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Men, Revelation chapter number two here, we're continuing to talk about Balaam. This morning I preached on the madness of Balaam and it's a tough story in the Old Testament because there are a lot of things going on that are very subtle and so the story has confused a lot of people over the years, very difficult to grasp sometimes. But thankfully we have the New Testament to shed a little bit of light on this difficult story from the Old Testament and there are three passages in the New Testament that refer back to Balaam and this morning we really focus in on that passage from 2 Peter chapter 2 where it talked about how Balaam loved the wages of unrighteousness, right? Well over in Jude there's a parallel passage where it says something very similar. It talks about false prophets and it says that they ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward. So Balaam becomes emblematic of the false prophet who's in it for money. He loves the wages of unrighteousness. So I would say that the Jude and 2 Peter chapter 2 mention are both kind of reiterating the same thing about Balaam's character which is that he loved the wages of unrighteousness. But here we see something different in Revelation chapter 2 in this reference to Balaam. Look if you would at verse number 14. It says, but I have a few things against thee because they asked of them that hold the doctrine of Balaam who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication. So again, Balaam is being related to current false teachers. Both Peter and Jude are saying these guys are like Balaam, they're in it for the money. And then here in Revelation, we're talking about some people with a wrong doctrine in a local church at that same time period, right? First century AD and these people, they have the doctrine of Balaam and the particular aspect of Balaam's doctrine is that he taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication. Now the interesting thing about this is that this is not explicitly spelled out in the main Balaam story which is Numbers chapter 22 through 24. In the Balaam story, you don't find out that Balaam actually is the one who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication. Basically, you get to the end of chapter 24, the Balaam story ends, and then in chapter 25, all of a sudden they're just eating sacrifices to idols and committing fornication. But the role that Balaam plays in that is not explicit in the account there in Numbers chapter 24 and 25. But if you would, flip in your Bible over to Numbers 31. So go back if you would to Numbers 31. We're eventually going to end up back in the Balaam story in Numbers 23, but let's go to Numbers 31 right now. And so this evening we're going to focus on the second thing about Balaam that the New Testament focuses on, right? The first thing about Balaam that the New Testament focused on was that he loved the wages of unrighteousness. The second thing is that he taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication. This is taught in the Old Testament, but it's not right in the main part of the Balaam story. Go to Numbers chapter 31 and you'll see this in verse 8. It says, and they, meaning the children of Israel, slew the kings of Midian beside the rest of them that were slain, namely Evai and Rechem and Zur and Her and Reba, five kings of Midian. Whom also the son of Beor, they slew with the sword. So when they are slaying the Midianites, they also end up slaying Balaam who lives among the Midianites. And the Bible says they slew Balaam, the son of Beor with the sword. Look at verse nine. And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives and their little ones and took the spoil of all their cattle and all their flocks and all their goods. And Moses, or if you would jump down to verse 14 now, let's just for sake of time. And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle. And Moses said unto them, have you saved all the women alive? Behold, these caused the children of Israel, watch this, through the council of Balaam to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor. And there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones and kill every woman that had known man by lying with them. But all the women children that have not known a man by lying with them, keep alive for yourselves. And do ye abide without the camp seven days, whosoever has killed any person and whosoever has touched any slain, purify both yourselves and your captives on the third day and on the seventh day. So we see here that even though it's not spelled out back in the main Balaam narrative, now later when they kill Balaam and they don't kill everybody that God told them to kill, this is brought up by Moses. Like why are you keeping these women alive? Because if you remember, this happened to us in the past, where through the council of Balaam, these outlandish women caused the children of Israel to transgress. So this is what the book of Revelation is referring back to. It's referring back to this statement in Numbers chapter 31 that tells us that it was through the council of Balaam that they did this. Now