God neither sleeps nor slumbers (Psalm 121:4), He watches over His people continually. As believers we sometimes forget this. We forget that God has our best interests at heart. (Jeremiah 29:11) We forget that He has hedged us in before and behind (Psalm 139:5) and we forget that He is always protecting us.
God protects us from things that we cannot even see or do not even know are happening. You will realise this when you look to Numbers and the story of Israel, Balaam the prophet and Balak, the king of Moab.
The Israelites, Balaam and Balak
In Numbers 22 the Israelites had gone and camped in the plains of Moab. (Numbers 22:1) Now the king of Moab, Balak saw the Israelites in the distant and was afraid. In fact everyone in Moab was afraid. (Numbers 22:3) They had probably heard stories of the Israelites and heard all about the signs and wonders that God had done for them in Egypt and at the Red Sea.
Now Balak decided that he wanted to get rid of the Israelites before they could come against him and conquer his land. So he sent for Balaam, a well known prophet, and asked for him to curse the Israelites for him. (Numbers 22: 5-6) But Balaam could only do what the Lord commanded and the Lord commanded that he was not to curse the Israelites. (Numbers 22:12) However, Balak was so desperate that he urged Balaam to come anyway. (Numbers 22:16-17) Balaam agreed, but told Balak that he still could only do what the Lord commanded him to.
So what ended up happening was that Balak, under the instruction of the Lord, not only didn’t curse the Israelites but blessed them – three times! (Numbers 24: 10) What is so amazing about this, is that whilst all this was taking place the Israelites were completely unaware. God was protecting them from a threat they didn’t even know was there!
God Is Protecting You
From this story we can learn that God is always protecting us, whether we are aware of it or not. As the Israelites camped and went about their daily lives an enemy was preparing to destroy them, but God prevented that from happening. So it is for us. As we go about our daily lives, God protects us.
In Numbers 23:23 Balak says For there is no sorcery against Jacob, nor any divination against Israel. It must be said of Jacob and of Israel, ‘Oh, what God has done.’ Basically no one could come against Israel, no weapon formed against them would prevail because God was with them, just as He is with us.
Furthermore, God is not only protecting us but He makes our enemies afraid.
God Makes Your Enemies Afraid
In the opening verses of Numbers 22 we are informed that the Moabites were not just afraid of the Israelites but sick with dread at the sight of them. (Numbers 22:3)
Why were they so scared? God had promised the Israelites that He would put fear in the hearts of the nations (Exodus 15: 15-16; 23:27). Thus frightening stories of the Israelites were spread amongst the nations.
God has promised that He will put the fear of us in our enemies’ hearts. Our enemies will hear of all the great things that God has done through and for us, and they will tremble. Before we do anything they will want to destroy us because they are afraid we may destroy them. But they will not prevail because God is protecting us, just like He was protecting the Israelites. So instead of destroying us and cursing us our enemies will bless us.
God Will Make Your Enemies Bless You
When Balaam blessed the Israelites they were not just casual blessings. He didn’t mutter a measly God bless Israel. No! He declared three powerful prophecies over Israel. (Numbers 23:7-10; 18-24; 24: 3-9) Then to top it all off he basically cursed Moab and the other nations and prophesied their destruction. (Numbers 24:15-24) That is absolutely astounding! If He did it for them, He’ll do it for us!
Do you see how God work wonders for us? Do you see how our great God takes care of us?
Sometimes as Christians we feel that we must protect ourselves. We are the ones who need to do the heavy lifting when it comes to keeping evil at bay. Whilst we do have a role to play in resisting the devil (James 4:7), we must not forget that we have God on our side; a mighty God who goes before us and who fights for us.
We are human and unlike God, we are not omniscient. We cannot be in all places at once and we cannot see all things. There will be things we miss. Enemies we cannot see. But we need not be afraid of that because God is ever present and always near. We must rest in Him and trust that He is taking care of us whether we can see Him or not. So instead of spending all our time looking left and right for danger, we must turn our gaze to God and give Him praise and thanks for all the ways He is protecting us.
