Balak had asked the prophet Balaam to curse Israel

Num 24:11  Therefore now flee thou to thy place: I thought to promote thee unto great honour; but, lo, the LORD hath kept thee back from honour. 

                                                         

Balak had asked the prophet Balaam to curse Israel. Yet, for the third time, Balaam continued to bless Israel instead. The repeated blessing of Israel threw Balak into such a violent rage, that he smote his hands together, and advised Balaam to fly to his house, adding: “I thought to promote thee unto great honour; but, lo, the LORD hath kept thee back from honour.”

“The LORD hath kept thee back from honour.” Balak falsely accused God of hindering Balaam from having honour and wealth. He said that the reason Balaam could not gain honour and wealth, and probably was still a poor prophet of God, was because God did not want him to succeed.

“The LORD hath kept thee back from honour.” Those words are the words of the devil to shake a man’s faith in God. The devil is saying: “It is God’s fault; God doesn’t want you to succeed. Don’t listen to Him.”

It is God’s fault! That line is as old as the Garden of Eden. Remember what the devil told Eve? He said: “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). The devil was insinuating that God was withholding the man whom He had made from being as wise as Him. He was saying: “God wants you to remain stupid so that you will obey everything He says. He didn’t want you to be wise.”

The devil was playing on the heart of Eve. It is as effective today as it was in Eden. “God is holding you back! If it were not for God you would be promoted and succeed in your career.”

Asaph, one of the writers of Psalms wrote in Psalm 73:3: “For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” Not only that, he saw that the wicked seemed to be free of trouble: “They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men” (Psalm 73:5). He almost abandoned his faith at this seeming inequity — until God showed him the “latter end” of wicked people (Ps. 73:17), and he learned the lesson that godliness cannot be judged by material status.

“The Lord hath kept thee back from honour.” This is the language of a worldly man to a godly person. “Your God is hindering you from achieving your success and great wealth. Look at your colleague, he does whatever I ask him to do. He can work on Sundays. He used to be your junior. But look at him now; he is the General Manager. I want to promote you too; but you are just too straight and you always talk about certain things you cannot do because your God forbids them.”

We live in a very materialistic world. For many Christians, the tugs and pulls of the world have always been there. The tugs and pulls of the world are powerful. Worldly lifestyles are cleverly reinforced by the rationalization, “Everybody is doing it.” The devil is constantly saying, “Come and get it.”

The ungodly men always use a godly man’s religion to haunt him and tell him that his faith in God is a hindrance to promotion and wealth. It makes the otherwise godly person to falter in his faith. It makes him to question his God: “Why do the ungodly men prosper and seem free of trouble?” I want you all to read Psalm 73; Asaph asked the same question. But note his ending part: “Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end” (Psaln 73:17). He turned to God and acknowledges His faithfulness.

The ungodly men and women are rich. But, as Jesus said: “They have their reward” (Matt. 6:2, 5). Their reward is here and temporary. We have an eternal reward waiting for us: “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (Revelations 2:10). God has not kept us from receiving honour; He is preparing us for it.

Jimmy Lau

Psa 119:97  Oh how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day.