to that passage that Bill read
to us from Numbers, the 23rd chapter. As I was rereading this,
this afternoon, I took note of something that
Balaam said, and just kind of bring you all up to speed on
what the passage is about. King Balak of Moab, he hired
Balaam, or he wanted to hire Balaam to pronounce a curse upon
Israel. But Balaam was forbidden of God
to curse the children of Israel because God said, I have blessed
them and they shall be blessed. But what stood out to me earlier
today, I was up reading this early this morning and again
this afternoon, and you know, if you're gonna speak from the
Word of God, just read, saturate your mind and your heart with
the Word of God. And I was reading this again,
and I thought what Balaam said to Balak in the 12th verse, is
applicable to all preachers of the gospel. He answered, that
is, Balaam answered Balak and said, must I not take heed to
speak that which the Lord hath put in my mouth? That's what
every preacher of the gospel has to do. Just speak that which
God has put in your mouth. Preach the gospel of Christ. Set forth the grace of God. Talk
about the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what God
puts in the mouth of every one of His servants. It's like the
Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2. He said, when I was among
you, he told the people of Corinth, he said, I determined not to
know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The Lord has put a message in
our hearts and in our mouths, and we must preach it. We must
preach Him. We must preach the sacrifice
and the bloody sin offering of the Lord Jesus Christ. I must, I must not take heed
to speak that, or must I not take heed to speak that which
the Lord puts in my mouth? And then look at verse 16, what
Balaam said. The Lord met Balaam and the Lord
said to him, the Lord put a word in his mouth. That's what I pray
for. Lord put a word in my mouth.
Give me something to say. It's a matter of preaching. Anybody
can get up if they have any kind of gift at all of public speaking. Any preacher can get up and fill
several minutes of air time with words, but I want to speak the
word of God. I want to speak that which God
would have me to say. And Balaam tells Balak, I've
got to tell you what God told me. Now, Balaam was an enemy of the
gospel. Balaam was not a friend to the
people of God. And though he wanted to curse
the people of Israel, God would not permit him to do that. What he had to say was, the blessings
of God are upon Israel, and I can't curse those whom God has blessed. Balaam is an unusual man. He's a puzzle to many people. But I was looking yesterday at
a passage in Matthew that I think fits this man to a T. Look in Matthew 6. Look in Matthew
6. And verses 19 through 24. And
I do believe Balaam is a tragic illustration of this portion
of Scripture. Matthew chapter 6, our Savior's
words from the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 6, 19. He said, lay not up for yourself
treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt and where
thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourself treasures
in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves do not break through nor steal. He says, For where
your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Now look
at this. The light of the body is the
eye. If therefore thine eye be single,
if your eye sound, If your eye is healthy, thy whole body shall
be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy
whole body shall be full of darkness. And here's the spiritual application. If therefore the light that is
in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness, and Balaam
is a tragic example or an illustration of this teaching. You see, though
he had a head knowledge of God, and I read you several verses
this morning, concerning the words that God gave him, concerning
the glory of God and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. His
head was full of knowledge. And in that sense, he had a head
knowledge with a lot of light, but his heart was dark. His heart
was as dark as midnight. And great was that darkness.
You see, multitudes of people have some knowledge of God, but
there's an absence of spiritual light. Now learn this, knowledge
of God is useless if it's not accompanied by grace. I repeat, knowledge of God is
useless if it is not accompanied by grace. And a man told me not
too long ago, he said, I believe there's a God. I believe there's
a God. Well, the devil believes there's
a God and he trembles. He has knowledge of God, the
devil does, but his heart is dark. He doesn't
have the light of grace. He doesn't truly have the knowledge
of God. Learn this, religious knowledge
without grace just puffs a man up. Even biblical knowledge without
grace leads to self-righteousness. Many people, many preachers,
most preachers, have a head knowledge of divine facts, yet they have no heart knowledge, no heart love, no heart confidence,
and no heart faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His merits and
His sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary. On many biblical
issues, A good many preachers are as straight as a gun barrel,
but spiritually just as empty. No grace, no power of God, no
love for the truth. You see, Balaam, he was a covetous
man. Jude and Peter talk about the
error of Balaam. and the way of Balaam. His was the way of loving the
things of this old world. And in Revelation chapter two,
the Lord Jesus spoke to the church at Pergamos. He said, there are
many in your church who believe the doctrine of Balaam. See, in the New Testament, nothing
positive is said about Balaam. There's the way of Balaam, there's
the era of Balaam, and then to the church at Pergamos, our Lord
Jesus said, many in the church have, they believe the doctrine
of Balaam. What's the doctrine of Balaam?
