Series: A Confident Walk in Christ

Numbers 23:9

New Living Translation

I see them from the cliff tops;
    I watch them from the hills.
I see a people who live by themselves,
    set apart from other nations.

For Encouragement

An essential condition for a confident walk in Christ is separation. This is not just a characteristic of the children of God, but a crucial aspect of our faith. It is the first characteristic the Lord mentioned about His people, Israel, on Moab’s plains. It is a call from God in Christ to be separated from the ĥit to Himself.

In our series narrative, we follow Balaam, after a miraculous intervention from God, through to the interraction with Balak and his dignified leaders in Moab. If you thought the pressure to accept Balak’s proposal was intense back in his home, imagine him standing before Balak and his officials. All eyes fixed on him, with the promised reward sparkling before him. Let us not forget this picture as a projection of the pressures of this world that confront us to bend a bit here and there at the power of people’s expectations and the pull of the world and its enticing promises. When the world looks at the church from their self-exalted positions, what do they see? What do they see when they see you as a representative of Christ and His holy family?

When Balaam looked down from the cliff tops where Balak had sent him, what did he see about the people he had brought him to curse?

I see them from the cliff tops;

I watch them from the hills.

I see a people who live by themselves,

set apart from other nations (Numbers 23:9).

A people who live by themselves and set apart from other nations! Wow!

People of God, let us pause and reflect on this holy scripture this morning because it goes deep down to the core of our salvation—a separation from the world and to God.

Balaam saw the descendants of Abraham, whom God called out of his country, family, and father’s household (Genesis 12:1). God separated him entirely from the world and the relations he knew, to a new world He had prepared for him.

It started from Haran and gradually progressed to the Promised Land. God gave Abraham faith to believe and leave and to follow Him. Abraham trusted and followed as a separated people through his struggles and setbacks. The call to separation continued through his descendants into Egypt, and after 430 years as God ordained, God brought them out as a separated nation and on their way now to possess the Promised Land. God set them apart and marked them with apparent distinctions from the world around them. As they settled on the plains of Moab, Israel was a separated nation under Moses, though not perfect.

God blessed them and made them holy people. How, then, could anyone curse them? That was the picture Balaam saw and pronounced to Balak and his people.

It is the picture of the church the world must see.

You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy (1 Peter 2:9-10 nkjv).

Our justification and sanctification have ensured this, and by His divine decree before creation, He has glorified us in Christ, though not realized until Christ comes for His church (Romans 8:29-30).

This picture of being separate should be the reality of our life in Christ and in our Christian community. It is also our assurance in His faithfulness, and our confident walk in and with Him to glory. However, we have a solemn responsibility to honor this sacred calling to be holy as He is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16) and to project it to the world.

A separated people! Is that your picture framed in the minds of the world?