Prophet Balaam: The False Prophet

As a final treatise on an Old Testament Prophet, let’s review the life of Balaam. Balaam’s ministry is one in which we do not have much detail of, though we have enough to learn a few things from. In fact we do not have the writings of Balaam though we have both the Old and New Testaments speaking about him. There is a debate in Christian circles as to whether Balaam was actually a Prophet of God or not. I don’t want to get into that debate. However, I am persuaded that he was because the account in Numbers 22-24 shows him as communicating with the LORD and especially as the LORD speaking to him.

I have earlier mentioned how the New Testament speaks of Prophets. Peter warns against false Prophets in 2 Peter 2 and tells us that these “have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”—v. 20. Ironically, Jesus in the Olivet Discourse about His second coming speaks repeatedly about “False Prophets”. His first response to the disciples in Matthew 24 about His return was “See to it that no one misleads you”—v. 3. In v. 11, He again cautions of false prophets and repeats such caution in v. 24. Paul speaking of the end times, writes continually that there will be false prophets—1 Timothy 4: 1-4; 2 Timothy 3: 13—and to the Thessalonian church he wrote against the false prophecy that Christ had returned in 2 Thessalonians 2: 2. Caution against false prophets is the single most poignant revelation about imminence of Christ’s return both from Jesus Himself and the early Church. Peter, John and Jude use Balaam as a prime example of false prophets. Yet, like Balaam, I sense that we can fall into apostasy if we fail to be cautious of what God wants of us in ministry and now I present three points of caution that Balaam’s ministry teaches us.

Caution #1: Be Cautious of the Enemy
The story of Balaam as recorded in Numbers 22-24 is seemingly innocuous. Balaam apparently seeks God in all he does [like your typical Evangelical Christian] before the Moabites and God clearly speaks to him but Balaam failed to draw the line of interaction with the enemy of Israel and thus the enemy of God. It was the Apostle James, the half-brother of Jesus, who said “do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?…whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God”—James 4: 4. This was Balaam’s first mistake and our first caution. Balaam failed to recognize the world for what it was in the Moabites. We as the Christian church can fail to recognize that our world is strongly anti-God. It was G.K. Chesterton, that great 21st century English journalist who died in 1936, who wrote in his day
“You are free in our time to say that God does not exist; you are free to say that He exists and is evil; you are free to say … that He would like to exist if He could. You may talk of God as a metaphor or mystification; you may water Him down with gallons of long words, or boil Him to the rags of metaphysics; and it is not merely that nobody punishes, but nobody protests. But if you speak of God as a fact, as a thing like a tiger, as a reason for changing one’s conduct, then the modern world will stop you somehow if it can. We are long past talking about whether an unbeliever should be punished for being irreverent. It is now thought irreverent to be a believer”. Balaam’s error was that he failed to realize that friendship, even in minute ways, with the world leads to irreverence for God. Caution #1: Be Cautious of the Enemy.

Caution #2: Be Cautious of the Word of God

Yet, failing to recognize the enemy isn’t all that plagued Balaam. You see, the leap to apostasy is never a leap at all but more of a gradual slide. Satan never seduces us to go all the way from the beginning. He is too crafty to do that. He begins with something small and only increases it with time. And in Balaam’s ministry, that slide began when he began to disregard the word of God. The scary thing about Balaam was that He proclaimed the Word of God yet seemed to act out of accord with it.

I see the slide brewing in the Christian world. You have churches electing and ordaining practicing homosexuals and immoral people in disregard to the warnings of the Apostle Paul; you have churches “forbidding to marry” in disregard to the New Testament; you have churches forbidding certain foods in opposition to the Word of God and you have churches denying the very Lord who bought them. We have become a people that do not listen to the Word of God. Which of us is not guilty of it? First be preach the word without heeding it and gradually slide into not even preaching it at all but the scariest passage in scripture may be when Jesus said “Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven” and you and me have said to Christ: “Lord, Lord”. Balaam’s life cautions us not to ignore the Word of God.

Caution #3: Be Cautious of the Intent of the Heart
The final caution of Balaam’s ministry is found in expositions on his life not recorded in Numbers 22-24 but elsewhere. Numbers 31: 16 reads “Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the LORD”. The New Testament carries the thought further, indicating that Balaam’s error was in enticing the people of God to sin. You see, Balaam knew God could not curse Israel unless Israel first abandons God. So he tells the Moabites, “I can’t curse Israel because God doesn’t curse them. But if you want Israel to be cursed, go ahead and marry into Israel and they will displease God and God Himself will curse them” and so Numbers 25: 1 reads “While Israel remained at Shittim, the people began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab”. This is the third caution to be observed—the intent of the heart

We can know the enemy of God, be in strict adherence to the Word of God outwardly, but I have to be honest with you that sometimes I see Balaam in my own heart when God is displaced from the throne and I go my own way. As I pen these words, I am pricked by the selfish intentions of my own heart and life that at times deliberately ignores God and my prayer is that you and me may be so filled with the Spirit of God that we can not only draw the enemy lines and know the Word of God but yield our very hearts and intents to Him. So as I end this series, I hope we can say a prayer beginning with the words: “Father, forgive me for I have sinned”! Be blessed as you consider these words.