Of Sheep and Shepherds

Today’s readings: Psalm 20-22; John 10:1-21

“Let me set this before you as plainly as I can,” Jesus told them… “If a person climbs over or through the fence of a sheep pen instead of going through the gate, you know he’s up to no good—a sheep rustler! The shepherd walks right up to the gate. The gatekeeper opens the gate to him and the sheep recognize his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he gets them all out, he leads them and they follow because they are familiar with his voice. They won’t follow a stranger’s voice but will scatter because they aren’t used to the sound of it.”

As with many of Jesus’ parables, His followers were a bit baffled.  Sheep?!  What?

I remember a Christian comedy routine I heard as a college student that reflected, “God calls us sheep.  Know why?  ‘Cause sheep are dumb!”

As much as that makes me laugh to recall, I decided to do a bit of research on sheep, and what I found out indicates that sheep are not, in fact, dumb — at least in relation to other farm animals.  Pigs are a bit smarter, but sheep are no worse off than cattle in the brains department.

… Well, that makes me feel a whole lot better!  Hah!

In addition to not being the village idiots of farm animals, I discovered four other characteristics of sheep:

1) Sheep are gregarious.  They are social animals, but primarily sheep will band together and stay together while grazing for protection.  Hebrews 10:25 urges us to “not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another —and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”  We need to meet together not only to be social, but for our own protection.  A lone sheep at the outskirts of the field is an easy target for the next predator who comes along.

2) Sheep will follow each other.  If you can get one sheep to move, the whole flock will follow.  This can be a good thing or a bad thing in ourselves, obviously.  In its best form, our sheep-like tendency to follow one another is spelled out in 1 Corinthians 11:1:  Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

3) Sheep will move toward another sheep or friend.  Shepherds are able to control the movement of their sheep by getting the sheep to see them as a friend — normally, this is done by feeding them, and doing so consistently so the sheep do not begin to see themselves as being tricked and refuse to follow.  As shepherds of their own flocks, this obviously has an application for pastors.  As Jesus told Peter in John 21, “Feed My sheep!”  Feed them, and do so consistently.

4) Sheep maintain a flight distance between themselves and others.  Sheep have their own “personal space”, so to speak.  When relaxed, in normal circumstances, they tend to stand pretty close together.  If a stranger or a dog appears, or something else that causes the perception of danger, the sheep will increase that personal space — they’ll back away, and if the danger moves toward them, they will run away.  2 Timothy 2:22 exhorts us to “flee the evil desires of youth” and to pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace.

Perhaps sheep are a little smarter than we are at times, when you look at it closely.

The Meaning of a Sacrifice

Today’s readings: 2 Samuel 23-24; John 6:41-71

I have a deep appreciation for the game of baseball.

When I say “deep”, I mean that I’m not just in it for the flashy home run hitters and high scoring innings — as fun as they may be to watch at times.  I also love sitting on the edge of my seat during a tense pitcher’s battle, taking note of the strikes, the fouls, the infield flies, the walks and the double plays.  When I’m into the game, I go into scorekeeper mode, and watch every pitch, every swing of the bat, every step off first base, and every dive under a fielder’s mitt.

I love this game.

I love the games where a hit-by-pitch, a stolen base, and a good third base coach can mean the difference between a win and a loss.  As boring as some fans find it, I love me some small ball.

And in those games where small ball rules the day, there’s nothing like seeing a solid hitter come to the plate with a man on first and nobody out, expecting him to swing for the fences and try to get a two-spot on the board… and instead seeing him drop into a crouch at the last second and lay down a perfect sacrifice bunt.

To the casual fan, there’s no glory in a sac bunt.  There’s no home run trot, no padded stats, no fireworks… Just another out in a game where the home team is already having a rough time racking up the hits, which may or may not bear any fruit.  There’s no personal glory, which is why it’s a sacrifice.

In 2 Samuel 24, King David had sinned in his determination to take a census of the people he ruled. The purpose was pride, unlike previous counts that God had commanded, and when it was done, David was overwhelmed with guilt.  God gave David a choice of what punishment would be given for his actions, and David chose the one that showed the most reliance on the mercy of God: a three-day plague, as opposed to a famine that would have Israel weakened before its neighbors, or months of war and persecution from his enemies.  The plague hit Israel hard, but David interceded for his people, and begged God to punish him and his family instead.

