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Numbers 22:1-20
Today I want to talk to you, I want to start a new series, The Book of Numbers. The title of my sermon is The Sorcerer Prophet. You know, preaching from the Old Testament a lot of times is more difficult because we have to draw out of the narrative, like, what is God trying to teach us?
It's not as straightforward as some of the doctrinal teaching we would find in Romans or Corinthians. But when we look at the Old Testament and we read these accounts of people, it's worth remembering that these accounts are not just stories for our entertainment.
These accounts are actually, they're put there so we can learn from them, so we can stay away from the mistakes they fell into, and that we can know that if you disobey God there will be punishment. So to start with today, I want to do a quick poll.
How many of you are familiar with the term Old Wives' Tale? How many of you have heard of that before? I'm sure many of you probably have. This phrase was coined back in the old times to describe various items of wisdom which had been passed down from generation to generation, often through mother and father, son, uncle.
You know, the Jewish, the Hebrew culture is very much an oral tradition type culture. The father would tell the son, the son would tell the grandkids. That's how the Bible was, that's how the words of God were carried down for a long time before Moses wrote down the Pentateuch, was the sons and the daughters, the sons and the husbands and wives told their sons and daughters, and they told their sons and daughters, and so on.
So let's talk about a few Old Wives' Tales. Going outside with wet hair, that will not give you a cold. That is a common Old Wives' Tale. Now if you go outside with wet hair, it does depress your immune system, right, and there's a possibility you may get sick, but it's not going to bring a cold directly.
When you have a heartburn during a pregnancy, that doesn't mean that you will have a hairy baby. There's another common one. You have a lot of heartburn, your baby's going to be very hairy. That's not always the case.
Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. However, we don't want to throw the baby out in the bathwater, there's another expression. A stopwatch is right twice a day, right? Every two times a day the stopwatch is right, and these tales have some elements of truth.
So villagers in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Russia, they discovered a long time ago, back in the Middle Ages, that milk would stay fresh longer if they placed a frog in it. They would literally take milk and they'd place a frog in it.
This occurs because frogs have antimicrobial, they're called peptides, in their skin. So when you put a frog in your milk, those peptides come off their skin, and that actually inhibits the growth of bacteria.
Now, does the frog care about the freshness of the milk? Certainly not. He wants to get out of there. That's what he wants to do. Are the purposes of men still accomplished?
Yes.
You put a frog in your milk, the peptides will come off. In fact, even when the frog is kicking around, the frog's very kicking keeps the milk moving so it doesn't get stale. So it's like a ready-made, like a cappuccino machine, right?
Now personally for myself, I would not use a frog in this manner. But if I lived in the Middle Ages and there was no other options, there was no refrigeration, potentially I would do that. I'd put a frog in there and just keep the milk right.
Now unlike us, when we go from us to God, we must remember that God is not like us. God is omnipotent and God has no constraints. However, in his wisdom and forbearance, God still uses imperfect instruments to accomplish his will.
There's a saying, it's not my saying, but I had a hard time tracing the source, but you may have heard this said before. It says God can use a crooked line to draw, sorry, God can use a crooked stick rather to draw a straight line, right?
And thus he turns the sins of believers or unbelievers. He turns them into gold as easily as the righteous deeds of his saints. So whether you transgress against God or whether you follow his commands, either way, God will be glorified and God will use that for his glory.
I want you to please turn with me to Numbers 22 and we're going to examine the case of the sorcerer prophet Balaam. For the purpose of this sermon, we're going to be going through verses one through 22.
Please read that with me. I'm sorry, I don't, I don't have my Bible here. It's just kind of a small lectern, so I'm trying to get everything fit up here and I forgot the Bible. I have some of it printed out here.
Yeah, let's turn to Numbers 22 and we'll start from verse one. Then the people of Israel set out and camped in the plains of Moab beyond the Jordan at Jericho and Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites.
And Moab was in great dread of the people because there were many. Moab was overcome with fear of the people of Israel. And Moab said to the elders of Midian, this horde will now lick us up all around us as an ox licks up the grass, the field.
So Balak the son of Zippor, who was with the king at the king of Moab at the time, sent messengers to Balaam, the son of Beor at Pethor, which is near the river in the land of the people of Amor to call to him saying, behold, a people has come out of Egypt.
They cover the face of the earth and they are dwelling opposite me. Come now, curse this people for me since they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them from the lands.
For I know that he whom you bless is blessed and he whom you curse is curse. So the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with fees for divination in their hand and they came to Balaam and gave Balak's message.
And he said to them, lodge here tonight and I will bring back word to you as the Lord speaks to me. So the princes of Moab stay with Balaam. And God came to Balaam and said, who are these men with you?
And Balaam said, God said to God, Balak, the son of Zippor, the king of Moab has sent to me saying, behold, a people has come out of Egypt and it covers the face of the earth. Now come curse them for me.
Perhaps I should be able to fight against them and drive them out. God said to Balaam, you shall not go with them. You shall not curse this people for they are blessed. So Balaam rose in the morning and said to the princes of the people and said to the princes of Balak, go to your own land for the Lord has refused to let me go with you.
So the princes of Moab rose and went to Balaam and said, Balaam refuses to come with us. Once again, Balaam sent princes, more in number and more honorable than these. And they came to Balaam and said to him, thus says Balaam, the son of Zippor, let nothing hinder you from coming to me for I will surely do you great honor and whatever you say to me I will do.
Come curse this people for me. But Balaam answered and said to the servants of Balak, though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the command of my Lord, my God to.
Less or more.
So you too, please stay here tonight that I may know what the Lord will say to me. And God came to Balaam at night and said, if the men have come to call you, rise and go with them, but only do what I tell you.
So Balaam rose in the morning and saddled his donkey and went with the prince of Moab. Let's pray together. Dear Lord, I pray that you would be with us, Lord, as we go through your word. I pray that you would take these words and apply them to our life or that you would use the feebleness of the messenger, Lord, and the powers in your word.
