Word of Salvation – September 2013

 

Numbers 24 – BALAAM AND CHRIST THE KING

By Rev. John Westendorp

(Sermon 24 in a series on Numbers)

Scripture Reading: Numbers 24.

Singing: BoW 135 / 72b / 385 / Rej 288

 

Introd: When it comes to predicting the future some people have made some notoriously bad calls.

In 1903 the president of the Michigan Savings Bank advised Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham.
He said, “Don’t invest in the Ford Motor Company.”
And then he added: “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad.”

In 1933 Boeing flew the first Boeing 247 – a twin engine plane that seated ten people.
At that time a Boeing engineer said, “There will never be a bigger plane built.”

In 1946 Darryl Zanuck, a movie producer with 20th Century Fox, said:
“[Television] won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months.
People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.”

In 1945 Thomas Watson – chairman of IBM – said,
“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
And in 1977 Ken Olson from Digital Equipment Corporation argued against PCs saying,
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”

In the Christian church we’ve also had predictions that never came true.
Charles Wesley, one of the founders of Methodist churches said the world would end in 1794.
Charles’ brother John later also made a prediction of the end times.
He predicted that in 1836 the Great Beast would come to mark the beginning of the end.

Numbers 24 also has quite some predictions about the future.

But they are deadly accurate predictions… even though they were made by a false prophet.

A] THE BLESSED PEOPLE OF GOD.

1. The chapter begins with Balaam for a third time speaking words of blessing over Israel.

King Balak of Moab – out of fear of Israel – has sent for this man to curse Israel.

Twice he has tried… without success. Each time there are only words of blessing.
And now as Balak tells Balaam to try for a third time Balaam doesn’t even try his usual rituals.
Instead the Spirit of God comes on this man and for a third time Balaam blesses Israel.

King Balak discovers the reality that this nation that he is looking at is indeed blessed of God.
And what God has done cannot be undone.
God is not a fickle God. What He blesses cannot be effectively cursed.

Can you imagine how frustrating that is for King Balak?
Balak has a typical pagan view: The gods can be manipulated to do what we want them to do.
All you’ve got to do is find the right formula… go through the correct rituals… find the right spot.
Some Christians still think they can do that with God today… you’ve just to pray the right way.
Have a right attitude… say the right words…!

Well, it doesn’t work that way. For king Balak this becomes a hugely costly exercise in futility.
Seven altars are built… and a bull and a ram is offered on each alter.
And he does that three times.
That’s costly livestock in any farmer’s estimation: twenty-one bulls and twenty-one rams.

And all that Balak gets for his trouble is blessing upon blessing upon blessing for Israel.

But that encourages us. God’s people are blessed and nothing, nothing can undo that blessing.

2. This third oracle of Balaam’s is much more forward looking… it is a prediction of future blessings.

We find some wonderful images predicting peace and prosperity.
Israel’s homes… spread out like gardens besides rivers.
In fact, some of the language reminds us of the Garden of Eden.
Plants and trees that have been planted by the Lord God.
The imagery is especially telling for people living a dry and inhospitable land.
Water will flow from their buckets and their seed will have abundant water.

Do you see how powerful those predictions really are?
We could easily make the kind of predictions about Israel as the predictions I began with.
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Yeah, right…!
So someone might have predicted: These people will never really amount to much.
They’re a motley bunch of slaves that escaped from Pharaoh in Egypt.
This people is not going to get far as a nation.
Look at their constant rebelliousness and how often they grumbled.

And yet Balaam pictures them as living in wonderful peace and prosperity.
And what’s more, Israel is pictured as a people who are totally victorious over every enemy.
Their king will be greater than the Midianite king Agag.
And then the language becomes very colourful.
They have the strength of a wild ox. They devour hostile nations.

And Balaam got his predictions right… because they were spoken under the guidance of God’s Spirit.
Israel did flourish in the land of milk and honey.
And they did come to a point where they lived in peace and prosperity.

And yet even then we may feel that somehow the picture doesn’t totally fit.
It’s all a little too idealistic. Israel too lived in a broken and fallen world where life was imperfect.
So we also think ahead to God’s marvellous new creation.
Because these glorious blessings find their ultimate fulfilment when Jesus makes all things new.

3. Balaam ends this his third oracle with some telling words in verse 9.

May those who bless you be blessed and those who curse you be cursed.

Did you know that Balaam is here showing us how God related to other nations in the O.T.?
God’s blessing in Old Testament times depended on how folk related to Israel.
You may have wondered about that: how did God relate to people who were not Israelites?
Here you have it: God blesses those who bless Israel and He curses those who curse Israel.

