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Amen. Amen. The title of my sermon this morning is The Madness of Balaam. The Madness of Balaam. The story of Balaam in the Old Testament is one of the most confusing stories or difficult to understand stories in the Bible. And a lot of Christians have wrestled with this over the years. You talk to different pastors and people who have studied the Bible for a long time and sometimes you get different opinions and different viewpoints because it's kind of a strange story. But thankfully we have the New Testament that sheds a little bit of light on the Balaam story in a few places. And if you really read the Balaam story carefully, I think that it's going to be clear to you this morning what's going on in the story. But you really have to pay attention. This is not a simple story. It's not an easy story. But then again, this is one of the things that I love about the Bible is that the Bible is filled with complex characters and complex stories so that you could read the Bible your whole life and it doesn't get boring because there are just so many layers of meaning. And sure, there are lots of stories in the Bible that are easy. There are lots of statements in the Bible that are easy. But I'm glad that the Bible has some difficult material too. But this morning I'm going to take a difficult story and hopefully I'm going to make it easy for you. I'm going to break it down to you in a way that you can understand. That's the goal this morning. So let's start out with a little bit of commentary from the New Testament, okay? Because in the New Testament, in 2 Peter chapter 2, this is a chapter about false prophets and false teachers. There's a little bit of debate about Balaam. Was he a false prophet or was he a prophet of God? Did he start out good and then become evil or was he always rotten? You know, these are different opinions that you'll get from people. Is he saved? Is he not saved? What's going on with this guy? Well I think just to start out right away, it's clear that he's an unsaved false prophet just by reason of the fact that he is mentioned in this chapter, which is all about false prophets and false teachers who creep in and they're damned and they're doomed and they're wicked and so forth. Look what the Bible says in 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 15, and this is about the false prophets that he brought up in verse 1. Which have forsaken the right way and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bozor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, but was rebuked for his iniquity. The dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbade the madness of the prophet. What does madness mean? The insanity, the craziness of the prophet. He was actually rebuked by a donkey that was given supernatural ability to speak with him in the story. So when the Bible says dumb ass, it's not saying a dumb ass, okay? Dumb means that he can't talk, right? This is like the literal meaning of dumb, can't talk, and then ass is donkey. So obviously animals can't talk, donkeys can't talk, but this dumb animal actually speaks with a man's voice in the story to forbid the madness of the prophet. But here's the main thing I want you to take away from this. Before we go back, we're going to go back into Numbers, and we're going to be in Numbers 22 this morning, but first we want to let the Bible explain the Bible. The New Testament is always the best commentary on the Old Testament. We need to let the New Testament interpret the Old Testament, and the main thing that I want you to take away from this is those last words of verse 15. This is the key, my friend. He loved the wages of unrighteousness. That is what's wrong with Balaam. That was the wickedness at his core. That's why he was a false prophet. He absolutely loved the wages of unrighteousness. Keep that in mind as we look at the story. Now go back to Numbers chapter 22, we're going to look at the story itself. Numbers chapter 22. What's going on in the story? Well, the children of Israel have been wandering in the wilderness, right? They disobeyed the Lord, they didn't have faith, they didn't enter the promised land, and so they're wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. Well, we're getting toward the end of that time, and they're engaging in some military conflicts toward the end of their time, wandering in the wilderness. This is around the time that they're fighting against people like Og and Sihon and things like that. So here we have in chapter 22, the Moabites getting a little nervous about the children of Israel as they approach the promised land, the Moabites are worried that the Israelites are just going to take over. Now of course, God has told the Israelites to leave the Moabites alone, to leave the Ammonites alone. But the Moabites, maybe they don't know that, they don't believe that, whatever. It says in verse number two, Balak, the son of Zippor, saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. So they defeated Sihon and Og and so forth. And it says when they saw that, Moab, it says in verse three, was sore afraid of the people because they were many and Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel. And Moab said unto the elders of Midian, now shall this company lick up all that are round about us as the ox licketh up the grass of the field. And Balak, the son of Zippor, was king of the Moabites at that time. He sent messengers therefore unto Balaam, the son of Beor to Pethor, which is by the river of the land of the children of his people, to call him saying, behold, there's a people come up from Egypt, behold, they cover the face of the earth and they abide over against me. Come now, therefore, I pray thee, curse me, this people, for they're too mighty for me. Peradventur, I shall prevail that we may smite them and that I may drive them out of the land for I want that he whom thou blessest is blessed and he now curses is cursed. So here's what's going on. The Moabites are nervous. The Midianites are nervous. And so they want to see the children of Israel destroyed. They want to wipe them out. They're afraid of this military force that's coming into the land. And so Balak is the leader here that decides, I want to get this guy Balaam. I want to call for this guy Balaam and Balaam is going to curse the Israelites. And if we could get Balaam to curse the Israelites, then maybe we can win against the Israelites because Balak knows that the Israelites are not winning battles just because they have a strong military force, but it's because God is on their side, right? They got out of Egypt because of all the plagues that God sent. God parted the Red Sea. God's been giving them all kinds of supernatural aid. And Balak knows that. So he wants to kind of fight fire with fire and get this prophet Balaam involved so that if he could curse the children of Israel, maybe then God would forsake them. Maybe then God would not be on their side anymore. And maybe then we can actually beat the Israelites. So that's Balak's thought process here. So hopefully that all makes sense. So Balak says to Balaam, you know, I've heard about you that you're the real deal as a prophet. I mean, if you bless