{"id":4318,"date":"2022-10-18T03:14:15","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T08:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4318"},"modified":"2022-10-18T03:14:15","modified_gmt":"2022-10-18T08:14:15","slug":"devotional-on-numbers-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-numbers-20\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-jQTychKG7UI\/XVHzpbYAfII\/AAAAAAAA-YM\/5UgcMGz0Gx4Be07tFoRjZVbl_2rAjvFOQCKgBGAs\/s1600\/P6199557.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"1200\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 \u2013 Mt Rainier National Park<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nWhat God intended in the first place<br \/>\nNumbers 23: How can I curse whom God has not cursed?<br \/>\nBalaam is hired by Balak, king of Moab, to curse the Israelites.  After the talking donkey incident, Balaam has had a change of heart.  After all, part of that unusual event is that he saw the angel of the Lord with sword in hand blocking his way.  Now as he arrives, Balak urges him to go ahead and curse the Israelites.  Balaam agrees to do his thing, but warns Balak that he can only say what the Lord allows him to say.  He enters into his \u201cprophetic trance\u201d and the words that come out of his mouth are a disappointment to Balak.  Right off it\u2019s plain that the pitiful prophet, who\u2019s toying with stuff he would be better off leaving alone, isn\u2019t going to do a very good job of cursing God\u2019s people.  Instead, Balaam hears himself blessing them.  This whole blessing and cursing stuff is off the mark anyway.  God\u2019s people don\u2019t believe in spells and magic.  Rather, we believe in God.  In this case the Lord used Balaam\u2019s hocus pocus for his own purposes, but remember this: God already intends to bless Israel.  That\u2019s what he\u2019s been saying all along.  Even if Balak\u2019s plan had worked and Balaam managed to state a mysterious, mystic curse on Israel it would have just been a lot of hot air.  Beyond that, Balaam\u2019s blessing doesn\u2019t actually mean anything either.  God didn\u2019t hear this silly prophet state a blessing and think he had to obey.  The Lord continued to do what he intended to do all along.<br \/>\nTake Away: The Lord is sovereign and all the hocus pocus in the world isn\u2019t going to force him to do anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What God intended in the first place Numbers 23: How can I curse whom God has not cursed? Balaam is hired by Balak, king of Moab, to curse the Israelites. After the talking donkey incident, Balaam has had a change of heart. After all, part of that unusual event is that he saw the angel [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1522,7],"tags":[106,145,433,772],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4318"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4318"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13982,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4318\/revisions\/13982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}