Before You Pray for Something, Do Your Homework to See if God Has Already Ruled on the Matter

Numbers Chapter 23: The Oracles of Balaam

Numbers 23:1-30

Day 76. Violent rioting continuing in the U.S. and the President calls for more force to be used. Lockdowns continue in many parts of the world. Curfews are in place in many parts of the U.S. America is more divided than ever before and regrettably, it seems that some kind of civil war may be the outcome. God forbid. We keep studied our Bible, looking for gems as to how we should live. Thank you for the encouraging notes people are leaving me.  Read on. 

The Passage

23 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me here.” ² Balak did just as Balaam had spoken, and Balak and Balaam offered up a bull and a ram on each altar. ³ Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stand beside your burnt offering, and I will go; perhaps the Lord will come to meet me, and whatever He shows me I will tell you.” So he went to a bare hill.

⁴ Now God met Balaam, and he said to Him, “I have set up the seven altars, and I have offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.” ⁵ Then the Lord put a word in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and you shall speak thus.” ⁶ So he returned to him, and behold, he was standing beside his burnt offering, he and all the leaders of Moab. ⁷ He took up his ^[a]discourse and said,

“From Aram Balak has brought me,
Moab’s king from the mountains of the East,
‘Come curse Jacob for me,
And come, denounce Israel!’
⁸ “How shall I curse whom God has not cursed?
And how can I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced?
⁹ “As I see him from the top of the rocks,
And I look at him from the hills;
Behold, a people who dwells apart,
And will not be reckoned among the nations.
¹⁰ “Who can count the dust of Jacob,
Or number the fourth part of Israel?
Let ^[b]me die the death of the upright,
And let my end be like his!”

¹¹ Then Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I took you to curse my enemies, but behold, you have actually blessed them!” ¹² He replied, “Must I not be careful to speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?”

¹³ Then Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place from where you may see them, although you will only see the extreme end of them and will not see all of them; and curse them for me from there.” ¹⁴ So he took him to the field of Zophim, to the top of Pisgah, and built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar. ¹⁵ And he said to Balak, “Stand here beside your burnt offering while I myself meet the Lord over there.” ¹⁶ Then the Lord met Balaam and put a word in his mouth and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.” ¹⁷ He came to him, and behold, he was standing beside his burnt offering, and the leaders of Moab with him. And Balak said to him, “What has the Lord spoken?” ¹⁸ Then he took up his ^[c]discourse and said,

“Arise, O Balak, and hear;
Give ear to me, O son of Zippor!
¹⁹ “God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent;
Has He said, and will He not do it?
Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
²⁰ “Behold, I have received a command to bless;
When He has blessed, then I cannot revoke it.
²¹ “He has not observed ^[d]misfortune in Jacob;
Nor has He seen trouble in Israel;
The Lord his God is with him,
And the shout of a king is among them.
²² “God brings them out of Egypt,
He is for them like the horns of the wild ox.
²³ “For there is no omen against Jacob,
Nor is there any divination against Israel;
At the proper time it shall be said to Jacob
And to Israel, what God has done!
²⁴ “Behold, a people rises like a lioness,
And as a lion it lifts itself;
It will not lie down until it devours the prey,
And drinks the blood of the slain.”

²⁵ Then Balak said to Balaam, “Do not curse them at all nor bless them at all!” ²⁶ But Balaam replied to Balak, “Did I not tell you, ‘^[e]Whatever the Lord speaks, that I must do’?”

²⁷ Then Balak said to Balaam, “Please come, I will take you to another place; perhaps it will be ^[f]agreeable with God that you curse them for me from there.” ²⁸ So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor which overlooks the ^[g]wasteland. ²⁹ Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me here.”³⁰ Balak did just as Balaam had said, and offered up a bull and a ram on each altar.

Footnotes

a.     Numbers 23:7 Lit parable

b.     Numbers 23:10 Lit my soul

c.     Numbers 23:18 Lit parable

d.     Numbers 23:21 Or iniquity

e.     Numbers 23:26 Lit saying, Whatever

f.      Numbers 23:27 Lit right in the sight of God

g.     Numbers 23:28 Or Jeshimon

Thoughts on the Passage

We observe that Balaam had Balak build altars and arrange for sacrifices to be made. And after that, Balaam went to a “bare hill” and God met him there to tell him what to say to Balak.

In verse 10, we hear Balaam saying to Balak, “I want to die the death of the righteous; and I want my end to be like that of the righteous.”  One commentator says, “anyone who wants to die the death of the righteous must first live the life of the righteous”.  Good point. We all want to die well and be treated well in death. We just aren’t so ready to live righteously. Robert Jamieson says, in so wishing but not living, Balaam is representative of a large class in the world – they “express a wish for the blessedness which Christ has promised to His people but are averse to imitate the mind that was in Him.”

