Too Blessed to be Cursed

(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Let's see when all I see is the battle. (upbeat music) When all I see is the battle, you see my victory. (upbeat music) When all I see is the mountain, you see a mountain. (upbeat music) As I walk through the shadows, your love surrounds me. (upbeat music) There's nothing to fear now for I say. (upbeat music) So when I fight, I'll fight on my knees, with my hands lifted high. Oh God, the battle belongs to you. Every fear I lay at your feet, I'll sing through the night. Oh God, the battle belongs to you. (upbeat music) And if you are for me, who can be against me? (upbeat music) For Jesus, there's nothing impossible for you.

(upbeat music) When all I see are the ashes, you see a view. (upbeat music) When all I see is the cross, God, you see the air. (upbeat music) So when I fight, I'll fight on my knees, with my hands lifted high. Oh God, the battle belongs to you. Every fear I lay at your feet, I'll sing through the night. Oh God, the battle belongs to you. All night in fortress, you go before us. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. You shine in the shadows, you win every battle. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. All night in fortress, you go before us. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. You shine in the shadows, you win every battle. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. All night in fortress, you go before us. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. You shine in the shadows,

you win every battle. Nothing can stand against the power of our God. So when I fight, I'll fight on my knees, with my hands lifted high. Oh God, the battle belongs to you. Every fear I lay at your feet, I say to the night, oh God, the battle belongs to you. Oh God, the battle belongs to you. You mean giving praise this morning? It's worthy of our praise. I see his wounds, his hands, his feet My Savior on that cursed tree His body bowed and tranched in tears They laid him down in Joseph's tomb He entranced by heavy stone, Messiah still, and all alone Sing this out, church! Oh, praise the name of the Lord and our, Oh, praise His name For evermore, for endless things We will sing your praise, O Lord, for Lord our God They're on the third and break of dawn The Son of Ed Oh, praise the name of the Lord and our, Oh, praise His name Oh, praise the name of the Lord and our, Oh, praise His name For evermore, for endless things We will sing your praise, O Lord, for Lord our God He shall return in rows of white The blazing sun shall kiss the night And I will rise among the saints My gates transfixed on Jesus' face His name Oh, praise the name of the Lord and our, Oh, praise His name For evermore, for endless things We will sing your praise, O Lord, for Lord our God Oh, praise the name of the Lord and our, Oh, praise His name For evermore, for endless things We will sing your praise, O Lord, for Lord our God Oh, praise the name of the Lord and our, Oh, praise the name of the Lord

Oh, praise the name of the Lord and our, Oh, praise the name of the Lord Come down, down, down Every blessing To my heart To see thy praise Streams of mercy, never ceasing Calls for songs of loudest praise Teach me some man along your summit Stung by flaming tongues above Free's the Mount, I fix the morning Mount of diary (singing in foreign language) (upbeat music) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (singing in foreign language) (upbeat music) [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC]

[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [APPLAUSE] [BLANK_AUDIO] When I was a kid growing up, there was a particular show on television that was one of my all-time favorites. It was called the Wild Wild West. It featured Robert Conrad and Ross Martin. They played two secret agents. And I thought Robert Conrad was just the coolest looking guy. I used to, back in the day when I was a kid, I had hair, and I would try and comb it like he combed it. And I thought that is just the coolest thing to be able to do that. Now, he's always getting in fights, so the hair was always coming down. But when he had on his weird looking suit that he wore with his vest, he just looked so cool. And Ross Martin, who played secret agent Artemis Gordon, Robert Conrad was secret agent James West. About back in the 1800s, Ross Martin would always have these disguises that he would. Incidentally, I found out that Robert Conrad never liked the show because he had to do all these stunts, and he said it was physically demanding. It was six days a week, and we enjoyed it, but he didn't. Anyway, he ended up cracking his skull on one of those stunts. But Ross Martin would spend a lot of time every week coming

up with these new disguises. I read where he was in 95 episodes of the 104 episodes. He was in 95 of them, and in those 95 episodes, he had 100, 124 disguises, and he would always be working on all these disguises, fake noses, and eyebrows, and all these wigs, and things to look like someone else. So he could fool the target, whoever the target was, into thinking he was someone, he was not. Now, in the spiritual realm, the devil does the same thing. He disguises himself. He always puts on some kind of a costume so that we don't see him for who he truly is, and so do his messengers. Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ." Well, no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, it's not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds. The only kind of party the devil ever comes to is a masquerade party. He's going to always disguise himself so you don't recognize who he is. That's how he gets his devilish work done through deception. He is a liar and the father of lies. Well, today we're finishing up our series on the book of Numbers called Unbelieving Believers, learning from the wilderness wanderings, important lessons about the Lord.