We thank you for it. Thank you for the life of our dear mother and grandmother and wife, Teresa Harris. Lord, we know she's worshiping with you in heaven right now. I pray that you would comfort those of us who are left behind on this earth.
Christ's name.
So in the first verse of this chapter, we get introduced to a king. This king is Balak, king of Moab. Balak had a very, very big problem, right? Israel had encamped on the plains of Moab. So if you think about Jericho and the Jordan River, Moab was across from that.
Shortly before arriving here on the banks of the Jordan, the Jews had decimated the Amorites. They just wiped them out. The Lord told them to do that. So they were supposed to. Moab citizens were petrified with fear.
If you look at these first few verses here, the new King James uses the words exceedingly afraid and sick with dread in verse 3 to describe their emotions. So the main concept that I see in Numbers 22, 1 through 4 is a royal fear.
A royal fear is the first one. If you look at your bulletin, you will see in the bulletin the outline that we put together. The Hebrew adverb from which we get the word exceedingly, this adverb is used many times throughout the Old Testament.
In fact, when I did some research on it, the word is used 291 times in the Old Testament. In other places, we see this word used to describe the rise of global floodwaters during the flood. We see it used the severity of the plagues, of course, in the land of Egypt.
We see the shaking of Mount Sinai. They were exceedingly afraid, you know, as God's presence descended down upon it. Wherever God goes forth in either judgment or glory, sinful man will always be exceedingly afraid.
That is a, that's a given. Additionally, if you read the text, we see the sheer number of the Israelites is listed as a secondary reason for Moab's dismay. So they knew the God of Israel was on their side, and there were a lot of Israelites too.
That made them scared. Military doctrine, it recommends if you're going to assault an enemy position, you should have a three to one advantage over them because the enemy is entrenched. They've had time to prepare.
They know the land better than you. So generally, if you want to take a position, you need three to one. The more, the better. Obviously, if you have six to one or seven to one, that's even better than that.
Defenders have like shorter supply lines, right? They have better fortifications. They have familiar terrain. But these are all advantages, but the Israelites had something much more important than that.
Even though they were the assaulting army, they had God on their side. That was the most important thing, and that's the main reason the Moabites were scared and full of dread. You know, the thing about the militaries of ancient Greece, Egypt, and Rome, those were powerful militaries.
They conquered a lot of the world, but God was not with them. And even though Israel's military was smaller, God fought for them. The omnipotent God, he was on their side. And if you remember back in Genesis, God used the forces of nature as his weapon.
Remember the Egyptians drowning in the Red Sea? You can be sure that the whole of Canaan knew about the Egyptian army being drowned in the.
Red Sea.
In fact, we see Rahab alluding to this when she's talking to the spies of Jericho. If you go to Joshua 2, you'll hear this from Rahab. Rahab said, I know the Lord has given you the land because the terror of you has fallen on us, and all the inhabitants of the land are faint-hearted because of you.
For we have heard that the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt. And we also heard what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og.
You completely destroyed them. One of them, I think Sihon or Og, was a giant. They said he was a literal, he was over seven or eight feet tall. So not only did they destroy the Amorites, they killed their leader who was a literal.
Giant.
As soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted, neither did there remain any courage in anyone because of you. For the Lord your God, and this is the important thing, he is God in heaven above and earth.
Beneath.
So from these verses, what do we see? The Lord has put terror in the hearts of the Canaanites so that the Israelites could more easily conquer the land. The battle was already half won because the inhabitants were scared of them.
As the leader of the armed forces, you know, Balak was the king, and he was also the leader of the armed forces. He realized that this type of fear is debilitating. If this spreads through my land, you know, if you have abandoned men that are courageous, look what 300 Spartans did at Thermopylae.
They held back millions of Persians for days. But if you have fear, those men are gone, and a small host can overcome you. So he was afraid as a king, I don't want this fear to spread like wildfire, and it's going to sap or take away the resolve of my men to fight back against the invader.
So I'm fairly certain that he had probably started arranging his country's physical defenses. I'm getting my men prepared, I'm building fortifications. But Balak left no stone unturned because he didn't stop with physical defenses.
He said, let's erect some spiritual defenses against the invading Israelite army. So this heathen king was a descendant of Lot. And if you remember what happened with Lot, the Amorites and the Moabites were the descendants of Lot through incestuous acts with his daughter, right?
So their pragmatism rules today. It's a very sad chapter in the Bible's history. In this instance, too, I really think you can see how one example of religious pragmatism, like we'll do this because it makes sense even though God's opposed, it seeps down and infects the souls of multiple generations.
Think about Lot. Lot chose the well-watered plains of Sodom over his spiritual health. I'm going to choose that over what's best for my soul. And what happened? He was corrupted by the morals of Sodom.
It's not that he was lost, but he offered up his daughters as a sacrifice when that lustful homosexual crowd came to the door to attack the angels. He said, here, take my daughters. And we know that's backwards.
There's a concept that's, you know, it's an older concept that's kind of come back around as ordo amoris, the order of loves, right? The love for your family must come first before the love for strangers.
You don't give your daughters to strangers. You protect your family. Strangers are below them. You know, 1 Timothy 5 .8, we see the principle there. Paul says to Timothy, but if anyone does not provide for his own, or especially for those of his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than what?
He's worse than an unbeliever. So you provide for your own first, right? Nothing is so honorable. Like, even unbelievers honor the estate of marriage. They know that that's a high estate. They may attack it and assault it, but they know it's a high estate.
And if you move that over, nothing is quite as dishonorable as not taking care of the family God has gifted you. That's what the Bible says. Taking advantage of your family for your own ends is an equally heinous sin.
So some people take advantage of their family and use them for their own ends. You know, why did Lot's daughters sleep with their father? They were fearful of being childless, and so they took advantage of their dad to fulfill their own ends.
The order of Morris dictates that love for God must take primacy over love for your family,.
Right?
