Blessed are the pure in heart

When I was in Edgehill College I got to go on a placement to Sri Lanka.  On one occasion a group of us climbed a small mountain called Bible Rock.  We ascended through a leach infected forest.  At the top was a plateau.  To our surprise there was a hut there, which was the home of a Buddhist monk.  To our even greater surprise he had a television in that hut.  And I am not too sure how surprised we were that he wanted to charge us money to see his shrine.

Presumably that monk believed that by breaking away from society he might be more able to live a holy life.

I hope that holiness is a concern for each of us, but if you are like me not only is there the desire to be holy there is the disappointment as we realise how unholy we are.              

            As we look at Matthew 5 verse 8 we are going to ask five questions.

1.  What is the heart?

2.  What does it mean to have a pure heart?

3.  How can our hearts become pure?

4.  What about the impurity I see in my heart?

5.  What does it mean to see God?

Question 1:  What is the heart?

We tend of associate the heart with affection.  If we love someone we put a heart by their name, if we lose someone we are broken-hearted.  However the Bible uses ‘heart’ in a much broader way.  

            Mark 2:6-7, reads, ‘‘Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that?”’ The word translated ‘thinking’ is ‘kardiais’, which comes from kardia (heart).  Hence the King James Version translates, ‘they reasoned in their hearts.’  The heart for the Bible writers includes what we might refer to as the ‘mind’.

            There are numerous passages in the Bible that talk of people being hard-hearted, they are stubborn.  The heart referring to the ‘will’. 

So when we look at this verse we are not just talking of our affections, but also our ‘mind’ and our ‘will’. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, says that in the Bible, ‘heart’ means the centre of one’s personality.  Purity of heart has to do with our very core being, it is to show itself in our likes and dislikes, our motivation, our thoughts and our understanding.

The Bible also tells us that humankind has a heart problem. In Mark 7:21-23 Jesus declares, ‘. . .out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.’  Out of men’s hearts—you see that Buddhist monk was wasting his time thinking that by breaking away from society he would achieve holiness, for as he climbed up that mountain (presumably on one occasion bringing his) his problem came with him.  It has been said that, ‘The heart of the human problem, is the problem of the human heart.’  If we are to have real holiness then something needs to happen in our heart.  

Question 2: ‘What does it mean to have a pure heart?’

The primary emphasis on the word pure in our verse, according to John Stott, is ‘sincerity’.  J. B. Phillips translates these words, ‘blessed are the utterly sincere. . .’

During Jesus earthly ministry people who would have had a great reputation for holiness would have been the Pharisees.  They seemed to hover around the Temple and Synagogues, they tithed even the herbs of their garden, they fasted and prayed, they would have been great for quoting Scriptures; but this is what Jesus says to them- Matthew 23:25-26, ‘Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.  Blind Pharisee!  First clean the inside of the cup, and then the outside will also be clean.’

The word hypocrite comes from a word meaning ‘to act’.  Their actions are not sincere, it was all just a show.  So what does he tell them?  ‘First clean the inside of the cup’, their heart- their desires, their motives, their mindset, their very being must be transformed; ‘and then the outside of the dish will also be clean’—they will act with sincerity.  Genuine holiness is heart holiness, it is sincere rather than an act because it works from the inside out.   

Question 3: ‘How can our hearts become pure?’

We have already pointed out that humankind has a heart problem, so how can we ever hope to have a pure heart?

David prayed in Psalm 51, ‘Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.’ God can do for us, what we can not do for ourselves.

            Tragically that Buddhist monk on his own on top of that mountain, lacked the one thing he needed if he ever was to have heart holiness: a relationship with the true and living God.

Yes we may be able to change some of our patterns of behaviour, but only God can change our very core—our heart. 

            However the fact that it is God’s work doesn’t mean that we just put up our feet and wait for it to happen.  Philippians 2:12-13,  ‘. . . continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good pleasure.’

            It is God who changes us, verse 13 . . . who works in you to will and to act according to his good pleasure’ and because of that we are to ‘continue to work out our salvation’ i.e., to grow up in our faith; there is a responsibility upon us, to act dependant co-operation. Not activism or self dependant effort.  Not passivism or apathy. Dependant co-operation.

Question 4: ‘What about the impurity I see in my heart?’

            I want you to turn to page x (2 Corinthians 3).

            When we became Christians, when we were born-again God did a work in our hearts.  We see this in verse 3.  Paul writes to the Christians in Corinth saying, ‘You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts’ (a reference to our Old Testament reading).