And we see in the children of Israel, we see their faith, we see their failure, and they failed many, many times, and we see the faithfulness of God. As the Scripture says in 2 Timothy chapter 2, even when we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. Now, the interesting thing in the book of Numbers is this character named Balaam. Balaam the son of Bior, Balaam this pagan prophet, this mercenary prophet, this prophet for higher, 8% of the book, almost 8% of the book of Numbers is devoted to this guy Balaam. He's mentioned 65 times by name in the Bible, 62 times in the Old Testament, and then three times in the New Testament. Balaam is a quintessential false prophet. He is somebody who appears to be a true prophet and we're going to see today, as we look more closely at his life, that he comes across like he's speaking for God. He calls the Lord, Yahweh my God. He confesses his sin in chapter 22. I have sinned when the angel of the Lord was there with his sword drawn, ready to kill him. I have sinned. He prays to God and God answers him. He speaks the oracles of God. God puts words into his mouth. You would think this guy is a true, blue prophet, but he's not.

See, the best that the devil has will disguise themselves as apostles of Christ in order to deceive you. And we learn very clearly in the New Testament. Every time Balaam's name is mentioned in the New Testament, 2 Peter chapter 2, Jude chapter 1 verse 11, and Revelation chapter 2. He's a false prophet whose end is destruction. So this is what we want to see today, how the devil is working through this man named Balaam, because what you see in the life of Balaam, you see how the devil works. And you see his operation as we look into the life of Balaam. So to give you the background, in case you weren't here last week, Israel is on the move, and they have moved to the place of Moab, which is just opposite the Jordan River, and they're getting ready to go into the promised land. He's gonna die on Mount Nebo, and the Lord is gonna bury him. Nobody knows where Moses was buried, 'cause the Lord buried him. But they're getting ready to cross over into the promised land in the end. It's the end of the wilderness wanderings. Now in chapter 21, Israel had three battles, and they won those three battles. And two of them were very noteworthy. They beat Og, king of the Amorites, in Cyhan,

another king, and Og, as I said, was a giant. His bed was 13 and a half feet long, and so Whippin' Og was a big deal. Whippin' Cyhan was a big deal, and then the other guy that they Whipp, I can't remember his name, so it probably wasn't as big a deal. But no, his arad, the king of arad, the Canaanite. And so they had these three victories. And so the king of Moab is afraid. His name is Belak. How do you remember the difference between Belak and Belum? Belak ends in K, and he's Belak is the king of Moab. Belum ends in M, and he is a mercenary prophet in it for the money. And so that's how you can keep those straight in your mind. But Belak goes and says, hey, I need to get a prophet that will curse Israel. So he sends his guys and says, go to Belum, the son of Beor. He lives by the Euphrates River. Remember, that's far away from Moab. That's about 360 miles. And that's a long way to walk. And so they had to go to Belum, and they said, hey, the king wants you to come and curse his enemies. And Belum says, okay, let me ask God if I can do it.

And God says, no, you can't do that. Those people are not cursed, they're blessed. And Belum says, I can't go. He really wanted to go 'cause he wanted the money. I can't go, God won't let me go. I really want to go, but God won't let me go. And so they go back, walk back, come to the king, say, hey, he's not coming. What do you mean he's not coming? Does he not know that I'm Beylak, the king of Moab, that I can pay him big time? We'll send another entourage and more prestigious and more money. We'll promise him more honor. And so they go to Beylum. Hey, the king wants you to come. He's got, you know, sweetening the pot. And Beylum's like, hmm, well, let me pray about it again. Well, there's no reason to pray about it. God already told you no, but he prays about it again. And he is really showing his heart here. He is wanting to do the opposite of God's will. God allows him to go, but God is angry with him for going because it's obviously not what God wanted in the big picture of things. But God is going to use this. And that's when he had the encounter with his donkey talking. Why are you beating me? Have I ever done this to you before? And he said, well, you're making a fool out of me.