We love God before family. Here, let's look at what Jesus says in Matthew 10 .37. He says, he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
So love for God must come first before love for family. So when you look at Lot's daughters, the ancestors of Balak, what was their idol? Their idol was physical descendants. And so they wrote the fifth commandment, which says honor your father, and the seventh commandment, which says don't commit adultery to fulfill their desires.
And if you go further back the family tree, we don't know this, but I'm just speculating.
Here.
Maybe they were influenced by their aunt Sarai's decision. What did Sarai do? She gave Hagar to Abraham as a wife. God said, I'm going to send a son through you and your husband, and she disobeyed him.
You still see the roots of that, honestly, in the Middle East. The conflict we have going on right now, Ishmael and Isaac are still fighting. They still are at it. Muhammad traces lineage directly back to Ishmael, and the Jews are descendants of Isaac.
So you see, Sarah's decision has ripple consequences. Don't think your sin doesn't affect future generations. Now, when you doubt God, when you doubt his promises, or when you attempt to bring those to pass in your own strength, these are all forms of unbelief.
Any of those things are. Trying to hurry God's promises up is a form of unbelief. You know, God's sovereign grace, the only reason that Sarai didn't become an idolater like her niece is, is God's sovereign grace kept her from going that far.
God's preserving grace was on Sarai. Now their great, great grandson, and it kept it from blooming into, if the Lord took his hand off of Sarai or Sarah, her idolatry would have blossomed into full-blown heathenism, and she would have been as bad as her nieces, right?
But God's hand was on Sarai, and it wasn't on Lot's daughters. Now, coming back to our texts, their great, great, great grandson, Balak, stood at a similar crossroads. Would he give up his idols and worship God, option number one, or would he add God to his polytheistic pantheon?
The pantheon is where the Greeks put all their gods, so he's just going to put God on the shelf and say, I'm going to keep my gods, let me add the real God to this collection. Who sits at the top of the order of Morris?
We talk about the order of love. Is your country at the top of the order of love? Do we love our country first?
No.
Do we love our families first?
Who is the top? Well, let's talk about what is the very first commandment. I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.
That's the top of the pyramid. That must come first. You can't love your country more than Christ. You can't love your wife more than Christ, your kids more than Christ. Nothing can be above Christ but Christ alone.
Anything else is an idol. As I mentioned, I mentioned this earlier, the pantheon, I'm sorry, it wasn't in Greece, it was a pagan temple in Rome. And this pagan temple was actually converted to a Christian church in 607 AD.
But the pantheon was a pagan temple where they put all their idols. They said, here's an idol here, here's an idol here. Just put them all in there. Worship them together. And we know from the Bible, God's not like that.
You worship him alone. That's it. Balaam had an ungodly fear of God's judgment. He was afraid of God's judgment. But you know what Balaam lacked? He lacked a righteous fear of God's holiness. Balaam was not really worried about God's holiness.
In fact, renouncing his heathen gods was the furthest thing from his mind. He did not want to renounce his gods. In our modern day, Balaam would be like either a universalist or a progressive Christian.
Because they are willing to acknowledge the power and existence of God. But they refuse to fear him alone. They want to say all roads lead to heaven. All, I can break God's laws. God is not serious when he says, I am the way of the truth.
When Jesus says, I am the way, truth, and life, he is serious. You can't add God plus anything else. It's God and God alone. In the final verse, you see Balak, he gives a very colorful description of the coming war.
I actually like this. He says the Israelites will lick up everything around them as what? As an ox licks up grass. You ever seen cows eat? They have these long tongues, just snake out and just lick that grass up.
I couldn't help but thinking that Balak's word here, it kind of prefigures Nebuchadnezzar's humiliation for the sin of pride, right? What happened to Nebuchadnezzar when he was prideful? God made him like an animal.
He ate grass for a while. Herbivores are lower in the food chain than carnivores. So a cow is lower than a wolf, and defenseless plants the lowest of all. If you're a plant, you just sit there and get eaten.
If becoming like an ox is humbling, then how much more humbling is being the grass that an ox eats? You're on the ground, and a cow just licks you up. And that's what Moab said, we're gonna be licked up like the grass.
It's also kind of an interesting description, because oxen are like domesticated animals. They're not war animals. You wouldn't take an ox to war. In war, they would use horses and chariots, right? But in peacetime, you would use oxen and plows.
Oxen and plows were tools of peace, to plant seeds. The Israelites were slaves, remember, for 400 years in Egypt, they were slaves. So maybe the Moabite king had this in mind when he compared them to a beast of.
Burden.
If you didn't have God, you could scarcely be worried about, if it was just a bunch of untrained manual laborers that were recently freed from slavery, you wouldn't be scared of them, right? So maybe he was saying they're like an ox, possibly.
Perhaps Balak was admitting that the god of the Israelites, or the owner of the oxen, was the real threat. That's a possibility, too. We see this imagery in the third verse of Isaiah 1. Isaiah 1 says, the ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib.
But Israel does not know, my people does not consider. So maybe Balak was saying, I'm worried about who owns the ox. Moby Dick is a very interesting classic film, I know my father loves it. Herman Melville wasn't a Christian, but I had some very striking dialogue here.
When Ahab was hunting the whale, was obsessed with killing that white whale that tore off his leg. When he started talking about it with his men, he ultimately reveals that the pursuit of the whale was not the pursuit of the mere creature.
He wanted to go beyond the creature. And he said, the whale is only the mask. What I hate is the power behind it, and I will strike through the mask to reach it. So he was blasphemous. He wasn't mad at the whale.
He's like, I'm gonna get to God by killing this whale, and that's foolish. So rather than fearing God for his judgment, Ahab hated God for his judgment. And see, when you have a quote like this, this blasphemous quote, Ahab was a hardened man, and his will was on a collision course with the sovereign Lord.
He was gonna say, I'm gonna take this, the person, instead of saying, why did the whale take my leg off, the Lord had a reason, I'm gonna take the Lord out and kill the whale. Balak's, so, and so going back to Balak, Balak's comparison of the people to grass also has parallels there as well.
