So our scripture reading this morning is from Numbers 24. Numbers 24. Just remember the context, the history of it here. Numbers 24 happens, the writing happens here right before Israel enters the promised land. Only Balak and Balaam are in a different place than Israel as they're overlooking Israel. So we're not talking specifically about Israel. Right now we're talking about Balak and Balaam. And Balaam, remember, was that shady prophet type of a guy who's giving oracles where God wouldn't let Balak curse Israel. So we're in the middle of all that, and he gives four, kind of, if you want to think in big terms, there are four oracles or prophecies. We did the first two last week. We're going to do the last two this morning. So Numbers 24. We'll read the whole chapter. There's two different oracles here, the third and the fourth of four. Actually, you know what? We have to start in chapter 23. Sorry about that. In verse 27 of chapter 23, because that's where we pick up from last time. So this happens right after the second oracle. Verse 27 of Numbers 23, God's word. And Balak said to Balaam, come now, I will take you to another place. Perhaps it will please God that you may curse them for me from there. So Balak took Balaam to the top of Peor, which overlooks the desert. And Balaam said to Balak, build for me here seven altars and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams. And Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bull and a ram on each altar. When Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he did not go as other times to look for omens, but set his face toward the wilderness. And Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel camping tribe by tribe. And the spirit of God came upon him, and he took up his discourse and said, the oracle of Balaam, the son of Beor, the oracle of the man whose eye is opened, the oracle of him who hears the words of God, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down with his eyes uncovered. How lovely are your tents, O Jacob, your encampments, O Israel, like palm groves that stretch afar, like gardens beside a river, like aloes that the Lord has planted, like cedar trees beside the waters. Water shall flow from his buckets, and his seed shall be in many waters. His king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted. God brings him out of Egypt and is for him like the horns of the wild ox. He shall eat up the nations, his adversaries, and shall break their bones in pieces and pierce them through with his arrows. He crouched, he lay down like a lion, and like a lioness, who will rouse him up? Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you. And Balak's anger was kindled against Balaam, and he struck his hands together. And Balak said to Balaam, I called you to curse my enemies, and behold, you have blessed them these three times. Therefore, now flee to your own place. I said, I will certainly honor you, but the Lord has held you back from honor. And Balaam said to Balak, did I not tell your messengers whom you sent to me? If Balak should give me his house full of silver and gold, I would not be able to go beyond the word of the Lord to do either good or bad of my own will? While the Lord speaks, will I speak? And now behold, I am going to my people. Come, I will let you know what this people will do to your people in the latter days. And he, that's Balaam, took up his discourse and said, the oracle of Balaam, the son of Beor, the oracle of the man whose eye is open, the oracle of him who hears the words of God and knows the knowledge of the Most High, who sees the vision of the Almighty falling down with his eyes uncovered. I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. It shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth. Edom shall be dispossessed. Seir also, his enemies, shall be dispossessed. Israel is doing valiantly. And one from Jacob shall exercise dominion and destroy the survivors of cities. Then he looked on Amalek and took up his discourse and said, Amalek was first among the nations, but its end is utter destruction. And he looked on the Kenite and took up his discourse and said, enduring is your dwelling place and your nest is set in the rock. Nevertheless, Cain shall be burned when Asher takes you away captive. And he took up his discourse and said, alas, who shall live when God does this? But ships shall come from Katim and shall afflict Asher and Eber and he too shall come to utter destruction. Then Balaam rose and went back to his place and Balak also went his way. God's word. I'm sure most of you have heard the, if at first you don't succeed, sayings. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Or I think I saw one woman had this sign in her kitchen or somewhere. She said, if at first you don't succeed, do it the way your wife told you to. Or another one that you may have heard, if at first you don't succeed, don't try skydiving. And the list goes on. But you've heard those, if at first you don't succeed, quotes. If at first you don't succeed, don't give up, try again. That's essentially what Balak and Balaam are doing. Right? So we've had it for two times already. Balak wants to curse Israel using Balaam. And they try, and they try, and they try again, but they're not succeeding. And yet they still try two more times today. That's what we read. So in the first two oracles, or prophecies, whatever you want to call them, we learn that God is sovereign, and he does not lie, and he will do what he says. He will bless his people, period. He's sovereign and powerful that way. He's a promise keeper. Now