You should go straight. He said, but you don't see what I see. And then the Lord opens his eyes and he sees that there's the angel of the Lord standing there with a sword drawn, getting ready to kill him. And all of a sudden he says, hey, if it displeases you, I'll go back. And he said, no, go, but you're only to say what I put in your mouth to say. Twice God told him that. And we're going to see, through Beylum, how the devil works. See, the devil has power, but it is limited, limited in scope. So the very first discovery, as we look at the life of Beylum, and as we see the workings of the devil, the devil cannot curse what God has blessed. He cannot curse what God has blessed. That's very clear in Numbers chapter 22. The reason that Belak, the king, contracted with Beylum is to curse Israel. And the reason that Beylum wanted to go was to get the money. It says in Numbers chapter 22 verse 16, they came to Beylum, said to him, thus said to Beylak, thus says, Beylak the son of Zippur, let nothing I beg you, hinder from coming to me, for I will indeed honor you richly, and I will do whatever you say to me. Please come, then curse this people for me. Very, very clear what Beylak wanted him to do. And Beylum, he wanted to come. He was trying to manipulate the situation so he could come

because he wanted the money. Peter says in Second Peter chapter two, talking about false teachers, he says, for saking the right way they have gone astray, having followed the way of Beylum the son of Zippur. He was a religious guy, and he could put on a big show, and people thought he was really something this great power of God, and he made money off of that. And he loved the wages of unrighteousness. He wanted to go and curse Israel so he could get Belak's money. But here's the thing, Balaam couldn't override God's blessings upon Israel. God says, "You can't curse them. They're blessed." And so he wanted to override it, but he couldn't override it. And this is what it says, Numbers 22, beginning in verse 36. "When Balaam heard that Balaam was coming, he went out to meet him at the city of Moab, which is on the on-on border at the extreme end of the border. Then Balaam said to Balaam, "Did I not urgently send you to call you? Why did you not come to me? Am I really unable to honor you? Do you not realize that I can pay you big time?" And Balaam went with Balaam, and they came to carry off Hozoth, Balaam sacrificed oxen and sheep, and sent some to Balaam, and the leaders who were with him. Then it came about in the morning that Balaam took Balaam and brought him up to the high places of Balaam, and he saw from there a portion of the people, the people of Israel. Then Balaam said to Balaam, "Build seven altars for me here, and prepare seven bulls, and seven rams for me here." And Balaam had spoken, and Balaam offered up a bull and a ram on each altar. You know, you're paying for a show, so I got to make this show look like I'm really doing something. And so that's what's going on here. Then Balaam said to Balaam, "Stand beside your burnt offering, and I will go. Perhaps the Lord, perhaps Yahweh, will come to meet me, and whatever he shows me, I will tell you." So he went to a bare hill. Now God met Balaam, and he said to him, "I have set up the seven altars, and I've offered up a bull and ram on each altar." Then the Lord put a word in Balaam's mouth and said, "Return to Balaam, and you shall speak thus." So he returned to him, and behold, he was standing beside his burnt offering. He and all the elders are the leaders of Moab. He took up his discourse and said, "From Aram, Balaam has brought me Moab's king from the mountains of the east. Come curse Jacob for me, and come denounce Israel. How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how can I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced?" Well, that was a problem. He says, verse 9, "As I see him from

the tops of the rocks, and I look at him from the hills, behold of people who dwells apart, and will not be reckoned among the nations, who can count the dust of Jacob, or number the fourth, or number the fourth part of Israel, let me die the death of the upright, and let my end be like his." Well, that's not what Balaam wanted to hear. Balaam, or Balaam wanted to hear them. Balaam said to Balaam, "What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, but behold, you have actually blessed them." And he replied, "Must I not be careful to speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?" That was the first time he went to curse them, but he couldn't curse them. He's going to try two more times to curse them. They would be like, "Well, maybe you can't curse them from this hill. Let's go to another hill, and from the other hill you can see another part of the tribe of Israel, and then you can curse them." Well, every time it was the same thing, I can't curse them, because the devil can't curse what God has blessed. Now, some of you may remember the movie that came out some years ago called Liar Liar, where Jim Carrey has a son, Jim Carrey, who's a terrible father, just a terrible human being, and he has a son, and his son prays or makes a wish at his birthday that his dad couldn't lie for 24 hours, and that wish comes true. And here is Jim Carrey, the unscrupulous lawyer, and he's got a big case, and guess what? He can't lie, and it's really hard for him. He wants to lie, but he can't lie. That is the way it was with Balaam. He wanted to curse Israel. God wouldn't let him do it. And just as God spoke through the donkey, God is speaking through this false prophet. Balaam couldn't override God's blessing upon Israel, and then you have a I remember when I was a young Christian in college. We used to sing this song from Numbers 23. I didn't know where it was from. I didn't really know what the context was. But he goes to another hill. Belak takes him to another hill. Curse is real. He can't curse. And this is what he comes back with in verse 19 of chapter 23. God is not a man that he should lie, nor a son of man that he should repent or change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it, or has he spoken,

