We are in Numbers chapter 23,
and we'll read from verse 13. We're thinking about the story
of Balaam and this man, Balak, who was the king of one of the
Canaanite nations, the Midianites. And Balak said unto him, "'Come,
I pray thee, with me unto another place "'from whence thou mayest
see them.'" That's he may see the children of Israel. "'Thou
shalt see but the utmost part of them, "'and shalt not see
them all, "'and curse me them from thence.' "'And he brought
him into the field of Zophim, "'to the top of Pisgah, and built
seven altars, "'and offered a bullock and a ram on every altar. And
he said unto Balak, Stand here by thy burnt offering while I
meet the Lord yonder. And the Lord met Balaam, and
put a word in his mouth, and said, Go again unto Balak, and
say thus. And when he came to him, behold,
he stood by his burnt offering, and the princes of Moab with
him. And Balak said unto him, What hath the Lord spoken? And
he took up his parable and said, Rise up, Balak, and hear, hearken
unto me, thou son of Zippor. God is not a man that he should
lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. Hath he said,
and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and shall
he not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment
to bless, and he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse 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. God 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? Behold,
the people shall rise up as a great lion and lift up himself as a
young lion. He shall not lie down until he
eat of the prey and drink the blood of the slain. And Balak
said unto Balaam, Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at
all. But Balaam answered and said
unto Balak, Told not I thee, saying, All that the Lord speaketh,
that I must do? Amen. May the Lord bless this
reading to us. Now, someone might wonder why
I'm giving so much time and attention to Balaam. Balaam was a wicked
man. He was a soothsayer and he was
an enemy of the people of God. But the answer to that question,
why I'm giving him so much time and attention, is really quite
simple. God used Balaam to tell Balak
and the Midianites and no doubt all the nations of Canaan what
he was going to do. What he was going to fulfil of
his promises to his people Israel and how he was going to judge
the idolatrous nations in Canaan. And interestingly, the word soothsayer
is actually the word truth-sayer. That's where the origin of that
word comes from. The etymology of soothsayer is
to speak the truth, which is what the Bible calls Balaam.
It calls him a soothsayer. a speaker of the truth and that
is what we find. Certainly on this occasion I
am sure that Balaam was a man who was happy to give an appropriate
message to whoever it was that was paying him for the job the
rest of the time. And that certainly seems to have
been his desire as far as Balak was concerned. But on this occasion,
he spoke the truth because he spoke the words that God placed
into his mouth, even when he wanted to tell Balak something
different. God saw to it that Israel did
not simply sweep through the land of Canaan and conquer it
and displace the nations and inhabit it without those nations
being forewarned, foretold, and spoken to by the Lord that the
same God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who was fulfilling the
promises of giving them the land, was also bringing judgment and
retribution upon the wickedness of the Canaanitish nations. But let me just add a little
rider to that as well. It isn't simply that Balaam spoke
the truth. But I am personally struck by
the power and the force of the words that God placed in the
mouth of Balaam to speak. I find the language that is used,
the pictures that are created, the immediate fulfilment and
the spiritual wisdom that Balaam here speaks to be amongst some
of the most amazing statements in the Bible. And to consider
they came from this non-Jew, this man who was wicked and who
endeavoured to deal between the natural and supernatural in some
sort of religious capacity. and yet was used by God to speak
to these nations, I think it is truly amazing to read and
to reflect on the things that he said. Our God hides neither
his purpose nor his pleasure from the people of this world. Our scriptures Everyone can read
the Bible. The Bible is available in the language of the vast majority
of people in this world. People can read precisely what
God has said, what God has done, and what God has said he's going
to do. It isn't a secret. and it wasn't
to be a secret to the people of Canaan either. Even the wicked
idol-worshipping nations of Canaan, whose depravity is famous, learned
of God's faithfulness to his people and his plan in their
own times. They caught a glimpse of God's
work in times yet to come, and even in eternity. Let me show
you what I mean from some of the statements that were made. Balak, we remember, wanted Balaam
to curse Israel because Israel was his enemy. But Balaam had
been warned by God not to meddle with cursing his people, but
rather to say only the things that God would place in Balaam's
mouth. And this is what Balaam did.
The things that we're about to think about were actual statements
that were placed in the mouth of Balaam by God himself, by
which we learn that these truths that Balaam spoke came from God
with all the divine inspiration. of the rest of the Word of God. These words are as divinely inspired
as the whole of our scripture, as the very words of Christ himself
and as the words of Moses and Isaiah and the disciples and
all who spoke. This is the divine inspired Word
of God. and it's noticeable that God
spoke on this occasion by an apparently unregenerate man. Now last week we heard some of
these statements and this week there are a few more, just as
wonderful, just as spiritually powerful. Balak wanted Balaam
to curse Israel. Balaam said, I have received
commandment to bless. and he, that is God, hath blessed
this people, and I cannot reverse it. So let's look at a few of
the statements that Balaam made. Here's the first one that I want
to draw your attention to. In verse 19 of Numbers chapter
23, we read these words from the lips of the soothsayer Balaam. He says, God is not a man that
he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent.
Hath he said, and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken, and
shall he not make it good? This is God telling Balaam, who
tells Balak, but who tells us all, that God keeps his word. God keeps his word. He is faithful to his promises
and all he has promised to do, he will fulfil. Balaam says, men and women and
boys and girls tell lies. Even when we try to tell the
truth, we're always telling lies. We change our minds. We go back
on our word. We exaggerate the things that
have happened. We deceive one another. We deceive
ourselves. And otherwise, we prove to be
not dependable in our words. But God is not a man. He is spirit. He is holy and he is unchangeable. And by this we learn that whatever
God says, we can depend upon it and it will most certainly
come to pass. This is true not only for Old
Testament Israel, but for God's spiritual people today and in
all ages as well. So when we come to the scriptures
and we read together there about the things that the Lord has
said, He has done and He will do, this is the truth from God,
the Holy One and the Mighty One. So these are words that came
from God to Balaam. Here's another thing that Balaam
was able to say. In verse 21, he tells us, God
hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness
in Israel. Now this is a very interesting
and significant statement, I believe. It doesn't mean that God is in
any way ignorant, or that God is in any way unaware of what
is happening. Now we know that all men and
women, boys and girls, are sinners. That's what the Bible tells us.