Then David was commanded to build an altar on that very ground, the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, in order to offer a sacrifice.  David asked to buy the land from Araunah, and Araunah — trying to be a good subject — offered it as a donation, in addition to the animals for the burnt offerings and the fuel.

Araunah was willing to give whatever was required of him to the cause, but King David refused to accept it as a gift.

 24-25 But the king said to Araunah, “No. I’ve got to buy it from you for a good price; I’m not going to offer God, my God, sacrifices that are no sacrifice.”

So David bought the threshing floor and the ox, paying out fifty shekels of silver. He built an altar to God there and sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings. God was moved by the prayers and that was the end of the disaster.  (2 Sam 24:24-25, MSG)

How many of us have ever been asked to fast, and been tempted to give up something that really didn’t matter to us?  Have you ever considered giving things that you didn’t want anymore to charity as “good enough”?  Isn’t all that really just a meaningless sacrifice, much like David refused to give?

But don’t we all sometimes hold back from giving what God asks of us, because we will be inconvenienced in our pocketbook, or our schedule… or just our freedom to do our own thing?

And speaking of the freedom to do our own thing:

22 But Samuel replied:
“Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices
as much as in obeying the Lord?
To obey is better than sacrifice,
and to heed is better than the fat of rams.
(1 Sam 15:22, NIV)

 

Unfailing Love

Today’s Readings:  Psalm 32-51; John 3:16-36

Today we celebrate Mother’s Day — honoring the women, both natural and spiritual mothers, who have poured into our lives from before each of us drew our first breath.

The true heart of a mother is a nurturing, constant love: through thick and thin, through the terrible twos and teenage rebellion, through triumph and tragedy, a mother supports, encourages, rejoices, prays, guides, and even now and then gives a spanking.  No matter how old he is, no matter how self-sufficient she becomes, a mother’s love will not let her child go.

Mothers, whether those who raise a child naturally or those who train a son or daughter spiritually, are a model of God’s unfailing love for us.

9 Within your temple, O God,
we meditate on your unfailing love.
10 Like your name, O God,
your praise reaches to the ends of the earth;
your right hand is filled with righteousness.
11 Mount Zion rejoices,
the villages of Judah are glad
because of your judgments.

(Psalm 48:9-11 NIV)

As we meet together in our respective places of worship today, we recognize and meditate on the love of our mothers… and the unfailing love of the God we worship.

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

(John 3:16-17 NIV)

That love will see each of us through thick and thin, through our childish tantrums and our self-centered rebellions, through every triumph and tragedy life throws at us… God’s love will truly never let us go.

This song was running through my head while finishing this post… it’s one I remember from my teenage years, and many of you may never have heard it.  It’s worth a listen.

Silence from Heaven

Today’s Readings: 1 Samuel 28-29; Luke 23:26-56

The prophet Samuel was dead, and Israel was once again at the brink of war with the Philistines.  King Saul, the man the armies looked to for leadership, stood facing his enemies, utterly terrified.

The Bible tells us that Saul prayed to God, but God did not answer — not in any of the ways Saul was expecting: dreams, or signs, or words from another prophet.  At this hour of Saul’s need, Heaven was silent.

Saul’s response was a particularly telling one.  Instead of seeking further for God’s direction, offering sacrifices, searching out prophets, or anything of the sort, Saul took the path of hypocrisy.

The practice of divination, speaking with the spirits of the dead, had been outlawed in Israel, and Saul himself had long since cleaned out those who practiced such things in the land.  But when he himself desperately needed answers, Saul’s response was to ask about for the services of a medium.

Saul wanted easy answers more than he wanted the truth of God.  In order to obtain his answers, he disguised his identity and went in secret to visit the one remaining medium his men were able to locate:  the witch of Endor.

Saul had to conceal who he truly was to get his answers, and even then he had to argue with the medium to get her to agree to call up a spirit for him.  Then Saul chose Samuel as the spirit who could give him the advice he needed.

It appears that Saul’s attempt worked, and Samuel’s ghost appeared to him, rather unhappy about being summoned in this manner to have a troubled king demand his counsel.  And instead of the easy answers Saul wanted, Samuel gave him the truth.

God has turned away from you and is now on the side of your neighbor. God has done exactly what he told you through me—ripped the kingdom right out of your hands and given it to your neighbor. It’s because you did not obey God, refused to carry out his seething judgment on Amalek, that God does to you what he is doing today. Worse yet, God is turning Israel, along with you, over to the Philistines. Tomorrow you and your sons will be with me. And, yes, indeed, God is giving Israel’s army up to the Philistines.