somebody, they're going to be blessed. And if you curse somebody, they're going to be cursed. Now this is Balak's perspective, but we're not going to trust an unsaved heathen Balak to evaluate preachers. I mean, if we were to ask, let's say the leaders of this world, if we were to ask President Joe Biden, or if we were to ask, you know, the Prime Minister of England or the president of this country or that country, hey, you know, what preacher do you really want praying for you so that you could have success? He's not going to name our friends. He's going to be naming off, oh, maybe we could get Billy Graham, maybe we could get, you know, Rick Warren, maybe we could get Joel Osteen, maybe, you know, they're going to list off false prophets, but they think God's blessing, you know, oh, well, I mean, God surely must be blessing Joel Osteen, because look at the crowds that he preaches to surely God's blessing Rick Warren and these other guys, but they suppose that gain is godliness. They don't understand what it means to actually be a real prophet of God. Balaam is a false prophet, we know that from the New Testament. But let's move forward because the story gets confusing, though, because Balaam does a lot of things that seem good and that seem right. And that's what can be confusing about the story. But we're going to look very carefully at the story and see how Balaam is actually a rotten person who loves the wages of unrighteousness, who only outwardly seems to be doing right. Let's move forward here. Verse seven, the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the rewards of divination in their hand. And they came on to Balaam and spake unto him the words of Balak. And he said unto them, Balaam said to them, lodge here this night, and I will bring you word again, as the Lord shall speak unto me. And the princes of Moab abode with Balaam. Okay, so the princes of Moab, they come, they bring the message to Balaam and Balaam says, All right, guys, spend the night at my house. I'm going to go to bed. And in the morning, I'm going to tell you what God says to me, because presumably God's going to speak to him in a dream. Remember that when the Bible says that God spoke to people, it's not always directly in fact, usually it's not directly like an audible voice. Because if you remember when God speaks to Moses at Mount Sinai with an audible voice, or when God speaks to Moses at the tabernacle with audible voice, God says that that's a special situation. He says that all these other prophets, he's speaking to them in visions and dreams and he's revealing things through divine inspiration. Whereas he said, I speak to Moses face to face like a man speaks with his friend. That's different. So Balaam is presumably going to get some kind of a vision, or go into a trance or get a dream or something like that. So they all go to bed, right? And God does speak to Balaam. It says in verse number nine, God came unto Balaam and said, what men are these with thee? And Balaam said unto God, Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab had sent unto me saying, behold, there's a people come out of Egypt, which covereth the face of the earth. Come now curse me them, peradventure I shall be able to overcome them and drive them out. And God said unto Balaam, thou shalt not go with them. Now is this a confusing answer? Is this cryptic? Is this hard to understand? Or is this pretty clear? He says, thou shalt not go with them. Thou shalt not curse the people for they are blessed, period. Very simple answer. And Balaam rose up in the morning and said unto the princes of Balak, get you into your land for the Lord refused to give me leave to go with you. And the princes of Moab rose up and they went on to Balak and said, Balaam refused to come with us. Now right there at first, doesn't it seem like Balaam's legit right now? You know, Balaam, he hears from God, he obeys God. They showed up with a bunch of money and he turned the money down. They had the rewards of divination in their hand. He turns down the money. He sends them away and says, sorry guys. God told me not to curse these people. You guys need to go home. I mean, Balaam seems legit, right? But here's the thing. We're only looking at the outside of Balaam. God sees the heart. God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And Balaam is not righteous, even at this point in the story. And there's a little hint of it. It's going to get clearer later, but there's a little hint of this because look at the wording that Balaam uses in verse 13, the Lord refuses to give me leave to go with you. That's a strange choice of words. Why not just say, God told me not to do it. God doesn't want me to do it. God said, no. Why would he say the Lord refuses to let me go? Think about what that word refuses means. That means I'm trying to get you to do something and you're refusing. That means that Balaam really wants to do it. He really wants the money. He really wants to do the job. He wants this gig, but God's refusing to let him do it. Folks, that word is not in the Bible by accident. This shows the heart of Balaam that he really wants to do what's wrong, even though he knows these are God's people. These are righteous people. These are people that God is blessing. He wants to curse them for the money, but God's not letting him do it. Listen to me. God sees the heart. We only see the outside and even sometimes on the outside, things can seem okay. People can have rottenness in their heart. And what did the New Testament say about Balaam? He loved the wages of unrighteous. He wanted to do the wrong thing for pay, but he just doesn't because he's scared of God and what he would do if he disobeys God. And so he has this attitude. You know, I was kind of thinking about this a little bit, that today we could have an analogy of this, of let's say someone wanted us to do something sinful, right? What would be our attitude if someone said, hey, come out drinking with us. Hey, come on party with us. Hey, let's go commit fornication. Let's go commit adultery. Let's go do drugs, whatever. Is this the attitude? Is the attitude like, well, you know, unfortunately I'm a Christian, so I can't do that. You know, I mean, you know, I would love to go out and do that, but, you know, God said no. Oh, sorry. You know, I can't do this sin because my parents don't allow it. You know? Oh, sorry. I can't watch this filthy video. You know, it's my parents. You know? Oh, sorry. I can't do that. You know, my parents won't let me. God won't let me. And so even though you're outwardly doing the right thing, that's not a right attitude to love sin, to desire sin, to covet that which is wrong. And then just be like, well, by, you know, I can't do it. We are supposed to love the Lord, our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. And not only that, the Bible says that everyone who loves him that begat loveth him also that has begotten of him. If a man say, I love God and he is his brother, he's a liar for he who loveth God or how can he love God whom he has not seen if he doesn't love his brother whom he hath seen. And so what we see here is that Balaam doesn't love the people of God. Balaam doesn't love godly people. He doesn't love righteous