“Then Balak’s anger burned against Balaam. He struck his hands
together and said to him,
‘I summoned you to curse my enemies, but you
have blessed them these three times.’” (Numbers 24:10 NIV)
Balaam was a mysterious figure in the Old Testament. He was a Gentile
prophet //who used sorcery at times, according to the Bible, yet he
claimed that he could say only what God permitted him to say. This
Balaam was called upon by Balak, king of Moab, to curse the Israelites,
because he feared that they were too powerful, and he wanted to drive
them out of the land.
When Balaam tried to do what Balak asked him to
do—not once, not twice, but three times!—only the blessing of God came
forth; and the record shows in the book of Numbers that Balak ended up
frustrated, and Balaam went back to his home. Nevertheless, in the
following chapter of Numbers, we see the men of Israel getting together
with the Moabite women and going after their false gods. How did this
happen? Reading a little further on, we see that God’s people were
seduced by the tricks of the enemy.
What does this mean for God’s people today?
First of all, we have to
take joy in knowing that God’s people cannot be cursed. When you have
the blessing of God on your life, no one can take it away. There is no
voodoo or hoodoo or spell //that can harm a Christian,
for greater is he
that is in us than he that is in the world!
But Satan has his sneak
attacks /just as Balaam had. Balaam knew that God wasn’t letting him
curse the Israelites, but he no doubt wanted the reward //that Balak king
of Moab was offering, so he devised another plan: to steer God’s people
away from the Lord /little by little /through trickery and seduction. The
plan was simple: Just have the Moabite women lure the men of Israel
away from God (Numbers 31:14-16).
And the men went along with it,
although God’s people had been told by God not to mingle with the pagan
people /surrounding them /because of their idolatry. Once the men of
Israel showed an interest in the women, these women then enticed them
further, saying, “Oh, please come with me to the temple of my god.” The
men of Israel undoubtedly said at first, “But I serve the true God,” to
which the women must have responded, “Just accompany me, because it’s
part of my culture and it means a lot to me.”
Before long, the people
were pulled away from their devotion to God and were deceived; and what
Balak couldn’t achieve by trying to curse them, he did by weakening them
through temptation /until they fell into idolatry and all kinds of evil.
In how many Christian lives is something similar happening today?
To be continued…
Read Numbers 24:1-11.