So the prosperity of Israel’s neighbours depended on how they treated God’s chosen people.
We find that already in the covenant that God made with Abraham in Genesis 12 (vs.3).
In fact, this is simply the continuation of the arrangement God had with Abraham.
In Genesis 12 God says to Abraham:
I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse.

Some Christians still want to apply this to Israel today. They say: You must bless the nation of Israel.
They claim God will not bless nations that do not support Israeli policies in the Middle East.
But if we apply that this way to ethnic Israel today we’re making a big mistake.
There is one big difference between the OT and the NT.
In the NT the way of blessing is now found in the way people relate to Jesus.

You and I need to take that on board this morning.
In the person of Jesus the true Israel has arrived.
God now blesses those who bless Jesus and He curses those who curse Jesus.
I want to stress that God’s blessing of you all depends on your attitude to Jesus.

B] THE ADVENT OF A KING.

1. That brings us to the final and the most important of Balaam’s oracles.

When Balak ticks Balaam off for blessing Israel a third time Balaam does two things.

First, he reminds Balak he could not have cursed Israel even for a palace full of silver or gold.
Israel’s God is not a God who can be manipulated as pagans think gods can be manipulated.
Second, he volunteers some further predictions of how things will go in the future.
Israel’s God is a God who guides and directs all the affairs of history just as He pleases.

So Balaam’s fourth and final ‘oracle’ takes in the whole sweep of history.
It’s a series of predictions in which we see nations rise and fall.
It’s actually four separate “discourses” as Balaam considers various nations of that time.
Edom… Amalek… the Kenites… Asshur… God will do with them all just as He pleases.
But in and through it all only God’s special people will survive.

I don’t want to go into all the details of this fourth oracle.
Instead I want you to see in that context a very special prediction.
Balaam foresees the coming of a very special person.
He says: I see him but not now; I behold him but not near.
And then follows what many people regard as one of the most beautiful prophecies about Christ.
A star will come out of Jacob; a sceptre will rise out of Israel.

I agree that these are beautiful words of prophecy.
I agree that ultimately we must finish up with Jesus.
I agree that as a prophecy about Jesus you probably wouldn’t find more beautiful words.
Amazing really! Beautiful words of prophecy… but from a false prophet.
However… I have some reservations.
I think we can read a passage of Scripture and apply it too quickly to Jesus.

2. To understand that we need to stop and think about the nature of Biblical prophecy.

A lot of people today get quite carried away with Bible prophecy.

And they do that without a clear understanding the nature of Bible prophecy.

Bible prophecy is like going for a holiday trip to the mountains.
From a distance you see this mountain looming up and getting ever closer.
But when you actually get to the top you find that this was only the foothills.
Before you is a valley and the main mountain range is still ahead of you.
From a distance it looked like a single mountain ridge.
But when you got there you found that there were really several mountain ridges.

So too Biblical predictions (like these ones from Balaam) often have multiple fulfilments.
We might also compare it to the various layers of an onion.
Take one layer away and there’s yet another layer underneath it.

Let me show you some of the layers of the onion in Numbers 24.
Previously in verse 7 Balaam predicted that Israel’s king would be greater than Agag.
Agag was a Midianite king.
Some have suggested they called all their kings Agag just as Egypt called its kings Pharaoh.

So we can quickly jump to Jesus. He is indeed a much greater king than any Midianite king.
But surely this refers first of all to king Saul, who defeated the Midianite king Agag.
So too with this “star in Jacob” and this rising sceptre we must see an earlier fulfilment.

This exalted Kingdom was fulfilled in David.
So this is a picture of God being glorified through the reign of His anointed king David.

3. So Balaam’s focus in these predictions is indeed on Kingship… but first of all David’s kingship.

From a Biblical viewpoint that was the great climax of kingship in Israel.
In a real sense the kingship of David exceeded even that of Solomon.
Solomon simply reaped what David had sown.
And it is David who is held up for ever afterwards as the great example of kingship,

Furthermore David’s Kingship was the very height of Israel’s glory.
By the end of his reign he ruled the largest amount of territory ever held by the nation of Israel.
And by the end of his rule all those blessings of Balaam had become reality.
They did have the strength of a wild ox and they did devour hostile nations.
And they were indeed… spread out like gardens beside a river.
like aloes planted by the Lord, like cedars beside the waters.

Only after we have done justice to this all being fulfilled in David may we then also look to Jesus.
And we certainly must do that.
Because David was a type of Christ… he foreshadowed the Kingship of Christ.
Christ is the great son of David who lives and reigns for ever.