But here we're told that God hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob,
neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. Now that could be
a reference to some particular sin and that has been suggested. But we are told that although
there was wickedness among the people of Israel, and remember
we've been thinking about that quite a lot recently, about how
God had punished the children of Israel. Remember the fiery
serpents that came amongst the people and all of the other ways
that God had dealt with the people because of their rebellion and
their wickedness. It certainly wasn't the case
that there was no sin amongst the children of Israel and we
know that God knows and sees everything. But this tells us
that God was dealing with these people by grace. and not leaving
them to bear their own sin. And this was true of the people
of faith in Moses day and it is true of the people of God
in every age. All believers in all ages can
claim this promise that God doesn't see sin in them. God does not
behold iniquity or see perverseness in his chosen people. It's telling
us that God justifies his chosen people in the Lord Jesus Christ. He makes them righteous so that
he does not see their sin. He cleanses them of their sin.
He takes their sin away. He puts it behind his back so
he cannot see it anymore. for thou hast cast all my sins
behind thy back. And God doesn't see sin in us. That was Isaiah that told us
about God putting our sins behind his back. So that even though
we are sinners, even though we are the sinners, the perpetrators
of sin, the doers and thinkers of sin, The Lord Jesus Christ
is our substitute and he carries our sins, he bears our iniquities
and God sees no sin in his people. God sees and knows all things.
but God has cleansed and removed the sin of his elect in the covenant
of grace and in the shoulders of Jesus Christ who bore and
carried our sin. And it is a blessed comfort to
those who come to the Lord Jesus Christ seeking forgiveness for
their sins to discover the words of Balaam that God no longer
sees any sin in his people because he has justified us and cleansed
us. If that wasn't enough, here's
something else that God tells Balaam. The Lord, his God, is
with him and the shout of a king is among them. Now What Balaam
is telling Balak here is that God is with these people. Balak,
you're not going to be able to withstand them. Balak, your people,
the Midianites, the whole of Canaan, the nations of the Canaanites
will not withstand these people because his God is with him and
there is a shout of a king amongst them. God is with his people
And the Lord Jesus Christ is Christ the King. And the Lord
Jesus Christ never leaves nor forsakes us. And the shout of
Christ the King is amongst us. Now this King wasn't David. but
it was the Messiah, the Promised One. Our Lord Jesus is King over
His kingdom. He rules in His own house, and
we who trust Him are His people, the people of His kingdom. We
are joined together in the kingdom, the kingdom of God, the kingdom
of Christ, and He is the King over His kingdom. Balaam spoke
truths about the Messiah Christ that only God himself could have
revealed. And he goes on in verse 23 and
verse 24 to speak of the care God takes of his own children. No one can hurt them because
they are under his protection. This people God's people shall
rise and be victorious. They shall be blessed and they
shall be preserved and they shall be delivered. They shall feed
and grow and be fruitful because the Lord takes pleasure in them
and does them good. And what God promised the Old
Testament people, Israel, He promises spiritually to His elect
in every age. He promises His elect, those
who trust in Him, those who believe in Him, those who have faith
in Him, that no one can hurt you because you're under my protection. That you will rise and you will
be victorious over your enemies, over death, over hell, over the
grave. that we will be blessed and preserved
and delivered, that we will feed, that we will grow, that we will
be fruitful, and that the Lord takes pleasure to do his elect
good. I used to wonder how Moses knew
about Balak and Balaam and all these things that were happening.
Presumably Moses was down in the camp amongst the children
of Israel when Balak was up in the mountain and Balaam was telling
him to build these altars and the animals were being slain
and this whole event was transpiring. How did Moses know about all
this going on so that he was able to write it down? Well I
guess God the Holy Spirit just told Moses. as he inspired him
about so much else, so he told him about this so that he could
write it down so that all the people of God of all ages might
have these amazing statements and be comforted by them. Whatever
the means God used, Balak and Canaan had to hear this message
and God made sure by using Balaam that no one was ignorant of his
plan. And I want to make one simple
application from all these amazing statements and it's this. I want
you and I want to know myself. I want us to know that we can
trust the Lord. God has spoken and he cannot
lie. He has told us about grace and
mercy and forgiveness and his purpose of salvation. He has told us that he loves
a people who are chosen by him. And he has told us that there
is a judgment to come as well. God hasn't hidden these things,
they are revealed truths and they will certainly happen. And
here, as Israel is preparing to enter the promised land, God
set forth not only his faithfulness to the land promises that he
had given to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, but to spiritual and
eternal promises as well, to men and women, boys and girls
of every age and every nation, which we can trust in and we
can depend upon. One of the most glorious truths
in the whole scripture, the essence of the gospel, is something called
substitutionary atonement and the representative death of the
Lord Jesus Christ for his people, by which he carries our sins
because they are placed on him And here in this chapter, we
are taught about divine righteousness for sinful men. God sees no iniquity
in his people. He does not see perverseness
in Israel. God has revealed to us that we
are blessed in Christ and we are to receive it and believe
it. to the saving of our souls. So may the Lord teach us what
he taught Balaam and Balak and may we learn that no one can
harm, hurt or steal our souls from the hand of our loving God
when he is pleased to call us his people and to call us his
own. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us. Amen.