J. Vernon McGee told of a preacher who came to his wife and said, “I’ve just gotten a call to the church in the next town. It’s a larger town. It’s a much better church. The people in it are more refined and cultured, and they do not cause the trouble they do here, and they’ve offered me a higher salary. I’m going upstairs and pray about this to see if it’s the Lord’s will for me to go.” His wife says, “Fine, I’ll go up and pray with you.” And he says, “Oh, my, no. You stay down here and pack up.”
This in a way describes the prophet we are going to study today. His name is Balaam. But it is not just preachers who are “greedy of filthy lucre” or lovers of money, it is any Christian who puts his or her material wants before the financial needs of others or the church
Church consultant, Joseph Miller reports that national surveys of evangelical churches indicate that 80 percent of the giving in those churches comes from 20 percent of the constituency. The balance of 20 percent comes from another 30 percent of the people, leaving 50 percent of the constituency contributing nothing.
As we will discover in this study, Balaam is not our example to follow to solve this problem of selfishness
“There is more said in Scripture concerning Balaam than there is said about Mary the mother of Jesus. There is more said about him than about ten of the apostles of the Lord all put together” (McGee in a sermon “Balaam: A Prophet for Profit”). Israel is at the end of forty years of wandering in the wilderness. They are stationed in Moab. Israel will stay in Moab for the last five months of the 40th year (Num 22:1). They can look across the Jordan River and see the Promised Land. In this setting, we learn about greedy Balaam.
1. The message of the false prophet can be right (22-24)
Balak was the king of Moab and feared for his life. Israel defeated Sihon and Og and the king feared his nation was next (22:1-3). Balak turned to Balaam the false prophet for help (22:4). We are thus introduced to Balaam
1. Was Balaam a false prophet? The Old Testament never calls Balaam a prophet. Yet Balaam made prophecies that came to pass in reference to Jesus’ first coming and second coming …. Balaam was a diviner soothsayer; Joshua 13:22 .... Balaam customarily sought omens (Num 24:1) to understand the future by divination (Thomas Constable at NetBible.org on 22:5).
2. Was Balaam a lover of money? Jude 11 indicates he was.
3. Was Balaam a believer? There are many indications in the narrative that Balaam genuinely feared Yahweh. He seems to have been sincerely sympathetic to the Israelites, and he praised them (23:10). Balaam sounds like a believer. The New Testament passages such as Jude 11, however, indicate that Balaam was not a believer.
A. Balaam’s encounters with God (22:7-35)
1) Balaam’s first encounter with God (22:7-14) God said, “You shall not go” (22:12).
Balaam sounds like a believer (22:8). God speaks to Balaam. This does necessarily prove Balaam was a believer. God spoke to unbelievers in the Old Testament (Gen 20:6-7). God told Balaam not to go.
2) Balaam’s second encounter with God (22:15-20) God said, “Go with them” (22:20).
In the first encounter, God expressed his directive will. In the second encounter, God expressed his permissive will because God knew this was what Balaam was determined to do. His will not God’s will. When God called me to preach, I said, I will preach, but I will not be a missionary. Three years later I was willing to be a missionary and was planning to spend the summer with missionary Jimmy Rose. At the same time, God opened the door for me to pastor. God wanted me to be willing to do his will and not my will.
3) Balaam’s third encounter with God (22:21-35) God said, “Your way is perverse before me” (22:32).
God is angry with Balaam because of his covetousness (2 Pet 2:15-16). The dumb donkey had more spiritual perception than the covetous Balaam (22:23, 25, and 27). Finally, in 22:31 Balaam saw the Lord. The Lord opened the mouth of the donkey (22:28). Some of us remember Mr. Ed the talking horse. Well, this was the talking donkey. The Lord would also open the mouth of Balaam (23:5, 16). Satan enabled a serpent to speak in Genesis 3:1,4. God enable a donkey to speak in Numbers 22:28. God called what Balaam did “perverse” or depraved in 22:32. God is using wickedness to accomplish His will.
God allowed wicked men to crucify His Son whom God had predetermined before the foundation of the world to be put to death according to Peter’s sermon in Acts 2:22-23.
Just as God used a dumb donkey to speak his word, God will use the unspiritual perhaps unsaved prophet. David Brainard was a missionary to Native Americans. On one occasion the only interpreter he had was a drunken Native America. Native Americans got saved as a result of the Gospel preached.