Jesus compares our lives to grass. Think about how often in the Gospels does Jesus say that? We see it in, he says, your life is like the grass. Look at Psalm 37 as well. It says, fret not yourself because of evil doers, but they will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb.
If you've ever grown herbs outside, my wife and I have tried to grow herbs outside. They have an extremely short lifespan, other than rosemary. Rosemary lasts a long time outside, and that thing will take off.
But everything else, I'm telling you, like the first hint of cold, you plant them too early, done, they're gone. That's why most people, when they grow herbs, they start them off inside, grow them to a certain extent, and then move them out.
They're a varied thing.
So your herbs will wither and die before your grass even turns brown. Such is the life of one, if you fear God's judgment and yet despise his person, you're like a herb or a grass, you're just gonna wither away, right?
See, gasoline and oxygen, they can all, all gasoline and oxygen can do until you bring a spark into it, is they can create foul vapors or terrible vapors in the air. But once a spark ignites that, then there's a fire created and that fire can sustain life.
See, and without the Holy Spirit lighting a spiritual fire in the soul of man, fear only causes sinful men to do one thing, and it's gonna, they're gonna fling themselves into the arms of yet another idol.
So if you have fear and you keep, and you have fear, but the Holy Spirit's not directing you to go to Christ for it, you're gonna just find another idol. I've got money, I've got this. Balak said, let me go talk with Balaam.
That was his other idol. So having introduced the problem, Balak now proceeds to a solution. Since Yahweh fights for Israel, maybe there's a way to transfer his affections to Moab. So in Numbers 22, 5 through 17, we see the second part of this, which is a princely bribe.
What's the bribe here? See, see, Balak had a mercenary spirit. He supposed that God is like me. I can bribe God and God will switch sides. And that's what the carnal man does. He assumes God is exactly like him, right?
You know, in the English Civil War, it's an interesting conflict, right, right around the time of the Puritans. The Scottish forces, they first fought on the side of Parliament, but then later on they switched and they fought on the side of the monarchy.
And why did they do this? Well, the Scottish forces wanted to see Presbyterianism established in England. And for a while, it seemed like the Parliamentarians would be the best ones to give that. So they fought for them.
Well, then it became clear that the Parliamentary forces were not going to establish Presbyterianism. They switched sides and they fought for the Royalists, right? So here's an example of someone switching sides.
Near Eastern pagan cultures, like the one that we were studying here, they believe that national deities could be persuaded to switch sides for a price. That was a prevailing sentiment. In fact, if you're familiar with the Trojan War and how that went down, the Greeks left an offering of a big wooden horse outside, and that was an offering to Athena.
And some of the smarter Trojans they should have listened to, said burn it down immediately, just burn it down. But the Trojans that weren't so wise said, well, we worship Athena too. Let's bring that in and maybe she'll come to our side.
And so they were like, we'll take the present to Athena they left, and we'll make it our present, and then she'll fight for us again. And so you see this type of stuff, it's nonsense, because Athena's not really a god.
But you see the same sort of thinking in Baelic. Baelic sent for Balaam and said, you know what? I want you to be my intermediary. I want you to turn God into an ally of Moab. Make God my ally. So Balaam is a very fascinating individual.
Excluding numbers, so let's put numbers aside, he's mentioned eight times in the Old and New Testaments, right? So even though he's not a huge character, he's mentioned a lot. If you look at the New Testament, you know Simon Magus, he wanted to buy the Holy Spirit.
We get the word simonry from that, right? The practice of trying to sell religious offices or religious indulgences. Balaam is the Simon of the Old Testament, he did simonry. You know, Balaam sought to change God's mind for a price.
Now, but Balaam's sin was even more damnable because Balaam got his revelation where? Directly from God himself. A lot of false teachers are trying to sell access to God, they don't really know God. Balaam heard God's voice and he tried to sell that.
See, Balaam was as privileged as Moses, and yet he had the heart of a Judas in him. That was his issue. Do you remember Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 13? If you have the gifts of prophecy, but not true love for God, what does it profit you?
Anything?
A little bit? Something. No, no, nothing. If you have the gifts of prophecy and know God, you have nothing. You know, Paul could have written these words very well with King Saul or Balaam in mind. I don't know who Paul was thinking about when he wrote it.
See, both men, King Saul and Balaam, they prophesied for God, and yet they still end up losing their own soul. You know, I've heard, I've read of NBA and NFL players, they've played in the finals, the Super Bowls, and then they ended up homeless on the streets.
And that's like, man, that's kind of, that's really sad. Like, these guys were at the height of their sport, and now they're homeless? Like, that's sad. But, you know, tales like this are very sad, but living outside, that's positively pleasant compared to someone who delivers God's messages and ends up in hell, right?
I mean, you'd much rather be a homeless NBA or NFL player than someone that actually gave God's words and then went to hell. I like what R .C. Sproul says here. He says, the issue with faith is not so much whether we believe in God, right?
It's not do you believe in God, but do you believe the God we believe in? Do you say when he says something, he will do it? Because if you say, I believe in him, but you don't really think he's gonna do something about it, you don't really believe in God.
You know, Balaam delivered God's messages everywhere but where? His own heart. That's the one place Balaam did not deliver his messages. They didn't come here. And don't end up like a Balaam. You need to flee, you know, keep short accounts with God.
What does it mean short accounts? Don't run up a bill with God. Don't let unrepentant sin fester and linger. You take that sin directly to the throne of grace. You confess it and you make sure your balances are short because time is short.
You may die tomorrow. You may die tonight. We don't know when we're gonna die. And the second thing is, besides keeping short accounts with God, flee temptation. From Jewish history, you know, Jewish history is not inspired.
We can learn a lot from there. In Jewish history, we learned that Balaam belonged to a family of magicians that dwelt in the city of Peor. Balaam's name literally means destroyer or swallower up. Think like how David and Byron were swallowed up by the ground.