            Yet even as born-again people we are so often aware that we are not as we ought to be.  That we so often fail to be like Jesus.  Well thank God his work in our hearts has not finished.  Look over the page to verse 18, And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

            We are ‘being transformed’, we are not yet the finished article, but there is a change taking place.  It is as if God has put a ‘work in progress’ sign over our hearts.

John Newton the slave trader who became a Christian, and who wrote the hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ said, ‘I may not be as good as I ought to be, but by the grace of God, I am not as bad as I used to be.’  

Question 5: ‘What does it mean ‘to see God’?’

Martin Lloyd-Jones, ‘Christian people can see God in a sense that nobody else can.  The Christian can see God in nature, whereas the none Christian cannot.  The Christian sees God in the events of history.  There is a vision possible to the eye of faith that no-one else has.  But there is a seeing also in the sense of knowing Him, a sense of feeling he is near, and enjoying his presence. . . Another way that we see him is in our experience, in His gracious dealings with us . . But of course that is nothing compared with what is yet to be.’

The pure in heart experience God. 

Knowing him, sense of feeling he in near

1 John 3 verse 2-3, ‘Dear friends, now we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  Everyone who has this hope purifies himself, just as he is pure.’

‘[T]he Christian purifies himself now because pure is what he will ultimately be’ (Carson) . 

‘The pure in heart are blessed because they will see God.  Although this is not ultimately true until the new heaven and earth, yet it is true even now.  Our perception of God and his ways, as well as our fellowship with him, depends on our purity of heart’ (Carson).  What an incentive to purity!

‘Blessed are the pure in heart,

for they shall see God.’

 

 

 

 

The tribes that settle to the east of the Jordan

In Numbers 32 half of the tribe of Manasseh, the tribe of Reuben and the tribe of dan ask to settle on the east side of the Jordan, outside the Promised Land (32:5).

Moses is initially worried that this will discourage the rest of the tribes from entering the Promised Land.  But they assure Moses that they will send their fighting men with the other tribes to conquer Canaan.

A word on the daughters of Zelophehad

Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see' (Hebrews 11:1)

The book of Numbers is given that name because in contains are two censuses.  One at the beginning and one at end of the book. 

Both censuses are of fighting men aged twenty years are older.  The Levites are not counted because they did not fight.

The censuses are forty years apart.  By the second census all those recorded in the first census have died, except for Caleb and Joshua (Moses is not yet dead, but he will not enter the Promised Land).

The second census records a slight decrease of the first.  God had intended for his people to multiply, but this had been a stagnant period of time.

The second census is bookended by mention of the daughters of Zelophehad.  They give us hope that the new generation will be more faithful than the last.

These women care about justice, for their father.  He had died with five daughters but no sons.  Without sons his name--and any allotment of land in his name--would vanish.  The sisters mention that Zelophehad had not taken part in the rebellion of Korah.  He was a normal sinner who died a normal death.  God makes provision for the daughters to inherit and for the land to remain in the tribe, the tribe of Manasseh.

The reason that these women are to be admired so much is that they are exercising great faith. They weren't questioning God's ability to give them the land.  they are already planning what to do when they get there.

Now faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of what we do not see' (Hebrews 11:1)

 

God’s grace to complainers (Numbers 20:1-13)

She looked at me in anger and said, ‘you don’t care about us.’  She gave me a real dressing down.  I didn’t know what to say, but for the next few months (actually for the next couple of years) I went over that conversation again and again.  Mostly I defended myself.  But the greatest sting of criticism is where we know there is at least some truth in it.  I know that at times I do not care enough for people. 

It came to an end when she wrote me a letter of apology.  She was so kind and gracious, because when I tried to explain that I too was at fault she explained that her apology was unconditional.  She was not insisting I meet her halfway.  Her initial words may have been harsh, but she had allowed God reshape her heart.  My heart had simply ruminated.  Grace had softened her, but I had not let grace shape me.

This morning we are looking at how God responds to complaint.  Of course, he has not done anything wrong.  While there are times that God responds to his complaining people with acts of discipline, here he simply responds with immense kindness.  This is a challenge for us when we are on the receiving end of criticism.

What you should do when people complain

‘Now there was no water for the congregation.  And they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.  And the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord!  Why have you brought the assembly of the LORD into the wilderness, that we might die here, both we and our cattle?  And why have you made us come out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place?  It is not place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink”’ (2-5).

Their complaint is so unfair!  They have forgotten that Egypt was a place of slavery.  They had had cried out in great suffering and God had rescued them.  Besides, it wasn’t Moses who had brought them into the wilderness, it was God.  The reason they were still in the wilderness was that they had refused to trust God and let him lead them into Canaan.  They might not have figs or vines or pomegranates, but that was their fault.  The twelve spies had brought figs and pomegranates back from the Promised Land, along a vine so great that it took two men to carry it on a pole, but they refused to trust God to bless them!

