Today’s Reading: Num. 23-25 & Mark 7:14-37
Today’s Reflection: Numbers 24:11 Therefore now flee thou to thy place: I thought to promote thee unto great honour; but, lo, the LORD hath kept thee back from honour.
We do not demand ANYTHING from The Lord! Unfortunately, king Balak just didn’t get that. He was attempting to convince the prophet Balaam to curse Israel for his sake, but Balaam could not and therefore would not. What is puzzling to me about this entire passage, however, is how Balaam attempted to go along with king Balak’s plan on three different occasions in three different locations to use enchantments to see if they might essentially persuade The Lord to change His mind. It is obvious that Balaam was interested in the financial gain he would achieve were he successful in getting God to cooperate with Balak’s plan. However, even though Balaam was not right in his motives or intentions, God’s blessing upon Israel was so powerful that Balaam could not curse them even if he tried. As a matter of fact, the third time he thought he’d ask God to revisit the subject and reconsider, he was overtaken by God’s Spirit and literally fell into a trance only to speak the blessing that God had for His people. In other words, God over-ruled Balaam’s desire and forced him to bless, even when he had hoped to curse them for financial gain. We know this was his intent because of his continual attempts at seeking The Lord on this matter even though God had already made it clear to him from day one. Now the lesson we can learn is this; we should seek only the approval, honor, and blessings of God and not the promotions of men. It was interesting to me that in the new testament Balaam is only mentioned for his greed, although in our text he did follow through, at least externally (if even by force), with precisely the will of God concerning the matter. So why was he still demoted, not only in the natural world, but in the spiritual ranks? It was not because of outward disobedience, but inward disobedience. God knew that Balaam had a price. He could be bought. Although God did not let him go there, the point is, had God not stopped him, he might very well have gone in the wrong direction. So in our selected verse, king Balak had it wrong…God did not withhold honor from Balaam…he did that to himself, because he was for sale. There’s no honor in putting yourself up for sale. Success in this world gives you no advancement towards the favor of God. BUT, the favor of God could give you advancement towards success in life as you serve Him in your purpose. Question: Do you have a price? Or, are you “not for sale”?
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