God's people in Christ

For the help of the Lord, I direct your prayer for attention to Numbers chapter 23. I'll read for our text, verse 21. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel, The LORD his God is with him, and the child of a king is among them.

Numbers 23 verse 21, this is part of the second blessing or curse, central blessing that Balaam brings over the children of Israel, a beautiful Word that is spoken of the people of God. In chapter 22, we did not have time to read that, but it tells how Balaam came to be here.

This is a few months before the children of Israel entered into the Promised Land and the king of Moab, Balak, fearful of them, and he calls Balaam to come and to curse them. And the first time the messengers were told by Balaam that God refused to let him go, God had told him very clearly, the people are blessed, that thou shalt not curse them. Then Balak, he sends even more noble men, and at that time, when Balaam asks, the Lord says he can go. But when he does go, the Lord then is angry with him, and he meets him in the way, stops up his way with the angel with the sword, His ass sees the angel, but Balaam doesn't, and the ass keeps turning aside. Balaam smites it, hits it, says he'd kill it, and then the Lord opens the mouth of the ass and it speaks to Balaam, reminds him that he's never done that before in all the time he's been with Balaam. And then the Lord opened Balaam's eyes and he saw the angel. And the Lord used that occasion to so impress upon Balaam that though he was going he could only speak the word that God gave him to speak.

And so he comes and we read these two chapters when he is then blessing the children of Israel. think, perhaps mention first, years ago, something I always remember as a child, I used to say to my mother, well, what was wrong with Balaam? Because he did speak what God said in the end. And God told him to go, and he did bless that.

And as a child, I couldn't see and it wasn't until I start then to looking at the other scriptures and then you can very clearly see and more easily discern what actually was wrong and especially those in Peter In 2 Peter, where we read, which have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Hosau, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. Or in Jude, the 11th verse, in Jude, woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perishing again, saying, And again, it's emphasised the reward. And remember, Balak said that the Lord had kept Balaam back from honour, back from reward. We read the warning to the churches in the Revelation that they had those things against them because they were those that held the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication. Although Balaam could not but speak the word of the Lord, yet it was through his advice that they committed adultery, they followed the god Baal, which was a snare for the children of Israel for generations, He sought other ways to undermine the very blessings that he had bought. And he died fighting against the children of Israel. He's a most solemn character. Most solemn character.

And you know, when I think as a child, I think, how could I have ever thought that man, what was wrong with him? Because I was just judging what he was saying right. not discerning his motives, not discerning that he was right under the Lord's control. And really, the language he uses all the time implies, I would curse, but the Lord has prevented me. He's stopping me. He refuses to let me go. All the time, as it were, tugging and pulling at the leash, but the Lord is not allowing him to do what he wants to do. most solemn character is told in Joshua as the son of Beor, the soothsayer. And that was him that was slain with the sword.

Well I want to look at two main points. The first I want to consider Balaam and the lessons from this account. And then secondly, the three things in our text that is said of Jacob, of God's dear people. So one of those things that are actually to be learned, to be instructed, there's many things that are a way of instruction through these accounts. I believe these are put for our learning We are told that in the New Testament, that which is written aforetime, written for our learning. And what can we then gain from this? The first thing is this, that God turns curse into a blessing. In one way, this is a whole sum of the gospel.

You think of the fall, and the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. And the ground was cursed for man's sake. Man was cursed. The whole creation is under the curse. And the way of the remedy was to be one that bore that curse. Cursed is every man that hangeth upon a tree under our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. was hung upon a tree, and on top of that, it was said in the Garden of Eden, through the ground, thorns also it shall bear, a crown of thorns was put upon his head, to make no doubt that our Lord Jesus Christ bore a curse, and we are told in scripture he was born a curse for the people of God, to bear that curse away. And the curse then in Calvary, is turned to a blessing.

It's God's plan to bring great glory to himself for that. Some might ask, why didn't God just plan that he would create a people and he'd bring them straight to heaven and he'd have them with him in heaven for eternity, why didn't He just exclude the four, don't have a hell, don't have people that are consigned there, and just have a people in heaven? Because God saw that it was for His honour and glory, that it should be as it is.

The four was not done by Satan, done by man. Yes, man is guilty, Satan was guilty, but the fall was ordered, decreed by God that it would happen. The same as a Calvary. He that was delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken him by wicked hands, crucified and slain.

There is no part of anything that happened in history and providence that is outside of the Lord's control and decree. He is not pushed to do anything or made to do anything by man. He doesn't have plan A, B or C. He has everything according to His determinate counsel, all for His honour and glory. He is not the author of sin.

