Download Report

LESSONS FROM BALAAM
March 22, 2015 morning service
Revelation 2:14
Take your Bible this morning and go to the book of Revelation chapter 2. We’ve
just finished up preaching toward our young people’s mind and then three messages
out of Matthew 6 and we’re marching toward Easter and so next Sunday with Palm
Sunday we focus on the cross. One Sunday here and then a Sunday after. Pastors call
this spot preaching. It’s a standalone message. It’s not in a series. I’ll be doing that.
When we get to May I’ll begin a new series of sermons that I’m working on now.
But this morning – for the last several weeks this has just gripped my heart and I
wanted to share with you just what I’m sensing God’s teaching me. Over in the fourth
book of the Bible, the book of Numbers, there is a story about a man named Balaam.
He’s a soothsayer. He’s a prophet. He’s a spirit man. He knows of God and maybe
knows God and he hears from God. Well there are hundreds of people in the Old
Testament but this particular man, three writers of the New Testament take his story
and pick it up and put it over in their writing in the New Testament as a warning to all of
us.
So there’s something we need to learn from Balaam. Now most of us know
about Balaam just one thing. His donkey talked to him. When we think of Balaam, we
think of that. In the King James it says that Balaam rode an ass and that his ass spoke.
It’s a preacher’s joke. We talk about it all the time. You know, if God can use a donkey
he can use you. That’s what we usually think about but there’s much more to Balaam
than simply his donkey talking to him.
The Israelites are moving right up on the Promised Land. They’re about to go in
and Balak, not Balaam, but Balak, the king of the Moabites is frightened about Israel
moving forward. So he sends a team of his men to find Balaam. They said, “Balaam,
come. We’ll pay you a big love offering. Curse Israel.” Balaam says, “I can’t do it. I
can only say what God says.” And Balaam winds up giving four of the most beautiful,
powerful, affirming blessings on the nation Israel that you find anywhere in scripture.
After he told them no, they send an entourage back and said, “We’ll pay you more
money.” They said to him again and again, “Please come. Please come.” Balaam
said, “Give me all the gold and silver in Balak’s house, I’m not coming to do that. I can
only say what God says.” Finally that’s when he gets on his donkey and he comes and
his donkey can see God but Balaam can’t and God deals with him.
Finally he awakens and he goes and you find in Numbers 22, 23, and 24 this
story. You ought to read it sometime but something wicked happened with Balaam. As
positive as he looks, something wicked is at work here. As positive as some Baptists
look, sometimes there is something wicked at work here. Three New Testament writers
take three verses and this is what they say about Balaam and I want us to learn from
him some lessons this morning.
Revelation 2:14. John is writing and he’s writing the seven churches and he
writes to the church at Pergamum and he says: But I have a few things against you,
because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching
Balak [that’s the king of Moab] to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat
things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality.1
Peter takes Balaam’s illustration and in II Peter 2:15 we find the word of God
says this: forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of
Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages [that’s the money they offered him, the
wages] of unrighteousness. John warns us, Peter warns us, and then Jude in verse 11
also warns us of the teaching of Balaam. Woe to them! For they have gone the way of
Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in
the rebellion of Korah.
Those are three different things. Korah was a sinner, Cain was a sinner, but also
they rushed – he’s speaking here to the unfaithful in the church. They rushed headlong
into the error, not the blessing, but there’s an error of Balaam. Balaam is a strange and
intriguing personality. Israel is camped there on the border of Canaan and Balak, that
king of Moab fearfully looks for help to turn Israel away. He seeks to employ Balaam,
this soothsayer to curse Israel. This gifted man, they want to hire him to curse the
nation Israel. Don’t miss this. Spiritual giftedness plus corrupt character always equals
the withered branch of John 15:6. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as
a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are
burned. That’s exactly what happened to Balaam.
Spiritual giftedness, I mean preach the stars out of heaven but you add to that
corrupt character and you will find a withered branch. How many times it seems that
the most gifted among us couple their giftedness with corrupt action and their testimony
goes out the window and Jesus says if they don’t continue, even the most gifted, to
abide in Me they’re going to be hewn down, cut out, cast into the fire, and burned up.