today, when we look at these two oracles, the last two of Balaam, we're going to learn that God promises to send a powerful king who will give his people a peaceful kingdom. Powerful king, peaceful kingdom, that's what God promises his people. That's what we'll learn today in these two oracles. So we're gonna look here at Numbers 24 and talk about these first two oracles, or the last two oracles rather. So let's just start by going to verse 27 where we started reading. This is the first of the last two oracles. So Balak, now that's king, remember the king of Moab, Balak said to Balaam, come, I'll take you to a different place and maybe you'll be able to curse the Israelites from there. You know, we tried from over here a couple times. That didn't work. Let's move a little bit, and maybe your curse will work if we move to a different spot. Now, if you just kind of skim over it and don't look deeply, look in verse 28. You might just read, they went to the top of Peor, which overlooks the desert, and you'd move on. But before moving on, if you have your Bibles open, go to chapter 25, verse 3. Just the next chapter. Or, you know, one and a half chapters over. Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. So apparently, at Peor, on the top of a hill, there was some kind of a Baal shrine. Baal would be a Canaanite god that they worshipped, a false god. So it's interesting, Balak and Balaam now are on Peor, where there is a Baal shrine, and we'll talk about that later again. But they're going to try to curse the Israelites from where that Baal shrine is, on Peor. Now, just like the first two times they tried to curse him, they built altars. Remember verse 29, seven altars, seven bulls, seven rams. Balaam was trying to use some of Israel's sacrificial system mixed with some of the ancient Near East pagan mythologies and such to see if they could get God to curse Israel, to twist God's arm. They're trying and trying again. But there's one thing different about this time. In 24 verse 1, Balaam is starting to understand that God is going to bless Israel and not curse him. Balaam understands that, he sees that it pleases Yahweh to bless Israel. So he didn't go to look for omens or like wizard spell type of things. But he looked over toward the wilderness, probably overlooking Israel. In verse 2 it even says that, Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel camped tribe by tribe. Now, when we see Balaam kind of backing down a little bit, not using wizard spells or omens here and understanding that God's purpose is to bless Israel, I don't think here that Balaam is submitting in faith. You know what I mean? He's not saying, okay, Lord, what you do is perfect and you may bless Israel. I trust you. I believe that that's the best way. I don't think that's what's going on here. But what's going on here is that Balaam is basically running up against God's will, just like he ran up against that angel in the path. And he's finding out that you can't change God's will. And he's running up into it like a wall. It's kind of like a kid, you know, trying to sneak into a movie theater. Seven, eight, nine, ten times. And the tenth time he said, okay, it's impossible. I'm not going to do it. I can't do it. That's sort of what Balaam is facing here. He says, well, I can't do this. I can't curse Israel if God resolves to bless them. And maybe when you're reading in verse two, you kind of were interested in this phrase, the spirit of God came upon him. The Holy Spirit came upon Balaam, this, remember we called him a shyster type of a prophet. That's very interesting. Now I would say, and most commentators agree, that this is not the Holy Spirit working like he worked in Elijah or Jeremiah or Isaiah, the true prophets of God. But this is more like the Holy Spirit working in somebody else in the Old Testament who wasn't such a great guy. A king? Saul? Remember he prophesied? The Holy Spirit came upon him and he prophesied. So this would be something like that. And you have to understand that God, the Holy Spirit, is sovereign. He can work in a person without regenerating a person and making the person new. He's sovereign. He can do that. And so, another thing to think about here is in the New Testament. Remember the Jewish high priest, Caiaphas, before Jesus died? He wasn't a follower of Jesus, but he prophesied, the Bible says, that it was better for one man to die than the whole nation to perish. So this is something like Caiaphas. And once again, we're learning about the sovereignty of God, aren't we? He is sovereign over people and events. And he is free to use whom he will for his purposes. We talked about the freedom of God this morning when we looked at the Westminster Confession of Faith. God is free to use Pharaoh for his own purpose and God's glory. He's free to use Balaam or Saul or Caiaphas for his own purpose and glory. You probably have heard of the proverb. Proverb 21, I think it's verse 1. The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will. Talk about the sovereignty of God. When we lived in Washington, it was kind of deserty in South Central Washington, and they had to use irrigation ditches to get the water to the crops and the fruits and such. And of course, you know how this works. If there's a river over here, you're going to build an irrigation ditch, and you tell the river where to go, essentially. by building the irrigation ditch. Think about that when Proverbs 21, right? The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will. God directs the thoughts and the motives and the opinions of people that easily, their