people. He doesn't love God either. He's going through the motions, but in his heart, he loves the wages of unrighteous. He covets money, he desires money, and he's bummed out that he doesn't get to do sin. He doesn't get to do wrong. That's a wrong attitude, my friend. We're supposed to love God, we're supposed to love the people of God. And I hope that you don't go through life having this Balaam like attitude that just says, well, unfortunately, I can't because it's not allowed in the Bible. Folks, I don't wish I could go out and live the stupid, worthless life that unsafe people are living right now, that non-Christians in America are living right now. I don't look at them and envy the wicked. Folks, I feel sorry for them because their life is messed up, it's worthless, it's dumb. But Balaam, man, he loved the wages of unrighteousness. He wanted to do wrong, but oh man, God refuses to let me. That's a weird choice of words, refuses? God just said no. What does that mean God's refusing? That's like you're begging God and he just keeps saying no. You're trying to get God to say yes, and he says no. That's what refuse means. Let's keep reading the story. So that's our first little hint, but you could see how you could miss that. If you just read the story casually, you could miss that and think Balaam's on the up and up. That's a little hint though about what's going on in his heart. Now look at verse 15, and Balak sent yet again princes, more in quantity means, and more honorable than they. And they came to Balaam and said to him, thus saith Balak, the son of Zippor, let nothing I pray thee hinder thee from coming unto me, for I will promote thee unto very great honor and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me, come therefore I pray thee, curse me this will. So more important celebrities come, more money, more fame is being offered, he can write his own ticket, he's got a carte blanche. Now look, Balaam has already been told, no, God has already refused to let him do this. Don't do it, they're blessed, they're my people, it's wicked, send them away, don't do it. Now let's see what Balaam says, Balaam answered and said unto the servants of Balak, verse 18, if Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God to do less or more. Now again, on the surface this sounds like a great statement, but remember, this is what he's saying outwardly, publicly, this is not necessarily what's in his heart. I'll bet you that Joel Osteen would say the exact same thing, I'll bet you that if Joel Osteen were here right now and I said, Joel Osteen, are you willing to preach lies for money? He'd be like, of course not, I could never do that, I can't go beyond what God has said in his word, isn't that what he would say? Or do you think he'd be like, well yeah, I mean if the price is right, of course he's gonna say, oh, I can only preach what the Bible says. I'm only gonna say what God says, oh, I would never let money influence my preaching. Folks, you need to learn that just because false prophets say something doesn't make it true. And just because somebody says, well, I'm gonna preach the Bible and I don't care what anybody says and I don't care how much money I'm offering, it doesn't mean that they're telling the truth, because that's what Balaam's saying here and he's lying, okay? He actually wants to do what's wicked, but he's outwardly saying the right things, he sounds good, let's keep going here. And remember what he says, you know, I can't go beyond the word of the Lord to do less or more. Look at verse 20, and God came unto Balaam at night. So basically he has them all over for a second sleepover now. God already told him no, God already refused, they come, they've got more money, more princes, they stay over for another sleepover, he's like, okay, I'm gonna go back and talk to God again. Now here's the next lesson from Balaam. You know, if God has already clearly stated something in his word, quit looking for another answer. You're like, you're just gonna keep going back to the Bible until you get the answer you want? You know, if you've looked at the Bible and the Bible says no, don't just be like, well, I keep searching and try to find a loophole. Because if you keep searching the Bible long enough for a loophole, I'll bet you'll find one. Because you'll find some scripture that you can twist, you'll find some way to justify what you want to do if you approach the Bible with that attitude, okay? God has already clearly unequivocally said no, quit revisiting it. You know, quit trying to look at it from another angle. And so he says, okay, you know, tarry ye also here this night, verse 19. God already told him, send these people away, get these people away from you. Don't do it. But he's like, hey, stay here another night, guys. Let's see what God says the second time. Verse 20, God came unto Balaam at night and said unto him, if the men come to call thee, rise up and go with them. Now this seems like a totally different answer, doesn't it? Because the first time he said, look, don't curse these people. These people are blessed. Don't do it. Send them away. This time he gets this answer if, but notice this gigantic if here, if the men come to call thee, rise up and go with them. But yet the word which I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do. God is testing Balaam here. This is a test that he's about to fail. If the men call you, rise up and go with them. Look at the very next verse, verse 21 and Balaam rose up in the morning and saddled his ass and went with the princess of Moab. Did they come and call him? He's just like, Ooh, a loophole. And this goes to show that people will find a loophole in the word of God that it doesn't even apply to them. They'll find a way to make it apply to them. You know, this is like people want to justify divorcing their spouse and they, they search the Bible for a loophole that doesn't, and then they find something that doesn't even fit their situation at all, but they cram that square peg into that round hole because they just want it to be that way. So they find that loophole and they run with it. Okay. This is the wrong way to approach the word of God. And so because he loves the wages of unrighteous because he does not love God's people because he wants to curse God's people. Think about what Balak's asked him to do. Hurt the people of God. Get the people of God killed, hurt a good church, hurt good Christians, hurt God's people, hurt the work of God, hurt the plan of God. Oh man, God's not letting me do it. He refuses to let me do it. What? You could see where Balaam's heart is way wrong and then when God gives him the test, if they call you go, he just gets up super early. All right, let's go guys, we're going. God said, I can go as long as I just only speak the word of God, I can go, but that's not what God said. God said, if they call you, you can go and then you'll only speak the word of God. So let's look at the result of this verse 22 and look folks, if you read it carefully, it's not that hard to understand. In verse 20, if they call you, verse 21, he saddles his ass and goes, verse 22, God's anger was kindled because he went. Are we wondering why God's mad here? Because sometimes people read this