if you would, let's back up with that in mind to Numbers chapter 23, where we left off in the story. So there are a few things that we can already learn from this right away. There are false teachers out there that are going to teach you a permissive doctrine, and this is the doctrine of Balaam, telling you that it's okay to commit fornication, telling you it's okay to eat things sacrificed unto idols. This type of preaching that is an anything goes type of preaching that tells us that we don't need to guard ourselves from these serious sins. So there were people in that church there in the book of Revelation that followed that doctrine of Balaam. So it's worldliness, it's teaching, permissiveness, and you might think that that's crazy, but there are churches out there that would teach that fornication is not a sin, and there are lots of them. You know, your mainline Protestant churches, I mean, many of them, they're even teaching that it's okay to be a homo. I mean, obviously, there are a lot of them that are teaching that fornication is fine, you know, they're going to be fine with you drinking, they're going to be fine with you, you know, doing pretty much anything that's okay in a modern American culture, which is obviously not the standard, right? Worldly people are going to do sinful things. We live in America, which is becoming a non-Christian culture, and so worldly people in our country are going to have totally different standards about what is right and wrong than what the word of God says. And so going by American culture as the standard pretty much becomes going by the Midianites as the standard and saying, hey, if the Midianites say it's okay, it's okay. Okay, well guess what? The word of God forbids these things and tells us not to commit these sins, and so a church or a doctrine that is permissive and telling you it's okay to break God's rules and to do these kind of things, well, that's the doctrine of Balaam, according to Revelation chapter two. So the main thing that we can learn from this about how Balaam counseled Balak and that he taught him to cast the stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication is that Balaam was not able to destroy Israel by as an outsider, as a third party, cursing Israel, right? God wouldn't allow that. Because Israel was righteous in his sight, Balak can't defeat them, and Balaam can't curse them. They can't curse whom God has blessed. If God be for us, who can be against us, right? But it is possible to get the people of God to destroy themselves if the people of God can be led into sin. So what Balak failed to do through hiring Balaam to curse the Israelites, Balak actually ends up achieving by casting a stumbling block before the children of Israel. So basically Balak finds a way to curse Israel. It's not by getting Balaam to stand up on some high place and say, you know, darn you Israel, but rather it's by actually getting Balaam to get the people to sacrifice unto idols or sorry, to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication. By getting them involved in sin, that's how he can destroy them. And you know what? The devil can only destroy us the same way. Because when you think about Israel, think about the local church, right? Because Israel is the congregation in the wilderness. They're the church in the wilderness. They're God's people. Well, in the New Testament, guess what? You know, we're the church, we're God's people. We're the Israel of God in the New Testament. And so just as nothing external could destroy the Israelites, but they could destroy themselves. It's the same way in 2022 with Faithful Word Baptist Church, no one outside can curse Faithful Word or attack Faithful Word and destroy us. We're more than conquerors through him that loved us. If God be for us, who can be against us? Even if people were to physically attack us or assault us, they can't win, right? Because even killing Stephen, you know, that wasn't a win for the devil. That was a win for the people of God because Stephen dying a martyr's death just caused the church to even thrive more and it caused Saul most likely to be inspired and eventually become the great Apostle Paul and so forth. So all things work together for good to them that love God. But the devil can destroy us if he can get us living a permissive, licentious life, if he can get us to stop preaching against sin and get us to start indulging in major sins like fornication, drunkenness, if he can get us using drugs, if he can get us out there doing all kinds of sinful, wicked things, well, then we will be destroyed because we will destroy ourselves. And that's pretty much the theme of tonight's sermon, what we see with the continuation of the Balaam story. So again, this morning in chapter 22, we saw Balaam's true motives about how he wanted to curse the people of God, but yet God prevented him from doing that. And even though he said a lot of the right things like, oh, well I can only do what God tells me to do, we know in his heart he wanted to do wickedly. And that was the problem with Balaam. And in fact, before we jump into number 23, let me just read you a few verses to that effect, okay? Later