While his father's name meant burner up or destroyer. So think about the names. You've heard the names probably before. You may or may not. Abaddon Hebrew or in a Greek counterpart, I'm sure you're more familiar with this name, Apollyon.
We know about Apollyon. That literally translates to destroyer. And that is Satan's method. He is a destroyer. There's no good in him.
So Joshua and Jesus, they both share the same Hebrew root because Joshua and Jesus both means Yahweh saves or you can call it the Lord is my salvation. So Balaam and his master, they shared a passion for what?
Deceiving souls into destruction. Their names blide their character. You can go to Revelation 9 -11. You can read more about, that's where the devil is called Apollyon, an Abaddon actually. So Balaam fell into his own devices and his own soul was the final victim.
Demons are actually characterized as soul murderers in Job 33. Job 33 says, "'Yea, his soul draweth near to the grave "'and his life to the destroyers.'". So what are demons? They murder souls. That's what the devil does too.
So Balaam lived in Canaan. As a resident of Canaan, he was probably very familiar with the Abrahamic Covenant and he probably knew some of the attributes of El Shaddai or Yahweh. Therefore, Balaam could speak intelligently of the Lord and his promises.
However, the problem with Balaam though is his knowledge of the Lord was skin deep. It stopped at his skin. That didn't affect his heart. He didn't love God down here. He had him up here. It's just knowledge.
Alfred, like the demons do, the demons believe that God exists and they tremble. But what do the demons do? They refuse to bow the knee to God and one day they will bow the knee, but right now they refuse.
Alfred Edersheim noted that the word, he's a famous Hebrew historian. He was a Jewish man before he converted to Christianity. The Hebrew word kasam or kasem by which he's described in scriptures, it's a distinctive term for a heathen soothsayer as opposed to the prophets of God.
So he was called a heathen soothsayer. So even though he said, I'm God's prophet, he was actually a kasem, a heathen soothsayer. If he was living in Egypt during the time of the Exodus, you know where he would have been?
He would have been with his pals, Janus and Jambres, opposing Moses because that's the type of man he was. He wouldn't have been on Moses' side. You know, don't let him fool you. This behavior stands in stark contrast into what is expected of a faithful prophet.
So what is expected, one of the hallmarks rather, of an effective messenger of God? Like how do you describe that? I like what Jesus says in the Gospel of Matthew. You know, of course, all the Bible is God's word, but I think Jesus summed it up nicely here.
In Matthew 13, 52, he said, therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old, right? That's how he described an effective teacher.
So when you're an effective teacher of the Bible, you balance the truths of the Bible. We take ancient truths and we give them fresh illustrations. The illustrations of the old days, we apply new illustrations to them.
And through diligent study of God's word, we learn to apply God's truth in many areas of your life. See, that's what an effective biblical faithful preacher does. Balaam actually perverted this principle with his soothsaying business.
Whether you wanted blessing from an old God or you desired your enemies cursed by a new God, Balaam, he was your man. New God, old God, it doesn't matter. See, Balaam was like a lobbying firm. Balaam sold access to power for a price.
I'll give you access to God, just pay me. He was a profane man because he sold his devotion as one would sell your wares at a farmer's market. Balaam sold his devotion that way. You know, God is not an item to be added to your shopping list.
You don't put God on your shopping list, right? That's not who God is. Balaam did not desire a relationship with the only true God. What were his idols? His idols were the respect of men and wealth. Those were his two main idols.
And throughout history, we see Satan use the same playbook over and over. It's worked with men before, it'll work with them again. He doesn't change stuff up a lot. If you look about Jesus in the wilderness when he was being tempted, Jesus was tempted first with glory and then with possessions, I'm sorry.
The second and third wilderness temptations of Jesus, the second and third offers that Satan made him were glory and possessions. And what did Satan do here? Satan used the exact same strategy as the Balaam.
Watch this, the exact same order too. First he tempted him with glory, then he tempted him with possessions. So in Numbers 22, five through 16, we see flattery. Let's talk about that a little bit. You know, if you're a godly man, you respect those in authority over you.
That's the currency godly men pay to their superiors, respect. Flattery, flattery is the counterfeit coin with which the devil's merchants conduct business. They use flattery instead. Knowing Balaam's character, Balak sent a delegation that was calculated to impress.
He didn't just send these low servants. In verses five, we see in Numbers 22, five, these people are called messengers. And this is appropriate because these people carried a message from their king. But further down the chapter, if you just go down a few more and look at verse seven, this verse says these people were elders or rulers of Midian and Moab.
So something you should know about Balak is Balak was born to a Midianite usurper of Moab's throne. That's why this delegation was a mixed delegation. You know, Balak didn't inherit the throne. His father usurped it, and then he got it from his father.
So you see the Midianites and the Moabites, normally they'd be at each other's throats. They hate each other. But in this case, they were together because the Midianite guy became the Moabite king. And they both were scared of the Israelites.
You know, there's nothing like fear to unite people together. Additionally, we know from secular history that the Midianites and Moabites are pretty different. The Midianites are nomadic people. They move around a lot, kind of maybe like gypsies in the old days or like the early Israelites.
They wandered.
The Moabites were not a nomadic people. They built fortified cities. They lived in big, strong cities. So in other words, if you just want to put it simply, the country folk and the city folk were alarmed at the upcoming invasion.
Whether you lived in a big city or you moved around in tents, you were scared. Now, the royal delegation or retinue that was sent to Balaam, it was a pretty big delegation. It almost seemed, as I thought about it, it seemed almost like something you might send for, a president might send to sign a treaty or establish trade relations.
He sent a lot of elders. You know, imagine if a president sent, or any president, sent the Secretary of State, the Secretary of War, advisors, and high-level generals to go meet some low-level diplomat.