hearts. Now there's some pretty deep theology here, isn't there? The sovereignty of God in using man's actions for his own glory, God's glory. And so the theology here is God's sovereign providence extends to people's free actions, even sinful people's free actions. God uses their free actions and directs their free actions in such a way that he's not the author of sin or responsible for sin, but he uses their will sovereignly and bends it towards his purposes. John Owen put it this way, even deeper. God powerfully rules over all events, necessary, free, and contingent, and disposes them to certain ends for his own glory. You know, this is good news for us as God's people. There's no ruler that's going to overthrow God's plan or purpose. There's no army that can thwart God's purposes for his people. The king's heart is a stream of the water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will. His spirit comes on Balaam. But look at his prophecy then, Balaam's prophecy. Now in verses three and four, there's kind of the introduction. He's Balaam. God has opened his eyes to see some of these truths. He's heard the words of God. He sees visions of the Almighty. He falls down with his eyes uncovered. He's kind of introducing who he is right now as God's Spirit is leading him to speak. And I like how Matthew Henry put it. He had his eyes open, but he didn't have his heart opened. Now in verses five through seven, it's a poem Did you see some of the imagery there? Look at five lovely tents and encampments for Jacob and Israel. Verse six, there's palm groves that stretch a long ways, gardens beside a river, aloe plants that God himself has planted are like cedar trees beside the waters. And in verse seven, water shall flow from buckets and seed shall be in many waters. So think poetry and imagery. Can you picture that? It's kind of like paradise, isn't it, almost? Or some of the imagery in the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament. It's a perfect kingdom. It's not a wilderness, is it? This is a great picture for Israel. It's a perfect kingdom, a peaceful kingdom. You know those happily ever after stories? The ideal stories where at the end of the movie or whatever, there's this green meadow and there's butterflies and trees and flowers and everyone is happy. There's a river. This is what that is in this poetry. Happily ever after for God's people. And you know what? This kind of imagery also comes up way in the end of the Bible, doesn't it? happily ever after for God's people in Revelation, the glorious city of God. And let me just remind you of some of the imagery in Revelation about that city, about the new creation. It's like gold like clear glass, like a jewel in the city, high walls, there'll be the river of the water of life, the tree of life, no more night, no more tears, no more mourning or crying, No more death or pain for the former things have passed away. Happily ever after for God's people. So Balaam, this shyster, you know, so-called prophet, is being used by the Holy Spirit to predict this peaceful, perfect kingdom for God's people in the future. And of course, for us, as we trust in Christ, we have that promise that extends to Revelation. Now, moving on in this poem, the end of verse 7 talks about Israel, or Jacob's king, who's higher than Agag. Now, Agag would be an Amalekite king about 300 years later who was strong. Israel would destroy him. And in verse 8, you read about the exodus again from Egypt. There's horns of a wild ox. Israel will be strong because God makes them strong. Eating up the nations in verse 8, and his adversaries breaking bones, right? Victory. Or like a lion in verse 9, right? A strong predator who destroys his prey. So there's a powerful king coming too, who's going to make Israel victorious. So you see what's going on. Powerful king, peaceful kingdom, promised for Israel, God's people. And then we have the end of verse 9, the end of this third prophecy. Blessed are those who bless you, and cursed are those who curse you. O Israel, essentially. Now, who did God make that promise to? Abraham. Genesis 12, about 800 years or so earlier. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. We talked a little bit about this last time, so I'm not going to go into detail, but if you are a blessing to God's people, if you help God's people, if you identify with God's people, you'll be blessed with them. But if you curse God's people and fight against God's people, you'll be cursed by God as God's own enemy. Zechariah 2, he that touches you touches the apple of my eye. That's what God is for his people. Now think about through history, the Canaanites after this, the Assyrians, the Babylonians. Think about all the nations throughout history that have opposed God and have persecuted his church, his people. Has it gone well for those nations? It hasn't, has it? Those nations that persecute God's people are not thriving cultures where it's great to live. There's tyranny and bloodshed, and there's brutal history involved for the nations that persecute God's people, whether Old Testament, New Testament, or today. In fact, one preacher put it this way. I like this quote. He said, when a man dies, a doctor has to write on the death certificate the cause of death. When a nation dies, more often than not, the cause of death is that the nation has been hostile to God's people. Persecuting Christians, God's people, is a nation's way of signing its own death certificate, almost. If you curse God's people, you'll be cursed. So that's the end of the third prophecy. Did you notice Balak's anger? In verse 10, he