The doctrine of Balaam is simply this, that true faith in Christ,
in God, and then following a false god that they can get along together. That's the doctrine of Balaam,
that we're all going to the same place. Had somebody told me those
very words not too long ago. We may believe different things,
but we're all going to the same place. How can we all go to the
same place if we're not all going the same way? The way to heaven,
the way to salvation, the way to justification, the way to
righteousness, the way to forgiveness is the way of Jesus Christ and
Him crucified, buried and risen again. You see, it isn't the Catholic
way or the Baptist way or the Methodist way or the Church of
God way. It's God's way. And God's way
is the person Christ Jesus and His sacrifice upon the bloody
cross. And Balaam, though he stated
facts that God had given him concerning divine things and
concerning the divinity of Jesus Christ and His future coming,
that He's the star who would come, Balaam had a lot of truth in
his mind, but he had no love for Christ in his heart. No wonder the Savior said to
his disciples before he ascended back to heaven, and specifically
he singled out Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me
more than these, more than the fishing, more than the things
of this world? Do you love me? Well, with Balaam, he had a lot
of true biblical knowledge in his head, but his heart was empty
of true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's what has to happen. The
human heart has to be conquered by grace. That's our only hope. I do advise
you to study your Bible. Read the Bible. But know this,
reading the Word of God, if it's not accompanied by the power
of the Holy Spirit, it'll just be so many words to you. That's what Benjamin Franklin
said to George Whitefield. He heard George Whitefield, the
famous evangelist, preach. And Benjamin Franklin is reported
to have gone up to George Whitefield and said, I got every word of
your message in a book back at the house. And George Whitefield
said, I prepared that message this morning. He said, I'm talking
about a dictionary. All it was was just words, words,
words. The power of God and the grace
of God did not accompany the word of God sent forth through
the lips of Whitefield to the heart of Benjamin Franklin. I'm telling you, lest the Lord
does the work, even correct, correct religious knowledge in
this world will be of no benefit whatsoever. One of the things that Balaam,
he said several good things, but he made this statement as
you go back now to Numbers chapter 23, he knew this, he knew that
Israel was a different people. And he said of them in the last
four words of verse 23, Balaam said, of Israel, what hath God wrought? He knew this. God did something
for Israel that he didn't do for anybody else. And Israel
stands before us as a picture, as a type of the true church
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I can make good on that.
I want you to take time to turn to a couple of references First
of all, Romans the second chapter. Look at Romans the second chapter. Romans chapter two. Look at verses 28 and 29. You
see, Israel in the Old Testament, is in many ways a picture of
the true Israel of God as revealed in the New Testament. Here's
what Paul says, are you there? Romans 2, 28. For he is not a
Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is
outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew, read it carefully,
But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly. And circumcision is
that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose
praise is not of men, but of God. What is this circumcision
of the Old Testament? What's this a picture of? Now,
our Presbyterian friends say it's a picture of baptism. That's
not right. Circumcision of the Old Testament
is not a picture of, or baptism in the New Testament is not a
picture of circumcision in the Old Testament. It's a picture
of regeneration. It's a work in the heart. It's
very clear here. It's not a work of the flesh.
It's not being immersed in a baptistry. It's not being sprinkled with
some water, being christened or something like that. The work
of the Holy Spirit is a work inwardly. It's in the heart.
And those whose hearts have been circumcised by the power of God's
Spirit, they and they only are true Israel. Let me give you
another passage. Look in Philippians, the third
chapter. Philippians chapter three. Philippians
three. Verse three, Philippians three
and verse three. For we are the circumcision. In fact, I'm going back up to
verse one. He says, finally, my brethren
rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you,
to me is not grievous. but for you it is safe, it's
necessary. And now he talks about preachers.