You'd say, man, that guy's pretty important if they're sending all of the highest people to go meet him. But see, that's what Balaam did here. Even the biggest nations in our world, think of China, Britain, Germany, and us, we don't send our whole cabinet to go meet with Germany or our whole cabinet to meet with China.
We might send one person to meet with them. But Balaam emptied his closet and said, get out, send all of his advisors, get over there and talk with them, a lot of them at least. The term elders here, it implies two things.
Number one is leadership, and number two is seniority. So when you look at the Hebrew word for elder, and I'm not a Hebrew expert, but I think it's pronounced zaken or zakwen, that word actually means leader, old man, or gray beard.
Young leaders were actually unusual. Middle Eastern culture was patriarchal, so you didn't see a lot of young leaders. They're mostly older men. Upon Balaam's refusal to go with the elders of Midian and Moab, Balak went full court press.
For those of you that don't understand full court press in basketball, when you wanted the ball, you put all five guys up and you're like, don't let that ball cross half court. And Balaam's like, all right, he didn't come the first time, I'm gonna send even more people.
And so a second delegation was dispatched that was more impressive than the first. So let's look at verse 15 again. Verse 15 says, then Balak sent more princes, more numerous and more honorable than they.
So he sent more. And see, why did he do this? Because Balak was desperate. He needed Balaam badly, and so he was willing to just empty the shelf and send them all there. See, he needed someone from Midian.
He said, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get it. The king of Moab, Balak, was not a sincere man. It wasn't sincerity that was in his mind. For example, to the contrary, well, consider Joseph. When Joseph went to bury his father, Jacob, a lot of the Egyptian elders went with him.
Isn't that incredible? I was reading this in Genesis. Pagan rulers of Egypt traveled many miles to help bury a former slave's father in Canaan. See, God gave Joseph both power and great respect in the eyes of the Egyptian elite.
Like, what are they really gaining from going all the way to Canaan to go to Jacob's funeral? But they respected and honored him, and they honored Joseph as they went with him. You know, those that honor God, God will honor.
You honor God, he will honor you. You dishonor God, you'll be ashamed. That's what the Bible says. See, Balak sent everyone short of himself or his own children to convince Balaam to come and support his campaign against Israel.
He sent them all. Just get out there and get them to come here. So let's compare the actions of Balak. Let's compare them with the redemptive work of our God. Did God have anything to gain from a relationship with us?
No, God stood to gain nothing from a relationship with us. He sent prophets, priests, and leaders to share his wisdom with a very rebellious and usually disinterested human race. As you see, it's in the parable of the vineyard.
Some of these messengers were killed, some were beaten, but last of all, he sent his beloved son, and what did they do to him? What did we do to him? We killed him, and we tossed him outside his father's vineyard.
See, in the incarnation, Jesus became lower than his father because he united the divine nature with human nature in a single person. That's what the Athanasian Creed says. It's like when he united divine with human, he was becoming subordinate to God when he did that.
Jesus gave up everything that we might gain in eternal life. That is such a contrast to Balak. See, Balak gave some of his riches and some of his advisors for selfish motives, but Jesus gave everything because of his pure love.
He gave everything he had. When he was on the cross and said it is finished, it wasn't just his death was finished. He gave everything up.
It is finished.
I can't give any more, and if you're not in Christ today, what more remains? What else is there? That's it. If you reject that sacrifice, there is no more hope for you. God has emptied himself for you, and if you don't take that sacrifice, that's it because when you spurn the blood of Jesus Christ, there's a much worse punishment for that than spurning the Old Testament covenant and the Old Testament sacrifices in the temple.
See, I love 2 Corinthians 5 .21. That's one of the best summaries of the gospel, but you know the one that I think is even better sometimes? 2 Corinthians 8 .9. It says, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor that you through his poverty might become rich.
Our protagonist, Balaam, he wasn't interested in heavenly riches. He liked filthy lucre or dirty money or drug money, as we would say today, and that always corrupts the heart of him who acquires it. Proverbs 11 .2 says this.
It says, treasures of wickedness profit nothing but righteousness. Righteousness delivers from death. That's what righteousness does. So in Numbers 22 .7, we see money now. That's the second temptation.
It's almost an afterthought here, but Moses included the detail that Balak sent Balaam diviners or diviners fee. Let's read the verse seven again. It says, the elders of Moab and Midian departed with the diviners fee in their hand and they came to Balaam and spoke to him the words of Balaam.
So small details in the Bible are important. We can learn from small details and we learn when the Bible omits stuff or what the Bible does not say. So there's no record that Balaam refused this gift.
The text does not say he refused it. So based on we know about his character, is there any doubt that Balaam's lost one out? No, he took that fee.
He took it.
Balaam knew the Moabites were God's enemies. He knew Israel was God's people. He knew he could not change God's minds and yet he deceitfully accepted that fee without reservation.
He's a fraudster.
That's what he did. What did Paul say to Timothy about the love of money? He says, the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil from which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
It's not just a danger for Balaam. It's a danger for all of us, pastors, elders, whatever. Laymen, all of us. Does getting stabbed with a sword or pierced like an arrow sound like fun to you? Would you like to have a sword shoved in your vital parts?
If you pursue money, you subject your soul to those tortures and what's more important is you roll the dice with your eternal destiny. Greed, greed is idolatry. That is idolatry to put money above God and when you use the church or when you use God's name to obtain wealth, that takes that idolatry and advances it to blasphemy when you use God's pulpit and God's people and God's sacraments to make money for yourself.
Think about premeditated murder. When you kill someone in premeditated murder, how much stronger is that penalty than someone who just kills someone in the heat of the moment or runs over him accidentally?
Corrupting God's church, that carries a much greater sentence than corrupting yourself. That is a very, very serious sin. The reformers, when the reformers left the Roman Catholic Church, they correctly castigated and assailed the papal system.
They said, the Roman Catholics, they sell the position of pope, I'm sorry, archbishop, bishop, cardinals, and popes, the highest bidder. In 1334, we know this from the records of the Vatican, there was an abbot elect.