Saul’s quest for answers outside of seeking God brought him nothing but despair.

We’ve all had times in our lives when we have prayed, searching for guidance, but Heaven has been silent.  How many times have we taken the easy way out and given up on seeking God?

When it appears that God is not responding, perhaps it is just that we are not listening.

The Man of the Hour

Today’s readings:  I Samuel 17-18; Luke 20:27-47

Here we were again, on a hill overlooking Oak Valley — the Israelite army, servants of the living God… demoralized and paralyzed by the spectacle facing us.

On the opposite hill, our enemies: the Philistine army, a match for ours, we might have said, if it were not that God is on our side.  But the Israelite army had a legacy of triumph, fighting against impossible odds, conquering cities and nations against any expectation and for no discernible reason other than that God Himself had decreed for us to take the land.

The Philistines should not have been a concern to God’s army, should they?  But here he came again, the cause for our despair — Goliath, the giant, champion of the Philistine army, issuing his daily challenge:

“Why bother using your whole army? Am I not Philistine enough for you? And you’re all committed to Saul, aren’t you? So pick your best fighter and pit him against me. If he gets the upper hand and kills me, the Philistines will all become your slaves. But if I get the upper hand and kill him, you’ll all become our slaves and serve us. I challenge the troops of Israel this day. Give me a man. Let us fight it out together!”

Just as we had every day for the past forty days, we looked at one another in despair.  Brothers in arms, we had trusted one another with our lives on a daily basis… but the thought of any one of us in single combat against that massive brute, with the freedom of our entire nation on the line?  Suddenly this one’s proficiency with his sword, and that one’s vaunted strength, and the other’s bravery in battle… they were nothing.  All useless against one ten-foot tower of a man, taunting us from the distance.

Then suddenly, through the murmuring ranks of disheartened soldiers, a teenager pushed his way to the front.  A mere boy to our eyes, too young to serve in the army, and dressed as a humble shepherd… but this young man had a look of determination.  Determination, and indignation.

“Who does this guy think he is?  This uncircumcised Philistine, insulting and taunting the armies of the living God?  Are you all seriously going to let him get away with this?”

And as this fiery youth stepped up to the challenge, volunteering with the passion and confidence of one who could not envision his own mortality, one who refused to accept the possibility of failure, something strange began to stir inside my heart.

Could this be hope?

—–

David had everything against him in that battle.  He was outmatched in every way — height, weight, armor, weaponry, and experience — except for one critical thing.

David was God’s man of the hour.

From this moment forward, David was moving toward his destiny.  But in this moment, he wasn’t thinking of the rewards he might gain (marrying the king’s daughter), or the glory and adulation that would follow his victory.

And he was the one man in the army that day who was not concerned with his own death, or the threat of slavery, or the humiliation of being taunted as a coward.

His thought was for the honor of the God he served, and his confidence was in God’s power to bring victory where all others saw certain defeat:

“You come at me with sword and spear and battle-ax. I come at you in the name of God-of-the-Angel-Armies, the God of Israel’s troops, whom you curse and mock. This very day God is handing you over to me. I’m about to kill you, cut off your head, and serve up your body and the bodies of your Philistine buddies to the crows and coyotes. The whole earth will know that there’s an extraordinary God in Israel. And everyone gathered here will learn that God doesn’t save by means of sword or spear. The battle belongs to God—he’s handing you to us on a platter!”

David’s eyes were on God’s intended outcome.

Lord, teach us in our personal challenges to focus not on our own rewards, or the consequences of our failure, but on how to bring glory to Your Name.  Help us to be like David, who was known as a man after Your own heart… and to be used in our own circumstances as Your man of the hour.

A Tale of Two Widows

Today’s Reading:  Ruth 1-4; Luke 17:1-19

(Many apologies for missing last Sunday – “the plague” had me quite down last weekend, and while I’m definitely on the upswing, I’m not 100% just yet.)

I can’t recall the last time I specifically read the book of Ruth, but I’m willing to bet it was at least five years ago.  Re-reading it today, having experienced widowhood, the story reads very differently.  That’s the beauty of the Word of God — there is always more to see and learn.  As you grow, the meaning grows with you.

