Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20120325.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Numbers: Lessons From Spiritual Casualties And Conquerors
Part XXXIII: Trusting God's Infinite Loyalty To His Promises To Us
(Numbers 22:39-24:25)
    Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

    In our last sermon in this series out of the book of Numbers, we learned God may let even high-level government conspiracies arise that harm our country, but that He uses even these to fulfill His purposes!

    That may be an edifying idea, but we need encouragement to keep holding to it, for we face constant exposure to evil on the matter:

    (1) William McGurn's article, "The Improbable Mr. Santorum" in March 20, 2012 issue of The Wall Street Journal, p. A13 lamented what American voters face from government entities "when . . . a court discovers a right to same-sex marriage or a Health and Human Services Secretary decrees that henceforth all religious institutions, no matter what their teachings, will be forced to underwrite her morality."

    The author mused: "Sometimes the claim is advanced that if only we could mute ourselves on these divisive' issues, we will discover" that the high-level governmental powers that promote such ideology would be "far more amenable", but that such action only "leads to unilateral surrender -- and the imposition of morality." (Ibid.)

    (2) Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe, co-authors of the book, Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto wrote the op-ed, "What Do Republicans Believe?" in the March 21, 2012 issue of the same paper, p. A13 observing: "While grassroots Americans seem more committed than ever to taking their country back from an entrenched political class . . . GOP cognoscenti [experts] . . . once more are lecturing . . . on the practical limits of principles in politics . . ."

    (3) However, the stakes on principles never seemed higher: David Rivkin and Lee Casey, lawyers in the Justice Department during the Reagan and George H. W. Bush eras, noted in their March 22, 2012 op-ed, "The Supreme Court Weighs ObamaCare," of the same paper, p. A15: "On Monday, the Supreme Court will begin an extraordinary three-day hearing on the constitutionality of ObamaCare. At stake are the Constitution's structural guarantees of individual liberty . . ."

    (4) A lead editorial in the paper's March 23rd edition, p. A14 ("Liberty and ObamaCare") summed it up: "It is not an exaggeration to say the Supreme Court's answers may constitute a hinge in the history of American liberty and limited and enumerated government. The Justices must decide if those principles still mean something."

    So, we ask, "Is there encouraging evidence God is actually aiding us with what high-level conspiracies we might face?!"

    Need: "I heard the sermon that God allows and uses high-level evils to occur to fulfill His will, but I need encouragement that this is so!"