on, this is alluded back to in Deuteronomy, and it talks about the Ammonites and the Moabites in verse four of Deuteronomy 23, you don't have to turn there. It says, they hired against thee Balaam, the son of Beor, of Pethor of Mesopotamia to curse thee. Nevertheless, the Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam, but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved thee. So notice when the Bible says the Lord wouldn't hearken to Balaam, that means Balaam is trying to get God to let him curse God's people, showing what his heart is like. Joshua 24 says something similar. They called Balaam the son of Bosor to curse you, but I would not hearken unto Balaam, therefore he blessed you still. So I delivered you out of his hand, meaning I delivered you out of Balaam's hand. That doesn't sound very good for Balaam, does it? Joshua 13 just talks about them killing Balaam. Balaam also the son of Beor, the soothsayer, did the children of Israel slay with the sword among them that were slain by them. And notice how it calls him Balaam the soothsayer. That doesn't sound like a prophet of God, that sounds like some kind of a bogus sorcerer, magician, soothsayer type. And then lastly, Nehemiah 13 verse two, because they meant not the children of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them that he should curse them, how be it our God turned the curse into a blessing. So we've seen so far that one time God has prompted Balaam to bless the people instead of cursing them. Now we're going to get into the second time because remember Balak says, well, I'm going to take you to a different place where you can see the Israelites from a different angle and you're going to curse them from that other angle. And if you're, hopefully no one's lost right now, but if you're lost, you know, it's because you weren't here this morning. So go back and listen to that sermon. But hopefully this sermon stands alone. Look if you would at Numbers 23 verse 14, we're going to pick up the story right where we left off. And he brought him, meaning Balak brought Balaam, into the field of Zophim to the top of Pisgah and built seven altars and offered a bullock and a ram on every altar. And he said unto Balak, stand here by thy burnt offering while I meet the Lord yonder. And the Lord met Balaam and put a word in his mouth and said, go again unto Balak and say thus. And when he came to him, behold, he stood by his burnt offering and the princes of Moab with him. And Balak said unto him, what hath the Lord spoken? And he took up his parable and said, rise up Balak and here hearken unto me, thou son of Zippor. Notice that he's again speaking in poetry. He's speaking in these little two-part couplets, right? God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent. Notice the couplet. Hath he said and shall he not do it? Or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good? Behold, I've received commandment to bless and he hath blessed and I cannot reverse it. He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. The Lord his God is with him and the shout of a king is among them. God brought them out of Egypt. He hath as it were the strength of a unicorn. Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel. According to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, what hath God wrought? Behold the people shall lift up as a great lion and lift up himself as a young guy. He shall not lie down until he eat of the prey and drink the blood of the slain. Okay, so this is the second blessing by Balaam upon the children of Israel. And here's the main thing that I want to focus in on here is verse 21. It says he hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel. This is the rationale that God is giving for why Israel is not going to be cursed. You see, an outsider cannot curse whom God has blessed and God is blessing them because of the fact that they don't have unrighteousness or perversity in them. And so the implication here is that if they did have iniquity in them and if they did have perverseness in them, then they could find themselves on the receiving end of a curse from God. Am I right? Because God has not found iniquity in them because there is not perverseness in them, God is going to continue to bless them. Because remember, this is the righteous generation, the wicked generation that murmured in the wilderness and they didn't have the faith to enter the promised land. They have died off, we're toward the end of the 40 years wandering in the wilderness. These are the younger generation that do believe the Lord that are going to have the faith that are going to enter the promised land. And so God's looking at them as a nation, obviously there are going to be wicked individuals, but God's looking at them as a nation and saying, you know, in general, this is a godly nation. In general, this is a righteous people. That's why they're not cursed. Okay. So again, the seeds are being planted here of the idea that if Balak and Balaam can get the people involved in sin, then they can bring the curse upon them. And so we know that today, Israel, quote unquote, so called fake Israel over in the Middle