There’s a lot of gifted people in our church. Musically, teaching, testimony, work
with their hands, love kids, but oh how often you find that most gifted person falling to
corrupt action and character and it doesn’t matter how great a servant they have been.
When that corrupt character comes, they become a withered branch. Balaam is a
warning shot to all of God’s people today and some lessons we must learn. There are
four of them and I want you to see them with me this morning out of this life of Balaam.
Number one is what I simply call the lesson of covenant. Balaam speaks four
times to affirm God’s unchanging purpose to bless Israel and judge their enemies.
1
®
Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible , Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963,
1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
2 Balak comes and says, “Curse them.” He says, “I can’t do it.” “Curse them.” “Can’t do
it.” “Curse them.” “Can’t do it.” Four times and Balaam says over and over – you can
read it in Numbers 23 and 24. He gives these several verses of beautiful blessing.
What a spiritual gift this man has and he wraps it all up in Numbers 24:9 and here’s
what Balaam said: “He couches, he lies down as a lion, And as a lion, who dares rouse
him? [Who’s going to wake up a lion? If you come upon a lion in the road the last thing
you want to do is punch him with a stick. Just leave him alone. Balaam says, “I’m
telling you, the lion is there and”] Blessed is everyone who blesses you [he’s speaking
to Israel], And cursed is everyone who curses you.”
You see, God is in covenant with the Jews. You don’t have to understand that.
You don’t even have to like it but let me tell you this. When this world is done the
generation of the Jew will still be here. They’re not going anywhere. Iran can get a
nuclear weapon but in the end you won’t find Amalekites and Hivites and Jebusites. As
a matter of fact, have you ever met one? Have you ever met a Hivite? Not me. Ever
met a Jebusite? Not me. Ever meet a Jew? Sure you have. They’re God’s covenant
people. God in His sovereignty chose them and through that generation came the
Messiah and God has a future plan for them. Here in Numbers we find that word. It’s
the lesson of covenant.
Now let me apply that to you. Not only has the Jew got this relationship with the
Lord, the believer has a covenant relationship with God and you never, ever lose that
relationship once you have it. You are once saved, always saved. Now you don’t have
to like that phrase. It’s not in the Bible anywhere but I’m telling you, eternal security of
the believer, it starts with God, not with you. God hunted you. You didn’t hunt Him.
God saved you. You didn’t save yourself. You see, God begins this covenant.
I have two kids. There is nothing I can do to not be their father. I can disown
them. I can do away with them. I cannot give to them but they still have my blood in
their veins. They are mine by birth and covenant and I’m telling you, I’m God’s child by
second birth and covenant and the lesson of Balaam is this. You are saved eternal
forever Amen. Love it, like it, act like it, stop sinning, and go with God because He’s
going with you. It’s a covenant relationship that if you ever know God, you’ll always –
people say, “Well that’s a license to sin.” No.
Let me tell you, friend, if you know God and if you are really saved and if you
have ever willfully sinned and been to God’s woodshed, that’s the last time you wanted
that license because He wore you out. Yes, He did. Some of you can sin and it doesn’t
bother you. You want to know why? You’re lost. You’ve never been saved. You’ve
got religion. You might be a Baptist, but let me tell you, if you can willfully walk away
from God and that doesn’t bother you and there’s no conviction in you and God doesn’t
deal with you, you just don’t know Him because He disciplines His children.
Balaam teaches us the lesson of covenant. Secondly, Balaam teaches us the
lesson of cash. Yeah. Money. They offered him a pot of money to come over there
and curse Israel. He wouldn’t do it. Then they offered him two pots of money. They
3 said, “We’ll give you….” He said, “If you give me all the gold and all the silver in the
house of the king, I cannot do anything save what God says.” However, Balaam got the
offering. I’m going to show you in point three what Balaam did. He would not curse
Israel but he gave instruction to the king of how to defeat and bother Israel.
Nowhere in scripture does it tell us that we see him physically taking the money.