Moses and Aaron did what we should do when people complain against us—they prayed!  When you can’t ever please your parents, bring it to God.  When that workmate is a faultfinder, bring it to God.  When your spouse never seems pleased, bring it to God.  When your children think you are the worst, bring it to God.  ‘Lord, I don’t know what to do.  Help me!  They are saying things that hurt.  Please keep my heart from bitterness.  Give me wisdom.’

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water.  So, you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle’ (8-9).

God is so kind!  The people’s complaint against Moses and Aaron was really a complaint against him.  They were implying that he could not be trusted, and that he had let them down.  Yet he blesses them.  God does not treat us as our sins deserve but according to his loving kindness.

What you shouldn’t do when people complain

God was wanting to treat the people with undeserved kindness, Moses was not!  He speaks to them harshly.  ‘Hear now, you rebels’ (10a).  James tells us that ‘human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires’ (James 1:20).  He not only acts as their judge, he is thinking of himself as their savior. ‘… shall we bring water from the rock?’ (10b).  He is not the one who can make water gush from the rock, only God can do that. 

It’s tragic to see Moses act so proudly, for we have already been told that he was the humblest man on the earth (12:3).  To be on the receiving end of complaint is a real test for our hearts.  If we simply respond with self-justification we will become proud.  ‘Who are they to speak about me like that?’  God had shown these people such kindness and had done them no wrong.  Yet he responds to them with even more kindness.  May we seek to show the kindness of God to those who complain about us.

Forty years earlier the people had also complained about lack of water and God gave them water from a rock (Exod. 17:1-7).  God had already described himself as their rock (Gen. 49:24), so the symbolism was clear.  It’s even clearer for us, for the apostle Paul tells us that the rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4).  In Exodus Moses had been commanded to strike the rock and water came gushing out.  ‘In that awesome picture of grace, the Lord was willing to be struck himself instead of his rebellious people, so that they might receive life-giving water’ (Duguid).  Jesus takes the punishment we deserve so that we might be blessed in him.

After I preached on this church, a friend of mine pointed out something I had missed.  Why didn't God command Moses to strike the rock again?  He wasn't to strike the rock again because the rock had already been struck.  If this is a picture of Jesus being struck for our sin, then we need to realise that Jesus' being struck was a once and for all event.  

God’s grace poured out over our critical spirit

What a lovely picture it would have been if Moses had obeyed God’s command!  Moses only would have spoken and God would have delivered.  With Moses striking the rock there was the danger that Moses and his staff would get the glory.  You see the other ‘gods’ of that region could be manipulated by sorcerers and diviners.  But if Moses had simply spoken to the rock no one could have thought that this was God’s doing.

Despite the people complaining, and Moses disobeying, there was abundant grace.  I had never before thought of what that word ‘gush’ implied.  Here is water for six-hundred thousand fighting men and their families and their livestock.  This is not a well down the back garden, this is a mighty waterfall.  ‘Behold, what manner of love the father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God’ (1 John 3:1).  Where sin increased grace increased all the more (Romans 5:20).  There is more mercy in God that sin in us.

Moses’s disobedience was serious.  The LORD explained to Moses that in this act he was failing to trust God.  The same lack of trust that had stopped the people entering Canaan.  He had also failed to uphold God as holy in the eyes of the people.  He did not show God the reverence he is due.  Remember that in the pervious incident with water from the rock Moses had been told him that, ‘I will stand there before you on the rock’ (Ex. 17:6).  Hitting the rock may have been an expression of great anger directed at God.  Be careful that your frustration with God’s people does not turn into frustration with God.  Many people have turned away from God’s church because of their frustration with God’s people.  I am not saying that you can never change churches, but when you cut off yourself from all local fellowships you are wounding the body of Christ.

Moses is disciplined for his disobedience.  He will not now enter the Promised Land.  I think we feel this is unfair because we believe God owes Moses.  After all Moses had put up with these complaining people for forty years of ministry.  But God does not owe us anything.  You see even the best things we do are stained with that terrible sin of pride and self-congratulation.  Jesus said that at the end of our day we should simply say, ‘we are unworthy servants who have only done our duty’ (Luke 17:10).

Yet grace does win in the life of Moses.  I remember being moved when a famous preacher that I got to listen to told us that Moses did indeed enter the Promised Land.  Remember the transfiguration.  Jesus is standing in the Promised Land revealing the beauty of his holiness, and who is there with him?  Moses and Elijah.  What Moses could not do because of his sin, he could experience because of Jesus.  Better still, there is a Promised Land that awaits all those who have entrusted themselves to God’s forgiving and transforming grace.  We will share that land with the risen Jesus, with Moses, and with all those who look forward to his appearing.  He calls you to step into the gushing grace that can cleanse us to the uttermost.

