Numbers 25; The scene from Numbers 22-24 shifts from Balaam speaking to king Balak of Moab, to the Israelite camp where a serious sin issue has arisen. Balaam slyly advised Balak to use the temple prositutes at the shrine on Peor to entice Israel’s men to both sexual and spiritual adultery. The Lord’s righteous anger […]
Numbers 24:15-25; The Balaam saga concludes with several oracles from Yahweh-God concerning future events for Israel and surrounding nations. King Balak is informed that a future leader of Israel would crush his nation, along with the Edomites and Amalekites. Also, an revelation concerning the rise of the Assyrian kingdom and a long view of the […]
Numbers 23:27-24:14; Returning to our ongoing Light and Darkness series with the third round of sacrifices by pagan King Balak of Moab to try and rid his region of Israel. Balaam the seer is attempting to walk the thin line of appeasing an earthly king while obeying the far superior instruction of Almighty God. The […]
Luke 8:26-39; Following the concluding message from Ephesians 6 on the armor of God, we are examining an example of Jesus confronting the powers of evil. Demon possession is a daunting topic in a world that either denies or ignores malevolent spiritual beings, but Scripture reports thier existence as a reality. Not only can possessed […]
Numbers 23:1-26
Numbers 22:21-41; The second installment of the Balaam narrative, where the pagan seer leaves for Moab with the Moabite digintaries and incurs the anger of Yahweh-God. Three times the angel of the LORD stood unseen in Balaam’s path, but he was saved by the spiritual sight of his donkey. After beating the animal for the […]
Numbers 22:1-20; After twice defeating Amorite kings who attacked them, Israel temporarily settled in captured towns as they looked northward towards Moab. Balak, the king of Moab, was fearful of an Israelite invasion and sent emmisaries to hire a pagan prophet to curse God’s people. Balaam received the foreign messengers, then consulted the God of […]
Numbers 20:14-29; In this very impactful chapter, Miriam had died and the Israelite complaining about lack of water had prompted Moses to lose his composure. Instead of speaking to the rock, he struck it twice and was punished by the Lord by losing the privilige of leading the assembly into Canaan. Next they faced untrustful […]
Numbers 20:1-13; Nearly forty years have passed since the turmoil and challenges of chapters 16 and 17. Moses and Aaron have led the difficult assembly of Israel to the Desert of Zin just south of Canaan, but there is no water. The people once again contend with their leaders, but instead of judgement, Yahweh instructs […]