and will he not make it good? Behold, I have received a command to bless. When he has blessed then, I cannot revoke it. I can't reverse it. I can't lie. That was his situation. Well, Belak didn't like that at all. And so he's going to take him to a third hill. Maybe you can curse him over here. He's a little slow on the update. But that's the plan. Three times, he can't curse. Because he could not curse what God has blessed. Now, in your life, in my life, God has blessed us as his children. Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, who has past tense, blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." As a Christian, you have all of that put in your bank account. Every spiritual blessing, everything you need, as Peter says in second Peter chapter 1, seeing that his divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and excellence. We have everything we need to live the Christian life. And we have all the blessings we need. Sometimes we say, oh, Lord, I need patience.

Oh, Lord, I need this. I need that. It's like you already have that. It's in your account. You just need to draw from it. And here's the thing about being blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. The devil can't cancel that out. But here's the deal. It's kind of like the promised land. God promised this land to Israel, this land that flowed with milk and honey. But the promised land is not a vacant piece of property. You've got to go and fight for that which is yours, that which I have given to you. As God told Joshua in Joshua chapter 1, verse 3, "Every foot on which the soul of your every place, on which the soul of your foot trods, I have given that to you as a possession." And you just walk around the promised land, Joshua, that all belongs to you. But you've got the Canaanites and the Amorites and the Hittites and the Jebusites. You've got all theites that live there. You've got Jericho with its fortified walls. You're going to have to fight for that. And so in the Christian life, we have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. But we have to fight. We have to fight by faith for those things which are ours.

The devil cannot curse what God has blessed. Secondly, the devil cannot thwart what God has promised. As Job said, "No purpose of yours God can be thwarted." I know that you can do all things and no purpose of yours can be thwarted. So there are three failed attempts to curse Israel. He can't do it. He keeps blessing Israel. And Baelak is starting to get very upset. It says in chapter 24 verse 10, "Then Baelak's anger burned against Baelam, and he struck his hands together. And Baelak said to Baelam, "I called you to curse my enemies. But behold, you have persisted in blessing them these three times. Therefore, flee to your place now. I said I would honor you greatly, but behold, the Lord, Yahweh, has held back your honor." Ooh, that hurt Baelam. Baelam said to Baelak, "Did I not tell your messengers whom you sent to me saying, 'Go, Baelak, were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not do anything contrary to the command of the Lord, either good or bad, of my own accord, what the Lord speaks, that I will speak. Did I not tell you that?" Well, he actually told him that four times. "And now behold, I'm going to my people come, and I will advise you what this people, what the Jews, will do to your people in the days to come." And he took up his discourse and said, "The oracle of Baelam, the son of Bior, and the oracle of the man whose eye is opened, And the oracle of him who hears the word.