However, when you go to the book of Jude, we looked at it in verse 11 that you saw,
they rushed headway into the error. What was that error? Then look at the passage we
looked at in II Peter 2:15. We see it come up on the board. Forsaking the right way,
they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam… who loved [what?] the
wages of unrighteousness. I’m telling you, they paid him for his sinfulness.
You mark it down. Be very careful. We know what the Bible says in I Timothy
6:9-10. We know what it says about the love of money because when you find a person
with the love for cash, you’ve found the root of evil in their life. It happens to preachers.
It happens to deacons. It happens to people all in this congregation. You will sell your
soul for a dollar.
I was looking at a new place to invest a little money this week. Brother Jon, we
were singing that song awhile ago and I got confirmation. The name of the product was
the Stronghold Corporation. Something didn’t ring right in my heart about that. Friend,
I’m telling you, I don’t need any more strongholds in my life. I’ve got enough of them.
There are strongholds that come and I’m telling you, chief among strongholds for God’s
people are money. They’ll argue about money. They’ll be crooked about money.
They’ll come sit in this building right here and they’ll even give their money but then they
will go out and they will crush a widow in order to gain more money. Balaam had a
heart problem. It had to do with finance. It was a trigger. Oh he said all the right things
but in the end he did the wrong thing and the wages of unrighteousness brought
judgment to his life.
II Corinthians 2:17. Jot this verse down. For we are not like many, peddling the
word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of
God. Paul said, “I’m not going to be like some of these folks. I’m not peddling the word
of God. I’m not for hire.” I know some folks that are for hire. A church and ministry
must be squeaky clean when it comes to cash.
Tonight we will have a business session at the end of our FACE service and we
will adopt our new budget, $8.7 something, somewhere along in there. There’s vision
built into that. We didn’t give that much this year but we also build some vision there
and there’s some things we will do if we have a great year and if we don’t then we ride
on that. We just don’t spend more than we take in. Dan Beard sees to that. It must be
squeaky clean. We’ve moved some things around in that budget this year.
The deacons were looking at it the other night. We have a finance committee
and a personnel group and the deacons took a hard, long look at it and they asked
questions. You’ll see the budget if you pick one up and come back tonight and look at
4 it. In the personnel section, there’s the executive staff and then there’s the pastoral staff
level, and then there’s the support staff level. In that pastoral staff level it looks like
there’s been a big increase and somebody said, “It looks like the pastor got a big raise.”
I said, “No, I’m in the executive level and there’s no raise up there.” And we smiled but
people look at that and ask questions about it. Well they should. We deal with it. If a
church can’t be above more about its finances, I’m telling you, it’ll go downhill in a hurry.
It’ll stink because it’s rotten.
This church is 120 years old this year. There’s never been a major division
within this church because people have been guarding the unity of the church. Now
that doesn’t mean we don’t lose people. Sometimes we have blessed subtractions but
there’s never been this big rift and divide and I’m going to burn the building because
people have put the church ahead of their own self, the unity of the bride ahead of their
own, but you go back and most every time you’ll find in church, even before doctrine
splits a church, money will split a church. Balaam. You must have great accounting,
great budgetary process, and the Lord being our helper, we’ve always tried to do that
thing right there. Cash. There’s a lesson. Be careful that you love it above your
principles.
It’s like the elderly lady that came and told the pastor her dog died and said, “I
want you to bury my dog.” He said, “I can’t do that. I can’t do that.” She said, “Well I
have got $25,000 set aside for whoever buries my dog.” He said, “Well I didn’t know the
dog was a Baptist.” Let me tell you, if you can be bought, you’re a hireling. Make sure
your principles are not predicated on the cash. Baptist dogs.
There’s a third lesson I want you to see. The lesson of covenant, the lesson of
cash, thirdly there’s the lesson of compromise. It goes right into that. Balaam, in
chapter 25 of Numbers when you look at chapter 25 in Numbers you’ll find that Balaam
has gone off the scene. He left in chapter 24. Balaam arose, departed, returned to his
place, and Balak went his way. But in chapter 25, Israel, the people, they began to play
the harlot with the daughters of Moab. What happened? Israel was looking good but all
of a sudden, they intermarried and intermingled, verse 2. They invited the people to
their sacrifices of their gods and the people ate and bowed down to their gods and so
Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor and the Lord was angry against Israel.