We are guilty in all that we do, in sinfulness and all our evil ways. but it's God's honor and glory to bring a blessing out of the curse. And this is seen here in this account. Man wants to bring a curse. God turns it into a blessing. May we always remember this. However much we're reminded in our own lives, in providence, in our health, our illnesses, all evidences of the curse, God turns those things to a blessing.

And we mentioned this morning, it was good for me that I was afflicted. Before I was afflicted I went away, but now have I kept Thine word. And the very affliction has been used for good. If you think of Joseph, ye meant it for evil, God meant it for good. The same thing. their wicked hands, all what they'd done to their brother.

And yet the Lord used it to bring Israel into Egypt and to build them up. You think of the two accounts regarding David numbering Israel. One account says that Israel had sinned, and the Lord moved David to number Israel. The other account says, Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number. When David was convicted, it was a sin of pride.

It was a sin of not paying the ransom money for those that were numbered. He says, I have sinned. He doesn't blame the Lord. He doesn't blame Satan. He had sinned. And he falls into the hands of the Lord. What is the truth of it? Satan thought that he was putting a wedge between the Lord and his people and doing his people harm. That's what Satan thought. The Lord knew that he was chastening his people.

But there was another aspect to it as well. Because David had been preparing for the building of the temple with all of the wood and the stones and everything, but where was it going to be built? And that was what was shown when he after numbered Israel and the Lord appeared for him, the threshing floor of Aaronid, the Jebusite, there was the temple going to be built. And that curse was turned to a blessing. And it's good for us to remember that, especially when we think of this account here, that again and again, one that was brought to curse the people of God, and again and again the Lord turns it And it's not only neutralized, it's actually in a positive way of a blessing.

And the adversaries, Balak, he knew that. He wasn't in any doubt. I know how much the children of Israel did. How many of us here, it may be that our adversaries in the world, they can see we're blessed, but we can't. Even the adversaries, because they knew the children of Israel were blessed in that way.

The second thing that we learn is that sometimes the Lord uses men to bless His people, to be used even as ministers of the gospel that sometimes are reprobate, they're not the Lord's people, Judas had a part of the ministry with our Lord, and others of the Lord's servants, they grievously fall and fall away.

And it can be a real trial to the people of God, I was blessed under that man, I was baptized by that man, and now he has fallen, and now he's proved not one of the Lord's, or he's gone away, What about my faith? What about my religion? That man didn't bless you.

The Lord blessed you. Who blessed the children of Israel? Balaam was the instrument, but the Lord put the word in his mouth. That blessing comes from the Lord. And it's important for us to realise that. I think sometimes when we have solemn cases and we're reminded of these things happening, it brings us back Where did that blessing come from? It came from the Lord. Remember that. This is a lesson here.

You think of Jonah, God using Jonah. You go to Nineveh and you say to them that in 40 days the city shall be destroyed. Jonah didn't want to go, ran away. Why did he run away? We're told in the fourth chapter He knew the Lord was a gracious God, a long-suffering God.

If he sent a minister, and if he gave them time, you say there's nothing good in their message, it was just destruction. But he gave them time. As soon as the Lord gives time, where there's life, where there's time, there's hope. And they took that time. You know, why didn't the Lord just kill Adam and Eve, just finish the human race like that? He gave time, why?

Because there's a multitude that was to be blessed, that's why. While the earth remains, why does it remain? Still the Lord's people are to be born, still they are to be called by grace, that's why. When the last one is born, the last one called by grace, then this world should be no more, no more need for it.

The world doesn't think that. They think that the world exists for their pleasures and the Lord's people are a scourge and wish they weren't there prompting them and to warn them of the things of God, but actually the world only exists for the Lord's people and the blessings that we have is only for them. You may be despised and hated for the truth's sake, but we know that the world only remains for the Lord's people. and for the Lord's purpose for that, and that the wicked are ripening for destruction, a most solemn thought. So dear friends, thinking again of Jonah, Jonah didn't want the people blacks, well they're the enemy of the children of Israel as well, so he sits over and he wants to see their destruction.

The Lord won't take away that blessing, however much Jonah tries to get Him to change. Same as here, the Lord is blessed, He cannot curse. The Lord is blessed through Jonah, the very preacher that was used to bless them can't take the blessing back. They are given life, the city is spared.

May we trace our blessings. up to the Lord. Sometimes we get tempted, you know, of being blessed through a hymn, and the devil said, well that was only a hymn, that wasn't the Word of God. Yeah, but wait a minute, the effect, the blessing, the fruit of it, that came from God, that didn't come from the hymn writer, that didn't come from what it was. That came from the Lord.