Conclusion

‘These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the LORD, and through them he showed himself holy’ (13).

There are two places that were named Meribah in the Old Testament.  They are the two places where God brought water from the rock.  Meribah means ‘quarrelling’.  The people were complaining against Moses, and really criticizing God.  In both cases God responds to their complaints with waters of blessing.  He showed himself holy (or different than us) by how he responded to their criticism. 

When was the last time you complained?  Both criticism and complaint are expressions of our dissatisfaction.  Maybe, like Moses, you looked at those you live with and judged them: ‘you rebels!’  ‘You are not treating me as I deserve!’  Like the people of Israel, you may be angry about your circumstances.  Behind our criticism and complaints can be an attitude of, ‘I deserve better’ or ‘I know better’.  We think we have been let down by others, or even by God himself.

So, how do we change?

We change as grace teaches us that God has truly been good to us!  Remember that the rock is Christ.  If you have been swallowed up by the love of Jesus then God does not treat you as your sins deserve but according to his loving kindness.  Jesus is God’s assurance that he is good to his people—for he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Rom. 8:32).

So, we ask God for the grace to respond to complainers with the kindness God has shown us.  We try not to complain by trusting God even when our circumstances test us.  We ask God for the grace to see the cross and sing of his goodness.

Do you want to be a zealot? (Numbers 25)

How you would like to be remembered?

Maybe they would say, ‘she had faith, like Abraham’, ‘he was kind, like Boaz’, ‘she was loyal, like Ruth,’ ‘he held on to God, like Job’, ‘he was passionate, like Peter’, or ‘he was a great encourager, like Barnabas’.  But what about Phineas?  Would you like to be seen as a zealot?

Zeal gets mixed press these days.  We talk about people with misguided zeal.  We might think of a terrorist as being zealot.  Indeed, on a surface reading it looks like Phineas is a terrorist.  Zeal looks unbalanced and dangerous.

I hope to show you that Phinehas’s zeal is worth imitating.

We should want to honour God with our eyes and our bodies (1-4)

What an irony that straight after God causes Balaam to bless the people they run headlong into scandalous evil.  They were a people not counting themselves among the nations (23:9), yet now they are behaving as the worst of the nations.  God had described their tents as lovely (24:5), and now they engage in filth.  Balaam could not bring a curse upon them, but they stir God’s anger up themselves.

We are told later that the plan to seduce the Israelite men was Balaam’s (31:16).  Presumably he was still seeking money from, Balak, the king of Moab.  Perhaps he said to Balak, ‘their God won’t let me curse them, but what about getting your women to seduce them?’  The worship of Baal of Peor involved sexual rituals.  The men were happy to indulge in sex and sacrifices.  Balaam would later pay for his wicked scheming with his life (31:8).

The Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel.  The Lord told Moses to take the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the Lord, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.  The leaders had failed to correct the people’s idolatry and endangered the whole community.  Leadership comes with increased responsibility.  James writes, ‘not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly’ (James 3:1).

A woman asked John Piper if God could ever feel such anger against people who are in Christ.  He explained that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  Jesus is our chief whose death has turned away God’s judicial anger from us.  One thing that He never feels towards us is contempt.  Yet we can grieve the Holy Spirit.  While those who do not have a relationship with Jesus cannot please Him, we can.  If we are capable of pleasing Him then sadly we are capable of disappointing Him.  This story shows us how seriously God takes sexual sin.  We should want to honour God with our eyes and bodies.       

We should pray, ‘Lord, break my heart for what breaks yours’ (5-9)

The Bible commentator, Iain Duguid, points out that Moses doesn’t seem to want to obey God’s command to execute the tribal chiefs.  Instead, he says to the judges of Israel, ‘each of you kill those of his men who have yoked themselves to Baal of Peor’ (5).  It seems that Moses doesn’t even carry out this more limited punishment.

The people weep at the entrance of the tabernacle.  Maybe they are devastated at the sin that has infected their camp.  We sometimes sing, ‘break my heart for what breaks yours.’  May we see the awfulness of sexual sin and idolatry for what it is!  Meanwhile a plague of God’s judgement is sweeping over God’s people.

Then something shocking happens.  ‘And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting.  When Phineas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the young man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her belly.  Thus the plague of the people of Israel was stopped.  Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand’ (6-9).