East. And the reason I call it fake Israel is because that nation over there has never been the people of God. That group of people has never been the people of God. Okay. You have an Old Testament Israel that was the people of God. They were God's chosen people. This nation over here in the Middle East today that came about in the 20th century, the Jewish state that was founded in 1947 and 1948, that group of people has never worshiped the Lord. Okay. They have always been following the synagogue of Satan religion known as Judaism. They've never believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Bible says, if you don't have the son, you don't have the father. You say, well, ethnically, that's a totally different group of people ethnically. Those people have been scattered into all nations for literally 2000 years, and they've intermingled with a whole bunch of people. People have come into the community, people have gone out of the community. There's been a lot of movement there. They left brown, they came back white. Okay. And the thing is, those people over there are a group that is bounded together, not by a DNA or ethnicity, but rather by a religion and an identity and an ideology that is a Christ rejecting identity. You are not Jewish. If you have received the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, you're a Christian. Okay. And so the Jewish state has never been Christian. They've never been there for worshiping the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. They've got another God, because if you don't have the Son, you don't have the Father. So who do you have? Somebody else, right? Baal. And so that nation over there is filled with iniquity and perverseness any way you look at it. Religiously perverseness, right, is a crooked religion because it's a religion that rejects Jesus and that misinterprets virtually everything about the Torah. They get it wrong. So they get everything wrong in the Torah virtually. They reject the Lord Jesus Christ, their savior. That's a perverseness of religion. There's also a perverseness in their politics. There's a perverseness in their culture. There's a perverseness in their morality. They have the largest queer pride parade in the Middle East. Probably the only actually queer pride parade in the Middle East, but for sure the largest. They're considered a favorite destination for Sodomites to go and enjoy Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. It's just pure wickedness over there. And so are they cursed? Yeah, because of the iniquity and perverseness. Okay, not because, you know, somebody from the outside is cursing a righteous nation. And you know, the Bible says there's no divination against Israel in verse 23. There's no enchantment against Jacob. So here's what the Bible is saying. You know, nobody can put a hex on you or do some kind of voodoo on you if God's protecting you from that. You know, only only God can allow that kind of stuff to happen to you. And if God's protecting you, you're fine. You know, I'm sure somebody somewhere has got some Steven Anderson voodoo doll that they've stabbed a few times and I feel fine. Okay, why? Because there's no divination against me. There's no enchantment against me. You know, if I'm going to be destroyed, it's going to be because I had destroyed myself because someone enticed me or beguiled me into committing some sin. It's not going to be because somebody somewhere in New Orleans or something bought some voodoo doll and started stabbing it like Pastor Anderson, you know, whatever die. It's not going to do anything. I'm not afraid of that. I'm not scared of whoever's out there cursing me and praying against me and what, you know, people are talking about how I'm going to pray that God does this. It's just like, so what? That's like Balak trying to curse the children of Israel, you know, because, you know, I'm serving God. I'm not saying I'm perfect. Obviously nobody's perfect. The nation of Israel wasn't perfect. But again, they're on God's side. I'm on God's side. And so we're going to be fine. So that should give you an assurance of not worrying too much about what other people are saying or what they would curse you with or whatever. And it's so funny because, you know, when we get up and preach imprecatory Psalms or we talk about imprecatory prayers, it's funny how wicked people out there, they feel very fret. They feel very threatened by that. Have you noticed that, you know, like, like there was a great bumper sticker back in the days of Obama. I'd say, you know, pray for Obama, Psalm 109 verse eight, let his days be few and let another take his office. Okay. Now, here's the thing about that. You know, when people prayed imprecatory prayers about, uh, Obama, I'm not, you know, I don't know who would have prayed something like that, but you know, if somebody prayed for it, let's just say for sake of argument that somebody prayed for Obama to die or maybe, I don't know, melt like a snail or something. If they did, you know, people are like, you're threatening the president's life. You know why they feel that way? Because they know that when me or other Christians are praying