He paid one to $2 .4 million in modern money to be appointed to the bishopric of Canterbury. He paid that, and see, God hates that type of stuff. You know, I like what Matthew Henry says here. He says, how you and I view money or possessions is a clear example of how we understand grace.
So for godly character, let's consider an example from the Old and New Testaments. I've talked about this before. When Naaman the Syrian came to Elisha, he said, I have several years of salary and fine clothes.
Take these as a payment for healing. What did Elisha do? Elisha healed him for free, and then refused the offer of payment, not once, but twice, even after Naaman pressured him to accept it. See, Elisha realized that when you accept a gift for something that God gives you freely, you're giving someone an incorrect view of the gospel, and you're tarnishing God's name when you do that.
See, now, supporting our pastors is biblical. The Bible tells us to provide for those that labor in the word on our behalf. That is biblical. But when people make God's ordinances in his word to wait for great gain for themselves, that's a great, great sin.
You know, Paul, the greatest Christian in the New Testament outside of Jesus Christ, he made tents to support himself financially. Why did he do that? Like, why did he work with his own hands? Well, he told us in 2 Corinthians 11, he said, did I commit a sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preach the gospel of God to you free of charge?
See, Paul gave up his right. As a gospel minister, to be supported financially for the glory of God and the growth of his church. That's why Paul did that. When Paul went to the church, the church was not a means to an end for Paul.
Like his master Christ, Paul thought no sacrifice was too great for the good of Christ's mystical body. You know, he said, I'll do whatever to see God's glory go out. A person that cares only for themselves is capable of great treachery.
And we see that in the story of Balaam. Balaam sold out the Canaanites and God in a single day. For a final point, I want to talk about Numbers 22, nine through 21. We see the sorcerer's treachery. As I read and reread this passage and looked at the last part here, I thought there's a lot of parallels between this account and the Garden of Eden.
We talked about the Garden of Eden in Sunday school today. When Adam and Eve fell into sin, God asked them two rhetorical questions. Does anyone remember those two questions where they got asked? Number one, where are you?
That's number one.
And afterwards, he put a second question to Eve. What was the question to Eve? What is it that you have done? See, God is omniscient. He doesn't have to ask questions. He knows the answer. But when God asks these questions, you know, when he asks these questions, he has a purpose.
Process theology is a heresy and it says God learns and adjusts over time. Like how we learn and adjust when we drive or at school. God's not like that. That's heresy. God is not a statistical analyst.
Math, statistics, they bend the knee to his eternal unchangeable will. That's what our God is like. However, God asks us questions to reveal the sin and lust in our hearts. That's why God asks us questions.
He wants to show us our sin. You know, when we pray, we align our will with God's and God's questions help us to see our heart the way that he views it. So when he asks the question, he's trying to get something out of us.
So God audibly enters this account in verse nine. He says, who are these men with you? So Balaam answers truthfully in verses 10 through 11, right? But God was not interested in the mere facts about the Moabite delegation.
He didn't ask Balaam this question because he wanted to know. Implicitly, I believe, he was asking Balaam, he said, examine your own heart. Are you seriously going to consider making common cause with my enemies?
Why did you invite these men to spend the night? Are you hoping that I will change my mind? Is that what you're hoping, Balaam? How much longer will you linger in the path of the sinners and sit with the scornful?
As we see in Psalm one, that only leads to ruin when you do that. You know, what did Eve do? Eve loitered with the serpent. She sat there and loitered with him. And because of her loitering with the serpent, the whole human race was plunged into sin.
You know, perhaps God is asking you a question today. As I preach the sermon, who are these lusts with you? Who are these lusts that you entertain in your soul? Are you really going to entertain these sins for which my son was suffered and bled and died and was crushed on the cross?
Are you gonna entertain them today? Do you know I can see your innermost thoughts? I can see them. Consider the words that I gave my servant Jeremiah. This is what the Lord is telling us today. He said, I, the Lord, I search the heart and I test the mind.
We see testing the mind through questions to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds. That's what God is doing. He's testing our hearts. He's testing our minds. You know, sin is really a twofold issue.
We sin in our mind and we sin in through our actions. They follow each other. As water goes down from the mountains to the sea, we sin in our minds, we sin in our actions. You know, before Jesus' words in the Gospels, way before Jesus was ever born, he was already speaking through his servants.
Who were his servants? The faithful prophets. You know, your wicked ways and the fruit of your evil deeds are both repulsive to God. He hates the thoughts of your mind as much as he hates the sins of your heart.
The Hebrew word for cluster of grapes is eshkol. It's a cluster. Lies, lies are like grapes. They come in bunches. You can't just have one grape. It's always a cluster. And we see here with Balaam, Balaam lied about being a prophet of God.
He lied by partially concealing the words God gave him. And he covered up his previous lie by saying he would always share God's entire message. So there's three lies in one chapter. You know, and God said to Balaam, you know, listen to God's reply.
And God said to Balaam, you shall not curse the people for they are blessed. Right, that's what God told Balaam to say. Now, what did Balaam turn around and say to the Moabites in verse 13? Let's see what he says in verse 13.
He says, go back, he says, go back to your land for the Lord has refused to give me permission to go with you. Do you see what Balaam is doing here? When you refuse to deliver God's message, that's treason against the Almighty God.
And that's what Balaam did. He refused to deliver God's message. The sorcerer left the door cracked. You know, he closed the door here. He left it cracked a little bit. In case you want to come back for more money and honor, I'm still here.
When God slammed the door shut. You know, how would Balaam have dealt with the messengers? If those messengers of Balaam went to Balaam and came back and said, we didn't give him the message, what do you think Balaam would do to those messengers?
He'd have their heads. When I give you an order, you tell those people. But Balaam was, the Almighty God was talking to Balaam. He didn't give him the full words. You know, and additionally, Balaam denigrated or he brought down God's character.