Naomi and Ruth are both primary characters in this book.  Naomi was widowed after moving from Bethlehem to Moab to escape a famine, and then lost both of her newly-married sons.  Destitute and grieving, she decided to return to Israel where the famine had ended, and tried to send her daughters-in-law back to their respective families.  One of them returned to her family and her gods to be cared for and hopefully remarried.  The other, Ruth, declared Naomi to be her family and refused to leave her, determining to convert to her faith and cast her lot with Naomi, whatever the future would bring.

When they arrived in Bethlehem, Ruth took on the responsibility of providing for the two of them by gathering food — gleaning the remnants of the harvest left behind by the regular gatherers, with the permission of the owner of the field, working long and hard hours to gather what scraps she could.

With all that hard work, however, God was gracious, and led her to the field of a close relative of Naomi’s late husband — close enough of a relative to be considered as a kinsman redeemer for Naomi and her daughter-in-law.  And from there, we know how the story ends:  Boaz agrees to marry Ruth, and to redeem both her and her mother-in-law from poverty… and becomes the great-grandfather of King David.

The concept of the kinsman redeemer is so fascinating, especially in a culture where most people are reluctant to take responsibility for one’s own actions and debts, let alone another’s.  But rabbinical tradition provides for the goel, who as the nearest living relative of another is responsible for restoring that person’s rights, and avenging wrongs done against them.

The kinsman redeemer, or goel, is obligated to redeem a relative who has sold himself or herself into slavery and to repurchase property that was sold because of poverty.  The goel was to avenge his kinsman if murdered, act as a prosecuting attorney when their killer is brought before the court, and to collect restitution on their behalf.  And if the relative died without an heir, the goel was charged with marrying the widow and providing a son to carry on the family name.

Can you imagine taking on that kind of responsibility for your brother, or your nephew, or your cousin?  Can you imagine taking on the debt of a relative who was completely ungrateful for having been redeemed, and who continued to dig himself further into debt?

Yet Christ willingly became our kinsman redeemer, ungrateful as we are, paying our debts and redeeming us from slavery… avenging the wrongs done against us and restoring our rights as sons of God.

He paid a debt He did not owe
I owed a debt I could not pay…

And with that thought, I leave you with this powerful video:

Day #99 – The Last Enemy

Today’s Readings: Joshua 10-12; Luke 10:1-24

(Today’s post will be short and sweet, as I’ve been trying to recuperate from whatever plague our new hire class has been passing around for the last seven weeks, which I managed to avoid catching until the next to last day.)

Our Old Testament reading today is about Israel’s victories over several kingdoms when claiming the Promised Land.  In Joshua chapter 10, we have a stirring account of Israel’s battle against five Amorite kings at once, chock full of amazing imagery.

The Word tells us that God Himself intervened and fought on Israel’s side in that battle, pitching huge hailstones at the Israelites’ enemies, and answering Joshua’s prayer to cause the sun and moon to stand still until they were defeated.

The five Amorite kings, while their armies were being trounced, had been hiding in a cave, where Joshua had them trapped until he was ready to deal with them.  Once the enemy had been totally devastated, their leaders were brought out of the cave, and Joshua gave the Israelites another powerful image of God’s triumph over every enemy:

24 When they had them all there in front of Joshua, he called up the army and told the field commanders who had been with him, “Come here. Put your feet on the necks of these kings.”

    They stepped up and put their feet on their necks.

 25 Joshua told them, “Don’t hold back. Don’t be timid. Be strong! Be confident! This is what God will do to all your enemies when you fight them.”

This Resurrection Sunday morning, I am reminded of the image of a victorious Christ, triumphant over death, Hell, and the grave.

25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Cor 15:25-16, NIV)

Day #92 – Are You The One We’ve Been Expecting?

Today’s Readings: Deuteronomy 26-27; Luke 7:1-30

"Triumphal Entry", (c) Liz Lemon Swindle, 2008

Today is Palm Sunday, when we commemorate Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  Multitudes cheered Him as He rode into the city, making a carpet of their cloaks and palm branches to show Him honor befitting a triumphant king.

Hosanna!  (Oh, save us!)  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!

Such a contrast to a few days later, when some of the same crowd was calling for his execution, preferring to have a cold blooded murderer released from captivity in exchange for the man they’d been willing to hail as their Messiah.

The people of Israel clearly had expected Jesus to be a different sort of king than He was to become.  They were looking for a a political figure who would rally the opposition… a conqueror who would raise up the people and rout their Roman overlords.  Jesus meant to be nothing of the sort.