and stuff like that, God's actually listening. So that's why they're scared because it's real. Yeah. You know, if we pray for somebody to die, it's dangerous for them because they might actually die because of God, not because of us, just because, you know, God has the power to do stuff like that. Whereas, you know, if they're, they're like, well, I'm going to pray for you to die. It's just like, go ahead. Like I would just laugh at that. But literally there are people who are suing our pastor friends right now, you know, for, for saying things that are basically imprecatory toward them. Like it's somehow a threat to them or scary to them. Well, be very afraid is all I can say to that. You know, when you are so super wicked that God's people are praying for you to bite the dust, you ought to be afraid because you know, God's not going to bless you. But honestly, God's people have absolutely nothing to worry about. Somebody trying to pray harm upon them or curse them or do some kind of voodoo or sorcery because it's really meaningless to us because there is no enchantment. There is no divination against the people of God. No weapon that is formed against us shall prosper and God will protect us. The angel of the Lord and camp with round about them that fear him. And so this is the basic gist of the message that Balaam gives here. Also just talking about the fact that God doesn't just change his mind willy nilly when God makes a promise. When God makes a statement, he sticks with what he says. So then look what Balak says to him in verse 25 and Balak said unto Balaam, neither curse them at all nor bless them at all. But Balaam answered and said unto Balak, told not I these saying all that the Lord speak at that I must do? Not I will do, I get to do, it's my privilege to do, but he's like, I have to, you know. And Balak said unto Balaam, come I pray thee, I'll bring thee unto another place. Peradventure it will please God that thou mayest curse me then from thence. I mean, did this idiot listen to anything that God just told him? God just told him, like, God's not a man that he should lie. He's not the son of man that he should repent. There's no iniquity, there's no perverseness, I'm not going to bless, I'm not going to curse them. And he's like, well, maybe, because that's what peradventure means, maybe, maybe it will please God that thou mayest curse me then from thence. And notice he's getting mad at Balaam. Like I guess he thinks that Balaam has some control over this situation, which clearly Balaam doesn't because if Balaam had his way, he'd curse the Israelites and get paid and go home. And so it says in verse 28, Balak brought Balaam under the top of Peor that looketh toward Jeshimun. And Balaam said unto Balak, build me here seven altars, and prepare me here seven bullocks and seven rams. And Balak did as Balaam had said, and offered a bullock and a ram on every altar. And I talked about this this morning, this joint worship between Balak and Balaam, which Balak is a Baal worshiping heathen. We established that this morning. You know, Balaam is supposedly worshiping the Lord. Why does Balaam say, hey, you build me seven altars, prepare me here seven bullets? Why is he wanting to participate in worship with Balak and having Balak do sacrifices for him? And again, this is planting the seeds for what's going to happen ultimately, where the children of Israel are enticed to eat things sacrificed unto idols. Okay, Balaam models the way here because he's already in an ecumenical worship service with this false religion that he's teaming up with. Okay. Now chapter 24. This is the final chapter of the saga here. As far as the main Balaam story, these three chapters, and what Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel. He went not as at other times to seek for enchantment, but he set his face toward the wilderness. So Balak is pretty thick and doesn't get the idea that God's not going to change his mind, but Balaam at this point figures out God's not going to change his mind. So he's not even going to go bother going to wait for the Lord to speak to him. He kind of gives up at this point. Balaam gives up on it. So he sets his face toward the wilderness and Balaam lifted up his eyes and he saw Israel. So he gives up and he just kind of stands there and just kind of looks out at Israel and just kind of like, just kind of looks at Israel. He saw Israel abiding in the tents according to the tribes and then the spirit of the Lord came upon him. Now some people would point to this and say, well, this is proof that Balaam is saved. And I told you this morning that I don't believe that Balaam was saved. I don't believe that Balaam started out as a legitimate prophet of God and then went bad. I do think that, you know, there's a slight chance that that's true, but I don't believe that for one second. I've been preaching for 17 years. I've consistently always preached that Balaam was unsaved. He's a reprobate, he's a false prophet. He was a phony from the beginning. That's what I believe. I believe Balaam is burning in hell right now. I don't believe he's just a, a, a, a, a good guy who got corrupted by the love of