Beware of dogs. Boy, if I was to call preachers,
false preachers, dogs, people get all up in the air about it.
The apostle Paul says, beware of dogs. They're wild dogs. He
says, beware of evil workers. Beware of the concision, those
who are zealous for circumcision. He says, for we are the circumcision. In other words, we are the true
people of God. Then he describes the true people
of God. How do you describe the true
people of God? Well, Paul tells us, which worship
God in the spirit. God's not worshiped through rituals. He's not worshiped through ceremonies. He's worshiped in the Spirit.
John 4, our Lord Jesus Christ said, those that worship God
must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. We worship God in the
Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus. We rejoice in who He is. He's the God-man. We rejoice
in what He did. He laid down his life, the good
shepherd, dying for the sheep. He offered himself up to the
justice of God and the justice of God took hold of him and poured
wrath into his soul and thereby justice was satisfied and sinners
were saved and our sins were put away. We rejoice in Christ
Jesus, the only Savior. He is the Lord, our righteousness.
In him is our salvation. We rejoice in Christ Jesus, who
he is, the God-man, what he did, he died for us. Where he is now,
he's in heaven's glory, ruling and reigning over all things. What he's going to do, he's coming
back someday. We rejoice in Christ Jesus, and
we have no confidence in the flesh. I don't have any confidence
in you. And I don't want your confidence
to be in me. If there's one thing I've learned
from 45 years of pastoring, people will disappoint you. And if there's one thing that
the people I've pastored for 45 years know, the preacher disappoints
people. Don't have any confidence in
my flesh. I'm a sinner saved by grace just
like you are. Our confidence is not in ourselves. Our confidence is in our substitute. Our confidence is in our eternal
surety. So who is Israel? Back over here in our text, when
Balaam sees, he sees the people of God, and King Balak has took
him up on a high mountain, Pisgah. And they're all looking down
at all these tents that just filled the valley of Moab. And
they just wanna mash Israel. They just wanna do away with
Israel. And Balak is offering a blank
check to Balaam, just fill it out any amount you want, if you'll
just curse him. And he wanted to. Because he
loved riches. But God sealed his lips. He couldn't
curse the people that God had blessed. In fact, he even told King Balak,
maybe we better offer some sacrifices here. And if you read down through
here, they did that. As though they could bribe God. You can't bribe God. We're going
to get God to change His mind. There are a lot of people think,
you know, prayer, we got to pray. If we don't pray, you know, things
won't be right. And if we pray, if we all gang
up on God, we'll get God to change His mind about something. You
can't do that. I know prayer has something to
do with the will of God, but it is not changing the will of
God. I tell you what prayer does,
it changes us. It gives us a different attitude. We rely on our Lord. But we are
not trying to get God to change His mind. Balaam keeps going
before the Lord and he is hoping that the Lord will change his
mind. Let me curse him. Lord, so you can't curse people
that I've blessed. You see, King Balak, he's greatly
alarmed because of the multitude of Jews who were encamping in
the plains of Moab. So he sent word to this soothsayer,
Balaam, a fortune teller, a man for a hire, preacher for a hire.
which is what most preachers are. They're preachers for hire.
That's why our Lord in John chapter 10, he talked about the hirelings,
didn't he? The hirelings. I took issue with the preacher
one time many years ago over what he was preaching. And I told him what I believe
the truth was, salvations of God. Christ redeemed His people. The Spirit of God effectually
calls us to faith in Christ. He said, I believe those things.
I said, but you don't preach them. And God is my witness. This is
the absolute truth. He said to me, you don't understand,
Jim, He said, if I preached what I believe in my heart and what
you just stated to me that you believe, if I preached that,
this church would fire me and I would lose my retirement. Money. Money. See, Balaam was a preacher for
a hire. He wanted to squash Israel. Curse Israel, Balak said. But he couldn't do that because
you see it says down here in verses 18 and 19 that Balaam took up his parable. He said, Rise up, Balak. I want
you to listen to what I've got to say. Hearken unto me, thou
son of Zipporah. God is not a man that he should
lie. God made promises to Abraham.
