Balaam and His Promotion

And God said unto Balaam, “Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people; for they are blessed.

And Balaam rose up in the morning and said unto the princes of Balak, “Get you intoyour land: for the LORD refuseth to give me leave to go with you.” (Numbers 22:11-12)

I often wondered what was wrong with Balaam. He seemed to have done everything right. I mean, the Lord told him don’t go and he didn’t. The Lord told him to go and he did. When the angel came to try to stop him with his donkey he said to the angel, “I will go back if you want me to.” And yet the angel said, “Go.” Can anyone blame Balaam? Why was he killed like the rest of the people later?

I just saw the clue in these two verses. From the very beginning Balaam’s heart wasn’t really with God’s. You don’t really see that if you look at the surface. But you see it in his actions. Later on you see how he “counseled” Balak, the prince of the Midianites how to make the Israelites fall out of favor with God to a point that thousands of them die from a plague. We don’t read him instructing Balak but we read what Moses said about it, confirming that Balaam had counseled the Midianites to snare the children of Israel to commit whoredom against God by offering to their idols.

But here, these two verses, we see the heart of Balaam. Instead of telling Balak’s messenger exactly what God had told him, “You shall not curse these people for they are blessed”, he tells them that God refuses to give him leave to go with them. What! Sure, the Lord told him not to go, but that’s not the point. He didn’t tell the messengers that it’s pointless for him to even go. I mean there is no argument about it. Don’t even bother with it. God does not want these people cursed and so why even think that he should go, now or later?

This is where we find the problem with Balaam. He wanted to go. He wanted the promotion Balak can give him, even though he tells Balak again and again he doesn’t care. He does care. If he didn’t care at all he would’ve said so with the messengers from the very beginning…He  would’ve said, “You’re wasting my time, God does not want these people cursed and that’s what Balak want and he’s not going to get it, promotions or not.” Period. No arguments about it. But he goes and checks with God when the second messengers came. See I think if he had told the first messengers the truth that God does not want these people cursed then Balak would know there’s no point. But you don’t see Balaam telling this at all or at any time. He hides it from Balak. (Balak only came to know this because God would took possession of Balaam as he’s about to curse and turned the cursing into blessing.)

And then we see later on when Balak reproaches him for not coming at the very first he says to Balak, “Well, don’t I have power too to say what I want to say…” Meaning isn’t this why you ask for me? You might have the power to promote me but I have the power to bless or to curse, so you need me. And so, he thinks. He still thinks he’s going to curse the children of God even though the Lord plainly said, “No, don’t curse them.”

Well, he got what was coming to him. His true heart was revealed. He wanted the promotions deep down inside to a point that he thought he can go against God and still get it.

It is amazing how many of us can be snared like this. Like a big promotion at the company or some “good” opportunity may bring us blessing despite of it becoming a snare in our lives, going against the will of God in our lives, and we know this too and yet we go and take it even though in our hearts this is going to get us away, farther away from God or that we will become too busy for the work of God. Is it worth it? When are we going to learn?