falling down yet having his eyes uncovered. Sounds like a Christian, but no testament, Saint. He's not. Verse 17, such a key verse. "I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star shall come forth from Jacob. A scepter shall rise from Israel. And shall crush through the forehead of Moab and tear down all the sons of Sheth. All the riotous revelers, the proud, war-loving people, as Jeremiah quotes that in Jeremiah 48, verse 45. Such a key passage, right there, verse 17. Why is that such a key passage? Because Matthew chapter 2, Magi from the east, where was Balaam from? He's from the east. He's by the river Euphrates. Where is Babylon? It's by the river Euphrates. It's in that area. Matthew chapter 2, wise men from the east come to Jerusalem and say, "Where is he who is born king of the Jews?" We saw his star in the east, and we've come to worship him. We saw the star. We saw the scepter, and we were told from 1406 B.C. That's when Balaam made this prophecy that there was going to arise a star and a scepter from Judah and would rule and would crush the head of Moab. Man, this has been a prophecy that was made, the Lord made it through a false prophet, through a mercenary prophet, through a pagan prophet, and it came through 1400 years later. And they knew about it. And Daniel knew about it. And the wise men of Babylon, all those wise men from the east knew about it that this came from Balaam. The devil can't thwart what God has promised. Remember this about the devil. He knew about the coming Messiah since the fall. The devil obviously fell. He was Lucifer, and he rebelled against God, and he became Satan the father of the night. And he fell before Adam and Eve ever fell. He was the one that came to Eve in Genesis chapter 3. Now, the serpent who was the devil, was more crafty than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman indeed, and you have that encounter that he has with Eve. And she eats of the fruit. She gives to Adam. He eats of the fruit. And their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together to hide their nakedness. And then the Lord comes in the cool of the day as was His practice. And Adam and Eve hide themselves in the trees. And the Lord says, "Adam, where are you?" He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked." So I hid myself, and the Lord said, "Who told you you were naked? You've been naked your whole life, pal. Who told you you were naked? Did you eat of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" And he said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." And he says to the woman, "What is this you have done?" She said, "The serpent deceived me,

and I ate." And then the Lord speaks to the serpent. And this is what the Lord says to this serpent. The Lord God said to this serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life. And I will put imminity, hatred, between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel." This is called in seminary. We learned about this in seminary, the proto-eongelion. That'd be a quiz later. The proto-eongelion, which means just the first gospel. And the first gospel was preached right on the heels of the fall of man, and it was given directly to Satan. Satan, there's coming one, the seed of the woman, and remember the woman doesn't have a seed, the woman has an egg, but it's the seed of the woman, speaking of the birth of Jesus is going to be divine. And that one is going to crush the serpent's head. Yes, the serpent is going to bite his heel, but he is going to crush the head of the serpent. And the devil has known that ever since the fall. There's coming one who's going to crush my head. And so what do you see in Genesis chapter 4? The devil works to get Cain, the oldest son, to kill Abel. Genesis chapter 6, he tries to pollute the whole human race, and God has to destroy the whole human race, save Noah and his family with a flood. The devil has known there's coming one that's going to come after me to crush me, and Jesus comes on the scene. Around five BC, he's born. We know he had to be born before he wasn't born in zero. There really isn't a zero. There's one BC and then one AD. Nobody's like, I'm zero, but it just skipped, right? And because Herod was still alive, and you have the coming Messiah. The devil knows about the coming Messiah, but the devil could knew nothing to stop the coming Messiah.

He can't stop it because no purpose of God's can be thwarted. And the devil can't curse what God has blessed. He can't thwart what God has promised. And although he tries, what does he do with Herod? He incites Herod to go in to Bethlehem and kill all the baby boys two years old and under. But the Lord has always several moves ahead of whatever the devil is doing. And so he sends his son to Egypt. He protects him. And what does the devil try and do with Jesus as he tempts him in the wilderness? He said, you see all the kingdoms in this world, all these things have been given to me, and I will give them, I can give them to whomever I choose. And I'll give them to you if you'll just bow down and worship me, you don't have to go to the cross. You can bypass the cross and all the suffering. I can give you the kingdoms of the world right now. And Jesus said, be gone, Satan. It is written, you shall worship God and him only. You know, even with Peter, remember Matthew chapter 16 where the Lord takes them to Caesarea Philippi and says, who do the people say that I am? And they say, well, some say you're John the Baptist, some say you're Elijah. Yeah, but who do you say that I am? You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Blessed are you Simon, Son of Jonah, because flesh and blood has not revealed this to you,

but my Father who is in heaven. And Peter gets a gold star in Matthew 16 in the first part of Matthew 16, but then in just a few verses when Jesus said, I'm gonna go to Jerusalem and I'm going to be abused by the elders of the people and they're gonna kill me and I'm gonna rise from the dead on the third day and Peter pulls Jesus to the side and says, God forbid this will never happen to you. Jesus says to Peter, gold star Peter, get behind me, Satan, you're setting your mind on man's interests, not on God's. The devil was trying to keep Jesus from the cross because the devil could piece it together that if Jesus dies on the cross, then it will be finished and I will be finished. But the devil could do nothing to thwart the plan of God and the purpose of God. He can't thwart what God has promised and then discovery number three, here's what the devil can do and what he does in your life and my life. He contempt what God has consecrated. He contempt in order to corrupt what God has said, you shall be holy for I am holy, what God has consecrated for himself. As the Lord said to Israel, you're my peculiar people, you're my chosen people. You're my special treasure Exodus chapter 19 says. And I want you to reflect me to the world.