He had a trace. My word shall not return unto me void. It shall accomplish the thing whereto I sent it. And where the Lord applies the word and blesses that word, and He uses it for His honor and glory. My very call by grace, the very beginning of the work of grace was that Jehovah's Witness coming to the door was not anything they said, It was what I said, condemning them, telling them all what they had done wrong.

When I'd been trying to get away from chapel, I hated the things of God. And after they turned away from the door, the Lord said to me, you're a hypocrite. You've been trying to get away from the things of God. You hate the things of God and yet you condemn them. And he cares enough about your soul to come to your house in the week, not only on a Sunday. And the Lord cut me down on that doorstep. as a sinner, as a guilty sinner. That's how the Lord began with me.

A little while after, my father said, he said, we're going to leave the chapel, we're going to go to Tasmania. I said, I'm not. I said, I'm staying here, buy my own house. I was 19, just coming 20, finished my apprenticeship, saved enough, bought my own house, lived on my own for 10 years, near the chapel, wouldn't leave. What a difference was made just by that meeting on the doorstep.

It wasn't Job's witnesses that brought her, it was God that brought her. And it's a grace those things take to the Lord's hand. That's who does it. There's another lesson here. Sometimes the Lord allows us to do things That if we then do that, He's angry with us for it, if we choose to do it. We need not to think that the Lord will be such that our lives are stocked up, stocked up, so that we have no choice, we must go in that way. With Balaam here, the Lord did warn him not to go, tell him not to go.

Then at the last he said, they call thee, then go. But he made it very, very plain at the first. He didn't want him to go. He was not to curse that people. And then he sees Balaam, and you can see Balaam was just chomping at the bit. He wanted badly to go, and the least hint of ability to do so, he took it, he went.

We can be given, as it were, an opportunity, an open door to sin, or to do something that we know God has said is wrong. God just says, don't go that way. But then he opens the providential door it may be. We think, ah, we can go that way. And we think that's God approving it? More than thought so, perhaps. But then God made it very clear. It wasn't, it was to try us. Are we really going to listen to the word of God, or are we going to give the opportunity? As soon as we have that opportunity, we're going to go and take it. Be very careful, friends.

Sometimes the Lord might bring us into things of which the only thing stopping you or I to do it is His word. Often think of the way of direction as three points, It's illustrated in Mr. Ansbottom's book, Simply Explained, Dr. Simply Explained, but also I had it in real life going out through the Port Phillip Heads in Australia, and the captain invited several of us on the bridge, and as the ship was turning to get the way through the two mile gap, very narrow gap, through the heads, he said, now look, as the ship turns, those two lights on the shore, those lighthouses will line up. Because it's not just two points, it's three points, because you're one point, and then there's the two lighthouses, and you get three points to get a straight line, and they're all lining up, there's only one way that can happen. And I've often thought, if you're seeking direction and guidance from the Lord, three things must line up.

The word of God must be on our side. It must be clearly that the Lord's will are not forbidden by the word of God. The second thing is an opening in providence. And the third is thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. We might badly want a job, and we say that that job is not condemned by the word of God, and I am willing, I want that job, but it's never offered to me. The providence doesn't open, you can't go through it.

But you can have it the other way, and we had this in the trustee matter years ago in Australia, where we had no trustees in to Geelong Chapel, and the trustees said that they had to be members of that church, but there was only one member of that church, one lady member, they had to be male members of that church. So he went to a solicitor to work out what to do, and he said, well that's easy. He said, and what you do, you make the members of Melbourne the members of Geelong as well. I said, the other deacon, others that were there, we can do that.

I said, no you can't do that. I said, that completely ruins the type of the Church of God. The local Church of God is one church. You can't be members of two churches. And so I refused to let it go ahead. Years later, Gordon Seam was able to resolve the matter in another way.

But there'll be things that we might be willing to do it, we might have it open in Providence, but we discern if we go that way, it is not supported by the Word of God. That is honoring to God, if we discern that. And so do be very careful, just because God allows, just because God owns in providence or leaves us willing, doesn't mean to say that he's right according to his will and in the word of God.

Another thing to learn here, a man can speak wonderful things, and yet they not be in his heart at all. They're not what he really feels. I know we read out of the abundance of the heart man speaketh, and sometimes it needs trials to bring that actually out.

You think of another sorcerer that was baptized by Philip, And he seemed to be a good candidate for baptism. But then along comes Peter, and he sees that by laying on of hands the Holy Spirit is given, and this to say again, he offers money. Again, the same thing, thinking money can buy things or get money, that he might have that power. And Peter says, thy money perish with thee.