In today’s reading, earlier in Jesus’ ministry, His cousin John the Baptist had begun to hear stories of the miracles Jesus had been doing as He traveled, and sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus a pointed question:  Are you the One we’ve been expecting?  Are you really the Messiah, or should we be looking for another?

John was the one who baptized Jesus, and he witnessed the voice of God speaking aloud and the Spirit appearing as a dove.  One might think that a pretty convincing display.  John had been preaching for years to prepare the way for the kingdom of God, and even he questioned whether his expectations were being met.

Are you the One we’ve been expecting?

In answer to John’s question, Jesus spent the next few hours giving the gift of healing and deliverance to the people, and then he turned to John’s disciples.

Then he gave his answer: “Go back and tell John what you have just seen and heard:

   The blind see,
   The lame walk,
   Lepers are cleansed,
   The deaf hear,
   The dead are raised,
   The wretched of the earth
      have God’s salvation hospitality extended to them.
“Is this what you were expecting? Then count yourselves fortunate!”   (Luke 7:22-23, MSG)

In our own lives, there are times when God’s hand at work in our situation looks nothing like what we expect.  We may look at our trials and declare them the work of the enemy, and pray for God to intervene, when God has purposed to bring us through, not take us out of the situation.  We are expecting a conquering king to ride in and rout our enemies, when the Prince of Peace means to enter quietly and do His work from within.

Two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, and today in our own lives, Jesus comes not to meet our expectations, but to challenge and change our expectations.

Day #85 – What’s the Point Again?

Today’s readings:  Deuteronomy 5-7; Luke 3

After four-and-a-half weeks of intensive classroom training, our new hire class at work graduated this past Wednesday and moved into the two week on-the-job training phase.  On Tuesday morning, the trainer and I were working through some review topics with them and had the group doing a worksheet to practice something they hadn’t done since early in Week Two, and most of them had forgotten how to do.

I moved from desk to desk, quietly responding to questions from one or the other of our sixteen students, until one of them politely raised her hand and asked me, “What’s the point of this again?  Why are we doing this?”

This particular student had been struggling off and on throughout the class, and it finally occurred to me at that moment what the problem was for her.  She’d been focusing on learning our computer systems and our processes, and was trying diligently to learn how to perform each task, but hadn’t yet put the pieces together to understand why.

In Deuteronomy chapter 5, Moses reminds the Israelites of God’s commands.  He also reminds the people of their fear at the revealed glory and greatness of God, and the need to follow exactly the rules and regulations that God has set up for them.  In Deuteronomy chapter 6, the rules and regulations are summarized:

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one![a] 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. (NJKV)

Moses goes on to exhort the people to write the commandments on their hearts — to make them an intrinsic part of their own lives, as well as their children’s.  Talk about them anywhere and everywhere, all the time.  In more modern terms, to put them on a sticky note on your forehead and affix a plaque to your front door.

All this single-minded focus on God and His commands would be baffling to any outsiders they would encounter, wouldn’t it?  One might even refer to the Israelites as a “peculiar people.”  But true to human nature, within a generation, folks would have forgotten the purpose behind all those rules and regulations, all the ritual and the reminders.  And so Moses admonished them:

 20-24 The next time your child asks you, “What do these requirements and regulations and rules that God, our God, has commanded mean?” tell your child, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt and God powerfully intervened and got us out of that country. We stood there and watched as God delivered miracle-signs, great wonders, and evil-visitations on Egypt, on Pharaoh and his household. He pulled us out of there so he could bring us here and give us the land he so solemnly promised to our ancestors. That’s why God commanded us to follow all these rules, so that we would live reverently before God, our God, as he gives us this good life, keeping us alive for a long time to come.  (Deuteronomy 6:20-24, MSG)

Just like my new hire class, if they don’t understand the “why”, the “what” and the “how” cease to have meaning and are easily forgotten.

Perhaps this lack of clarity on the meaning and purpose of our religious behavior is why so many of the children raised in church go their own way and leave the church behind as they get older.  “What does all of this mean to me,” they ask.  “What’s the point again?”

Day #78 – Actions Speak Louder than Words

Today’s Readings:  Numbers 23-25; Mark 16

I want to backtrack just a little to Numbers chapter 22, from yesterday’s reading, because the background will help make sense of today’s thoughts.

