, who will take upon himself all their sins and be responsible
for them before the holy and the righteous and the just God. Is he not in this sense, in the
sense of what God has done in the Gospel, that we see the truth
of these words of Balaam, he hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob,
neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel? The Lord is God, he
is with him, and the shout of a king is among them, it is the
coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's because Christ has come
and come into that very place for his people to stand to answer
for them before all the holy law of God. Oh what has God wrought,
what has God wrought for his people in this great gospel truth
of justification. I say that God is the author
of it. no one can lay anything to the
charge of God to let God justifies them but it is God in the person
of his only begotten son who also accomplishes all that is
necessary for their justification so that God is just he is ever
always a just God and yet he is the justifier of him that
believeth in Jesus and so with regards to this justification,
how has Christ accomplished it? How we have to think, have to
consider the great work that the Lord Jesus Christ did. And
we speak of that work in that two-fold sense of his obedience,
his active obedience and his passive obedience. In his active
obedience he stands, as it were, in their law plan. He is not only made of a woman,
it says in Galatians 4, but it also says he is made under the
law. Made of a woman, made under the
law. And as he is under the law, he
must obey the law, he must fulfil the law. This is justification,
this is not. Not only to be innocent, but to be righteous, to be righteous. Again, we see it there in the
book of Deuteronomy, in chapter 6, the end of Deuteronomy chapter
6, verse 25, it shall be our righteousness if we observe to
do all these commandments. You see, here is righteousness,
we have to observe We have to do all these commandments before
the Lord our God as He has commanded us. Here is active obedience.
The law is to be honoured in the performance of it. And that's
what the Lord Jesus Christ did, isn't it? The Lord is well pleased for
His righteousness sake. He shall magnify the law and
make it honourable, says the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 42, 21. He shall magnify the law. Do
you see what Christ has done? He is under the law. He obeys
the law. His meat is to do the will of
Him who has sent Him to finish His work. It is about His Father's
business. His life is a life of complete
obedience to every commandment of the Holy Lord of God, how
He has magnified it. And so, Lord Precious Truth,
Christ is the end of all, for righteousness to everyone that
believeth. Here is their righteousness in. It's a righteousness that is
altogether found in the Lord Jesus Christ. So at the end of verse 10, what
does Balaam say? Let me die the death of the righteous. Let my last end be like his. For the justified sinner is the
righteous man. It is appointed unto men once
to die and then to judgement. But the justified need not fear
that awful judgement that will come in the great dark. The law
cannot condemn because Christ himself has obeyed the law for
he is righteous. Let me die the death of the righteous. Let my last end be like his. It's remarkable how this man,
Babel, who was but a soothsayer, not a true prophet of the Lord,
yet he speaks remarkable words. Remarkable words. But not only
do we see the necessity of Christ's active obedience in honoring
the law by keeping all its holy precepts and statutes and commandments. There's also what he's referred
to usually as his passive obedience. And in that we see his work upon
the cross. What does he do on the cross?
He dies. And there we see him dying as a substitute. His substitutionary atonement. Being found in fashion as a man,
says Paul, he became obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross. Is he under the law? And is he
in that position as the one who is the surety of his people?
He must honour the law not only in terms of its precepts, its
commandments, He must honour the Lord also in respect to all
his terrible penalties, all those dreadful punishments. What does
the Lord say? What does the Lord say? The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. That's the language of the Lord.
The soul that sinneth is worthy of death. The wages of sin, that's
the wages of sin. was made so kind to Adam there
in the garden of Eden if he disobeyed the commandment of God in the
day that thou eatest thereof said God thou shalt surely die
it cannot be avoided the punishment must be meted out because God
is a just God and sin calls for punishment and so the Lord Jesus Christ
has honoured the law by also bearing the terrible penalty.
He has died. He has died. The just for the
unjust to bring us to God. Ordain the language of the Apostle
that Paul brings out these precious gospel doctrines. He hath made
him to be seen for us. Who knew no sin? that we might
be made the righteousness of God in him. There is the blessed
exchange. He is made sin and his people
are made the righteousness of God in him. He is made sin for them. He takes
for Himself their sin, all the sin of His people, it's imputed
to Him, it's reckoned to His account. And in exchange, what does He
give? It's His righteousness. His righteousness
is reckoned to their account. His righteousness is imputed
to them. That's the Gospel exchange, you
see. And it's the great work of God.
He has made Him to be sin for us. who knew no sin that we might
be made of righteousness of God in him. The truth then of these
words are rooted in all that Christ
has done. He has not beheld iniquity in
Jacob. Neither hath he seen perverseness
in Israel. The Lord his God is with him.
