Daily Lesson for June 29, 2022

 This morning's Daily Lesson comes from Numbers chapter 23 verses

1Then Balaam said to Balak, ‘Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.’ 2Balak did as Balaam had said; and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar. 3Then Balaam said to Balak, ‘Stay here beside your burnt-offerings while I go aside. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet me. Whatever he shows me I will tell you.’ And he went to a bare height.

4 Then God met Balaam; and Balaam said to him, ‘I have arranged the seven altars, and have offered a bull and a ram on each altar.’ 5The Lord put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, ‘Return to Balak, and this is what you must say.’ 6So he returned to Balak,* who was standing beside his burnt-offerings with all the officials of Moab. 7Then Balaam* uttered his oracle, saying:
‘Balak has brought me from Aram,
the king of Moab from the eastern mountains:
“Come, curse Jacob for me;
Come, denounce Israel!”
8 How can I curse whom God has not cursed?
How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?"

11 Then Balak said to Balaam, ‘What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but now you have done nothing but bless them.’ 12He answered, ‘Must I not take care to say what the Lord puts into my mouth?’

Balaam had learned his lesson from his donkey which we read about yesterday.

God put words put into its mouth and, stubborn as it was, it nonetheless spoke them.

Balaam learns from the beast of burden.

He will speak what God tells him to speak. He will not say what is expected. He will not say what Balak wants to hear. But Balaam will speak what God says to speak, and he will bless those others wish him to curse.

Thus sayeth the prophets also -- those who dare to say only what the Spirit speaks and not what the itching ears long to hear; those who dare to bless them who others would curse and revile.

So says the Spirit, also today.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.