story and they're like, why is God mad? God's mad because he went. Why is God mad? Well, come on, God, you told him to go. No, if they call you, they didn't call you. So God's angry that he went. God's anger is kindled because he went and the angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary against him. So there's an angel of the Lord that's standing in the path as Balaam goes, and this angel is ready to fight Balaam, it's ready to kill Balaam. Now he was riding upon his ass and his two servants were with him. And the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way and his sword drawn in his hand. So the angel of the Lord has a sword in his hand, but Balaam can't see the angel. The angel is invisible to Balaam, but the donkey sees the angel holding a drawn sword ready to kill Balaam. And so the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way and his sword drawn in his hand and the ass turned aside out of the way and went into the field. So the ass just basically leaves the path and just starts just going off track, just starts bushwhacking into the wilderness, into the field. And Balaam smote the ass to turn her into the way. But the angel of the Lord stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side and a wall on that side. So basically the ass takes him off the path and just kind of gets him stuck in a situation where he can't get back on track. And of course this is making Balaam super mad because he wants to go curse God's people for money. He's excited about making money because he loves the wages of unrighteousness. And it says in verse 25, when the ass saw the angel, or sorry, excuse me, let me back up. Balaam smote the ass, turned her into the way, but the angel of the Lord stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side and a wall on that side. And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord and thrust herself into the wall and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall, he smote her again. So basically Balaam tries to get the ass back on track and the ass will not go forward and he sees that the angel is by the walls. And so he actually jams Balaam's foot into the wall. So obviously this is very painful. So now Balaam is super mad because Balaam's foot just got crushed against the wall. And he smote her again and the angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where was no way to turn either the right hand or the left. So the ass is not going to be able to leave the path again or get out of the way. And when the ass saw the angel of the Lord, she fell down under Balaam. So because the ass has nowhere to go this time, it just like collapses. It just won't walk forward. It just lays down. So the ass falls down under Balaam and Balaam's anger was kindled and he smote the ass with a staff. So he grabs a stick and just starts beating his donkey. And the Lord opened the mouth of the ass. So this is where the dumb ass speaketh, right? And this is a miracle. Obviously this is not normal. The Lord opened the mouth of the ass and she said unto Balaam, what have I done unto thee that thou has smitten me these three times? Now that's pretty crazy when your animal starts talking to you, but what's even crazier is when you just answer it like it's a normal conversation. And Balaam said unto the ass, because thou mocked me, I would that there were a sword in my hand for now would I kill thee. And the ass said unto Balaam, dude, am not I thine ass upon which thou has ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? Was I ever want to do so unto thee? And he said, nay, he's like, look, you've been riding me for all these years. Did I ever pull this before? Did I ever go crushing your foot and collapsing under you and doing all this? Why don't you give me some credit here? Why don't you trust me a little bit here? Have I ever done anything like this? And he's like, well, nay. Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way and his sword drawn in his hand, and he bowed down his head and fell flat on his face. And now he's terrified by seeing this angel of the Lord with a drawn sword in the path. And the angel of the Lord said unto him, wherefore is thou smitten thine ass these three times? Behold, I went out to withstand thee because thy way is perverse before me. And the ass saw me and turned from me these three times, unless she had turned from me surely now also I had slain thee and saved her alive. Like I would have killed you and the donkey would have been fine. This donkey is looking out for you. The donkey cares about you. Your way is perverse. I'm here to be an enemy unto you because you're crooked. That's what perverse means. Your ways are crooked. You love the wages of unrighteousness. And Balaam said unto the angel of the Lord, I've sinned for I knew not that thou stood to send the way against me. Now therefore, if it displeased thee, I will get me back again. Oh hmm. I wonder if it displeases him. God already told him no. Well I mean, I guess I'll go back, I guess if I have to, if it's really this important to you, if it really bothers you, I'll go back. And the angel of the Lord said unto Balaam, go with the men, but only the word that I shall speak unto thee that thou shalt speak. So Balaam went with the princes of Balaam. Now why is God now basically just giving him permission to go? Here's why. Because first of all, God already told Balaam, don't do it. Balaam had a weird attitude about it. Then Balaam goes back for a second opinion, which is foolish because God has already told him the way things are, but he has a wicked heart that loves money. So he goes back for the second opinion. Then God gives him a test. He fails the test. Now God's ready to kill him. The angel of the Lord has got a sword ready to kill him and his ass bails him out. And then after the donkey bails him out, now basically the angel of the Lord rebukes him and says that his way is perverse, says that he's wicked. Okay, well, I mean, I guess I'll go back if it's such a big deal, if it displeased you. At this point, God has already decided that Balaam is wicked and a total bozo. So at this point, God just doesn't really care about Balaam anymore at this point. This is why God says, okay, go ahead and go with him and just say what I tell you to say. And now what God's going to do is God's going to turn Balaam's curse into a blessing. And he's basically going to use Balaam to rebuke Balak, but this doesn't score any points for Balaam. Balaam has already shown what kind of a person he is. Balaam has already shown his wickedness. And so now God's just going to use Balaam to do his agenda, but Balaam has already failed. So that's why now he's saying, okay, go ahead and go with them, but only speak what I tell you. Verse 36, and when Balak heard that Balaam was come, he went out to meet him unto a city of Moab, which is in the border of Arnon, which is in the utmost coast. And Balak said unto Balaam, did I not earnestly send unto thee to call thee? Wherefore cameest thou not unto me? He's like, why did I have to call you twice? Why didn't you just come the first time? Am I not able indeed to promote thee to honor? And Balaam said unto Balak, lo, I'm come unto thee. Have I now any power at all to