We need to remember that in these attempts of Balak to get Balaam to curse Israel, he is going directly against something that God has already settled – God has blessed Israel to be a blessing, and woe to him who curses Israel.

Matthew Henry has us remember that Balak “pretended to honor the Lord with his sacrifices, and to wait for the answer God would send him; and yet, when it did not prove according to his mind, he forgot God, and flew into a great passion against Balaam.”

In the second message from God to Balak through Balaam (verses 18-24), God rebukes Balak and teaches him about the Divine nature of God – that unlike man, He does not lie or change His mind, that He always performs His word, and that He has all the strength. Furthermore, that He has not observed iniquity or wickedness in His people to warrant a curse. And in verse 22, God says He is like a wild ox on behalf of His people. David Guzik say, “wild ox is translated ‘unicorn’ in the KJV. The Hebrew word here (reem) occurs nine times in the O.T. The idea behind the Hebrew word is either of one horn or a mighty horn. Some think it refers to a rhinoceros, others to a wild ox, or a strong goat. It is not out of the question that a unicorn may be in mind.”

Not being happy with what Balaam tells him, Balak accuses him of actually blessing the Israelites rather than cursing them as he had asked for, and takes him to a second place, hoping things would turn out differently, but they didn’t. Balak now would even settle for Balaam to be neutral rather than bless or curse Israel.  And Balaam replies, “I will tell you whatever the Lord tells me to tell you as I had said.” And Balak takes him to yet a third place and the altars are built, and the offerings made.

Bottom line for me is this: If I am going to ask something of God, I better have done my homework [including studying my Bible] and made sure that I am not asking for something that God has already made a decision about. That’s why perhaps it is always better to attach to each of our petitions to God, the phrase, “nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done”. And then to real be able to accept happily (knowing it was the best option) whatever God’s will was for that matter. As a young lad, I lost many a potential spouse that way. As a young man, I lost many an opportunity to study something different that way. And then, I lost many a promotion or new job opportunities that way. As disappointed as I was, I knew that God’s choice for me – in my work, in my fields of study, and most importantly in my life’s partner – God’s choice for me was always superior.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Moses Tells Israel About The Expectation of Sabbath Rest

Exodus 35:1-3:

¹ Then Moses assembled all the congregation of the sons of Israel, and said to them, “These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do:

² “For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a holy day, a sabbath of complete rest to the Lord; whoever does any work on it shall be put to death.

³ You shall not kindle a fire in any of your dwellings on the sabbath day.”

Thoughts on the Passage

Moses was about to get the people organized to build and furnish the tabernacle. He had to share all the instructions about that project that God had given him on the mount. But first there was something of greater importance that he had to share with them – and that was a top priority for God, although as it turns out – it was God’s gift to man. I’m talking about Sabbath rest.

The first thing we note here is that “all the congregation” had been assembled to meet with Moses. So, any instruction here is not just for leaders, or one of the genders, or for children.  It is for everyone.

Secondly, what Moses was passing on was not embellished by his own thoughts, ideas, preferences, etc. He must on the Word of God as it was given to him by God. [That’s a good model for any servant of the Lord – don’t add your own opinions in a way which may deflate or inflate the intention that God had in mind for His communication, to the best of your ability. In today’s environment, we can think of it as being the difference between two types of journalists -- a ‘news reporter’ and a ‘columnist or editorial writer’.]

The first item on the agenda is the matter of ‘Sabbath rest’. They were to do tabernacle-building work (and other chores of daily living) for six days a week, but on the Sabbath, the seventh day, no work was to be done at all. That concept has had a great impact on our societies through the ages. I remember first coming to Canada as a child and the limited stores or services that were available on Sundays. Then slowly some retailers started getting permission to open on Sundays but after one o’clock or so, allowing all of us to attend church without competition. And then slowly that gave way to the full-out availability of all retail all day on Sunday.

The concept of Sunday being special also plays a role in Labor Relations where many organizations pay a higher premium or allowance for hours worked on Sunday versus the rest of the week, recognizing that requiring people to work on that day is taking them away from their normal Sabbath rest.

Some Jews still value it greatly and even start to observe it one hour before sunset on the day before and continue for one hour after sunset on the Sabbath.  Those extra hours were a type of ‘insurance’ or an indication that they really wanted to obey this most important request of the Lord’s, showing, as Matthew Henry suggests, how glad they are to approach Sabbath and how loth they are to part with it.