Thou'st thy heart is not right in this matter, Thou'st neither part nor lot in this matter." And the thing that had come up, they found out what was actually in his heart. The fire should fry every man's work what it is. Grace, though the smallest, must surely be tried. And here in this account, there's most solemn things, aren't there? You think of In verse 10, chapter 23, who can count the dust of Jacob, the number of the fourth part of Israel?

Let me die the death of the righteous, let my last end be like his. What wonderful words, what a good thing that he might as well have added, but don't let my life be like theirs, and don't let my God be theirs, and don't let me obey him like that. Let me have the end, but not the life.

What a solemn path to be in. They're a lot like that today, aren't they? Most funerals that you go to, supposedly they've all gone to heaven, but their lives went according to the word of God. May it be that we don't only want the end of God's people, but we want to be with them now. Not only to be like them, but to be them. And then in the next chapter, verse five, He says, How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel. He's speaking how good the people of God are, but the next minute he's fighting against them, and he would curse them if he would.

The Lord deliver us from just having a religion of words, but we don't really feel what we're saying. We don't really have a love to God or love to the Lord's people. We just do it for advantage or do it because we're constrained in some way or other. May our prayer be, deliver me from the spirit of Balaam.

And he went after money, he was after money, the love of money, not money, but the love of money. He is the root of all evil. And especially when it comes into the things of God. You think of Judas, 30 pieces of silver. You think, how can it possibly be so? How can he value the Lord of life and glory, 30 pieces of silver? These are lessons, these are warnings.

Another lesson is, one thing I find very beautiful in this passage, is that they're blessed three times. I love to notice the threes that run through the scriptures. That's from this service you can, as you're reading the scriptures, you notice the many times that a three is mentioned.

We had it in this morning, we read about Rahab and Lee, The spies had to go and wait three days out. You think of Abraham, when he was to offer up his son, three days journey. The first is where Isaac was dead, second he was dead, beginning of the third he was dead, but the end of the third he's risen, he's taken from the altar, and it all points to Calvary, the third day. We need a third day religion.

But here the third, is pointing to the triune God. They were blessed under Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three times blessing they had here. Or, you might say, you could take it back to the beautiful Aaronic blessing, which that also is three times at the end of chapter six, 3 The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron, unto his sons, saying, On this way shall ye bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, The Lord bless thee, and keep thee. 1 The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee. 2 The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. 3 The Trinity all equal, and the Lord in each one of those is all-incapable. Behold, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and so it is here." They had a three-time blessing on the children of Israel.

Another lesson we might say, a solemn one really, how many times like Balaam and Balak, they're muddling up the true worship of God with the going in soothsaying and everything. They've got the altars, they've got the sacrifices. They're, as it were, imitating the children of Israel and then expecting that God is going to change His mind. On one hand they're going completely against God, but on the other they're using his name, they're using the types, they're using the sacrifices.

How easy it is we can be deceived when you say people are doing this right, that right, they're mixing all these things up. But it'd not be right. There's a lot of warnings, a lot of lessons here. I must move to our main point really, the second point.

There's three things said of Jacob. that is God's people in our text. The first is, he hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. Well, what is it that is being said? What is perverseness? Perverseness is stubbornly going against what is right. And iniquity is immoral behavior or gross unfairness or wickedness. And you say, but this is at the end of the 40 years. And they had rebelled and rebelled. So many of them had been slain because they murmured, they complained. They wanted to go back to Egypt. They challenged Moses.

And God says of them here that He has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel. Is He really speaking about the same people? That God with all His dearies with the children, how could He say that? beautiful picture of how God's people are viewed through the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the Song of Solomon we read the spouse saying, I am black but covering. This is a beautiful picture where the Lord says, as far as the east is from the west, so far have I removed thy transgressions from There's no spot in Thee, my love. Thou art all fair, my love. It's hard for us to really comprehend and to understand this most beautiful truth.

Those that believe in the Lord Jesus Christ by the grace of God is imputed to them, is put to their account the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ and that is what the Lord views his people through and can say what Balaam said here, or God said through Balaam. This is true of everyone that the Lord Jesus Christ has suffered, bled and died for and risen again for their justification and has brought them to believe and trust in his name, that though they have rebelled all their life long, though they've been just like Israel, and he can see, I can see, the pattern in my life again and again, and I think, well, I would have done the same. I would have complained about the manna all the time. I would have wondered the leaves and the cucumbers. I would have complained about the lack of water. I would have murmured just like them because of the hardness of the way. I can't lay a thing at them.