I want you to be separate from the things of this world and not stained by the things of this world, but here's where the devil comes in, he's the tempter. He can't make you sin, but he can sure tempt you with sin. And so what does the Bible tell us about Balaam? 'Cause when you read in numbers you think, I don't think, I think this Balaam guy gets a bad rap. He seems like he's doing everything that God would want him to do. Well it says in Revelation chapter two verse 14, the Lord Jesus is speaking here to the church in Pergamum, but I have a few things against you because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam who kept teaching Balaak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality. Balaam wanted to get paid, he can't curse Israel. God won't let him. I can't lie, he can't do it. But he knows, hey, wait a minute, here's what we can do, King. You get some of your good-looking more bite maidens than Midianite maidens, some of those good-looking girls, there's sexual immorality that takes place. And we'll just introduce those girls to the men there, and then I don't have to curse them. God will curse them. God will judge them, because they will sin against God. And that's exactly what happened. Numbers chapter 25, while Israel remained as the team. The people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab, for they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the Lord was angry against Israel. The Lord said to Moses, "Take all the leaders of the people and execute them in broad daylight

before the Lord so that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel." Terrible, what happened on the plains of Moab, and it came out of Balaam's mind and heart, came out of the devil's mind and heart, corrupt them, tempt them into sexual immorality. Now, notice this, it's sexual immorality and it's idolatry. Those two sins are mirror sins. They mirror one another. The spiritual mirrors the physical, as Al-Molar said, it's a comparison. This is that, and that is this. They're linked together. Because when you commit the physical act of adultery, fornication, you're joining yourself to another person. There's a joining there. And when you worship a false god, what does it say? Verse 3, "So Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor, and the Lord was angry against Israel." There's a connection there, a joining. One is in the physical, one is in the spiritual, and it is horrific. Now, in the book of 1 Corinthians, the Lord tells us about this, and Corinth was a place that was known for sexual immorality. Corinth, I've been there on a couple of different occasions, and Corinth is a, it's just ruins now, but it was a beautiful thriving city. Paul spent a lot of time in Corinth. Corinth was very immoral, and so you had the city down below, and then above you had the acro-correntis, the big high mountain in Corinth. I have a picture of this to give you an idea. Okay, so that is Corinth down below, and the mountain there is the acro-correntis, the big tall mountain. And on top of the big tall mountain, you had the temple of Aphrodite. And one man said, "At the temple of Aphrodite, she is the goddess of desire and the goddess of sexual fulfillment." At the temple of Aphrodite, it was said that there were a thousand temple prostitutes. And so the people on Corinth, as they would worship Aphrodite, that was part of the worship. You would have sex with a prostitute, just like it was when you worship the Baal. Baal is a false god of fertility, and the false god of rain and storms. And those things go together. They're an agrarian society. What do you have to have in Israel? You have to have rain. Praise God. We got some rain, right? We hadn't had rain in a long time, and I'm growing grass at my house, and not growing it very well, because there's no rain. And then water has gotten expensive. Have you noticed that? That's a whole nother sermon. I'll do that later. So you have these. They need rain. And so the god in Canaan is the Baal. And Baal has a female counterpart, the Ashteroth. And so there's this sexualized worship. And so they joined themselves to Baal a pure with these women. And then how did you worship Baal? You worship with sexual immorality. And that was really appealing