Again some people will wrongly apply this prophecy to today.
They will tell you that just as you must bless Israel in order to be blessed…
so too all these other things are literally true of today’s Israel in the Middle East.
Today Israel is making the Palestinian desert blossom.
And today they are growing like gardens beside a river.

But that’s like looking at the wrong mountain ridge.
We’ve moved on beyond that mountain peak of Christ’s first coming.
We may not go back to that earlier layer of prophetic onion that is about an earthly Israel.
We are now looking ahead to an even greater fulfilment in God’s marvellous new creation.
Something that will come about when Jesus returns as King on the clouds of heaven.

C] THE ONE WHO RULES AS KING.

1. In the light of all that let’s then examine a couple of features of the imagery in Balaam’s predictions.

First there is the imagery of the Star coming out of Jacob in verse 17.

Again it’s tempting to jump right away to the NT and to the story of Jesus birth.
We may even wonder if this prophecy was read by the wise men who followed a star to Jesus.
But again we must begin with David.
In the ancient world it was common to refer to kings as stars.
The way they saw their rulers was probably much the way we see our sporting heroes.
We have our movie stars and our sports stars.
In a similar way David would have been regarded as a star by the people of Israel.

And yet having said that there is a special way in which this applies to Jesus.
Note for example that he is spoken of as coming out of Jacob… not out of Israel.
By putting it that way the emphasis falls on our Lord’s humanity.

And at this point we should also ask ourselves: What distinguishes a star from other heavenly bodies?
The nature of a star is that it has it’s own source of light.
It’s not a planet… or a moon. They simply reflect the light of the sun.
In that sense we should really call our sporting heroes and movie heroes – planets.
Jesus alone is a star in that He has the light within Himself to take away our darkness.

We live in a world that worships false stars. But in Revelation 22:16 Jesus is the bright Morning Star.

Only He can remove your darkness. Only He can bring you into the wonderful light of God’s Kingdom.

2. Finally there is also that picture of a sceptre: A sceptre will arise out of Israel.

Here especially authority is pictured.
The sceptre is the symbol of royalty, of sovereignty, of power and dominion.
The sceptre is a Monarch’s symbol of rulership.

This is not the only time that we come across a Bible prophecy about a sceptre either.
At the end of his life Jacob farewelled his sons by pronouncing on each of them a blessing.
When Jacob got to Judah he too made a spirit-led prediction about a sceptre as he said:
The sceptre will not depart from Judah nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet.

Here again there are those multiple mountain ridges of fulfilment:
All of this was clearly and decisively fulfilled in David.
He wielded authority in a way that is clearly pictured in these verses.

David did crush the Moabites and the nation of Edom.
These nations all paid tribute to him… he put garrisons in their towns and ruled over them.
In David a mighty sceptre arose out of Israel.
And under the guidance of God it subdued all the surrounding nations.

At the same time that sceptre ultimately points us to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And then especially Jesus Christ in His Kingly rule.
By His death and resurrection He earned the right to be the King of kings and Lord of lords.
And at the end of the ages ever knee will bow before Him.

That means that ultimately all the wonderful blessings pronounced this chapter…
are enjoyed only under the rule and reign of Christ as Lord and King.

3. That makes these predictions of Balaam doubly encouraging for us today.

We live in a world where we repeatedly struggle to make sense out of life.
Unrest in the Middle East… a huge oil spill in the gulf of Mexico.
The daily news bring us more than enough of murder and mayhem on the streets.
And then so often in our own lives and in our own families things fall apart.
How do we cope with all the garbage that life throws at us?

Well, here is a picture of a God who is in control of life and of history.
So much in control that he cannot be manipulated by the Balaks and Balaams of this world.

This God is guiding and leading all things… and He’s doing that for a purpose.
And what’s that purpose? It’s to bless His people out of their socks.
So at the end of the day we, God’s people, are going to be the survivors.
And not just survivors… we are the ones who will find peace and prosperity.
And victory over all of those who oppose us.

But there is a condition to enjoying these glorious blessings of God.
For folk back then it was to live in Israel under the Kingship of David… under his sceptre.
For us it’s to live our lives by submitting to the Kingly rule of Jesus Christ.
The place of blessing for you today is under His authority.

What a great tragedy that Balaam saw all of that… but he didn’t share the blessings.
Instead by the end of the book of Numbers Balaam is dead.
He opted against the side of this Kingly nation.
In his greed for Balak’s money he opposed the very Messiah he was proclaiming.
And the result is that he dies in his rebellion against God.

That’s a warning for us. You can sit here in Church listening to the message of Jesus our King.

And yet die as a stranger to the blessings of the Kingdom. Submit to King Jesus and live… really live.

Amen