Is God Blind?

In my wife's and my reading through the Word, we were in Numbers when I wrote this. Specifically, our reading schedule had us at Numbers, chapters 23 through 25. This is where the prophet, Baalam, who was hired by King Balak of Moab to curse the Children of Israel, blesses them instead. The particular passage which caught my attention today is in Baalam's second prohecy.

Some things to remember: at this time in the Exodus, the people of Israel have:

• Complained against the Lord as they watched the Egyptian army chasing after them
• Threatened mutiny while thinking about returning to the land of their slavery
• Built two golden calves and worshiped them as idols
• Aaron and Miriam rebelled against Moses, and Miriam received a skin disease
• Rejected the report of the spies Joshua and Caleb and been sentenced to additional time in the wilderness
• Started an actual mutiny, in confronting Aaron and Moses and assuming too much authority
• Etc., etc., etc.

In Balaam's second prophecy, he speaks for God, and says:

"¹⁸… Rise up, Balak, and hear!
Listen to me, son of Zippor!

¹⁹ God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent.
Has He said, and will He not do?
Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
²⁰ Behold, I have received a command to bless;
He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it.

²¹ He has not observed iniquity in Jacob,
Nor has He seen wickedness in Israel.
The Lord his God is with him,
And the shout of a King is among them." (Numbers 23:18b - 21 - NKJV)

Wait! What??? How can God say that, after all of the sins of Jacob and Israel? Can the omniscient (all knowing) Creator of the Universe really say that he has not observed iniquity in those people? Is it possible that the Lord of All has not seen any wickedness in Israel? How can this be? Could God actually be capable of lying?

This is a foreshadowing illustration of the people being covered in the Righteousness of Christ. When we accept the death of the Christ in payment for our sin debt, He covers us in His own Righteousness. From that point on, whenever God the Father looks at us, He does not see our filthy, sinful covering, but rather He sees the perfect, sinless righteousness of His Son, Jesus.

Think about this, and how it can give you the strength to keep on keeping on. When Satan tells you that you are too sinful for God to accept, just think about how bad the Israelites were when God said that He saw no iniquity or wickedness in them.

If you would like more information about how you too can be covered in the Righteousness of Christ, take a look at: Good News for You.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version ®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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This page was last updated by Art G. Granzeier III on Tue 30 Jul 2019