When you to go to Numbers 31 and verse number 16 you find these words:
Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass
against the Lord in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the
Lord. How in the world did Israel begin, the King James says, to go into whoredom with
the pagans? I’m going to tell you how that happened. Balaam, when he left, said to the
king, “I can’t curse Israel but, Balak, if you’ll send the good looking gals over there,
those Jews will fall for them and if you can ever get those Jews to come over here and
go to church with you, they’ll compromise. I’m telling you, I know them well enough.
They’ll compromise for a sexual relationship and you can see the judgment of God
come without my curse being on them.” That’s exactly what happened. There began to
5 be compromise in Israel as they enticed the Jews to come and have relationships
outside of the covenant of the law.
Now watch this. In our youthful generation, the first thing that compromises is
the relationship. “I’m a Baptist, I’m an evangelical, I believe the Bible to be the word of
God, and all of a sudden I began to date outside of my faith. I’m going to win him to
faith.” Let me tell you, friend dating is not an evangelistic tool. You take that
relationship outside and say, “Well, I’ll go to church with him,” or “He’ll go to church with
me.” “He’s a Muslim. I’ll go to church with him.” I’m telling you, friend, if you think that
strains it, if you really want to put a strain on a young Baptist relationship, you let them
begin to go to Catholic mass.
I’ll wade in the water here and I’ll get bad mail this week but I’m just going to tell
you, I don’t give a rip, alright? Because when you stop saying that you’re going to
church where they preach the gospel is by faith in Christ and Christ alone and then all of
the sudden there’s six steps to salvation over here that the Catholic mass will teach you,
that you’ve got to touch these six things, I’m telling you, it is not the same. It is
altogether different. It’s why there was a Protestant Reformation that we protested
against. Man, I know a lot of great Catholics. I’ve got good Catholic friends but I don’t
go to church with them and they disagree with me. That’s why they don’t come here.
I’m telling you, when you begin to violate that relationship of faith, the next thing
that happens is that your doctrine is compromised and then your convictions become
compromised. You’ll move from relationship to doctrine to convictions and those last
two are not – you don’t go from relationship to conviction and then to doctrine. No, no,
no. Your doctrine will drive your conviction and when you change your doctrine
because of your relationship, you’ll have a different – that’s exactly what Balaam led
them to do. He said, “Go over and have relationships with the people at Baal Peor,”
and when they came over they had relationships. Then they changed what they
believed. They went into the pagan places of worship and then their convictions went
right down the sink.
Compromise. There are some things I can compromise on. I come together with
people to do some stuff in the city and we have the Ministerial Alliance and I love these
guys. You know, we come together around an abortion issue. Some of our Catholic
friends are much greater champions for that than we are. Let me tell you, the
Presbyterian Church this week voted, I mean they put it in their papers that same-sex
marriage is okay. It’s just right up there with everything else. I’m telling you, if you can
stay in that, I’m just telling you, your doctrine changes, your conviction’s going to
change. When conviction changes in that area, it doesn’t just stop there. It becomes a
slippery slope. I can compromise on some things. I’m just telling you, I will. I’ll get
along. I really do like folks. I’ve been cussed and I’ve been blessed and I’d rather be
blessed. I like to get along with people but there are some lines. We talk about the
6 Baptist tent and my deal with this young generation. I always say, “There’s a Baptist
tent and it does have flaps on it.” You don’t just kind of wander in and out. If you’re
going to be of us, then there’s some convictions to have. They’re there.
When you begin with relationships outside of your evangelical tent, outside of
your biblical tent, those relationships are born. I’m just telling you, your doctrine will
change your convictions. If you’re single, you better be careful who you marry. You
better be careful who you date. You better be careful who you hang out with because
when those relationships – I’m just telling you, when they go south. Why is it going
south is...? Let me tell you, when those relationships go north, you’re going to have
trouble with your convictions after awhile, alright? It’s exactly what happened. It’s what
Balaam did. He drew the people away.
