Balaam

In Numbers 22, there is an interesting story about a man named Balaam. It seems that Balak, king of the Moabites, had heard about the Israelites coming out of Egypt, and that God was tearing down any opposition to them along the way. Balak was worried that the Israelites were going to roll right over him and his people and there was nothing he could do about it. Balak had heard about this guy Balaam that had some kind of power, and whoever he cursed ended up in bad shape, and whoever Balaam blessed ended up prospering. So Balak thought to hire Balaam to curse Israel for him, so that they would, essentially, self-destruct, and solve Balak’s problem. Apparently the idea of creating an allegiance with the Israelites never occurred to him (Of course, in those days, forming an allegiance usually meant an exchange of money, and Balak probably thought he couldn’t afford an allegiance with such a powerful people).
So Balak’s messengers came to Balaam, and made their proposal. Balaam told them to stay the night, and he would give them an answer in the morning. Balaam did something that a lot of people would probably consider odd; he prayed about it. I wonder how many of us, if offered a huge moneymaking business opportunity, would stop to pray about it? “Why, that’s a no-brainer! Surely God would want me to have the money, so that I can better support His work…” It strikes me as particularly interesting that Balaam was not an Israelite, yet he clearly had a relationship with the one true God. How does one outside the true faith develop a relationship with the true God? I’m not sure that I have a good answer to that, but I think that it shows that God has always been accessible to everyone, even in a time when most people didn’t think that he was.
Balaam had a conversation with God, and God told him not to go with these men back to Balak. So, Balaam told the men that God wouldn’t let him go. These men went back to Balak, and told him simply that Balaam wouldn’t come; they did not explain why. The why might not have been important to Balak, anyway; Balak seems to have thought that this was a negotiating tactic. So Balak sent more men, with a bigger financial offering (I would think that he could probably have bought an allegiance with Israel with that amount of money, but he was in the mindset to do things his way—actually, I suspect that if he had sent messengers to Israel offering a simple non-interference treaty, that is, I won’t mess with you if you don’t mess with me, the Israelites probably would have gone for it, as long as there were no Moabites living in the Promised Land, and as frightened as Balak was of Israel, he might have been willing to forcibly evacuate any of his people that were living in the land that the Israelites claimed).
So, now Balaam is meeting with more powerful men in Balak’s kingdom, and they are offering him more money to come curse the Israelites. He tells them that he will not go against God; whatever God tells him to do, that’s what he’s going to do, no matter how much Balak offers. Again, Balaam invites them to stay the night, and again, he prays. This time, God tells him that, if the men ask again in the morning, then he should go with them. So Balaam gets up in the morning and saddles his donkey. He doesn’t wait to see if the men will ask, he gets ready to go. Now here’s a guy that, just hours before, said that he wouldn’t do anything more or less than what God told him to do, and now he’s going beyond his instructions.
Is he in trouble? Well, an angel met him along the way, only the angel was invisible to him. Balaam’s donkey saw the angel and took evasive maneuvers. Balaam, not understanding why his donkey wasn’t following his instructions, got upset with the donkey, and began to beat her. God opened the donkey’s mouth, and she asked Balaam if he had ever known her to disobey him. At this point, Balaam began to realize that something weird is going on (cue Twilight Zone music), but he still didn’t get it. God made the angel visible to Balaam, and explained that if the donkey hadn’t disobeyed Balaam, then Balaam would have paid the ultimate price for disobeying God. The angel even goes so far as to suggest that the donkey would have been better off obeying Balaam—at least she wouldn’t have gotten beaten.
Balaam, of course, repented, and told the angel that he was going back home. The angel told him, no, go ahead and go with these men, but keep in mind what will happen if you don’t do exactly what God tells you to do. Balaam assents, and he goes with the men.
Balaam meets with Balak, and Balak shows him the Israelites, and asks him to curse them. Balaam tells Balak that he will not do anything that God doesn’t want; and he tells Balak to prepare a sacrifice unto God. Balak does that, and Balaam pronounces a blessing on Israel. Balak, understandably, gets upset, but Balaam reminds him that he said he could only do what God would have him to do.
Balak leads Balaam to another mountain, and says that perhaps it will please God to curse them from there. Long story short, no matter what Balak does, Balaam will not speak a word against Israel. The harder Balak tries to get Balaam to curse Israel, the more Balaam blesses the Israelites.
The points we can take away from this are: Just because one has a relationship with God, it doesn’t necessarily follow that one is in the right religion. On the other hand, just because one isn’t following the right religion, it doesn’t necessarily follow that what one has to say about God is wrong, or even that God can’t speak through that individual. Also, if one has instructions from God, one should follow those instructions to the best of one’s ability. Also, if you think you’re doing the right thing, but things keep going wrong, you might want to take a minute and check to see just who it is you are fighting against. There are sometimes barriers to doing the right thing, but perseverance and God’s help will get you through, but God will also try to keep you from doing the wrong thing, but if you ignore Him long enough, He will eventually let you have your own way, but the price for that may be more than you were expecting. So pray about it; you don’t want to fight against God.