say anything? The word that God put it in my mouth, that shall I speak. Again, sounds great to an outsider, doesn't it? Oh, I'm only going to preach the word of God. I'm only going to say what God says, but we know what's really going on. He didn't mention to Balak, yeah, well, I had some problems on the way over here, beating up my donkey, and then my donkey talked to me, and it's a long story, but turns out my ways are perverse before the Lord. Outwardly he sounds great, but we know what just happened, okay? Again, false prophets will often say things that sound really good, and they will act really sincere about serving God, but this is not what's really going on in their heart. And Balaam went with Balak, and they came unto Kirjeth-huzoth, and Balak offered oxen and sheep and sent to Balaam and to the princes that were with him, and it came to pass on the morrow that Balak took Balaam and brought him up into the high places of Baal. I mean, this sounds great. This sounds really spiritual, right? So we got Balak, this heathen, wicked, unsaved king who hates the Lord's people, and he's offering up a bunch of burnt sacrifices in the high places of Baal. So basically Balaam, you know, he's going to go speak in the Latter-day Saints temple, but he's only going to speak the word of the Lord. He's only going to preach the Bible. And by the way, there's a wicked false prophet named Ravi Zacharias, that's what he did, and he went and he preached to the Mormons, and he didn't get up there and preach against Mormonism or preach that they're not saved or preach what they need to change in order to get saved and how it's a false religion, a false prophet. No, he went there and he spoke to them. And you know what? He spoke to them. I didn't listen to the whole sermon, or maybe I did at the time, I don't remember. But what he said I'm sure was doctrinally correct. I'm sure what Ravi Zacharias got up and preached at that place was doctrinally correct. But the problem isn't what he said, it's what he didn't say. It's the fact that he's legitimizing Brigham Young University by going to Brigham Young, it should be called Bring Them Young University, because that's Joseph Smith's motto about all his wives. Going to Brigham Young University and legitimizing it by preaching there and acting like, hey, we're all Christians here, you know, this is just one Christian preaching to another Christian. Hey, you know, if I got invited to speak at Brigham Young University, I'll raise some hell at Brigham Young University, but I'm not going to go there and just preach even a biblical sermon that just happens to just not touch on anything when it's a stinking cult. It's not like they're a little bit wrong on things. They're a cult. They're not even saved. They don't even have the God of the Bible. It's not look, I can understand going and preaching at a church that's wrong on some things and you want to focus on the stuff you agree on, because your brother's in Christ. But there's a big difference between that and going to a stinking cult that's leading millions of people to hell and just getting up and just preaching some soft soap sermon. That's what he did. He only spoke just the word, whatever the word of the Lord was, but you know what he didn't do? He didn't actually rebuke the wickedness. So he's there basically condoning of it in that sense. And of course, Robbie Zacharias turned out to be a total false prophet, turned out to be a predator of women as well. But I didn't need to hear about him being a predator in order to know that he's a false prophet because I already knew he's a false prophet because of all the false doctrine he teaches. He teaches wrong doctrine about salvation. He taught all kinds of other heresies and he's clearly just in it for the money. He's this multimillionaire who owns all this stuff and just super rich multimillionaire guy. Why? Because he loved the wages of unrighteousness and he wants to go speak at Brigham Young University so he can get paid, so he can get more fame, so he can get more accolades so that he can just add that to his resume because he's such a big shot. Super smart, super famous, super, oh Robbie Zacharias. He's trash. And you know what? He's not the only one. There are a ton of guys just like him, bunch of Balaams out there and they're just like Balaam. Well, I heard him say some true stuff. Well, I heard Balaam say some true stuff. Balaam's going to say a bunch of true stuff in chapter 23 and chapter 24. Does that change the fact that God considered him a false prophet, that God said your ways perverse before me? God said you love the wages of unrighteousness. God calls him a soothsayer and later he gets destroyed when Joshua and the people are killing all of God's enemies, they kill Balaam. Balaam gets smoked later in the book. The problem isn't what they say, it's often what they don't say. And it's often what's going on in your heart that you can't see. But when you see the multimillion dollar lifestyle, that should be a little hint to you that you're dealing with a false prophet like 100% of the time. Okay so what do we have here? We're not going to get through this this morning by the way because this is a complex story. It goes on for a couple more chapters so I'm going to be continuing with Balaam tonight because there's another really important New Testament reference about Balaam that sheds a lot of light on the second half of the story. This morning I'm giving you the first half of the story and our theme verse is from 2nd Peter 2 that Balaam loved the wages of unrighteousness. So we're dealing with only the first half of the story. But let's get a little further and then we'll close. Chapter 23 says this, verse 1, and the reason I'm not skipping any verses in the story is because it is a complex story so I don't want us to miss anything. We have to pay attention to every word in this story because this is a very subtle story in many ways so you got to pay attention. Verse 1 of chapter 23, Balaam said unto Balak, build me here seven altars and prepare me here seven oxen and seven rams. Where is he again? He's at Brigham Young University saying let's build it here. Am I right? I mean where's he at? He's at the high places of Baal. Baal is Satan! The high places of Baal, Balak's offering up a bunch of sacrifice, okay well build me here seven altars and prepare here seven oxen and seven rams and Balak did as Balaam had spoken and Balak and Balaam offered on every altar, a bullock and a ram. Look, isn't this wonderful how they're so ecumenical that a Baal worshiper and a worshiper of the Lord can both team up to offer burnt offerings together. Isn't that what's happening right here? We got Balak and Balaam offering on every altar, a bullock and a ram. Is this, look God does not want us teamed up with unsaved people to worship the Lord. This is not God's plan. It's not right for us to join some ministerial association where you have the Jewish rabbi, the Muslim imam, you got the Hindu witch doctor, whatever they call their guy, and you know you all get together and we're gonna have a presidential prayer breakfast and we're gonna have the Roman Catholic and we're gonna have the Mormon and we're gonna have the Jehovah's false witnesses, okay