There is debate about where this couple are having sex.  Were they having sex in a family tent near the tabernacle?  Some think that they were having sex in the tabernacle itself.  They seem to flaunt their relationship in from of the people who were at the entrance to the tabernacle.  Certainly the this is an outrageous act of rebellion in or around the tabernacle. 

It is important to realise that Phineas was not a vigilante.  He was not simply talking the law into his own hands.  This is not like someone bombing an abortion clinic or murdering a vocal enemy of God’s people.  Phineas, the grandson of the High Priest, was a part of the Levites who were reasonable for guarding the sanctuary against defilement.  We are not told exactly where the chamber was where the man from the tribe of Simeon and the Midianite woman were having sex but it seems to be in or near the tabernacle compound.

Are we zealous?  When we see evil vividly portrayed before us on the news are we moved to weep and pray?  Are we a people zealous for good works (Titus 2:14)?  Are we moved to action when we see the homeless on our city streets?  Do we advocate for the unborn, and tell those living in the shadow of abortion of the God who loves to forgive?  Do we speak up for the migrant and those discriminated against?  Do we seek opportunities to tell a wicked world about the one who gave His life for our sin?  

Let our godly zeal be a legacy to those who follow us (10-18)

The final verses of this passage tell us who the main players in the story were and how their actions affected those who came after them.  We live in an individualistic society where we think that what we do is no one’s business but ours.  That is not how the Bible sees things.  We are interrelated.  We are parts of families.  We should be connected to a church.  What we do affects others.  We can see that lived out all around us.  The sins of the fathers and mothers have consequences for the sons and daughters.  The godly zeal of the mothers and fathers can bring blessing.  Indeed, we are inheritors of the blessing of our older brother, Jesus.

Because Phineas cared about the honour of God and was willing to act, God gave to him a covenant of peace, and his descendants a perpetual priesthood.  The name of the man who was killed was Zimri, from the tribe of Simeon.  When it comes to the census later in the book of Numbers we will see that their number has dramatically fallen.  Perhaps they suffered most in the plague.  The woman, Cozbi, was the daughter of a tribal chief of Midian.  Moses is told to strike down the Midianites.

What we do affects those connected with us.  What you look at on a screen might not just pollute your mind, it may affect the whole spiritual climate of our church.  Bitterness and unforgiveness are never simply private sins.  Likewise, we can bless generations to come by laying a foundation of love and good deeds.  You might remember me mentioning a woman called ‘auntie Emma’ who was a matriarch in the last church I served.  When I met her in a nursing home and saw that her dementia-filled mind was bursting with love for Jesus, I believe I saw one of the reasons why the church had a legacy of kindness and grace.  There is a lovely old proverb that says, ‘a healthy society is one where old men plant trees that they will never see ripen.’  Let our godly zeal be a legacy to those who follow us!

Conclusion

‘God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Corinthians 5:21).

You know how we know that zeal is a good thing?  We know that zeal is a good thing because the opposite of zeal is apathy.  Apathy has nothing to commend itself to us.

There is one greater that Phineas.  Like Phineas he was zealous against sin.  But instead of piercing the sinner he was pierced for the sinful.  It wasn't their death that stopped God's judgement but his.  He wants his people to be holy, as he is holy.  But we can't become holy apart from him.  We can't change in our own strength.  So we look at him.  We delight in what he has done for us.  We strive for in the power of his spirit to change.      

May it be said of us, ‘they had godly zeal, just like Phineas.’

God desires to bless you (Numbers 22-24)

A friend of mine mentioned the danger of reading too much into our circumstances.  Life has not turned out for her as she had hoped.  A significant relationship had broken down.  Certain dreams have not come to be.  In the pain of this she had begun to think that God was angry with her.  But thankfully she regained her belief that God is good towards her.

In the unusual story of Balaam and his donkey we see God’s desire to bless a complaining and unfaithful people.  But what does His blessing look like?

I think we can learn a lot about the blessed life by pondering the blessing of Aaron at the beginning of the book of Numbers (6:24-26).  To be blessed is to have Yahweh’s face turned towards you, so that he can be gracious to you and give you peace.  The blessed life is experienced in the realisation that God no longer treats us as our sins deserve, but according to His loving-kindness, and the fact that He is with us even when life is difficult.

1.      God has the power over every blessing and curse (1-6)

The people of Moab were the descendants of Lot, who was Abraham’s nephew.  Lot who had received extraordinary kindness from God.  Yet the Moabites had quickly abandoned God.  Now they worshipped their own god, Chemosh.  Despite their hatred of Him, God was still kind to them.  He had told the Israelites not to harass them or contend with them in battle, ‘because I have given Ar to the people of Lot for a possession’ (Deut. 2:9).

