Balaam’s Second Oracle
Numbers 23:18a, 20 & 23
And Balaam took up his discourse and said, … “Behold, I received a command to bless: he has blessed, and I cannot revoke it. … For there is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel; now it shall be said of Jacob and Israel, ‘What has God wrought!’”
This wondrous principle that no weapon fashioned against God’s chosen people will stand (Isaiah 54:17), that the gates of hell will never prevail over the church (Matthew 16:18), that He Who is in us is far greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4), that the most powerful source of evil himself flees at our will to resist him (James 4:7), should embolden us in the trenches of our present conflict rather than sideline us.
Think about it, friend: what if David had come down from the hills to feed his military brothers, heard Goliath mouthing off to God, and just walked away believing that God would inevitably get the final laugh? What if Moses had given up after his third rejection from Pharaoh, after he’d already watched God turn the Nile into blood, and assumed that the LORD would bring Pharaoh to his knees in one way or another? What if the apostle Paul, after being blinded by Christ’s glory on the road to Damascus, just retired from public service and never wasted hours pleading with Hellenistic Jews in the synagogues or debating with neo-platonic philosophers at Mars Hill or enduring the pains of shipwrecks and snakebites and prison sentences? No doubt God would’ve accomplished His work even still, but each of these saints would’ve missed their glorious role in God’s collaborative design. And remember: part of the way we as saints enjoy the reward of Christ’s victory is by participating in the battles.
David can face Goliath because he knows that God is bigger. Moses can rebuke Pharaoh because he knows that Pharaoh is just a petty man in an overgrown coat. Paul can endure all the enemy darts with courage because he recognizes that gospel light is more piercing. To fight the good fight is not to ‘let go, and let God’ in that sense, but to cling to Christ and storm through enemy lines. Take heart from this oracle today, friend! Arm yourself with this precious promise of Numbers 23 and put it to the test in the trenches.