Numbers 23

Who taught him this? How did he know to do this?

Had he done this in time prior? One thing I know:

God instructed him to.. Whether when they were on their way or in time past, this was a knowledge he had gleaned.

He, Balaam, could not guarantee that God would meet him; he said, “if peradventure”.

Because by experience he knew that God shows up when he, God, wants to.

No one can claim sole control 🎮 over God.

Yes, by virtue of relationship one can be sure he is likely to show up or honour your call 🤙.

But be keenly aware that he is a king 👑, and the prerogative to turn down your request for fellowship still remains his.

Though as sons he doesn't reject fellowship, but he comes on his terms, but there again it's built on relationship.

He who has an ear 👂, let him hear.

He, Balaam, went to an even higher place where he could meet God.

Balaam knew that spirits are secretive. They must be sought for in quiet 🤫 places, and they reveal themselves in signs, patterns and mysteries.

I have met the spirit many times and I know this truth.

Peradventure — Balaam had done what was required by way of preparing an altar and sacrifices.

He even told God that when he met him in verse 4.

Meaning he had fulfilled all that was required for God to meet with him.

But even then there were no guarantees with God.

In meeting God there are no guarantees he would show up; you have to do your part to start with, to fulfil the first requirement of sacrifice.

The second step Balaam took was to go up. He separated himself from the people, because, as God is wont to do, he does not do mass showing up except to demonstrate his power etc.

But to speak his word, he does so to his prophets in secret, and then they come up to the open 🔓 to declare it.

The step of God showing up is up to God, and so here Balaam did his part and now waited on the Lord, and he did show up.

Why tell God this? It was almost as if he was saying to God, I have done what you asked me to do, and in response God gave him a word.

So then it goes to show that God blesses or curses 🤬, and if God be for you, you are protected from every curse and utterance not from him.

But if not, woe to you. You shall be cursed 🤬

Could we then say that as believers and spiritual Israel 🇮🇱, many have sought by divination to curse us and destroy us, but the Lord hindered them?

But I have also seen many believers cursed 🤬 and suffer from it. So then the question 🙋 becomes, what kind of believer is cursable?

What happened for such a curse to work?

Indeed, using Israel as the prototype, we see how Ai defeated them because they lost alignment and there was an accursed thing in their midst.

So we must align. Even after we are cursed 🤬, we can recover position through alignment, but then, like the battle with Ai, you will lose something — your time, respect, untold suffering within your trials.

How did Balaam know this history of the Jews? Oh, could it be that Jacob's greatness and fame in this exact same region had spread far and wide?

But then again, this was many centuries ago.

Whatever the case may be, Balaam was acquainted with the history of this people whom he had been hired to curse 🤬

There was no way around it: the one whom God had not cursed 🤬 could not be cursed 🤬.

God was using this as an example to all nations, that his people are sacred and called unto him as a peculiar race, to show forth the glory and life of God to all the earth 🌎.

People would take notice of this peculiar treasure that Israel 🇮🇱 had and be converted to the God of Israel 🇮🇱.

Israel 🇮🇱 was on stage; the nations were watching.

This was not to be fulfilled, as he loved the wages of mammon more than the treasures of eternal life.

He did not have faith, unlike Moses, who did esteem the treasures and honor of Egypt a light thing for the glory and life of God,

choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a moment.

Interestingly, this same Moses did pen this story and saw the latter end of Balaam, and it was not at all glorious.

He was killed along with these faithless princes of Moab, whom he chose to help and stand with.

It's interesting: just as Balaam followed the instructions of God, he still rejected HIS ways and sought ways around the will of God.

How did he become a prophet when he was so shrewd and sought ways in the books to hurt God's people?

It was because he, Balaam, had the gift — the gift of a prophet — and followed the disciplines required to stir up and grow the gifting 📦, yet his heart ♥ was not fully with the Lord.

And there are many such Balaams in the church ⛪

He, Balak, seems also to have some spiritual knowledge of his own.

Else why would he call for a mystic in the first place?

And he, Balak, probably had this knowledge from previous encounters with the spiritual, or he just reckoned that a step-by-step strategy of pronouncing curses 🤬 from different angles might yield the desired results.

But this takes us back to the first assertion 🙋. How had he had previous knowledge?

This venture was quite labour-intensive as well as financially demanding.

That is why it is called a sacrifice, and spirits require it for access.

For us believers today, Christ has made the ultimate sacrifice of his body and blood, but we must make time and fast and wait and focus expectantly whiles waiting.

Yet we would not.

Here again he goes yonder; how long this whole exercise took we are not told.

The time between one curse and the next we can only guesstimate.

It is only when he met with God and got a word that he spoke, and then those words carried power.