this is a wrong worship here. You know, Balaam and Balak getting together and just doing burnt offerings in the high places of Baal, okay? Again it's easy to read over that but you gotta slow down in this story and really pay attention. And Balaam said to Balak, stand by thy burnt offering and I will go. Per adventure, meaning maybe, the Lord will come to meet me and whatsoever he showeth me, I will tell thee. And he went to a high place, but that's always the best place to meet with God, right? Wrong! So avoid the high places. And God met Balaam and he said unto him, I've prepared seven altars and I've offered upon every altar a bullock and a ram. This is an attitude that God is like coin operated, right? Like you put in the money and then Zoltar speaks or something, right? And basically, you know, you somehow give burnt offerings to God and then somehow he tells you what you want to hear. Or maybe if we ask God the first time, he's just gonna change his mind if we ask him the second time, or the third time, or the fourth time. This is somebody who doesn't understand the God of the Bible. He thinks that, okay, I offer him an offering and then that's how I get what I want. You know, there is a philosophy out there that's a pagan philosophy that has to do with manipulating God to do your bidding. Have you ever wondered what the difference is between magic and the miracles of God in the Bible? Because when atheists or agnostics, when they want to criticize the Bible, what do they say? Oh, you believe in magic, your magic sky daddy, whatever, right? And they have all these dumb talking points that they use, right? When they refer to prayer, or the miracles of the Bible, they refer to that as magic. Here's the difference, okay? What is sorcery? What is magic? What is witchcraft in comparison with or in contrast with supernatural miracles done by God at the behest of those who pray unto him? Well, here's the colossal difference. You see, when you think of sorcery, magic and witchcraft, it's a way of manipulating the divine to do your bidding. If I say these words, basically, then this is going to happen. Like I'm basically just able to just pull up whatever magical powers and put a hex on this purse. I got my voodoo doll here and I'm stabbing needles, you know, basically what it is, is it's like you have an agenda, you want to do something, and then you're going to somehow use spirits or divinities or God or Satan or whatever, to somehow you're going to force their hand by saying words or offering a certain bird sacrifice or stirring a bunch of stuff in a pot and you throw in all kinds of weird, you know, eyeballs and things in the pot, you know, that's sorcery, that's witchcraft, that is magic. I mean, think about magic is like you say these words and then stuff happens. And basically the sorcerer or the magician or the witch is going around with this idea that they have all this power. They have the power to make this happen or that. But here's the thing, the prophets of God, Christians and righteous people in the Bible, they don't just have this ability to just manipulate God and just kind of bring fire down whenever they want and just kind of like, like, like as a parlor trick almost like to just be able to just, hey, watch this, you know, it's the fire of God right there. You know, I have that power to manipulate. That's magic. That's sorcery. That's witchcraft versus God using humans to do his agenda. God has an agenda like I'm delivering the people out of Egypt for my glory. So OK, Moses, go stand there, hold up your rod and the Red Sea is going to part because I'm parting the Red Sea because I want to part the Red Sea. You're just a tool. This is my agenda. You're doing what I command you to do. Moses doesn't. It's not like Moses. Like I saw some little cartoon, you know, Moses is a baby and he's just like parting the waters of his bathtub or something as a baby. But see, that's magic. That would be sorcery. That would be witchcraft. If Moses just is able to part whatever body of water and he's just kind of like he has these magical, mystic, esoteric abilities, that's do you see the difference? I hope you understand the difference. OK, Daniel didn't just have the ability to just interpret whatever dream he wants whenever he wants. Does he? No. I mean, when there's a dream that needed better, you know, he had to pray and beg God. And then God basically says, OK, I'm going to reveal this dream to you because I want to tell Nebuchadnezzar what's going to happen in the last days. I want this to go in the Bible. I want people to learn this or understand this, not just like Daniel is just like this, you know, he like he has this little ability, like he's some kind of a Pokemon or some kind of a RPG where he has like he's unlocked the achievement of being able to interpret dreams or something. Do you see the difference? And I hope I hope I'm making this clear that there's a difference in magic, sorcery, witchcraft, which is manipulating the divine for your purpose, which is impossible with the God of the Bible. Because guess what? God of the Bible, he doesn't get manipulated. He does the manipulating, my friend. He's the boss. He kills. He makes a lot. It's his will that's done, not ours. Versus Christians praying and asking God, making supplication unto God and God saying, you know what? OK, I'll do this for you as a favor. I'll do this for you because it's my will. You've asked this according to my will. You do the things that are pleasing in my sight. OK, I'll do this for you. Balaam is a soothsayer who has this idea of manipulating the divine. That's how Balak sees things as well. They're two peas in a pod. God doesn't play along with this. So he comes to him and tells God, you know, maybe he should have started with God like, hey, God, I'm sorry that I'm even here. I'm sorry that you think my ways are so perverse. It's like, OK, God, I'm here and me and Balak, here we are at the high places of Baal and we just offered you seven sacrifices. Smells good, huh, God? Now have you got something for me now? Do you see the weird attitude here? And the Lord put a word in Balaam's mouth and said, return unto Balak and thus thou shalt speak. And he returned unto him and lo, he stood by his burnt sacrifice, he and all the princes of Moab, and he took up his parable and said, Balak, the king of Moab, had brought me from Aram out of the mountains of the east, saying, come, curse me, Jacob, and come, defy Israel. How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed, or how shall I defy whom the Lord hath not defied? So one thing I want to point out to you is that he's speaking in poetry, OK? So God has given him this message, and the reason that messages like this are often delivered in poetry is because poetry is easier to remember than prose. And so you say, well, how do you know this is poetry? You know, do I have to go back to the original language to figure that out? No you don't, because actually in Hebrew, poetry doesn't rhyme, and poetry in Hebrew has no special meter. So the way that you know this poetry is by the parallelism, where everything is said in little couplets. Everything is in twos, it's in couplets, that's how Hebrew poetry works. So notice the couplet, how shall I curse whom God hath not cursed, or how shall I defy whom the Lord hath not defied? Do you see that couplet there? The parallel statements? That's how everything that Balaam says to Balak is structured. From the top of the rocks I see him, now here's the other part of the couplet, and from the hills I behold him. Notice the restatement of the same thing. Lo the people shall dwell alone, that's the first half, and shall not be reckoned among the nations, that's the second half. Who can count the dust of Jacob, that's the first half, and number of the fourth part of Israel, that's the second half. Let me die the death, and I'm going to stop saying that because you get the idea. Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. And Balak said unto Balaam, what has thou done unto me? I took thee to curse my enemies, and behold thou has blessed them all together. And he answered and said, must I not take heed to speak that which the Lord hath put in my mouth? Now you've got to love Balak's answer here in verse 13. And I'll tell you what, Balak and Balaam are truly two peas in a pod. These guys are made for each other. Because look what Balak says, Balak said unto him, come I pray thee, with me unto another place from whence thou mayest see them, thou shalt see but the uttermost part of them. Just the, you know, you're looking at them, you're seeing them, I'm going to take you to another high place where you can look at them from a different angle. In fact, you're only going to see like the edge of them. You're not going to see all of them, you're only going to see part of them. Curse me them from thence. I mean, is that bizarre? You're not going to see all of them, curse me them from thence. Maybe if we can just, and you know what? This is what people do when they don't like God's answer. God gives them a clear answer in the Bible, they don't like it, hey, let's look at this from another angle. And they keep getting a different angle, trying to get a different answer until they get the answer that they want. And again, because of the sheer length of the Bible, because of the fact that the Bible is 31,000 plus verses long, and because some parts of the Bible are very complex, while other parts are very simple. If you have an agenda, and you want a certain answer, if you search the Bible long enough, you'll find some verse that you can twist to make it say what you want. By taking it out of context, by misusing it, by twisting it, by ignoring all these other clear statements in the Bible. Look, you name the false religion, you name the false doctrine, that's just crazy. That's just absurd. And yet, the practitioners of that religion will pull out a Bible verse to justify it. Am I right? Every weird doctrine has a proof text that they're twisting that they're taking out of context. But here's the thing, the right way to approach the Bible is to say, you know, I want to know what the Bible says, I want to know what the truth, I love the truth. And those who love the truth, and they open the Bible, they're going to see the truth. They're going to understand the truth. Why? Because they're not going to reject all the parts they don't like. And they'll be like, ah, this is what I like. One isolated verse out of context that they can misuse. I mean, look, I've seen a vegan quote the Bible verse, he that slew an ox is as if he slew a man. Which that's a really weird verse, except if you read it in context, that makes sense. It's part of a big long statement. It's not that's not even a verse, by the way, that's part of a verse. But I've literally seen a vegan say, well, the Bible says, he that slew an ox is as if he slew a man. Now who here actually thinks that being put in a little out of context snippet like that, that that statement as it stands by itself out of context, actually sounds legit to you. That killing a cow is just like killing a human. That's absurd. That's not what the Bible is saying. And if you actually look up that chapter and read the surrounding verses, that's not what he's saying at all. But you see how even something as unbiblical as veganism, when the Bible is constantly telling you to kill and eat, God's people are just chowing on meat on page after page. Jesus is eating meat, the priests are eating meat. I mean, it's just a meat filled book. There's meat everywhere. But then it's like, well, he that slew an ox is as if he slew a man. Your move, Christians, your move meat eaters. But that's what I'm that's a perfect example. You could literally just search the Bible long enough, find some snippet to take out of context. I mean, look, the Mormons are getting baptized for dead people. They're literally getting baptized for the dead. But I guarantee you they've got a verse in First Corinthians 15 that they use to justify that. Bizarrely. OK. Oh, look, we can name the false doctrine and everybody's got their little proof text, but it doesn't pan out when you look at it in context. It doesn't pan out when you look at the hundred verses that say, you know, you have all these verses like believe, believe, believe, believe, believe. But then there's going to be the ones who pull things out of context to teach a workspace salvation. You can do that with any doctrine. OK. Why? Because of the fact that the Bible is so long and has so much text that you're always going to be able to find some angle where you can twist things. And look, when God has made a clear statement, just accept it. I mean, when God says, look, these are my people, they're blessed. Don't curse them. Don't go with Balak. Don't hang around with Balak. Get away from him. Don't go to the high places of Baal. And you're just like, well, you know, let's try it again from a different angle. If you have that attitude, eventually you'll find the angle to justify. What do you want to justify? You want to justify polygamy. You want to justify fornication. You want to justify adultery. You want to justify drinking. You want to justify taking drugs. Look, you will find that angle if you keep looking hard enough. People do it all the time, but it's a lie because God doesn't condone those things. But yet people want to always look at it from another angle. I remember Pastor Shelley, you know, he preached hard about the sodomites and he had a neighboring church that was literally like less than a quarter mile away, this Nazarene church. And this pastor preached a whole sermon against Pastor Shelley. And he's like, you know, well, you know, the Bible does say it's true that the Bible does say in Leviticus 2013, you know, that if a man lies with mankind, as he lies with a woman, you know, both of them are an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood should be upon them. And he's like, and this is what he literally said. He said, man, I remember when we were in Bible college wrestling with these verses and just kind of going over them and working through them and like, like, it's like, what? There's nothing to work through. It's just, I just read it and I'm just like, I'm just like, okay, and just pop a little more popcorn in my mouth and just read the next verse. I'm just like, cool, okay, yeah. Makes sense. All right. You know, but they're just like, hmm. Let's see if we can