In the last few chapters, Balak, king of the Moabites, frightened at the size and threat of the children of Israel, asked Balaam, the backslidden prophet, to curse them. But no matter how many times Balaam tried to curse them, he could only ever bless them. After this, the Israelites began to form relationships with the Moabites, and committed \u201charlotry with the women of Moab. [The Moabites] invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods\u201d (Num. 25:1\u20132). Revelation adds to this, revealing that Balaam taught Balak how \u201cto put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality\u201d (Rev. 2:14).<\/p>\n
Through the ungodly advice of Balaam, the Moabites and the Midianites found a backdoor way to defeat God’s people. These worshippers of the idol Baal successfully introduced their daughters to the young Hebrew men, who became ensnared and enamored by them and were drawn into lewd acts of idol worship. In fact, one young Israelite was bold enough to bring a Midianite woman home, right in front of Moses, which didn\u2019t end well for either of them. Balaam understood that idol worship would bring God’s displeasure on His people. And so, what Balak dared not attempt by war and could not bring about by sorcery, he accomplished by sexual immorality and the worship of false idols.<\/p>\n
There is an important lesson here for every believer, even 3400 years later. If the Devil can\u2019t overcome believers as a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8), he tries to overcome them as a serpent, through deception and cunning. We need to be careful as we bring the good news to the world around us, being aware of the dangers that come with having friendships with the enemies of God’s Kingdom. We must take care to avoid their snares and gifts, which could be used by Satan to bring us to destruction. Balaam thought that Israel’s sins of false religion and immorality would move God to destroy them completely. However, Balaam misunderstood God\u2019s grace. God did discipline His people for their sin, but because of His amazing grace and faithfulness, He never left or forsook them, and He has promised to never leave or forsake us either. We sometimes stumble and fall, but He is waiting for us to turn to Him in sincere repentance, that we might again be cleansed and brought back into fellowship with Him.<\/p>\n
“LORD forgive our sins and create in us a clean heart and clean hands today so that we can serve You.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n =============================================================<\/p>\n\n\n\n Numbers 25 KJV<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1<\/sup>\u00a0And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.\u00a02<\/sup>\u00a0And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods.\u00a03<\/sup>\u00a0And Israel joined himself unto Baal-peor: and the anger of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0was kindled against Israel.\u00a04<\/sup>\u00a0And the\u00a0LORDsaid unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the\u00a0LORDagainst the sun, that the fierce anger of the\u00a0LORD\u00a0may be turned away from Israel.\u00a05<\/sup>And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baal-peor. 6<\/sup>\u00a0And, behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who\u00a0were\u00a0<\/em>weeping\u00a0before\u00a0<\/em>the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.\u00a07<\/sup>\u00a0And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw\u00a0it\u00a0<\/em>, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand;\u00a08<\/sup>And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.\u00a09<\/sup>\u00a0And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand. 10<\/sup> And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0spake unto Moses, saying,\u00a011<\/sup>\u00a0Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.\u00a0\u00a012<\/sup>\u00a0Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace:\u00a013<\/sup>\u00a0And he shall have it, and his seed after him,\u00a0even\u00a0<\/em>the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel.\u00a014<\/sup>\u00a0Now the name of the Israelite that was slain,\u00a0even\u00a0<\/em>that was slain with the Midianitish woman,\u00a0was\u00a0<\/em>Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a chief house among the Simeonites.\u00a0\u00a015<\/sup>\u00a0And the name of the Midianitish woman that was slain\u00a0was\u00a0<\/em>Cozbi, the daughter of Zur; he\u00a0was\u00a0<\/em>head over a people,\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>of a chief house in Midian. 16<\/sup>\u00a0And the\u00a0LORD\u00a0spake unto Moses, saying,\u00a017<\/sup>\u00a0Vex the Midianites, and smite them:\u00a018<\/sup>\u00a0For they vex you with their wiles, wherewith they have beguiled you in the matter of Peor, and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a prince of Midian, their sister, which was slain in the day of the plague for Peor\u2019s sake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the last few chapters, Balak, king of the Moabites, frightened at the size and threat of the children of Israel, asked Balaam, the backslidden prophet, to curse them. But no matter how many times Balaam tried to curse them, he could only ever bless them. After this, the Israelites began to form relationships with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5747"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15981,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5747\/revisions\/15981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/packinghouseredlands.org\/devotional\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}