Day 064 (Numbers 23-25) - Year 8

0:00Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap. Yesterday, Baylam and his donkey arrived on their journey to meet with Balak, King of Moab. It was an ancient belief in the Canaanite culture that you could speak things into existence. So Balak hired Baylam to curse the Israelites because he was afraid they would defeat him and take the land of Moab. But at their first stop, God gives Baylam a word to speak about Israel and much to Balak's dismay, it's a blessing. In 239, Baylam references Israel set a partners, calling them a people dwelling alone and not counting itself among the nations. Balak doesn't like the sound of this, so he says, let's take a look at them from a different angle. Maybe you'll see something worth cursing then. But the same thing happens, Baylam can only pronounce blessing. In 2320, he says, his words don't have power to undo what God has done.

1:03Our words may have an impact, but they can't overrule the plan of God. Nothing is waltier than his will. And not only does Baylam know that now, but in 241, we also see that through this experience, he abandons the sorcery he has relied on and learns to seek God's face instead. But it's only temporary. But for now, the spirit of God was empowering his words, not evil spirits. But Balak is still not satisfied, of course, and he's like, third time's a charm? Let's go do this again, but how about this time you don't say anything good or bad? He's really grasping its draws here. But again, Baylam has nothing but good words, and in fact, words that are terrifying to Balak, because they go against everything he was hoping to hear. He says, he shall eat up the nations, his adversaries, and break their bones in pieces. Yikes. But Baylam reminds him that he can only say what God tells him to say. And in fact, his third blessing closes with the words spoken to Abraham by God roughly

2:05700 years earlier. Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you. Which ultimately means God is pronouncing a curse on Balak himself as well. The thing he was aiming for turned back on him. Balak is furious, but also helpless. Striving is cumbersome, exhausting work. During this whole scenario, Balak tries bargaining, manipulation, stalling, and threatening. These three instances in the wilderness between Baylam and Balak remind me of the three-time Satan-temp's Jesus in the wilderness, and nothing butges either time. For all Balak's fear, control, manipulation, bargaining, negotiating, stalling, and threatening, for all his mountain climbing, and altar building, and animal sacrificing, Balak did not budge the will of God. For all it costs in frustration and effort, striving still only results in the preordained will of God. After getting stiffed for his work, Baylam closes out with a final oracle about Israel,

3:10highlighting some military victories that will take place. When we kept back to the Israelites at the bottom of the mountain where Baylam had been prophesying, and what are they up to? Idolatry, naturally. This is reminiscent of when Moses was up on Mount Sinai with God, and the people were in the valley worshipping their jewelry. Here though, the men are led astray by the pagan ladies, not gold, and they end up worshipping their false gods, specifically the God Baal. We'll find out later in chapter 31 that Baylam was behind all of this, scheming and using the women to entice the Israelites into idolatry, probably in an effort to reverse the blessing on Israel. Maybe there was money involved. The enemy is tricky, you guys. He knows what we want and uses it against us in our own hearts. Even though Baylam was behind this, Israel is still responsible for the fact that they gave into the temptation, and God's response to Israel's idolatry is to have the chiefs of the people killed first.

4:10Then God orders the judges to kill those among their people who have broken their covenant with him. They're about to enter the promised land soon, and God doesn't want them to bring this impurity into the land with them. When I, in particular, the son of a chief, brings a woman, the daughter of a Midianite chief, into his tent in front of everyone. And I immediately thought of that phrase we learned recently, sinning with a high hand. That's what this felt like, belligerent, arrogant, shameless sinning. As a result of all this, God sent another plague as well. People are dying left and right. And maybe Phineas, Aaron's grandson remembered what his grandpa did the last time this happened, how he intervened by bringing out the incense and it stopped the plague. So Phineas takes a spear and stabs them both through and the plague stops. But not before 24,000 people died as a result of all this idolatry. God honors Phineas for his righteous anger, for his high view of God's holiness.

5:11And we end today with God commanding Israel to strike down the Midianites. Israel can't be left alone for a minute or their hearts turn aside to false gods, and God knows it. He wants more for them. What was your God shot today? Where did you see God's character on display? I was dumb struck by some of the things he said about Israel through the words of Bailem, specifically in his second oracle in 2321. Tell me if you recognize the people God's describing here because I sure don't. He said, he has not beheld misfortune in Jacob, nor has he seen trouble in Israel. The word translated misfortune here is almost always translated as iniquity, unrighteousness, or wickedness elsewhere in scripture. And the word trouble has similar possible translations. So in Hebrew, this verse could quite possibly read, he has not beheld iniquity in Jacob, nor has he seen wickedness in Israel. I don't know what kind of rose-killered glasses God is wearing, but I want some, right?

6:13The thing is, God has seen these things in them. He's not blind. Remember all those times he wanted to kill them? And he's not stupid. It's not that he forgot about all that stuff. And he's not a liar. So he's not just making it sound nice. So what on earth is he talking about? This is what love sees. Love has eyes that see beyond our actions and beyond even our hearts. And especially God's love. Because even 1,000 plus years prior to Christ's death, his future blood paid for their present sins, his death covered them. God is not constrained by time. He invented it. He's both outside time and inside it, so he's already in the future, where his stiff-neck children have been perfected and restored. He can pronounce these things as true because to him, they already are. Wicked, rebellious, whoring after false gods, and still, his love seeks us out and draws

7:13us in to the deeper joys, not the fleeting ones, as his spirit remakes us. Because just like our God who sees more to us than meets the eye, we can access that same kind of truth, too. I believe if you dig deep, pass the surface of all your unmet longings and your temporary fixes and your open wounds and your wild frustrations, you will find it. Underneath all our fleeting desires, our hearts know he's where the joy is. Who do you know who would enjoy the Bible recap? Write them to read and listen along with you. If they missed our January launch, encourage them to start with day one today. There's nothing special about January 1st. I started my first trip through the Bible on a day in August. No matter what day it is, that's always the best day to start reading the Bible.