collapses hands together. He's mad. He says, I called you to curse this people. He's ranting, but you've blessed them. Three times. Now run. You better get out of here because I'm mad. I'm upset. God has kept you from getting all the money that I promised you. And Balaam says, you know, I told you already that if you would give me your whole house full of silver and gold, this is verse 13, I would not be able to go beyond the word of the Lord to do either good or bad of my own will. What the Lord says, I'm going to speak that. Now again, we don't know if Balaam believes in his heart what he's saying here, but he's starting to get what's going on. So let's look at this fourth and final oracle then. In verse 14, he says, I'm going to leave. I'll let you know first, before I go, what my people will do, or what Israel, this people, will do to your people in the latter days. So he's got one more oracle, one more prophecy, and it's not going to be good for the king of Moab and the Moabites. If you're mad now, just listen up. Now there's no sacrifices this time, right? Remember the first three times they offered those sacrifices? Now there's just this oracle, this prophecy. And in verses 15 and 16, it's kind of a repeat of the third one. The oracle of Balaam, the son of Beor, his eye was opened, he hears the words of God, sees the visions of the Almighty, falls down with his eyes uncovered. That introduction. So let's go through this prophecy a little bit. In verse 17, I see him, but not now. I behold him, but not near. Well, who is that? Well, a star that will come out of Jacob and a scepter that will rise out of Israel. Now, you know what a scepter is, kids? That's a staff that the king would hold to show that he's got authority and power. So in this prophecy, Balaam is saying, in the future, I see him but not now and such, there's going to be this star king who's going to arise over Israel. Israel's king. And it's going to happen. And then read on. In verse 17, kind of near the end, it says, It shall crush the forehead of Moab and break down all the sons of Sheth. Now Sheth would be Moab's sons, Moab's descendants. So Balaam, this Shyster prophet who God is using by His Holy Spirit to speak the truth, is talking to this pagan king of Moab and saying, the ruler of Israel is going to come and crush your kingdom. They're going to wipe out your sons. That's this part of the prophecy. And then if you go on in verse 18, it says this future ruler will also dispossess Edom and Seir, and Israel will be doing valiantly. And then in verse 19, one from Jacob shall exercise dominion and destroy the survivors of the cities. So remember we talked about a powerful king? This is him. This is he. He's going to destroy you, Moab, and all of his enemies. And then the last couple short oracles, you know, if you divided these up technically, you'd get seven of them. But just briefly look at them. In verse 20, he turns toward Amalek, a different nation, and says, Amalek was the first, you know, the highest of the nations, but his end is utter destruction. Oh, he's going down too, by the way. So that other nation will. And then look in verse 21, the Kenite, a different nation around there. He said, enduring is your dwelling place and your nest is set in the rock. Right? You're strong now. But nevertheless, Cain shall be burned when Asher, or Assyria, takes you away captive. So Cain over here is very strong, but Assyria is going to come and take you away captive. That nation is going to fall too. And then the last one, in verse 24, But ships shall come from Kittim, and shall afflict Asher, Assyria, and Eber, and he too shall come to utter destruction. So the nation that took the other nation captive is going to be destroyed too. In other words, Balaam is looking out over all these different nations and saying, their enemies of God, they're going down. They're going to come to their end one way or another. So that's basically what's going on here. And the one kingdom that's going to last That's the kingdom of God, that peaceful, perfect kingdom, and the one king who's going to stand and rule is the king from Judah, the king from Israel, the powerful king. Now, I want to focus on, maybe you've heard these words and thought of them before. Verse 17, look there again. A star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. A star and a scepter, there's royal imagery here, right? We're talking about king. Now, to some extent, that's David, right? Because he did destroy a lot of these enemies. And his kingdom was decent. But David never got the complete victory over all of his enemies. And the kingdom of David back then was never perfect and peaceful. So who do you think this prophecy is talking about? Of course, the Lord Jesus. And we don't just guess at this. You might have an inclination, that's good. You think, well, David wasn't the perfect king with a perfect kingdom. Wait, who's the perfect king with a perfect kingdom? Well, Jesus. But the Bible actually directs us this way. Now let's think about the star first of all, this morning star, the star that comes out of Jacob. In Revelation 22, Jesus speaks and says, I am the descendant of David, the bright morning star. So Jesus is alluding to this prophecy of Balaam, the bright morning star. Now do you know what a bright morning star is? I actually looked this morning, I didn't see one because it was cloudy. But oftentimes before the sun comes up, when it's still dark, there's one star that, I didn't look up the technical name for it, but there's one star that's very bright and it signals that the morning is coming. Jesus