The key here is that while it is a Sabbath of rest (for our body’s, mind’s, and spirit’s sake), it is rest unto the Lord and devoted to His honor.

There is, as we read, a penalty of death attached to not adhering to the requirement, as given to the Israelites. Many would wonder if God really intended that. But as I read the passage again, and recognizing it was a specific instruction (at this time) for the Israelites in the desert, it makes sense. God wanted them to build a tabernacle. They had to adhere to strict rules in order to accomplish the work on time, and Moses needed the backing of penalties if he was to keep order in the camp. To Guzak, this was a way of God calling us to simple obedience first and foremost prior to allowing us to do His work.

Of particular interest is the special mention of no starting of fires for the purpose of doing trades job (e.g. blacksmith) on the Sabbath. To me, this indicates God’s real intent for the Sabbath was that man would have “rest”.  And thus, we come to the statement of Jesus in Mark 2:27 that “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath”.  Guzak supports this when he points out that there are two words for the Hebrew word for ‘work’ – avodah and melachah. The former is a general word for work, the latter refers to work related to business. So it seems here that God is not prohibiting all work (e.g. helping your neighbor get their car out of a ditch), but only that related to your business. Thus, Jews today won’t use fire or heat for business but are permitted to use it to give them light or allow healing. Interesting.

David Guzak says this passage teaches us that “anything we do for the Lord must grow out of our rest in Him, and rest in His finished work on our behalf.”

Chuck Smith takes a most modern perspective on the Sabbath rest. He says this is just God’s gift to you. It’s “a day in which you do nothing. A day in which you just kick back and rest. A day in which you just lie around all day long doing absolutely nothing, not even kindling a fire, just a day of total relaxation. You would be so much healthier mentally and every way else if you would just take a day off and just cruise, just nothing; just totally relax. . .. You can take it and enjoy it if you want. If you don’t take it, it is not going to damn you or condemn you. . .you would be much better off if you observed it. Not spiritually, it won’t make you any more righteous than anybody else, but just physically you would be a lot better off, mentally better off.”

On the one hand, I totally agree with Smith but I am afraid that too many would misuse his position as an excuse to stay in bed all day on the Sabbath. On the other hand, while we may not be condemned for working on this day, we certainly need to be aware that for one reason or another God wants us to rest our bodies and minds regularly and not taking that rest is contrary to the Manufacturer’s Manual.

[Please share with me if you disagree with my thoughts and/or are finding this study helpful. I appreciate the dozens of readers who take time to follow along with me in this study.]

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

We Were Taught To Work Hard Even Under Deadlines. But Was That Right?

For most of us around the world, the Christmas and New Year's festivities are over.  People have gone back to work.  Many students are back in school.  People will be going to doctor appointments.  Pursuits set aside for a few days, will be picked up again.  Some who, through the love and care of others, were able to forget their lot in life temporarily, will once again, find themselves struggling to survive -- be it financially, physically, emotionally, relationally, or spiritually.

In short, life goes on as they say for all of us, no matter our lot in life. Whether that lot becomes an exciting journey or the following a rut created over time will depend on how well we realize and rely on the fact that true joy and hope cannot be based on our circumstances, but on our personal relationship with God.

Here is the passage of Scripture I studied today and some thoughts on it:

Exodus 34:21-24

"You shall work six days, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during plowing time and harvest you shall rest.
"And you shall celebrate the Feast of Weeks, that is, the first fruits of the wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the turn of the year.
"Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord GOD, the God of Israel.
"For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders, and no man shall covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the LORD your God."

Thoughts on the Passage

I don't know about you, but I was to work hard, especially while there was work to do.  And I certainly tried to pass that on to my children. However, as I read this passage, I realize that I may have been all wrong.  Clearly, God is saying to His people that one day a week they must rest "even during. . . harvest". And He is emphatic about it, saying, "you shall rest". We need to rethink our attitude towards "workaholism".  I'm not saying God wants us to be slouches or to avoid work. No, not at all. He Himself is a God of Creation and active involved in the lives of His people. But what God is saying is that He knows how He created us and we need periodic rest.  Ignore that advice from Him, and you'll soon find yourself in bed, or worse still, in a casket, unable to do any work.

And the Israelites were to celebrate The Feast of Weeks and the Feast of the Ingathering which is also known as the The Feast of Tabernacles.  It is also known as Sukkot.

