Today’s New Covenant nugget is from Numbers 23:20
“Behold, I have received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it.”
In the book of Numbers, (Chapter 22-24) Balak, the king of the Moabites hired the sorcerer Balaam to put a curse on Israel. Balaam tried to curse Israel, but instead, a blessing came out of his mouth!
Instead of cursing Israel as he was hired to do, this is what the Lord put in Balaam’s mouth…
“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? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? Behold, I have received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it. The Lord has not observed iniquity in Jacob, nor has He seen wickedness in Israel. The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a King is among them.” (Numbers 23:19-21)
Balaam could not reverse the blessing. When God blesses you, you are irreversibly blessed!
Numbers 23:21 says, “He [the Lord] has not observed iniquity in Jacob, nor has He seen wickedness in Israel.”
Was Jacob totally without sin? Was there no sin in all of Israel? Was everybody in the whole encampment perfect?
Jacob was not a perfect sinless man. There was sin… there had to be. In a city of about two million people, somebody had to be doing something wrong and yet the Lord did not observe iniquity in Jacob, nor did He see wickedness in Israel.
According to their Covenant with God, the children of Israel sacrificed animals to make atonement for their sins. Their sins were covered by the blood of the animals they had sacrificed, so God saw the BLOOD, and not their sins!
Under the Old Covenant, the Israelites enjoyed a temporal covering through the animal sacrifices, but for us, according to the New Covenant the remittance and payment for all our sins by Jesus Christ is eternal.
BECAUSE OF JESUS, THE FATHER DOES NOT SEE YOUR SIN. AS A BORN AGAIN BELIEVER YOU ARE IN CHRIST, AND THE FATHER SEES JESUS WHEN HE LOOKS AT YOU!
“And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and IN HIM THERE IS NO SIN. Whoever abides in Him does not sin.” (1 John 3:5-6)
Do you know what Balaam saw from the mountaintop when he was trying to curse God’s people? He saw this...
The Bible gives very specific details on how the twelve tribes of Israel set up their encampment and the number of people in each tribe (see Num. 2:2–32). The way the Lord instructed them to set up camp was in a giant cross.
The spiritual significance of the cross was not revealed to Israel but even though they did not know it, the power of the cross was over them.
We read that the camp of Judah (comprising Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun,) on the eastern side of the encampment is the largest camp among them, and you can see from the illustration that it forms the longer, bottom extension of the cross. There are no insignificant details in the Bible—everything points to the person of Jesus… isn’t this amazing? I love it when the cross of Jesus is revealed!
As Balaam was trying to curse God’s people, he was looking at a giant cross. He actually caught a glimpse of how God sees His people—through the cross, through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus.
YOU ARE BLESSED!
“Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute [count sin as] sin.” (Romans 4:7-9)
In Christ our present and future lawless deeds are covered by the cross of Calvary, and our past sins are remitted and taken away as far as the east is from the west, by the blood of Jesus and our sins are not imputed, or counted as sin. When the Father looks at us, as with the Children of Israel, He observes NO iniquity, and He sees NO wickedness, He sees the cross and He sees us in Christ, perfect, righteous and without stain!
NO MAN AND NO DEVIL CAN REVERSE WHAT GOD HAS BLESSED!
YOU ARE IRREVERSIBLY BLESSED!
In His amazing Love, Nick