And then you come to something like this, and you find the Lord has forgiven them and pardoned them. He's chastened them, He's corrected them, but He views them in His beloved He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel.

May the Lord really bless that to you here that believe and give you a longing for that righteousness, those of you who don't yet know it. This we can stand faultless before the throne of God. The second thing is this, God is with them. The Lord his God is with him. He said this morning about what Moses said. He wanted the Lord's presence with him. He had asked, show me thy way.

And the answer to that was, my presence shall go with thee, and I'll give thee rest. the Lord's presence with his people, with Israel. With the children of Israel out of the fiery cloud of Pillar, all their journey through. And Moses says, except not thy presence go not with me, carry me not up hence.

That's what he valued and this was what the Lord was owning of his people. That the Lord was with them. May we have that testimony and that witness as well, that the Lord is with us, and that we value it, and that we want that to be so all our journey through. And I'd love too to think of it when we come to the end.

And in John 14, in my Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself, the Lord, with His people through death.

You see with Stephen, when he's being stoned, he looks up and he sees the Lord who had ascended and sat on the right hand of God. He's standing to receive Him. The Lord is with him. at the end. May that be a real comfort and our help to us, not only in life but in death. The Lord bringing us to be with Him.

Another type of that is of course as the children of Israel went through the river Jordan or went when it was docked up, the ark went before them and it stayed in Jordan until they were all passed over. They all passed by it. They started off seeing it afar off, a speck. But when they got to Jordan, it was right there with them.

We need to remember that. The Lord has been with us in life. He'll be with us in death. Bring us safe to be with Him. The third thing is this, that Jesus is King and Lord. and the shout of a king is among them." Now we know this is a prophecy of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, the descendant through the children of Israel. The church in the wilderness brings forth the Lord Jesus Christ. But I like to view it as well that Jesus is King and Lord.

When the Lord first took his people for himself, He warned them that if they were to be His people, then they had to obey Him. He was to be their Lord. He was to be the one they served. They were not going to dictate it. The Lord was here. Of course, the Lord is here, returning the blessing upon them. But at other times, it was to be the Lord was to be their Lord. It's a solemn thing. where there are those who say, well, we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, we're His people.

But in actual fact, in their lives, they say, we will not have this man to reign over us. He will not lord it over us. We will do every man what is right in our own eyes. And I think this, in the background is, in the subconscious, we have so many that we might speak to in our street or those that we know, they don't want to hear that things are gone. They stop you. And our Lord says that because their deeds are evil, they won't come to the light that they be found out. And they subconsciously, they know, if they read the Word of God, if they hear the Word of God, it's going to reprove them. And he's going to tell them things that they should be doing or should not be doing and they're not willing that the Lord should be Lord over them in that way.

The whole thing of our generation, especially today, and it's always been really bad, especially today, you've got to just do what is right for yourself. You've just got to follow your own likes and not have anyone tell you what to do. How much damage has been done sometimes when Perhaps a wife goes to a counselling session because she's got depression or something like that, and instead of giving any direction to be guided by her husband or to be together, you've got to do it right, what you feel is right for yourself. Put yourself first. And so much damage is done in that way.

But, the thing, the Mahatma God's people, is that the Lord is Lord, and they are willing to have that. Lord, you think of when the Lord converted Saul of Tarsus. You might think, well, the first thing he did, behold, he prayed, and he did pray. But the thing that was said of him, and he said of the Lord, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Instead of just what Saul wanted to do, now he wanted to know, what the Lord would have him to do. I wonder how many of us can think back to the first time that that change was brought in our lives and we saw the Lord's will and the Lord's purpose. Lord, what would that have me to do?

This is a beautiful thing that's said of God's people. If it is true of us that the Lord sees no perverseness in us, then it will be true of us that the Lord is with us. and that He is Lord of all and we are willing that that should be so. When He directs us, when He instructs us, then there is that willingness to obey. Why we be obedient, obedient to the Lord revealed will for us, for believers, the Church of God, that we have no other Lord but Him. and we serve the Lord with fear and with trembling. We serve the Lord here below as the Lord gives grace. We serve him in heaven in glory forever and forever. May this blessing be upon us. May we discern the curse turn to a blessing and we lay hold upon this blessed truth of the righteousness of the Lord. imputed to us as our covering.

Now the blood of Christ puts away our sin, but his righteousness makes us fit for heaven. And this so beautifully describes it. 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. Amen.

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God's people in Christ

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About Rowland Wheatley

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