We can get all caught up in the intricacies of all these special feasts, many of which Jesus himself participated in later on, and we can also argue as to whether or not they are for New Testament Christians after Christ's Resurrection. Instead, I suggest we just focus on the fact that some of these various feasts had as their purpose to remind the Israelites Who it is that supplies all their needs. And it seemed that, in a farming economy, the end of harvest after all the reaping is completed is a great time to stop and give thanks.  This is not unlike our more modern-day Thanksgiving Day celebration that was started by the Pilgrms to America.

We can do this once a year at Thanksgiving, or we can do it monthly, or weekly.  Some of us do it every time we thank God when we eat.

But here is the most interesting part of the passage. Next, God tells the Israelites that all their males are to appear before Him three times a year. And I think the emphasis is indeed on all. That means no male is to be left to act as guards from the enemies, or to attend to other work.  Otherwise, why does God make a point of saying that no one will 'covet' or take their land while they are doing this.  God will protect their property.

On a personal or individual scale, this suggests we can trust God with our property at all times, but especially when we go to appear before Him and worship Him. On a national scale, this suggests that if we have our priorities right, putting God first, God will bless a nation.  David Guzik suggests that these three times are those that are referred to in Exouds 23:14-17 where God commanded that at three feasts each year (Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles), each Israelite man should gather before the Lord. And in this passage, Guzik continues, God even promised a supernatural protection for an obedient Israel when they went to these feasts.

We can only pray that our political leaders would call and ask for such an action for all the males in our nation. But we can pray and actually do something about it in our churches.  And even more at home, we can encourage the men in our families to do so.  If we are the man of the family, we can resolve to do it.

Recently, we noted again what God would do even today if His people actually turn to Him and pray for something.  This happened in December 2017 -- after five years of no rain in Israel, thousands prayed at the Western Wall, and God answered big-time.  What will God do for you? Your family? Your church? Your city? Your country? The World? -- What will He do in the days ahead? It all depends on what you and I are willing to do in obedience to Him.

Please share your own thoughts on this passage or on my comments above.  If this blog helped you at all, please feel free to tell others about it.

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Very Sound Advice For Generations X, Y, and Millenials

Unemployable:

How To Be Successfully Unemployed Your Entire Life

Author: David Thomas Roberts

Publisher: Self-published, Texas, 2016                                                                     

                              

Very Sound Advice For Generations X, Y, and Millennials

This book is not for those who want to play it safe, have a steady income (when they have a job), or go home and watch TV after a day’s work. It is for risk-takers, people who value freedom over money (but who know they can do better), and like to be responsible for others as well as the bottom line.

David T. Roberts tried working for others and knew that wasn’t for him. And then he went to town trying to set up his own business or two. In the process, he learned some valuable lessons that he shares candidly with his readers. He tells people to not just wish “for toys” that others have but to do something about being able to afford them – and to do it now, not sometime, not tomorrow. He concluded early in life, that “Everyone is created with an equal opportunity to become unequal.” If the reader’s behavior is changed by that statement alone, it’s worth the money he/she paid for the book.

The author believes that if anyone can bring “value to an idea” then he/she is an entrepreneur. The early chapters of the book describe how you can detect if you should work for someone else, or if you should be your own boss. Once that is determined, he then uses a chapter to communicate the pros and cons of education but ultimately ends up saying that whether we like it or not, today’s education systems are geared to teaching us “how to work for someone else, period” and likely turning a person into “a little communist”.

The rest of the book gives us the tools we need to work for ourselves and be “unemployed”.  He starts with the need for us to become financially literate. I love his “Here’s a tidbit: If you make a million dollars this year and you spend one million and one dollars this year, you are broke!” Duh. How much simpler can it get? To this he adds great advice on mortgages and acquiring things for the sake of status.

He throws in some history on the growth of “micro-businesses”, the importance and advantages of “sales” jobs, and from personal experience, teaches us much about networking marketing.  There’s also great and detailed advice for anyone considering a franchise; when a business plan is necessary and when it’s not; why you need to avoid those who would discourage you; where to get valuable personal advice; and where and when to raise money and when not to.

There’s a whole chapter on two important rules in business and ten most common mistakes that result in failure. He tackles the issues of partnership as well as the family business, identifying pitfalls to be avoided. Next he talks about “Renegade Marketing” and social media – but that’s material you’ll need to discover for yourself in Roberts’ book. His last chapter deals with the “taxman” and the role we all have to keep government in check to preserve free enterprise.

The “bonus” is a twenty-six-page glossary of terms which should become second nature to all pursuing the exciting world of being “unemployed”. I’m seriously thinking of giving the book to my grandchildren long before they finish high school.  And even for this baby boomer, the book provided advice that is most critical to success and could be applied to my own “un”-employment as a consultant, long after I retired from working for those other guys.