However, their king, Balak heard that the Israelites had just defeated the Amorites.  He also knew that God had delivered these people from slavery in Egypt.  The Moabites dreaded the Israelites, ‘because they are many’ (3) and ‘they cover the face of the earth’ (5).  God had promised Abraham that his people would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand of the seashore.  God has been working to fulfil His promises.

God had also promised Abraham that He would bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him, and that through Abraham all the nations of the world would be blessed (Gen. 12:3).  So, what should Balak and the Moabites have done?  They should have turned to the God of Israel and blessed God’s people.  Then God would have blessed him and shown them mercy.  Instead, Balak seeks to curse the people of God.

He sends messengers to Balaam, asking Balaam to curse the people of Israel.  Notice, that he credits Balaam with the ultimate ability to bring blessing and curse.  ‘I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed’ (6).  The people of the Ancient Near East believed that there were many gods, and that those gods could be manipulated through the practice of divination.  The truth is that there is only one true God, and He has the ultimate power over every blessing and curse.

Some of you come from cultures where there is much more awareness of the dangers of witchcraft.  Even in this country things like wicca are growing in popularity.  What about things like voodoo?  The Christian knows to stay away from such things.  We are also comforted by the fact that our God has the power over every blessing and curse (23:23).

2.      God blesses undeserving people (7-21)

Balak, the king of Moab, sent the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian to Balaam ‘with fees for divination in their hands’ (7).  That is significant.  In the New Testament, the apostle Peter tells us that was motivated by ‘the love of gain for wrongdoing’ (2 Peter 2:15).  Don’t be taken in when you hear Balaam talk of ‘the LORD my God’ (18).  Balaam is not a genuine follower of God.  People in the culture would have no problem claiming multiple gods as their own.  Balaam would happily curse Gods people, if God had allowed him.

Look at God’s words to Balaam: ‘you shall not curse the people because they are blessed’ (12).  This story of Balaam was one of the key reasons I wanted to preach on the book of Numbers.  Here is our God continually seeking the good of His unfaithful and complaining people.  He is the God who does not treat us according to what our sins deserve, but according to His loving-kindness.

Balaam initially refuses to go to Balak.  But Balak, king of Moab, sends more princes and elders, and presumably the offer of more money.  Again, Balaam refuses to go with them.  Yet, rather than sending them straight home Balaam invites them to stay the night ‘so that I may know what more the LORD will say to me’ (19).  He was hoping that God might change His mind, or that he might yet find some other way to get his hands on Balak’s gold (Duguid).  That night God said, ‘go with them; but only do what I tell you’ (20).  ‘So, Balaam rose in the morning and saddled his donkey and went with the princes with of Moab’ (21).

3.      No power can stop God from blessing His people (22-41)

As Balaam sets out God’s anger is kindled against him.  But why would God be angry when He told Balaam to go with the Moabites?  He is angry because He is the God who sees the heart, and He knows that Balaam is simply motivated by the thought of Balak’s gold.  Balaam is quite happy to curse the people God loves for profit.  But God will not let him!

Balaam’s donkey sees the angel of the Lord standing in the road, with a drawn sword in his hand.  Those of us who are animal lovers don’t like what happens next: Balaam strikes his poor loyal donkey.  Indeed, the angel of the Lord will rebuke Balaam for this.  ‘Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel’ (Proverbs 12:10). 

Eventually the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, but even more significantly the Lord opens the eyes of Balaam to see the angel of the Lord standing in his way with his sword drawn.  There is a spiritual reality that we do not see.  Think of Elisha who had his eyes opened to see a mountain full of chariots of fire (2 Kings 6:17).  The writer to the Hebrews tells us that angels are ministering spirits sent to serve those who inherit salvation (Heb. 1:14).

The angel of the Lord tells Balaam that the donkey had actually saved his life.  Balak responds with a shallow repentance.  I say ‘shallow repentance’ because later in the book of Numbers Balaam is still acting against God’s people.  Again, God tells Balaam to go with the men of Moab, but to ‘only speak the word that I tell you’ (35).

The chapter finishes with Balak taking Balaam to a high place, where Baal was worshipped, and from where they can see a fraction of God’s people.  Yet while Balak wants Balaam to curse these people, God will only allow Balaam bless them.  I find it quite moving to picture Balak and Balaam looking down on these people, who are unaware of the wicked schemes against them, and God is working for their good.

Conclusion

I began this talk by telling you of a friend of mine who looked at her circumstances and began to wonder if God was good to her.  Be careful of making conclusions from you circumstances.  God’s word tells us that God is good even when our circumstances are hard.  The truth is that if we have allowed ourselves to be swallowed up in the love of Jesus then we can be sure that God is always seeking our ultimate good.  It is who God is, as we have seen in this strong story.