is that morning star. So one commentator put it this way, the morning star is the herald of the day which chases away the darkness of night Confronted by Jesus the night of sin and death flees away The star is our Lord Jesus Christ the light of the world The light that people come to for life like Isaiah 60 says nation shall come to your light the star the star of Jacob and When we come to Jesus Peter puts it this way, 2 Peter 1, the morning star is rising in our hearts to give us light. There's where that allusion comes in again in 2 Peter 1. And this is good news, this light, this star that will come out of Jacob pointing to Jesus because back then in Israel's day there was darkness and there were enemies. And in our day there's darkness, isn't there? There's evil. There's hatred. There are enemies of the gospel. There's suffering and there's death and all that darkness. But there's a bright morning star and his name is Jesus who's the light of the world and he'll give you light when you come to him. And we all go through dark periods in life, don't we? You've maybe had it before where it's literally dark in the middle of the night and that's how your life feels. You're awake and you can't get to sleep and you think there is no hope. And the day comes and it's still dark in your mind and you think there is no hope. But there is because there is such a thing as the light of the world, the star that comes out of Jacob who gives light to you and hope and peace. and his light, the light of Christ, will shine through the darkest night and cut through the deepest fog to give hope, to give peace, to give this kingdom of light. So there's the star coming out of Jacob. It's Jesus. Now the last thing that I want to focus on then this morning is right after the star coming out of Jacob is the scepter that shall rise out of Israel. Now this one might be a little easier. You'd see how this would be Jesus, right? In Luke 1, it says that Jesus will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And in Psalm 45 in Hebrews 1, it talks about the scepter of your kingdom. So this one who has the scepter, of course, is the Lord Jesus. And in numbers here, it's prophesying of victory over Israel's physical enemies around, but ultimately this true king with the scepter who has this peaceful kingdom will destroy all of his enemies, all evil, all darkness, all of Satan's minions and armies. That's Jesus. And when Jesus destroys all of his enemies and ours, there'll be peace and a perfect kingdom. Right now, we still battle. We battle our own sinful flesh. We struggle with sin. There's a constant conflict in Christians, because we want to do what is right often, but we struggle in sin. And so there's this battle, there's this war. But when Jesus comes, he'll defeat all evil, and that war will be finished. There'll be peace inside. And there's also enemies without rights. Satan comes to attack you. Remember we were talking about the dark night sometimes that we have in our own life That's sometimes when Satan comes and attacks the worst and the hardest But but when Jesus comes right now already we share in his victory, but when Jesus comes Satan will never bother us again Because we'll have this peaceful perfect kingdom where his enemies will be defeated And you won't have to worry about temptations from Satan and affliction from Satan anymore Not to mention the enemies of the gospel, those in the world who persecute the church. And so it says in verse 18, Israel is doing valiantly. In verse 19, the one from Jacob shall exercise dominion. This is pointing forward to the new creation, the new heavens and the new earth, where the morning star shall come with the scepter of salvation. He's pointing us forward to the new creation. We need this kind of reminder, don't we? Because sometimes you just press on through each day and you think just one thing after another. There's nothing new. This life is hard, and then what? Well, if you're Christian, I'll tell you what. You have a king who is reigning. He's powerful. One day he'll completely defeat all of your enemies and his, and you'll be in his peaceful and perfect kingdom. So that helps you press on. You can put up with those headaches and difficulties of life because you know that there is a great future for you as a child of God. That helps us with that pilgrim mentality, this mentality of hope, this mentality of the kingdom of light that is coming. Now, if you're not on Christ's side, if you don't believe in this star of Jacob, this scepter, this Lord Jesus, this King, It's not gonna be good for you when he comes again. Because he'll inflict vengeance on all those who hate him and who hate the gospel. But come today, you can still come today to the kingdom of light. Repent and believe and enjoy the victory that you have in him and the light and the hope that he gives and the promise of this good future. So in the story today, Balaam and Balak are not succeeding. They're trying and trying again, but it's not working because he can't stop the will and the purposes of God. He is sovereign. And the good news for us is that this plan that God has written before the foundation of the world is going to come to pass. There will be a perfect kingdom and the perfect king will come and destroy all of his enemies. And we sang that hope in that hymn right before the sermon this morning. And I'll end with a verse from it. One day all things will be made new. I'll see the hope you called me to. And in your kingdom paved with gold, I'll praise your faithfulness of old. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,