money. Although that happens too. I believe that he is a rotten person, but some people would say, well, you know, if he's not a real prophet of God, why is the spirit of Lord coming upon him? But there are other examples in scripture where God can speak through somebody who's not saved. Okay. For example, in the new Testament, Caiaphas, the high priest being the high priest speaks by the spirit of God and prophesize that Jesus Christ is going to die for the nation of Israel. And when he speaks that the Bible says he said this, not of himself, but that he spake by the Holy Ghost. He did not believe in Jesus. He's one of the people that's condemning Jesus, but yet the spirit of Lord comes upon him so he can make that pronouncement. I think there are other examples that you could point to of unsaved people or people who are probably unsaved making pronouncements by the spirit of God. And let's not forget that literally a donkey spoke by the power of God in chapter 22. So if a donkey can't speak the word of God, you know, or be inspired by God to speak because I don't think the donkey was smart enough to come up with what it said. I'm pretty sure that that was divine inspiration there. Okay. So if God can divinely inspire this donkey to say these things and rebuke, uh, Balaam, then I don't see any problem with Balaam being divinely inspired who wants to curse the children of Israel. That's what he wants to do. He wants to get paid, but yet God basically leads him to speak his word. Okay. Because what has happened previously? Previously Balaam, think about this. Okay. Don't let me lose you here. Balaam previously, he went to seek enchantment, right? It's like, okay, we're going to offer these sacrifices and then I'm going to go talk to God and see what God says. And then he would go and close his eyes and wait for, you know, the word of the Lord to come to him, wait for a vision to come, some kind of a trance to come. Like remember before he had to spend the night and he goes to bed and you know, presumably he's visited in a dream or whatever. That's what he did the first two times. And when he does that, think about this now, he goes and God gives him these little poetic couplets to come back and tell Balak and he says, okay, go tell this to Balak. And he gives him these poetic couplets and he comes back and gives those, but that's not what happens this time. Balaam does not go to hear what God says and then bring it back to Balak because he figures out this is a lost cause. I'm not getting paid. I'm not getting paid. Like what am I doing? He doesn't even, he just realizes this isn't happening. So he just kind of stands there and just starts looking at the children of Israel. And now the spirit of the Lord comes upon him and he's basically just divinely inspired to speak God's word. Kind of like you could think about it as kind of like, oh, well if you're not going to come and find out what God says, here, let me just put it in your mouth right now. Let me just tell you what it is right now. And I'm not saying that the spirit of God like took over Balaam's body or something and forced him to say these things. But basically I believe that even though he didn't go to get an answer from God like he did the first two times, it's like he's getting the answer whether he likes it or not. God's just like, okay, fine. I'll just divinely inspire you right where you're standing because I want this message to go to Balak. And ultimately it's not as much for Balak as it is for us. Obviously God knew this is going to be in the Bible and so Balak nuts to him, but we're enjoying it, amen? And so, uh, the spirit of the Lord comes upon him and he took up his parable and said, Balaam, the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open had said, he had said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the almighty falling into a trance, but having his eyes open. So it's like he didn't even have to close his eyes and, and, and wait for the, you know, inspiration to come. It's just happening. How goodly are thy tence O Jacob and thy tabernacles O Israel. You can see that we're still speaking in poetry as the valleys are, they spread forth as gardens by the riverside as the trees of lionellows, which the Lord has planted and has cedar trees beside the waters. He shall pour the water out of his buckets and his seed shall be in many waters and his king shall be higher than Agag and his kingdom shall be exalted. God brought him forth out of Egypt. He hath, as it were, the strength of a unicorn. He shall eat up the nations as enemies and shall break their bones and pierce them through with his arrows couched. He lay down as a lion and as a great lion who shall stir him up. Blessed is he that blessed thee and cursed is he that cursed thee. Now what you'll notice there is that this third answer is pretty repetitive. We already heard that whole business about the strength of a unicorn. We already heard the business about the lion and the great lion. So the idea here with this third oracle is that God's giving the same answer again. It's the same thing. It's more of the same. And by the way, unicorn is probably talking about a rhinoceros