He did not just speak his own goodly words; those would have only carried human power.

But for it to carry spirit power, the words should be inspired.

This is wisdom for us 🙏

Why the term “behold”? He stood by his offering as if it was not expected that he would still be there in attention.

This seems to suggest that it took a while for Balaam to get a word from the Lord and come back.

Yet Balak also remained steadfast and waited earnestly on the man of God, hence the statement,

“behold, he stood by his offering”.

Once the Lord had spoken, he feared no man 👨... He did not save face, for he knew the terrible one so well.

LORD, HELP ME FEAR AND KNOW YOU, I PRAY PLS 🙏

So this is where the context of this all-popular scripture is from.

God had given commandment to bless and not curse in the first encounter, and now Balak tries again by changing strategy, but God sends to tell him that he, God, is not a man that he should lie or repent.

He will not change his mind concerning Israel.

See the mindset and determination of a pagan king 👑. He knew that his gods would fail him against the God of 🇮🇱 Israel — the fall of Jericho and Ammon, whose gods were probably greater or the same as that of Moab.

So he sought help from the Most High himself, pleading 🙏 with him to change his mind concerning Israel 🇮🇱.

His gods were incapacitated to help here.

So, like all men, he sought higher power.

So if the Church ⛪ fails in its mandate, the people, though the people of God, would resort to higher power.

This is why discipleship and spiritual training is vitally important.

Balak left his gods and pleaded with the Odumankuma himself, and yet sadly, because the church ⛪ today has forsaken our rock, we leave our rock — God Most High — to seek smaller gods.

What is wrong with us?

Now this begs the question 🙋: did Balak know that Balaam called on the same God as did Israel 🇮🇱?

He, Balak, had his gods, but he knew that the God of Balaam never failed.

And now comes Israel, who serve the LORD, the I AM, and now Balak sends for the highest power he knew, i.e. the God of Balaam, who never disappoints.

I believe Balak got informed, likely by Balaam, that he served the same God, and that Israel 🇮🇱 was God's people.

So to overcome Israel he had to win the God of Israel 🇮🇱 to his side.

But our God is not like other gods; we are his children 🧒 and the sheep 🐑 of his pasture.

No father would sell his children.

What offer can you make to a father for him to abandon and destroy his own seed 🌱?

Balak's offering and riches could buy man, and could even buy the prophet Balaam, but not God.

Men, these men Balaam and Balak were indeed very shrewd — so shrewd they played their cards well and prevailed against God and Israel 🇮🇱,

in the sense that through knowledge and seduction they lured Israel 🇮🇱 to go and act against their own God — Jehovah — by committing orgies with the daughters of Moab.

That was how these men, so shrewd, so wise, got God to fight his own people.

But there were other systems in place; not all Israel disobeyed, so in the end the remnant who stood true to the laws of God destroyed Moab and Balak and Balaam.

We must be wise as believers and maximize the things and opportunities and the knowledge God has given to us and brought our way.

Balak wanted to call on God, Elohim, like one calls upon a medium or idol.

He wanted to use God for his own agenda, but he did not know the God of Israel was not like other gods.

He cannot be used for evil 😈. He is a good God.

And to date the game of distracting the children of God and causing them to self-destruct goes on.

When Balak realized he could not curse Israel 🇮🇱, he was advised to turn them against their own God by disobeying the laws that kept them under divine power.

They lusted for Moabite women and were destroyed by God's wrath in the process.

The wicked rebels had to be purged in order to keep the camp pure.

And today as believers we have been fed so many lies 🤥; we have sold our gold for fool's gold.
And so now the church is without power; Christians seek the created things rather than the Creator.

We have been deceived.

Hmm 🤔, I don't know if I should say what I want to say.

This statement of not beholding iniquity in Jacob nor perverseness in Israel is more figurative.

I think the man of God means to say he had not beheld such iniquity as deserves a curse — a curse that would mean God turning his back on the covenant he made with Jacob and Isaac and Abraham.

Because you and I know the many abominations the children of Israel had committed.

But such abominations were between God and them, and no basis at all for an outsider to use to curse Israel 🇮🇱, especially doing so in the name of God.

God was not going to allow that.

It's just like in the New Testament: God chastises us as sons and daughters, but that in no way is grounds for the devil 👿 to accuse us, such that we are no longer worthy of the cleansing blood of Jesus.

Our sins are against God our father, who freely has forgiven 🙏 us.

Balaam had done this before; he had cursed people and nations before and it had worked. He was no novice. No wonder Balak trusted him so much.

And no wonder Balaam himself tried three solid times until he realised this was not one of those days. So he was compelled to flow along with God.