Balaam actually points us to the source of all our blessings.  '...  a star shall come out of Jacob, a sceptre shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth' (24:17 b).  This is a promise of a king who will defeat the people's enemies.  It finds an initial fulfilment in David and Solomon, but beyond them it point to Jesus, who has defeated our enemies of sin, death and the devil and is the source of every spiritual blessing.  

‘If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs of God’s promises’ (Gal. 3:29).  Paul calls Jew and Gentile who follow Jesus ‘the Israel of God’ (Gal. 6:16).  God’s people are not a nation any more.  God’s people are all who are living in Jesus.

Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel (24:1).  That means that it pleases God to bless you if you love Jesus and are trusting what He has done for us on the cross.  That blessing does not mean that life will be easy.  It won’t be easy.  But God shines His face in loving light upon you, He does not treat you as your sin deserves but treats us with grace, and He wants to with an awareness of His shalom (peace and wholeness).

‘God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind.  Has he said, and he will not do it?  Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfil it’ (23:19).  If you belong to Him then He HAs chosen you, and He cannot un-chose you.    

As we see Balaam’s inability to curse God’s people we remember ‘no weapon formed against us will stand’ (Is. 54:17).  ‘For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, neither height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom. 8:38-39).  For God speaks His words of blessing over us! 

We need to move from presumption to praise (Numbers 17)

 

Walking the dog around the neighbourhood it struck me that most of our neighbours seem to think that God is somewhat irrelevant.  But our God claims incredible things for Himself.  Our God claims the right to give life and take it.  Our God commands all people everywhere to worship Him.  Our God says that He is the one and only God.  Our God will judge all people at the end of time, and people will be assigned to heaven or hell on the basis of their relationship with Him.  Our God is anything but irrelevant.

Since chapter 11, the people of Israel have been grumbling against Moses and Aaron.  Behind their grumbling lies the fact that the despise God (16:30).  God is about to put an end to their grumbling.

1.      Our God is inapproachable

As we saw last week, Korah lead a rebellion in which he claimed all people had the right to approach God without a priest.  He was saying that we do not need a priest to stand between ourselves and God.  He saw God as approachable.  But when Korah and his followers approached God to offer incense—a task reserved for the priests—they were burned with holy fire and swallowed up by the ground. 

Eleazar the priest then took the bronze censors which had held their incense offerings and hammered in into the alter that was in the courtyard of the temple to remind people that only the priests could approach God in this way.  We must not be presumptuous before God!

The last church I worked in was a Methodist church in Richhill, County Armagh.  It was a lovely church with great people who loved the Lord.  At one stage I asked each of the small groups to feed back on what attributes came to their mind when they thought of God.  Rightly each small group included the fact that God is love.  But there was one glaring omission.  No one mentioned that God is holy.  We live in a time and culture that can have a very casual attitude towards God.  We know God as friend, but sometimes forget that He is also King.  It is in the New Testament that we read God dwells in unapproachable light and that He is a consuming fire.

If you have been swallowed up in the love of Christ and are seeking with His strength to live for His glory then you are invited to approach the throne to find grace and mercy in your time of need.  But the only reason you can approach this throne is because you have a priest, our High Priest Jesus, who has prepared the way for us to come before God.

2.      Our God is dangerous

You would have thought that the people would have learned to take God seriously after watching the ground swallow up Korah and his followers.  But no, the next day they continued their grumbling.  They say to Moses and Aaron, ‘you have killed the people of the Lord’ (16:42).  It wasn’t Moses and Aaron who had sent the holy fire and opened up the ground.  Their complaint was against God!

The Lord then appeared to Moses and Aaron saying that He was going to consume all the people.  But Moses and Aaron fell on their faces and pleaded for them.  Moses told Aaron to stand between the people and the Lord.  A plague from God had already started to consume the people.  But as Aaron stood between the dead and the loving the plague stopped.  Can you see the picture of Jesus here?  Jesus stands between ourselves and the judgement we deserve.  Jesus has satisfied the demands of justice.  Without Him we have no hope in the face of the judgement of God!

These verses portray a different understanding of God than many in our society believe.  Our God is more dangerous than they imagine.  In ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, Susan is about the meet Aslan when she is told that Aslan is a lion.  ‘I’d thought he was a man.  Is he quite safe?  I feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.’  ‘Safe?’, asked Mr. Beaver, ‘who said anything about safe?  Course he isn’t safe.  But he’s good.  He’s the king, I tell you.’  Our God is dangerous, but he is good!