because unicorn just simply means an animal with one horn and a strong animal with one horn is a rhinoceros. That's what most people believe and they're probably right. Verse 10. And Balak's anger was, although, you know, if you want to believe it's that other thing, you know, I don't want to spoil a little girl's dream. And Balak's answer and Balak's anger was kindled against Balaam and he smote his hands together and Balak said unto Balaam, I called thee to curse my enemies and be with us all together. Bless them these three times. Therefore now flee thou to thy place. Like get out of here before I hurt you, before I do something. Fleeing out of thy place. I thought to promote thee under great honor, but lo, the Lord had kept thee back from honor, which is true. And Balaam said unto Balak, spake I not also to thy messengers, which thou sentest unto me saying, if Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the commandment of the Lord to do either good or bad of mine own mind. But what the Lord sayeth, that will I speak, you know, Balaam's like, I'm not good at coming up with poetry on my own anyway. You know, I can't come up with this stuff. I have to just tell you what God says. And now behold, I go unto my people. Come therefore and I will advertise thee what this people shall do to thy people in the latter days. Now, some people have misunderstood this. Uh, I've heard a sermon that said basically, I will advertise thee. They were taking like the modern meaning of the word advertise, like, Hey, I'm going to advertise you to the children of Israel, like, Hey, come eat the sacrifices of Midianites. And you know, that's not what this is saying. Although he is going to give them that bad advice that this is an older meaning of the word advertise, because think about if you're advertising, you're just, you're getting your message out. Isn't that what advertising is like, Hey, we're getting a certain message out. What he's saying is I will advertise thee. He's saying like, I'm going to give you a message. I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you what this people shall do to thy people in the latter days. Okay. So the thee is not the object because otherwise what he's going to advertise is he's going to advertise what this people shall do to thy people and he's going to do it to thee. And he took up his parable and said, so now we have a fourth Oracle from Balaam, Balaam, the son of Beorath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said, he hath said, which heard the words of God and knew the knowledge of the most high, which saw the vision of the almighty falling into trance, but having his eyes open, I shall see him, but not now I shall behold him, but not nigh. There shall come a star out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel and shall smite the corners of Moab and destroy all the children of Sheth and eat him shall be a possession. Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies and Israel shall do valiantly out of Jacob shall come he that shall have dominion and shall destroy him that remaineth of the city. And so you could say that this is messianic, right? That because he says, you know, I'm going to tell you what this people shall do to thy people in the latter days. Eventually the people of God are going to prevail and it's going to be Jesus Christ that's going to be the star out of Jacob. You know, you could definitely, I don't think there's anything wrong with taking a messianic interpretation here because you know, the whole Old Testament is ultimately pointing us to Jesus and I believe that that is for sure a legitimate use of this passage, looking way into the future at Christ. And when he looked on Amalek, verse 20, he took up his parable and said, Amalek was the first of the nations, but his latter end shall be that he perish forever. And he looked on the Kenites and took up his parable and said, strong is thy dwelling place and thou putest thy nests in a rock. Nevertheless, the Kenites shall be wasted until Asher shall carry thee away captive. And he took up his parable and said, alas, who shall live when God doeth this? And ship shall come from the coast of Kiddim and shall afflict Asher and shall afflict Eber and he also shall perish forever. And Balaam rose up and went and returned to his place. Balak also went his way. Now what's the significance of this final oracle? Three times Balaam was sent by Balak to try to curse the people of God and three times the curse was turned into a blessing. But this fourth oracle is different because this time it's not just about how Israel is going to be blessed and they're not going to be cursed because that's what the first three were about, right? I'm not going to curse Israel, Israel's blessed, they're going to be great. They're like a unicorn. They're like a lion. They're awesome. Okay. But this is totally different because what is this? This is a cursing of the bad guys now. So the first three statements by Balaam were a blessing of God's people and how he's not going to curse God's people. But now this is different because it's basically looking at who? It starts out by looking at Edom and notice the