ALPHA MAAMA (A.M.)

 Tokonaki Fepueli 21, 2026

NOMIPA 23-25; TAITUSI 1:1-3

Hook your past, present, and future to a God who cannot lie.

Nono’o ho kuohili, lolotonga ni, mo e kaha’u ki he ‘Otua ‘oku ‘ikai malava ke loi.

The "prophet" Balaam is perhaps the most complex, complicated character in the Old Testament. Nothing good is said about this man in all of Scripture. He was probably more of a spiritualist medium than a true Old Testament prophet. He comes onto the scene in Numbers because Balak, king of Moab, was scared to death of the approaching armies of Israel. So he sought out Balaam, to hire him to pronounce curses on Israel. Numbers records four of Balaam's oracles (prophetic utterances). But they were not curses, because God had another plan. Although Balaam had taken the king's money to do his cursing work, Balaam's oracles were blessings. It is a weird but comforting story of how God uses whomever he will to do whatever he wants. Balaam was far from a righteous man, but he became a tool for good in the hands of a sovereign God.

In the middle of his second oracle, Balaam spoke these words of foundational hope and comfort:

God is not man, that he should lie,

or a son of man, that he should change his mind.

Has he said, and will he not do it?

Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

Behold, I received a command to bless:

he has blessed, and I cannot revoke it.

He has not beheld misfortune in Jacob,

nor has he seen trouble in Israel.

The LORD their God is with them,

and the shout of a king is among them.

God brings them out of Egypt

and is for them like the horns of the wild ox.

For there is no enchantment against Jacob,

no divination against Israel;

now it shall be said of Jacob and Israel,

"What has God wrought!" (Num. 23:19-23)

What King Balak hoped to be a curse became a righteous pronouncement. Balaam essentially said, "Balak, don't you understand? Nothing can stop these people, because God has promised to bless them, he has promised to be with them, and he will allow nothing to be against them. And he is a God who cannot lie. What he has promised and what he has declared will be fulfilled." In these words the hope and help of Israel would be found. The God who covenanted himself to unleash his power for the blessing of his people cannot lie. Israel and the surrounding kings could be sure that he would do everything he had promised until the nations stood in awe and said, "What has God wrought!"

Remember that those of us who have been chosen by God and have put our faith in Christ are now the inheritors of those covenant promises. Our hope and security are not in the promises, however, but in the character of the one who made them. Our God cannot lie. All he has promised us in and through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son, he will do. And there will be a day when every knee will bow and every tongue will say, in submission and praise, "What has God wrought!"