One of the things that struck me about these verses is how gracious God is to Aaron.  Aaron has the privilege of being the High Priest.  Yet, unlike our High Priest, Jesus, Aaron knew what it was to sin.  After all it was Aaron who had supervised the construction of the golden calf when Moses was up on Mount Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments.  Our holy God loves to forgive, He loves to restore, He loves to take guilty people like you and me, wash us and make us clean and use us in His service.

3.      God wants to bless you

I was thinking about these two chapters and I wondered, ‘what does God think about these people?’  Think about it.  At one stage He says that He is going to consume them in His anger.  They are a wicked people.  Yet, in chapter seventeen, we see His greatest desire is actually to bless them.

In our reading we see that God moves to put an end to their grumbling.  Twelve leaders, one from each of the twelve tribes but a staff before the ark.  A staff for the tribe of Levi, with Aaron’s name inscribed on it, is also placed there.  The staffs are left overnight, and in the morning Aaron’s staff has produced buds, blossoms and ripe almonds.  We are probably to see that some parts were in bud, other parts in blossom and still others had produced fruit (Wenham).  This is full of symbolism.

It demonstrates that God brings life to the dead.  Aaron’s staff has been resurrected.  The Christian message is one of resurrection.  We were dead in our transgressions and sin, we have been made alive in Christ.  He is the one who can make our lives fruitful.

Almond blossoms came early in spring, and tell us that fruit is coming.  A harvest is to follow.  God blesses, and His blessings increase.  He rescues us, forgives us and embraces in His love.  But it gets better.  As we lean on Him He makes us more like Jesus.  Then will come a harvest day when those in Christ will receive resurrection bodies like Jesus and an end to death, loneliness, pain and sin.  The almond blossom tells us we have a lot to look forward to.

But, maybe most of all, the almonds would have reminded the people of the lampstands in the tabernacle.  The lampstands in the tabernacle contained almond shaped cups.  Remember that the lampstands shone its light onto the twelve loaves on the table.  This pictured God’s desire to turn His face towards His people, be gracious towards them and give them peace. 

Our God is holy and unapproachable.  Our God is dangerous.  It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.  But our God wants to be gracious towards you and give you peace.  He tells us that He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked but would rather that we repent and live.  Who are these people that God wants to bless?  They are the very people who had despised Him and grumbled against the leadership that He appointed.  There is more mercy in Him than there is sin in us.

It has been pointed out that while sin provokes God to righteous anger, God is love.  His anger is in settled and holy response to evil.  His love is the core of His very being.  He wants to show love to those who are by nature the subject of His wrath.

Now look at how the people respond.  They are not grumbling.  They are terrified.  Korah had thought that anyone could approach God, without the ministry of a priest, and his and his followers were swallowed up by the ground.  He was presumptuous.  Now the people move to the opposite extreme.  They are simply terrified.  ‘behold we perish, we are undone.  Everyone who comes near to the tabernacle of the Lord, shall die.  Are we to perish?’  (12-13).  They have failed to see that the unapproachable God wants to bless them and bringing them close to Him.  That is why He had given them a High Priest.  Our High Priest, Jesus, gave Himself for our sin, a sacrifice of infinite value.  Therefore, we can be sure that there is more forgiveness poured out from Christ than their sin in us, even though our sin is far more vile than we realise.

Conclusion

A friend of ours is into ‘spiritual’ things.  But recently she told Caroline that she has given up on God.  When Caroline told me, I couldn’t help think that that is a bit presumptuous.  In our society we think that we can stand over God and judge Him.  We seem to think that we are doing Him the greatest of all favours to believe in Him.  But God does not need us, and one day it is Him who will stand in judgement over us.  Give up on God?  I am just glad that God has not given up on me, and He will never give up on you if you belong to Jesus.  If you truly allow yourself to be swallowed up in the love of Jesus and lean on the Holy Spirit to enable you to follow Him, your High Priest will never give up on you.  

The writer to the Hebrews explains that Jesus, 'is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lived to make intersession for them' (Hebrews 7:25).  Like Aaron, Jesus prays for His people.  When we sin, the accuser will point an evil finger in our direction, but Jesus points to His wounds and says, 'I died for that one!'  

When our lives are in Christ the unapproachable and dangerous God becomes our loving Father.  Because Jesus is our High Priest we are told to approach the throne of grace with confidence.  There we will find mercy, which is what we need when we have sinned.  Don't let your sense of shame and guilt stop you from going to Him.  There we find grace for our time of need.  When temptations seem too great, when life seems to hard, when obedience seems beyond you where are you going to turn?  We should approach that throne of grace with confidence.  Afterall, we have a High Priest who gave His life that we can enjoy this privilege.