Numbers 23:8 How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? Or how shall I defy, whom the Lord hath not defied?
Balaam was firm in his new resolve to speak only what God told him to say. King Balak tried three times to build altars and make sacrifices in order to get Balaam to curse God’s people. Yet each time he blessed and did not curse. In spite of the temptation and the bribe money he had received, he responded to God’s Word; he did what the Lord said.
Who am I to think I can pronounce my own words of cursing? If God has not done so or said thus, I neither can nor will pass off as God’s Word what comes from man’s mind. If God said it, I will believe it and preach it; if God did not say it, I will not say it. I cannot take it upon myself to curse or defy if God has not done so.
For this reason, the Christian believer asks the Lord to set an angel at the door of his lips, so that he speaks the blessings God wants out loud, and not what comes from his own angry emotions. In this way, cursing or damning someone is restrained. Misusing God’s Name to curse or swear is making ourselves God. Therefore the New Man in us does not curse or defy what God has not.