B. Balaam’s prophecies (22:36-24:25)
God met with Balaam (23:4) and put His words in Balaam’s mouth (23:5) which makes you think Balaam is a believer.
1) The first prophecy (23:7-12) I cannot curse what God has blessed (Genesis 12:1-3).
This pronouncement follows the seven murmurings (Numbers 11-21). Personally, Israel was not “righteous” (23:10) but positionally before God, Israel was God’s chosen people whom God had promised to bless and make as numerous as “the dust of Jacob” (Gen 13:16).
2) The second prophecy (23:13-26) I cannot curse God’s people because God had delivered them from sinful bondage.
God had delivered them by the blood of the Passover Lamb and by power through the Red Sea and now they are God’s purchased possession (Ex 19:1-6).
3) The third prophecy (24:2-13) I cannot curse what God has blessed (24:8) and what God is going to bless in the near future in this life.
4) The fourth prophecy (24:14-19) I cannot curse what God is going to bless in the distant future (“the latter days 23:14).
This is the zenith of the Balaam’s prophecies of God blessing His people. The “star” perhaps refers to Christ’s first coming. Revelation 22:16 refers to Jesus, as “the offspring of David, the bright morning star.”[1] One wonders if it might have been this prophecy that was in the minds of the three wise men who came from Balaam’s country to Bethlehem to look for the promised King of the Jews (Matt 2:1-2) (Thomas Constable).
The “scepter” pointed to the second coming of Christ whose scepter would break in pieces and destroy all the enemies of the nation of God (Genesis 49:10). At the Second Coming Jesus, king of kings and lord of lords, will subdue his enemies with the rod of iron. This would encourage the people of God who was about to enter the Promised Land and conquer the enemies of God.
God used a crooked stick to draw a straight mark.
2. The practice of the false prophet is wrong
The Bible startles its readers with the way it juxtaposes the brightest of revelations and the darkest of sins. 1) The lawgiving at Sinai was followed by the making of the golden calf (Exod. 20–32). 2) The ordination of Aaron by the disobedience of his sons (Lev. 8–10). 3) The covenant with David by the Bathsheba affair (2 Sam. 7–12). 4) Palm Sunday by Good Friday. 5) Here we have another classic example of this pattern, the wonderful prophecies of Balaam are succeeded by the great apostasy at Peor. In this way, Scripture tries to bring home to us the full wonder of God’s grace in face of man’s incorrigible propensity to sin.[2]
The narrative in Numbers 31:15-16 informs us that Balaam caused Israel to commit the sin in Numbers 25. Also, Revelation 2:14 tells us that the sin in Numbers 25 was caused by Balaam was immorality and idolatry.
A. The sin and its immediate judgment (25:1–9). These verses describe the sin, the ensuing plague, and how it was stopped, not through carrying out the divine sentence in verse 4, but by Phinehas slaying two blatant sinners.
B. The atonement for sin (25:10–15) This part of the narrative explains why Phinehas’ action was so meritorious. Priests, such as Phinehas, were God’s representatives in Israel and were to symbolize God’s character in their life and behavior. Phinehas had done just that. His anger mirrored the divine anger and as a reward, he and his family are guaranteed a perpetual priesthood.
C. The future judgment of sin (25:16–18) This text pronounces God’s judgment on the Midianites for seducing the Israelites from total loyalty to the Lord.[3] In 25:1-6 Balaam defeated Israel by getting them to sin with the Midianites according to 31:16. In 25:7-18 Phinehas possessed what Balaam did not: Zeal to practice God’s holiness (1 Cor. 10:6–8).
J. Frank Norris was one of the early leaders of the Fundamentalists. He was very controversial. He shot and killed a man in his church office. Norris thought the man was reaching in his coat to pull out a pistol but Norris was quicker on the draw. The man, however, was not carrying a weapon. It was said that Frank Norris’ congregation thought, when Norris was in the pulpit, they hoped he would never leave the pulpit, Norris was a spellbinder. But when he was out of the pulpit, his congregation wished he would never enter it.
God help us to not only deliver God’s message but also win God’s approval of our lives.
[1] Wenham, G. J. (1981). Numbers: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 4, p. 201). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
[2] Wenham, G. J. (1981). Numbers: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 4, p. 206). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
[3] Wenham, G. J. (1981). Numbers: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 4, pp. 207–208). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
[4] Wenham, G. J. (1981). Numbers: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 4, p. 190). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
[5] Wenham, G. J. (1981). Numbers: an introduction and commentary (Vol. 4, p. 193). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.