Most of us probably remember the story of Balaam and his Amazing Talking Donkey from Sunday School… and if you haven’t done a lot of re-reading and studying the Old Testament, the most that probably stuck in your head was that Balaam was heading somewhere God wasn’t too keen on him going, and sent an angel with a great big sword to stand in the middle of the road.  Balaam’s donkey was a fair bit smarter than he was, and kept running him off the right of way instead of trying to pass through the angelic roadblock.  Balaam engaged in several instances of animal cruelty before God decided to grant the power of speech to the beleaguered beast, and Balaam finally realized that what he took as a misbehaving critter was just trying to save their lives.

What you may not have absorbed in the Sunday School version of the Balaam story (or may have not been listening to because you were snickering about the King James Version’s use of the 3-letter synonym for donkey) was the fact that Balaam was essentially a mercenary:  a prophet for hire, a non-Israelite who talked with God and had a reputation for being able to bring powerful blessings or curses on people.

After a major victory by the Israelites against the Amorites, the Midianites and Moabites started getting nervous, and the King of Moab (Balak) decided to hire Balaam to curse Israel.  The first group of emissaries arrived with Balaam’s cursing fee in hand, but when Balaam checked in with God, he was told not to take the job.  He sent the group back to Balak with a rejection, but Balak was determined, and sent another group of more distinguished personages to beg Balaam to take the job.

This, of course, appealed to his vanity — and his greed.  It’d be like a recruiter approaching you to interview for an open position in your field, but you turned it down… and then the president of the company called you back and offered to let you dictate your own salary.  Hard to say no under those circumstances, and Balaam had a really hard time accepting God’s original direction to have nothing to do with the Moabite job, so he asked again, and this time God gave him a provisional OK to go back with them, but a strict warning not to say or do anything without permission.

Balaam, in Numbers 23 and 24, was taken to the heights overlooking the Israelite camps, where he offered sacrifices and performed some unspecified sorcery in order to attempt to curse the Israelites, as he had been hired to do… and found that God refused to allow him to curse His chosen and blessed people.  Instead, he spoke the words God gave him, and ended up speaking a blessing over the nation instead.

His employer was understandably irked.  A second time he was led to the outskirts of the Israelite’s encampment, and a second time he offered sacrifices and worked his sorcery, and again God gave him words of blessing — stating God sees nothing wrong with Israel that they should be cursed.

Balak gave Balaam a bit of a hard time for a second instance of doing the exact opposite of his instructions, but was willing to try a third time.  This time, he suggested trying to find “the right place in God’s eyes” where Israel could be cursed.  They found another vista overlooking the wilderness where the tribes were camped, and this time after the sacrifices, Balaam decided to skip the sorcery.  This time, the Word tells us the Spirit of God came on him, and he not only prophesied blessing for Israel, but blessings for those who bless her, and curses for those who curse her.

Balak, by this time, had given up on getting his money’s worth from the prophet-for-hire, and sent him packing without payment.  In return, Balaam prophesied the fate of the Moabites, the Amelekites and the Kenites: destruction and captivity.

Balak and Balaam went their separate ways, but the story doesn’t quite end there.

Perhaps Balaam was still trying to earn his big payday.  Perhaps a combination of his second blessing on Israel and Balak’s instructions for his third cursing attempt gave him a devious plan to earn that payday:  if God was unwilling to curse Israel because He was pleased with her, perhaps Balaam could find a way to get Israel to curse herself by losing God’s favor.

The account in Numbers skips right to the results, but Numbers 31:16 and Revelation 2:14, as well as rabbinic literature, indicate that Balaam went back to Balak with a plan to tempt the Israelites into idol worship and sexual sin.  God’s anger was kindled against the people of Israel, and they were afflicted with a plague that took 24,000 lives before one spear-wielding priest made a bold and bloody statement on God’s behalf, slaughtering a particularly brazen couple in flagrante delicto, and prompted God to stay the planned executions of every person who had participated in the idol worship, and the hanging of every leader of the Israelite people who had allowed it to happen on their watch.

What I take away from this section of the book of Numbers are two things:

First, Balaam gave three prophecies of blessing over the nation of Israel, with some beautiful words, but his original intent, and his final result, was to bring a curse on the people.

Second, while the plague-afflicted Israelites were weeping in penitence at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, facing execution in order to turn away God’s wrath, Phinehas the priest saw an Israelite flaunting his sin and took immediate action.  That action was shocking and probably seemed a bit extreme, but it saved the lives of thousands of Israelites who were to be sentenced to die.

Actions do, indeed, speak louder than words.