“They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man. Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword.”-Numbers 31:7-8
We’re in the midst of studying about the Israelite slaughter of the Midianites.
And again, I need to remind you of something.
The Israelites did NOT wipe out every Midian in existence at this time.
It was only those Midianite tribes who were living in the northern Trans-Jordan region who got wiped out.
The Midianites were NOT one large unified people group.
There were still a bunch of them scattered all the way from Moab down to the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
Onward.
Notice something very interesting we’re told in verse 8.
We’re told that Balaam, that Mesopotamian sorcerer who King Balak hired to curse Israel was also killed by the Israelites.
I find this little tidbit of information to be incredibly interesting.
Why?
Well, first of all we were already told that Balaam returned home empty handed after he told King Balak he would not be able to curse Israel.
Yet here we find Balaam again mingling with the Midianites.
This guy just couldn’t leave the temptation to curse Israel and earn some money all well alone.
HUGE MISTAKE!!!
There is a lesson to be learned from this Balaam character.
Here we have a man who had received direct revelation from the Creator of the Universe Himself concerning the status of Israel in God’s eyes.
Yet he still chose to rebel and go against God’s Chosen People.
And he paid with his life for that decision.
There’s a lesson in Balaam’s decision and actions for all of us….and it is this:
We can have a knowledge of God and in Balaam’s case, maybe even have the opportunity to communicate directly with God.
But possessing mere knowledge of God is NOT enough.
It is what we do with the knowledge and revelation God gives us by His Grace that will make all the difference in our life here and in the world to come.
In other words, merely possessing the knowledge of God and fully ACCEPTING the knowledge of God are two totally different things.
The former makes you no different than the demons who know who God is but remain defiant and doomed to destruction and the latter leads to a changed heart and behavior resulting in salvation.
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