You think God can lie? You think God's like us? You
know, this is one of the things that the Lord said to Israel,
you thought that I was such a one as yourself. You thought I was
like you. I'm not like you, God says. If
I needed something to eat, I owned the cattle on a thousand hills
and the hills too. He said, if I needed a drink
of water, I owned the streams, the rivers, If I need something
to drink, if I need some water, I wouldn't ask you. I don't need
you for anything. I'm not like you. We lie. All men
lie. Say, I don't lie. Oh, come on
now. You kind of bend the truth every once in a while, you know,
when it's convenient for us. And then he says, and neither
the son of man that he should repent. You think God's gonna change
his mind? That's what bothers me about
prayer chains. If we can get enough people to
pray, we'll get God's ear and we'll get him to change the direction
that things are going. You think you can change God? Everything that ever comes into,
into existence does so because God before the foundation of
the world foreordained all things. And he's not gonna do differently
than he purposed to do. He said, my purpose shall stand. I will do all my pleasure. So that's not the God I believe.
Well, you got the wrong God then. That's the accusation I make
against most religions today. They got the wrong God. They
got a God they can push around. They got a God that needs man's
permission before he can act. Well, what foolishness is that?
You think you're bigger than God? You think all of us together
are bigger than God? You think the whole human race
could gang up on God? In Isaiah 40, God says, you're
just a bunch of grasshoppers down there. That's all you are. He's the all powerful one. And Balaam tells Balaam, God's
not gonna break his promises. He will not repent. He's not
gonna change his purpose. He's not gonna alter that which
he's determined to do. He said in Isaiah 46, I have
purposed, I will also do it. I have spoken it, I will also
bring it to pass. And then comes a series of seven
blessings. Seven blessings that Balaam lists
before King Balak. These blessings were committed
to the people of God and promised to his elect in Christ Jesus.
Now remember, Israel stands as a typical people, typical of
the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll just go right
down through here. Blessing number one, verse 21. He hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob, Neither hath he seen perverseness, mischief, things that are troubling. He's not seen anything that troubles
his heart in his people. Why not? Well, I can tell you
why not. God doesn't see what doesn't
exist. You see, our Lord Jesus Christ
He laid down His life at Calvary, bearing our sins in His own body
on the tree. All of the sins of all of God's
people of all ages were transferred from us over to Him. And He died
under the wrath of God, shedding His very precious blood to redeem
us, to buy us, to wash us from our sins, to blot out our iniquities,
He drowned the sins, the perverseness, the iniquities of his people
in his own blood. He drowned them. They don't exist
anymore. Not before the eyes of God's
justice. These words fell from the mouth
of Balaam by divine inspiration. The Lord does not behold iniquity
in his people. And if all of us who are the
people of God, those of you who are watching, and all of you here, and those
who are listening to this message later on, if we ever come to
see by the sweet experience of God's grace just a little of
what this means, We will bow forever in astonishment at the
mercy of God, and we'll say as Balaam did, what God hath wrought. No iniquities exist in the mind
and in the eyes of God, for Christ bore our sins and carried them
into the land of forgiveness. These words do not suggest that
there's not perverseness or sin in His people. We still got sin
in us. I do. I got a real sneaky feeling
you're just like me. You got sin in you too. But though there is much sin
in us and sin done by us, as every true believer readily admits
and confesses, 1 John 1 talks about that, yet God sees no sin
in us so as to pour out punishment upon us. The Lord Jesus came
into this world to destroy, to purge, to remove, and to take
away the sins of His people, and He has done it. Our sins and iniquities were
laid on Him. He bore them in His own body
on the tree. He endured and satisfied the
justice of God. He made an end of our sins. He
justified us. He sanctified us by His blood. God Almighty has, through the
effectual atonement of Christ, so thoroughly blotted out our
sins that He does not behold them. He does not. Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 50,
in that day, in the judgment day, the sins and iniquities
of God's Israel shall be sought for. Boy, you know if God's looking
for something, if there's anything there, he's gonna find it. They
shall be sought for. Shall not be found. Here's the
second blessing. Go quickly. Verse 21 again. He hath not beheld iniquity in
Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. The Lord his God is
with him. That's what Balaam says to King
Balak. All them people down there, I
tell you why I can't curse them, the Lord's in the midst of them. And for the true Israel of God,
the Lord is with us. In fact, He's in us and we're
in Him. Is that not right? We're in Him. He protects us. And here's the
third blessing. The shout of a king is among
them. And I know the Charismatics,
they use this, the shout of a king, whoop-de-doo, hallelujah, let's
jump the benches Speaking some kind of heavenly gibberish. That's
not what he's talking about. The shout of the king. What is
the shout of the king? Get them wheels in your brain
turning. What is the shout of the king?