The shout of a king is among them. What have God wrought? or God has accomplished a great
salvation for His true Israel. They justify it. They justify
it. But God is not only the author
of this. It's not only God who justifies. It's not only God who is the
one who has accomplished all that is necessary in order to
their justification. There must also be the application
of it. This must be made real in their
experience. They must know these things,
they must be brought into an experience of these things. Now
what does Balaam say? He says in verse 22, God brought
them out of Egypt. He brought them out of Egypt. And when he brings them out of
Egypt, he brings them into the wilderness of Sinai, and he enters
into the covenant with them. And remember how he reminds them
when they are there at Mount Sinai, you have seen what I did
unto the Egyptians, those terrible judgements that he visited upon
them, the ten plagues, And then finally the destruction of the
firstborn and all that is contained of gospel in the precious truth
of the Passover and the Paschal Lamb. You've seen what I did
unto the Egyptians, he says, and how I brought you and how
I bear you on eagles' wings and brought you unto myself. He brings
them to himself. This is what God had done. God
brought them out of Egypt, he brought them unto himself. And does he not also bring the
spiritual Israel out of the Egypt of this world? He brings them
out of the Egypt of this wicked world and he brings them unto
himself. Or he delivers them unto himself. They come to an experience of
that precious deliverance. They come to an experience of
all the blessings of salvation. They come to an experience in
their own souls of this great truth of their justification. And this is the message of course
that we see the apostles preaching. They preach justification. And they preach justification
by faith. the language of the Apostle Paul
there in Antioch, Antioch in Pisidia in the 13th chapter of
the Acts, as he speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ. He cannot
but speak of justification as he makes mention of Christ there
in Acts 13 and verse 39, or verse 38 also. He says, Be it known unto you
therefore, men and brethren, that through this man, that is
the Lord Jesus, through this man is preached unto you the
forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified. There it is, by him all that
believe are justified from all things, which he could not be
justified by the Lord of Moses. Or there's no salvation in the
law, there's no justification in the law. The law is that ministration
of condemnation, that ministration of death. There is only salvation and justification
in Christ. Again, Paul to the Romans in
chapter 5, therefore he says, being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. by whom also
we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and
rejoice in hope of the glory of God, being justified by faith. What is this faith, this justifying
faith? What is justifying faith? From where does justifying faith
come? Well, the scriptures again are
clear, are they not, with regards to the author of this faith and
the source of this faith? This faith is the gift of God.
This faith is the gift of God. This faith is the work of the
Holy Spirit in the soul of a man. By grace are ye saved through
faith, says Paul. and that not of yourselves, it
is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should
boast, for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto
good works. It is the gift of God, this faith, and therefore if we would have
this faith we have to look to God for it. And who is the God
that we look to, that we might obtain this faith? It's the Lord
Jesus Christ himself, looking on to Jesus. The author and finisher
of our faith says Paul in Hebrews chapter 12, we look on to Jesus. He is the author of our faith. He is the one who bestows this
grace of faith. But faith is not only the gift
of God, it is also The work of God is the work of God's Spirit.
His workmanship. His workmanship. Again in Colossians
chapter 2 and verse 12 we read of that height which is of the
operation of God. It's the operation of God. Now,
how does the Spirit work? He has to come, of course, in
the first place in that great work of regeneration. The sinner must be born again.
born of the Spirit, born from the bath. Oh, it is a great work,
is it not? When that sinner who is dead,
dead in his trespasses, dead in his sins, and there's that
communication of life, the sinner born again, what is the evidence
of that life? There's faith. There is faith. There's that look into Jesus.
There's that trust in Christ. But how God's work is a remarkable
work. What has God wrought, he says.
And are we not wrought to recognise this when we reflect upon God's
dealings with ourselves and the way in which God brings us into
this precious truth, this great doctrine of justification. What
does God do with us? Well, when he comes to us, does
he not in the first place in a sense shut us in to our own
unbelief. He does not do that. He shuts
us in to what we are. He shuts us in to our impotence,
our inability. He shuts us in to what we are
as sinners, our total depravity. We can do nothing. All it takes
is a bit of life, is it not? To be brought to that, to be
brought to the utter end of self. Before faith came, says Paul,
before faith came we were tapped onto the law, shut up to the
faith which should hereafter be believed. Shut up yourself. We're made
to feel that we really can do nothing. All we can do is cry
and call and seek And yet God is pleased to hear such prayers
of his children. This is what God has wrought.
And can we not, as we reflect on God's dealings with us, understand
such a statement as that at the end of verse 23? What has God
wrought? Not only in that great purpose
of justification, but also in the way in which that justification
has altogether been accomplished in the person and the work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And now that precious truth has
been made a reality in our souls by the work of the Spirit and
by that faith that comes by the operation of God. Or we see quite
clearly then that the Father, God the Father is the author.
God the Son is the one who has accomplished it. God the Holy
Spirit is the one who must come and apply these things. All true
Christians, these can boast a truth from nature never learned. The
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to save our souls, are all concerned. Isn't this truly one of the great
works of God? What hath God wrought? Here is Balaam, he considers
him. These people, spread over the
face of the land. And he hath to speak true words,
and he speaks these words which are really God's words. He hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob. Neither hath he seen perverseness
in Israel. The Lord his God is with him.
The shout of the king is among them. God brought them out of
Egypt. He hath, as it were, the strength
of a unicorn. For there is no enchantment against
Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel. According to
this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath
God wrought? God be pleased to bless to our
own souls this great gospel truth for his name's sake.