to the men. Like, man, we go to my church. We don't do that, but your church is a lot freer than my church. And God was angry with them because of that. And what does it say in Corinthians 1 Corinthians chapter 6? Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be. Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For he says the two shall become one, When you commit immorality as they committed immorality, they joined themselves to these Moabite Midianite women, and it was a mirror picture of them sinning against God and joining themselves to Baal of Peor. It's a serious sin. Mystery and immorality are mirror image sins, and idolatry and immorality are heinous sins with terrible consequences, severe consequences, so severe. The anger of the Lord breaks out, and He says, "Kill them, execute them in broad daylight before the Lord, so that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel." So Moses said to the judges, "Each of you slay as men who have joined themselves to Baal of Peor. Then behold, one of the sons of Israel came and brought to His relatives a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the sons of Israel while they were weeping at the doorway of the Ten of Meeting. And when Phineas, the son of Eliezer, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he arose from the midst of the congregation and took a spear in his hand. And he went in after the man of Israel into the tent and pierced both of them through the man of Israel and the woman through the body so the plague on the sons of Israel was checked. Those who died by the plague were 24,000, 24,000. That's almost 4% of the whole male population there in Israel. And they died, boom, like that, 24,000. You know, when we had 9/11, almost 3,000 people were killed just like that on September 11th. This is eight times that. Eight times that on a group of people that maybe worked about 2 million people.

This is a lot of death. It's because of that sin. You know, the New American standard that I preach out of, it softens this sin in the language that it uses. While Israel remained at Shatim, which means the acacia grove, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. Play the harlot. You know, that's used over and over in the Old Testament. They would play the harlot with the false gods, play the harlot. You know how King James words that? They would go a whoring after other gods. Well, that doesn't sound good. Play the harlot sounds, well, that's not good, but they're playing the harlot. A harlot is not as harsh as a whore. King James says they go a whoring after other gods. How horrible, how awful, to reject the God who made you and the God who loves you and the God who wants what's best for you to attach yourself to another God who's not God. That is a terrible, horrible sin, and it ends in death. And the brazenness of this man, we learn that his name was Zimrai of chapter 25, verse 14, and the lady's name was Cosby. And they're in this embrace in his tent. And Phineas goes in with a spear, and as they're together, he skewers them like a shishkabab, and it goes through both of them and kills them, and it stops the plague in Israel. 24,000 fell because of that sin. And then the Lord in numbers 31, he tells Moses, go after those Midianites for what they did. Verse 31, verse 7, it says, "So they made war against Midian just as the Lord had commanded Moses, and they killed every male. They killed the kings of Midian, along with the rest of the slain, Evai, and Rekam, and Zor, and who were, and Reba, that's also on the test. The five kings of Midian, they also killed Balaam, the son of Beor with the sword.

The sons of Israel captured the women of Midian and put their little ones in all their cattle and all their flocks and all their goods, they plundered, then they burned all their cities where they lived and all their camps with fire. Isn't it interesting? How does Balaam die? He dies by the sword. What did he see on the way to Belak, the angel with the sword drawn? This is coming for you, pal, unless you repent. It's terrible. It's horrible. It is gruesome. And it is what we see happening today. The devil can't curse what God has blessed, but he can corrupt what God has consecrated, and then you don't get in on the blessings of God. And so you have to look at your own life as I look at my life. How are you living? I started off the prayer time right before my message. First John chapter 1, this is the message we have heard from him and announced to you that God is light. And in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son cleanses us from all sin. Listen, however you've been living up to this point, if you will take inventory of your life, and you will say, listen, I don't want to live for the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride of life. I don't want to be locked into greed as Balaam was. I don't want to be living in a moral life that's displeasing to God. I want to get myself on blessing ground so that God's blessings can flow so that I can unlock all that's been put in my account. I've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, but they're not going to materialize in my life until I start walking in the light with him. And that can happen today. The Bible says, the Lord says, today, if you hear my voice, harden not your heart. Today you come. Today you get right with him. Today you get on blessing ground. Now we come to the most important question of all. Have you turned from sin and selfishness and given your heart and life to Jesus? Listen, if not, today is the day for you. Just pray this simple prayer from your heart. Lord Jesus, I need you. I know that I'm a sinner, and I can't save myself. But I believe Jesus that you are God in the flesh. I believe you died

on the cross from my sins and rose again from the dead. And right now, I ask you to forgive me and save me. Come into my life. Change me. Make me the person you want me to be. I surrender my life to you. And I promise to follow you all the days I have left. Now if you pray that kind of prayer and mean it, the Lord will come in and your life will never be the same. Listen, I would love to hear from you. So please contact me and share with me what's going on so we can pray for you. And if you are ever in the Texarkana area, we would love for you to visit us live and in person at FBC Texarkana. Listen, you really are important to God, and you're important to us. And we're here for you. [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]