In the late 1800’s there was a gentleman teaching at Southern Seminary in
Louisville, Kentucky, our mother seminary, our first seminary where Al Mohler is our
good friend and he is the seminary president there today. Where Dr. Mohler is,
Crawford Toy, T-O-Y, Crawford Toy was a professor of Old Testament. He taught
Hebrew and Old Testament. He was single and he was dating Lottie Moon. Lottie
Moon who is, if we have a patron saint in Baptist life, she’s it. Lottie Moon is the lady
that our Christmas offering for foreign missions is named after, the Lottie Moon
Christmas Offering.
Crawford Toy and Lottie Moon were dating. She was already a missionary to
China. It was a long distance and she would come home at furlough and other times.
Crawford Toy began to say that the Bible is not the inerrant word of God. Crawford Toy
left the Baptist faith and became a Unitarian saying that everyone is going to heaven.
Lottie Moon was on the mission field and she had a choice to make because her heart
was turned to Crawford. So does she marry the man denying the faith that she is on the
mission field for? I’ve watched a lot of our kids walk down this aisle and be called to
missions, marry the wrong person and they never go on missions. They never serve.
Why? Their life changed because a relationship got in the way of their doctrine that led
to different convictions.
Lottie Moon, as much as it hurt her heart, said, “I cannot continue in that
relationship” and broke that relationship off. Everybody that’s a Baptist has heard of
Lottie Moon. Nobody knows who Crawford Toy is. It doesn’t matter really that men
know your name but the legacy of Dr. Crawford Toy is one of unbelief and all but
atheism and the legacy of Lottie Moon is missions, the word of God, the gospel for the
globe. She would not compromise. Balaam compromised. He took the cash and
compromised.
Then fourthly, very quickly, is the lesson of character. Balaam, look at this guy.
He is gifted by God, he’s got a vision of God, God speaks to him, he heard God, he
7 spoke God’s message about – but I want you to hear me now. Listen. Don’t miss this.
There is a difference in spiritual giftedness and spiritual fruitfulness. There is a
difference in having a spiritual gift and bearing spiritual fruit. Spiritual giftedness comes
in a single impartation, in a moment. I’m telling you, when I was 17 years old God
called me to preach and I could preach then. At 17 I could preach the gospel. I didn’t
know much but I had a giftedness. I could stand up, read a passage and what little I
knew I could impart. I needed to have my sword sharpened, I needed to have my mind
ready, but there was a gift that God placed in my life.
I preached this last week, 61 years old, at Grand Bay in a little country church
over here trying to help a friend and I’m preaching in that church and there was a man
that walked out of there. He was an old, old fellow, 97. He told me one of the funniest
stories by the way. He introduced me to his wife. He said, “This is my wife.” He said,
“We’ve both been married before. I’m 97. Both of our spouses died.” He said, “Many
years ago I sold her husband ten acres of land and he died and I married her and I got
my land back.” I looked at her and I said, “Is that right?” She said, “That’s a true story.”
One of those old men, not that man but another elderly man walked out of there and he
took me by the hand and he said, “I’ll tell you, preacher, you’ve got a gift. You’ve got a
gift.”
I want you to know, everybody in here that’s saved has got a gift. Everybody. I
don’t know what your gift is. Mine is what I’m doing right now. Mine is exhortation. I’m
not an evangelist. I’m an exhorter. God gave me the gift of exhortation, some capability
of communication. But now there is a big difference in having a spiritual gift and bearing
spiritual fruit. A gift comes in a moment. God gives you an ability but fruit is character
and it must go through the process of development where God takes some things away
and He puts some things in. He says, “Man, you don’t need any more of that,” and He
knocks that out of you and then He adds this over here and He gives you the kind of
wife you need and she hones you a little bit.