look at Leviticus 2013 from a different angle, you know, and it's like he, he literally said, he's like, you know, we're just working through it, you know, in Bible college. I'm just like, we're just, it's like we're, we're trying to process it and trying to get through it. And then he said, and even to this day, I'm just kind of like, God, why? But he never, he never even says, well, here's where pastor Shelley's wrong about Leviticus 2013. Here's what it actually means. He didn't say, here's why Leviticus 2013 is a great Bible verse because you can't just act like, well, back then things were a little rough. It's the word of God. So he couldn't say like, listen, folks, Leviticus 2013 is a wonderful Bible verse. It's teaching a wonderful truth. Let me expound to you what that truth is because pastor Shelley's got it all wrong. He couldn't do that, but he's just like, Oh man, when we were in Bible college, we kept going on different, uh, high places of bail in Bible college, trying to look at that verse from a different angle. And to this day, we're still kind of like, Oh God, why? I mean, it was, it was hilarious. Just that two minute clip from that guy's sermon was so, it was just so emblematic of a whole slew of pastors out there who just, they come to something that they don't like in the Bible and they just can't process it and they just reject it and then they get up and preach sermons against people who embrace it. Unbelievable. But yet it's human nature because we see Balaam keeps going back, trying to get God to say something different. Balak keeps going back, trying to get God to say something different and you know what? God's eventually going to tell these guys, he's eventually going to tell them, you know, God is not a man that he should lie or the son of man that he should repent. He's saying basically, you know, you guys are human beings, so you're constantly playing games, lying, changing your word, changing your story, breaking your promises. I'm not like that. I'm God. I'm not going to curse Israel. I'm going to bless them. Get over it. And again, that's a verse that someone could take out of context to God's not a man. And then they could try to use that to say Jesus isn't divine or something, right? Totally out of context, misusing it, twisting it all day long. You want to disprove the Trinity? You could twist something. You want to speak against the divinity of Christ? You could twist something. You want to teach oneness? There's something to twist for you. But you know what? People actually love the truth and actually read the whole Bible and believe all of it and believe every word of God is pure and don't just negate 20 verses saying it one way and just go with, oh, this thing that I'm going to twist over here. You know, they know that the Trinity is real. They know salvation is by faith. They know that once you're saved, you're always saved because that's what the Bible teaches. Okay. And that's why he says to them, hey, I'm not lying. I'm not going to repent here. I'm not going to change on the Lord. I changed not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed. And so therefore God, when he has given us his word in black and white, has given us clear statements that are the final 30 accepted. And by the way, not only, and I'll close with this thought, not only should we accept what God has said and not try to keep revisiting it and trying to get it to change and just keep, it's just like, keep saying that, you know, and keep wanting the Bible to change. I'm glad the Bible stays the same. Not only should we accept the clear statements of God and not keep revisiting them and trying to get them to change. But number two, not only should we obey the word of God, we need to love the word of God because Balaam's problem, because look, Balaam from start to finish, spoiler alert, all the way through chapter 24 Balaam refuses to speak anything except what God tells him to say. Balaam only speaks the word of God all the way to the end of chapter 24. But then he ends up doing something super wicked after that. But even though he only speaks the word of God in chapters 23 and 24, what about his heart though? Does his heart want to curse Israel? Yes, because he wants to get paid because he loves the wages of unrighteousness. And so we as Christians need to number one, embrace what God teaches us in his word and not fight against it, not kick against the pricks, not try to get it to change. But number two, we need to love God's word and love the Christian lifestyle and love what God has given us and what God has ordained for us and not sit there looking out the window at unsaved people, like wishing that we could be covered in tattoos, wishing that we could pierce ourselves in strange ways. And I just wish I could go out and get drunk tonight and oh, I just wish I could be sleeping around. I wish I could take some drugs and you know, it'd just be so great to be out there just living a life of sin and not having to worry about anything. Folks, you're an idiot because the people out there that are living that lifestyle are so messed up. They're not happy. They're living disgusting lives. And I'm not down on you if you already have tattoos because guess what? They're permanent. I'm talking about young people wishing that they could go get them. Yeah. Amen. Hey. But would you want to get another one tomorrow? Exactly right. That's the thing. Here's the thing. They don't have tattoos. But guess what? That's because they're permanent. They don't come off. But I'm talking about young people looking at that and saying, oh, I want to do that. I want to I want to go and get those, you know, emblems of paganism on my body. I want to go out there and I want to commit fornication. I want to commit adultery. I want to commit murder. I want to do those things. Hey, that's a wicked thought. It's a wicked thought. And look, just because people have made those mistakes and gotten back on the horse and are living for God now and love Jesus Christ or serving God. Hey, guess what, though? You know, when you grow up in a Christian home and you go out and do that stuff, God's probably going to come down on you harder than on people who didn't know as well as you know. And so do not make the mistake of envying the wicked. Do not covet their lifestyle, because let me tell you something, living the Christian life is the happier life. Folks, those of us that live for God, we live a better life as far as enjoyment. The world out there is vanity. It's a waste. It's not worth it. And so don't be a Balaam, OK, where you're maybe going through the motions on the outside, but on the inside you want to do something different. And don't fall for the actual false prophets out there because they say a lot of good things. False prophets are going to say a lot of good things. Balaam says a lot of good things. But then the narrator shows us what's really going on in his heart, and it's trash. Let's probably have another word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and Lord, I hope that I was able to make this difficult story a little easier to understand, and I pray that you'd bless us now as we go our separate ways, and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.