Surely it is his cry from the cross. Listen to the shout of
the king. It is finished. That's the shout
of the King. Everything promised in the covenant
of grace, salvation, justification, imputed righteousness, sanctification,
it is finished and nothing more can be or will be added to that. It's done. The great transaction
is done. You see, true Israel hears the
shout of the King. It is finished. We rehearse it. We repeat it. We eat it. We drink it. We base our soul's
confidence on the shout of the King. This shout of the King
is our covering by day. It's our light by night. The
shout of the King, it is finished, is our soul's confidence always. It's the soft pillow upon which
we lay our weary heads. The world wishes we'd shut up
about that. A lot of religious people say
you're all time preaching the death, burial and resurrection
of Christ. Christ crucified, it is finished,
it is finished. Why don't you go to another topic?
Because I like the shout of the king. That gives me peace. It gives me rest. When my conscience
troubles me, I hear the shout of the king, it is finished.
Your sins are finished, Jim. When the devil makes accusation
of my heart and says, you're such a sorry, lousy, no good
sinner. I said, that's true, but it is
finished. Christ redeemed me. He satisfied
justice for me. And when some well-meaning church
member comes up to me, as has happened to me on several occasions,
say, don't you have anything else you can preach? I said,
no, I'm just gonna keep preaching the shout of the king. It is
finished. You see, the shout of the king
is the gospel. It's the gospel. Christ has done everything prophesied
in the Old Testament, pictured in the Old Testament. All of
the promises of God in him are yea and amen. The fourth blessing,
he says, he says that God brought him out of Egypt. That's redemption. The blood of the Passover lamb.
And the next blessing, he hath, as it were, the strength of a
unicorn, that is, the strength of a rhinoceros. See those people down there in
the bottoms, in the plains of Moab? They're protected by the
very power of God. That's what Balaam told King
Balak. They're protected by the power
of God. And even more so you and me and all of the children
of God in this world. Our Lord has all authority. You
see, Christ, by virtue of his successful death upon the cross
of Calvary, laying down his life and then taking it again, having
saved his people on the cross of Calvary, He then told his
disciples before he ascended, all power, all authority is given
unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and preach the
gospel. And the sixth blessing is, watch
this. No curse can come to God's people. Verse 23, surely there is no
enchantment, no cursing. against Jacob, neither is there
any divination against Israel. It just can't be. We can't be
cursed. God's not angry with any of his
people. Never has been, never will be.
God's not mad at you. So I know God's mad at me. He's
not mad at you. What are you talking about? He
loved you with an everlasting love. He sent his son who redeemed
you. No curse can come upon us. He says this is a work of God. Even Balaam knew this is a work
of God. That's just another way of saying
salvation's of the Lord. That's what he's saying. I can't
touch those people down there in the plains of Moab. I mean,
I'd love to curse them. and get all the silver and gold
that King Balak would give me, but I can't curse him because
God is of one mind and who can turn him? Who can change him? Christ bore the curse for us.
And then in verse 24, the last blessing, Israel shall prevail. They can't be conquered, can't
be overcome, Can't be cursed. And his message is this. What
God hath wrought. And this was a message of a false
preacher that God put in his lips. And he had to say that. He was inspired to say that.
He couldn't say anything different. What God hath wrought. and every
true preacher of the gospel down through the years, this has really
been our message, what God hath wrought. I know the preachers of the world
say, what man has wrought. Well, I'll tell you what we've
wrought, a mess. That's what we've wrought. What
has God wrought? Salvation by His free and sovereign
grace. That's what God's wrong. Well,
I'm done. Number 63 is our final song. Take the name of Jesus with you.
I've loved this song for years and years. When I was a little
boy, I used to sing this.