  1. We before learned Numbers 22 reports a high-level conspiracy by Moab and Midian to hire Balaam, a diviner like the pagans seen in the Mari tablets, to curse Israel to her harm, B. K. C., O. T., p. 241.
  2. Yet, we also learned that God threatened to slay Balaam were he to curse Israel, so when he met Moab's king Balak, Balaam explained he could speak only the words that Israel's God wanted him to say.
  3. Then, countering the conspiracy, God made Balaam's words show His infinite loyalty to His promise to Israel, Numbers 22:39-24:25:
    1. God had Balaam show His loyalty to His promise:
      1. In the first oracle, God made Balaam acknowledge Israel's uniqueness among the nations and her vast number, Num. 23:9-10.
      2. These truths were predicted to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-2 and 13:16, and were fulfilled in the Exodus, Exodus 19:5-6 and 1:7-11.
    2. God had Balaam show His faithful loyalty to His promise:
      1. Balak changed the location of the second oracle, hoping God might let Balaam curse Israel there [as in paganism], Numbers 23:11-14.
      2. However, God there made Balaam bless Israel, Num. 23:15-24:
        1. Balaam told of the shout of a King, God, in Israel, Num. 23:21, referring to God as Conquering Warrior, Dt. 33:5; Ibid., p. 243.
        2. Balaam spoke of Israel's Exodus from Egypt, Numbers 23:22, adding that no sorcery, namely, his own, could thwart Israel to keep her from defeating Canaan as a lion, Numbers 23:23, 24.
      3. Balak then became angry, and took Balaam to still a third site, hoping God would let Balaam curse Israel there, Num. 23:25-30.
      4. When Balaam then realized God resolutely refused to let Israel be cursed, he gave up his sorcery efforts, and God made him prophecy blessing on Israel in a third prophetic oracle, Numbers 24:1-9:
        1. Balaam told of Israel's blessings in Canaan, Numbers 24:5-7a.
        2. He predicted the rise of a human king and an exalted kingdom in Israel [under kings David and Solomon], Numbers 24:7b,c.
        3. Balaam told of the fall of Israel's foes [to David], Num. 24:8-9.
      5. Infuriated, Balak withdrew his reward offer, but Balaam repeated that he had say only what God wanted him to say, Num. 24:10-13!
      6. Though Balak was done, God was not, and he gave Balaam four more oracles, revealing His FAITHFUL loyalty to Israel:
        1. As a star symbolized a king in the Mari tablets, Ibid., p. 244, in a fourth oracle, God had Balaam predict the rise of a star and a scepter in Israel, Christ's birth and later reign, Num. 24:14-17a.
        2. [Pagan astrologers held the rise of a new star meant a divine king had been born under its quadrant, explaining how pagan Magi at Christ's birth responded to siting this star to seek Jesus for worship, Matthew 2:1-2! ( Z. P. E. B., vol. Five, p. 512-514) When the star moved to guide them, they realized the king was the Creator's Son, explaining their great joy, Matthew 2:9-10!]
        3. Balaam predicted Christ [at His Second Coming] would defeat Moab and Edom (Num. 24:17b-19), fulfilling God's Genesis 12:3 Abrahamic pledge to curse all like Moab who curse Israel!
        4. In a fifth oracle, Balaam told of Amalek's fall, typical of Jesus' full defeat of Israel's foes [in His Second Coming], Num. 24:20.
        5. In a sixth oracle, Balaam told of the fall of the Kenites, a clan in Midian that joined Moab to curse Israel (Num. 22:4), typical of Christ's defeat of Israel's foes [at His return], Num. 24:21-22!
        6. In a seventh oracle, Balaam told of great trouble when ships of Kittim invade Assur and Eber (the Mid East) only to be ruined, Num. 24:23-24 NIV; Ibid., p. 245. "Kittim" was Cition on SE Crete, and later meant "Crete" or "Westerners" via its direction relative to Israel (Z. P. E. B., 1975, v. Three, p. 832-834). This oracle ultimately predicts a Revived Roman Empire antichrist's invasion of the Mid East by sea in the Great Tribulation and his fall [at Christ's return], Daniel 11:40-45; Revelation 19:17-21!
    3. God had Balaam show His gracious, faithful loyalty to His promise:
      1. Incredibly, the oracles of a human king, Christ and the antichrist were made due to Israel's future sins: (a) she would reject God's rule for a human king (1 Samuel 8:6-9), (b) Christ would come to save Israel from her sin (Matt. 1:20-21) and (c) God would let the antichrist rule Israel since she had rejected Christ (Zech. 11:1-17).
      2. However, God's promises to Abraham were unconditional, so Christ's Kingdom would still arise and all Israel's foes still fall!
    4. In the end, Balaam and Balak were left silent and parted company, their conspiracy to curse Israel totally diffused by God! (Num. 24:25)
Application: (1) May we trust in Christ to become a child of God, John 1:11-12. (2) Then, if distraught over evil, may we be uplifted by Balaam's oracles, realizing God is unconditionally loyal to us!

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message . . . )

 In John 16:7-11, Jesus promised us that the Holy Spirit of God would Himself directly convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment in evangelistic outreach, a thought mirrored in Revelation 22:17 where the Spirit gives the evangelistic "Come" to the lost world.

One of the more startling venues where this work of the Spirit is evident is in the book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by "liberal" psychology professor Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia. (reviewed by Gary Rosen, "Conflicting Moralities," The Wall Street Journal, 3/19/2012, p. A15)

Mr. Haidt reports how the widespread acceptance of Darwin's theory of evolution especially by leftists has led its "evolutionary theorists" to presume "that all seemingly altruistic [charitable] behavior can be understood in terms of selfish ends, particularly the survival of one's own genes and kin." (Ibid., Rosen)

However, this assumption omits three of the six moral qualities Haidt and his "collaborators" found by interviewing 130,000 people online exist in the "intuitive ideas that all cultures draw upon for their ethical norms" -- those of "loyalty, authority and sanctity." Haidt holds that conservatives "embrace" them while liberals are "ambivalent" about them "at best," so he claims his fellow liberals "will never win the confidence of a broad cross section of Americans if they cannot develop their own vocabulary of loyalty, authority and sanctity." (Ibid.)

We who trust in Christ know one must go beyond just using a vocabulary about loyalty, authority and sanctity and actually adopt these ideas if he would be morally whole, but this is a huge step for a leftist professor of psychology at a secular university! The dominance of evolutionary thought that is so absent the loyalty (faithfulness), authority (God, officials, parents) and sanctity (good versus evil) ideas intuitive in all human cultures now functions so openly, its morals are becoming exposed as "radically incomplete." (Ibid.) The Holy Spirit is letting this deficiency become apparent to the world to lead it to Christ!

May we be encouraged, for God is UNCONDITIONALLY, FAITHFULLY LOYAL to His Word and promises to us in doing His part to convict the world of its need for Christ! Our part is simply to trust the testimony of the evidence of this fact seen in the account of Balaam's oracles and also in the evidences of God's work in our own era, that we keep trusting and heeding the Lord!