Balaam conceived of God on his own level. Maybe God will eventually change his mind. Let's give him some more time to think this over. You know, Balaam should have heeded his own advice in the next chapter.
If you flip forward to Numbers 23, 19, he said, 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 it? Or has he spoken and will not make it good?
Like Balaam said that about God, but his life was lived in opposition to the truths he spoke. You know, in Luke 4, 23, we see an interesting, we see Jesus mentioned the common Hebrew proverb, physician heal thyself.
That was a common Hebrew saying back then. Perhaps someone should have said to Balaam, prophet, heed thine own words. You listen, you're saying this about God, but your heart is not for him. You don't love God, you love man.
You love the honor and money of men and you're doing this and being treacherous. You know, Balaam would rather withhold God's word because he didn't wanna alienate them all by delegation. He was worried about them.
If we withhold God's truth from the lives of those that are around us, you know what we do? We make ourselves enemies of their souls. How far Balaam is from the spirit of Paul. What did Paul say in Acts 20, 27?
Paul said, for I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God. That's what a true prophet does. So the first delegation left. The second delegation was dispatched. Here was another chance for Balaam to prove his mettle.
With his next offer, Balaam really upped the ante. He said, I will honor you greatly. I will do whatever you say to me. Therefore, please come and curse this people for me. He gave him a blank check with the second offer.
You know, Satan told Eve that great wisdom would be given to the one that disobeyed God. You and your husband, you'll be like God, he hissed in their ear. Similarly, Balaam promised Balaam a blank check for that.
See, Balaam gave what looked to be, if you look at it first in verse 18, it appears to be a very pious reply. It says, then Balaam answered and said to the servants of Balak, though Balak were to give me a house full of silver and gold I could not go beyond the word of my Lord to do less or more.
But let's compare these. Do his words match his heart? No, they don't. See, he had already withheld God's full reply from the first group. And he did that for much less than a house full of silver or gold.
So his words are exposing him as a hypocrite. He withholds God's reply all the time. And it doesn't take a house full of silver and gold to get him to do it. See, his soothsaying business, his relationship with the Moabites,.
His fake piety,.
All of those things were more valuable to Balaam than the truth. Do you remember what Balaam's name meant? What did his name mean?
Destroyer.
His name meant destroyer. You know, listening to the uppercase destroyer, that's the devil, the apprentice destroyer withheld God's truth from souls who desperately needed it, like his father, the devil.
The words of David, I think in Psalm 17, they ring especially true here. He says, concerning the works of men, by the words of your lips, I have kept away from the paths of who? The destroyer. That's who he's kept away from.
What does the destroyer peddle? What does Satan peddle? Satan gives us half-truths, and he gives us outright lies, because that's how Satan is. He's got a variety, too. I got a half-truth for you, quarter-truth, straight lie.
You know, Proverbs 23 says this. I love Proverbs 23, 23. It says, by the truth, do not sell it. Also, wisdom and instruction and understanding. You know, Balaam's maxim, if you were to invent one for this man, it would be sell a lie and tell it not.
Also, get goodwill, honor, and a pious reputation. That was his maxim. You know, we need to be aware of thinking you can be more merciful or just than God. Balaam thought he was more merciful than God.
These type of thoughts, these thoughts are the devil's logic. Balaam held back from revealing God's truth, and then Eve added to God's command to turn the tree of life. And what does Revelation say will happen for those that do this and don't have Jesus' atonement?
Let's talk about it. Revelation 22 says this, verse 18. For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the book of life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
So in his second reply, we do see God seem to give in, but it was in fact another test of Balaam's character. See, he allowed Balaam to go with the Moabites, but he said, only speak the words that I have commanded.
So Balaam happily mounted his donkey and he rode off with his party. See, his spirit was already with the Moabites, so why not join them on the journey as well? Just get your whole body there, your spirit's with him, take your body with you as well, go ahead.
And how far this is from our perfect savior. You know, Jesus saddled a donkey and rode into Jerusalem and he was intent on following whose will? His father's will. You know, Christ obeyed from the heart.
Balaam paid lip service. Balaam's companion were princes. Christ's companion were lowly, uneducated fishermen and laborers. Jesus's fear of God was greater than Balaam's fear and, I'm sorry, Balaam served for a price and Christ was his perfect service to his father.
Jesus's fear of God's wrath was greater than Balaam's fear. Jesus's bribe was delivered by the devil. His princely bribe came directly from the devil, right? And yet Jesus remained a faithful prophet.
Nothing on earth, heaven, or hell could dissuade Jesus from going to the cross for our sins. He went to the cross and he paid our debts. Jesus subjected himself to the whims of man so that we could be set free from the subjection to sin.
Is there any greater story than what Jesus did on the cross? There isn't, there's no greater story than that. You know, from the apostate prophet to the only and perfect prophet, the story of redemption, it always moves from imperfect to complete.
That is always the arc of redemption. And isn't this the arc of the saint's life as well? You know, I wrote this many weeks ago, but that's the arc of a saint's life, from imperfect to holiness. That's where we're moving.
You know, when people pass to be the Lord, they're perfect forever. You know, Joshua 13 .22 says that Balaam was killed during the conquest of Canaan, and thus he was richly repaid for his sedition or his treason.
However, I'm confident this is not the case for those in this room. You know, rescued from the wages of Balaam, we have been raised to new life with Christ forevermore. Don't fall in the way of Balaam, fall in the way of Christ.
Let's pray. Dear Lord, I thank you for this story today, Lord, about Balaam. I pray that we would flee flattery and flee riches, Lord, and seek only you. Lord, this, Lord, eternity is certain, like every day brings us closer.
Lord, as a wise man once said, Lord, the business of this life is to prepare for death. Lord, every day we go home to be with you, and Lord, our job is to watch like the, not like the foolish virgins, but the wise ones that kept their lamps trimmed.
I pray that we'd be watching and waiting for you. Please keep us focused on you and fixed on you until that day we get to see you in full glory, and then our faith will become sight, in Christ's name.
Amen.