The Doctrine of Baalam

“There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD" (Prov.21:30). This means that there is no plan by which the Lord, or someone who is following him faithfully, can be defeated. Balak, the king of Moab, learned this the hard way when he hired the prophet Balaam to curse Israel for him, after they had come out of Egypt (Numbers 22-24).Though Balaam was a prophet, and had a connection with God, there simply was nothing he could do to fulfill the king’s wishes. After trying and failing, he perfectly stated: "How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy, whom the LORD hath not defied" (Num.23:8)? But there was something that Balaam understood about God, that if successfully employed, he could bring about what it was that the king desired. He knew that if they could get God’s people to sin against God, that God would certainly curse his people himself. Balaam understood that God was a God of holiness, and that he requires obedience from his people in order to bless them. So he counseled the king to instruct the beautiful Moabite women to entice the Israelite men into fornication and to being partakers of the sacrifices of their gods (Num. 25:1-3; Rev. 2:14). After successfully employing this strategy God did curse Israel for their sins, killing twenty four thousand of them by a plague in one day (Num. 25:9). And that number would have been much greater if not for the heroic action of Phinehas the grandson of Aaron, who graphically and swiftly executed the judgment of death on an arrogant Isrealite man and his Midianitish girlfriend whom he flaunted in the sight of Moses and all Israel (Num. 25:6-8). As the Lord said: “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace: And he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood; because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel” (Num. 25:10-13).

What is more tragic than all of this is that this understanding of holiness and the fear of the Lord has been so lost to the body of Christ today. Though Jesus and all of the writers of the new testament scriptures assure us that sin is less tolerable and more severely punishable for those under the new covenant than it was for those who were under the old covenant, the traditions and doctrines of Christianity today have almost totally stolen this invaluable holy knowledge and fear of God right out of the hearts of God’s dear people (Mat. 5:21,22,27-29; Eph. 5:3-7; Heb. 2:1-3; Heb. 10:28-30). It reminds me of what God said about the same malady late in the old covenant: “Ye have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet ye say, Wherein have we wearied him? When ye say, Every one that doeth evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delighteth in them; or, Where is the God of judgment?” (Mal. 2:17) The children of God have once again fallen prey to the alluring mindset of ‘eternal security,’ the deadly poison that has bedeviled God’s people since the beginning till this day (Gen. 2:16,17; Gen. 3:3,4; Prov. 28:4; Jer. 6:13-15; Jer. 7:8-10; Mal. 2:17). ‘Sinners saved by grace,’ the prosperity doctrines, and many such teachings have crippled the strength of the people of God, because these things have lured us into a complacent and apathetic religious spirit, and away from "striving to enter in at the strait gate;” omitting that “many…will seek to enter in, and will not be able" (Lk. 13:24). And if all we hear and say is that this is a ‘free gift,’ and that we "don’t have to work our way to heaven;” I’m afraid we are forgetting that the treasure of eternal life is something that we have to “sell all that we have” in order to purchase it (Mat. 13:44). Also forgotten by many is the commandment to “labour to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief” (as the children of Israel - Heb. 4:11). Friends, don’t let Satan and all of his religiously cunning doctrines lure you into thinking that you are and will be blessed simply because you have been born again. Obedience is still the recipe for blessing, and disobedience still brings cursing, and that from God. God has not changed since the time of Baal-Peor, and the doctrine of Balaam is still very much present and prevelant today; and even deadlier than it was then. Amen.