·      Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, December 22, 2016. www.accordconsulting.com

Get the book here: http://astore.amazon.com/accorconsu-20

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.

Are You Working For A Living Or Just Making Money?

-->

Work and Wealth in Scripture:
How to Grow, Prosper, and Work as a Christian

Lawrence A. Clayton, RESOURCE Publications, Eugene, Oregon, 2015

The book’s author, Lawrence A. Clayton, is Professor Emeritus of History, University of Alabama. He has written numerous books, undertaken jail ministry teaching weekly assignments since 2000, and done missionary work in both Dominican Republic and Honduras. In this book, he passionately wants to trace through history, the meaning and value of both work and wealth in parallel to Biblical teachings on the subjects. Through this short volume of 148 pages, Clayton propels us to think about our own attitude to work, to money, and to wealth. In the process, he shares what he believes God expects of mankind with respect to work and riches.

The author starts the book off with an imaginary Fox Network interview of Jesus and the Apostle Paul on the subject. The co-interviewers are two network personalities, one from Fox and one from PBS. It’s a most interesting opening and through it, Clayton sets the stage for the various chapters and their topics that follow.

With him, we explore the question, “What do you do?”, being reminded not to confuse working for a living with making money. Slowly we’re nudged into thinking that “work, obviously, has a higher end than ‘making money’.” Throughout the book, appropriate Scripture verses or whole passages are drawn attention to. He ends this chapter by expanding the original question to, “. . . equally important, what do you do with what you earn?”

The answer to that is based, as he shows us next, on what we value. If we’re focused on “getting rich, getting things, making wealth for its own sake” we tend to lose track of what really is important, at least for the Christian (if not all of us), and that is to be in the will of God. And that, he argues, does not mean “being poor or accepting poverty as your lot in life. It means what it says: staying in the will of God.” Later in the chapter, he defines “real wealth in this world”.

Clayton then introduces the “name it and claim it” or “prosperity” theology that has become popular in the modern Christian church, claiming it provokes more controversy than any other phenomenon in the church and shows how wealth continues to be a contentious issue today. So he takes us back to how various predecessors of ours treated both work and wealth down through the ages after Christ’s time on earth. The Protestant work ethic is analyzed as are a number of other ‘isms’ with respect to the topics. For some, like the Puritans and Calvinists, for example, he shows how their views of work and wealth impacted their assurance or lack thereof with respect to their salvation. The author shares 10 Tips from Scripture on Money and its use that are most helpful as we determine our own position on work and wealth.

There’s an interesting chapter on how work got to be a “dirty word” which incorporates the thinking from the day of Adam, right through Plato and Aristotle, on to Cicero, and on to Hebrew rabbis. He deals with the concept of “renunciation” of worldly goods and what it really meant practically for the early Christian church to “share all things in common”. Never far away from his main points is what is expected of us with respect to our “surplus” (that which is not necessary for our own existence) and especially how that may be used to help the needy.

Of most interest to me was the author’s sharing of the “seven-fold spirit” of work which Theophilus wrote as a preface for one of his books. That in itself, would make a great sermon or even a series for some industrious pastor. The whole point for Clayton, of course, is the spiritual goal, of having us move “closer to Christ through (our) work”. He introduces us to Luther’s thinking on the subjects at hand – the idea being that if we are all equal before God, then all our work is equally valid before Him, and thus should be before us. Calvin joins the chorus by adding his own belief that it is okay for us to rise out of our circumstances if they are not what we are capable of achieving, but not for the sake of wealth.

For many of us, the author contends, it is a struggle which comes down to how we interpret Scripture on these topics. But however we do it, we must, Clayton argues, recognize that Scripture itself does not change. It is our interpretation of it, based on how we think it can be applied to our day and age, that changes. And that requires careful stickhandling if we are to stay in the will of God.

Near the end of the book, Lawrence Clayton also shares the thoughts of Hugh Whelchel as he summarizes the latter’s “Five Lessons for Our Lives from the Parable of the Talents”. Well worth the read and great material for yet more sermons.

While I initially found the book a challenging read, when going over it again, looking at all my marked passages, I realized the problem was more mine than that of the author who sometimes repeated his ideas and points whenever he could get them in. But that’s a small inconvenience to allow for an excellent historical rendering of work and wealth in Scripture. A most recommended volume for all who really care about “what they do” – be it ‘making money’ or ‘working in the will of God’.

--  By Ken B. Godevenos, President, Accord Resolutions Services Inc., Toronto, Ontario, May 13, 2016. www.accordconsulting.com

It would be great if you would share your thoughts or questions on this blog in the comments section below or on social media.