Then He gives you a first child and that child teaches you some stuff and then
you get another child and get another child and then you get these folks and you’ve got
your mother-in-law and you’ve got all those things that come in. Then God puts you in
Henrietta church and God shapes you there a little bit. Then He takes you down to
Dallas and He beats you up down in Dallas for a little while and then He brings you to
Pensacola. Then you go through some wars and so God’s just always – the gift’s still
there but if you’re going to bear fruit, I’m just telling you, God’s shaping you and forming
you.
Jeremiah said, “It’s like a lump of clay that he puts on that wheel and he’s making
a pot. Oh that doesn’t look good.” Then he puts it all together and then he starts again.
God does that in your life. He does that in my life. There is the lesson here we must
learn of character. Balaam prayed a prayer. In Numbers 23:10 he prayed a prayer.
8 Here was his prayer. “Lord, let me die the death of the righteous. Lord, I want to die a
righteous man.” But in Numbers 31:8 they took him out and executed him. Moses had
him killed because of his compromise. His life was crushed. He didn’t die a righteous
death. He died at the hand of the executioner. Because he didn’t live a righteous life,
therefore, he couldn’t die a righteous death.
The word of God says in Matthew 7:21-23 these words that ought to scare you to
death. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,
but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me
on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy [like Balaam] in Your name, and in Your
name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will
declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”
Beloved, it’s not the show. It’s not the show. It’s the substance. It’s the
substance. It’s who you are in Christ. Be careful of the error of Balaam. He
compromised for money and he taught the people of God to sin and God crushed him.
God’ll do that in the life of a nation. He’ll do it in the life of a church. He’ll do it in the life
of a family. In Matthew 7 Jesus says He’ll do it in the life of the individual. “Depart from
Me. I never knew you.”
Friend, if you don’t know Christ today, you ought to run down this aisle. You say,
“Preacher, I’m confused.” If I was confused when I hear a sermon, I’d run down this
aisle. I’ll fall in that altar and I’d say, “Dear God, be merciful. Help me know that I know
I know.” I have not said today that a saved man will never sin. I’m a preacher of the
gospel and I sinned before I got up here this morning. My attitude early this morning
wasn’t what it ought to have been. I had to repent sitting on the back patio of my house,
eating my little breakfast and drinking that energy drink. I said, “Dear God, forgive me.”
I wrote my sin in my prayer book this morning, my journal. I said, “Lord, forgive me of
that.”
Worry’s a sin and I wrote that down. “Lord, it’s going to rain today. Not many
people are coming because it’s going to rain.” You know, I’m like telling Him it’s going
to rain. He’s got that. He’s looking and saying, “Yeah, there it’s coming.” I could just
hear the Lord this morning. I wrote it down. “You know, Lord, it’s going to rain,” and He
said, “Oh man, I didn’t know that.” I just had to confess my unbelief.
I’m not telling you that when you become a believer, you don’t sin. I’m telling
you, sin will come into your life. You’ll struggle with that until you get to the other side.
I’m telling you, when you do, God will deal with you and if He does not deal with you –
you see, God disciplines His own. If He doesn’t discipline you, you can just add that up
that you’re not His own. You need to know Him and you need to be sold out to Him.
Don’t let the wages of unrighteousness and the error of Balaam cause you to live in
compromise when you look good on Sunday but you stink it up before Monday morning.
9 There needs to be a fifth “C” in this and it is the blessing of consistency that the Christ
life puts in you.
We’re going to sing a song and when we sing this song, in that balcony, I want
you to get up and come talk to me. On this ground floor, I want you to come. Just you,
by yourself, maybe a whole family that needs to join this church, maybe a couple. I
don’t know but the Spirit of God knows and He’s wooing you and calling you. He’s
saying, “Come today.” Then when we sing this song, this song’s just for you. It’s an
invitation. You’re not going to have to get up and sing a song or make a speech. We’re
going to go right out these doors and into a quiet place and sit down and talk. Then
we’re going to pray and ask God to do something fresh in your heart.
It’s your time, your day, God’s call. You come this day. We welcome you with
open arms. We’re on our feet. We’re standing and God’s calling. You come today.
10