preface to this was in verse 14, I will advertise thee what this people shall do to thy people in the latter day. And then what does he start saying? He basically starts explaining how you guys are all getting smoked. You guys are all toast. You're getting cursed. So here's what we learned from this is that when people seek to destroy God's people, they end up bringing a curse upon themselves. So let's say somebody somewhere is stabbing some voodoo doll of, of myself or of you or of some other, uh, Christian who's serving God, you know, they might as well be just cursing themselves because that's what they're actually doing. Not only does God turn the curse upon his people into a blessing, he also turns it into a curse upon the enemies of the Lord. Sort of like in the book of Esther where Mordecai and Esther, right, they end up turning the curse on the Israelites into a blessing and who ends up getting smoked. The enemies of the Jews end up getting smoked because of the fact that God turns it around on them. And that's exactly what we see in this passage where now there's a great curse coming upon the enemies of Israel, the exact opposite that Balak intended. And then notice, and this is what I was talking about earlier, how there's nothing explicit about what Balaam does next. It's just like Balaam goes to his place and Balak goes his way. And then look at the next verse. And Israel abode and shit him and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. Now doesn't say anything that Balaam had anything to do with this. It doesn't say anything that Balak had anything to do with this. It just says, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab and they called the people under the sacrifices of their gods and the people did eat and bowed down to their gods and Israel joined himself under Baal Peor and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel and on and on and it ends up being a big deal. There's a plague. People die. 23,000 people die in one day. All these different things happen and it really does bring a curse upon Israel. It doesn't completely destroy them, of course, but it does bring evil upon them. So how do we know that Balaam had anything to do with this? This is the importance of comparing scripture with scripture because sometimes it's easy to read a story and think, okay, I got the whole story. I read chapters 23 through 24. Now we're onto something else. There's no mention of Balaam. That's where we have to wait until chapter 31 where Moses tells us, hey, they did that through the council of Balaam. Now first of all, we already saw Balaam as sort of modeled the way by doing a joint worship where he's supposedly worshiping the Lord at a high place of Baal and he's having the Baal people build the altars and they're working together and having a joint worship service. But according to Moses in Numbers 31, he also counseled them or gave them advice, gave the children of Israel advice. He taught them, it's okay for you to hang around with the Midianites. It's okay for you to go to their sacrifice because the Bible says in verse two, they called the people under the sacrifice of their gods. So the Midianites are like, hey guys, come to our Halloween party, you know, come to our worship service of Satan. You know, hey, why don't you come with us into the Catholic mass? You know, why don't you come be a Mormon with us? Why don't you do this and that? And basically Balaam is teaching this permissive doctrine that says, hey, we're all worshiping the same God anyway. Hey, you know, they love God too. They're worshiping God in their own way. You know, we don't want to disrespect their culture. You know, that's their Moabite culture that you're disrespecting there. You know, acting like it has to be the Israelite way or whatever. You know, whatever the rationale is used, he basically teaches and preaches that this is somehow okay. Fornication is okay, ecumenical worship service is okay, joining up with unbelievers, being unequally yoked together with unbelievers is okay. They end up going into this sin and bringing curse upon themselves. That's how the story ends. And then the next time we hear from Balaam, the children of Israel are killing him. And why did they kill him? Because they realize, hey, this guy got us into trouble back in chapter 25. This is the guy that Moses called out in chapter 31 as being responsible for that. And so when they get the chance later on and they're killing the Midianites, they're killing the kings of the Midianites, oh, Balaam, the soothsayer, kill that sucker too. Okay. So he perishes with the heathen, he perishes with the wicked because that's who he has joined up with. And then, uh, the next time we hear about it is in the New Testament, right? As being an example of the guy who's in it for the money, the false prophet who loves the wages of unrighteousness. And let me say this, it's really hard to think of someone worse than someone who would get up behind the pulpit and preach something that they know is a lie for money. It's disgusting, right? The job of preaching the word of God is sacred, okay? It's a sacred responsibility to get up and tell people, thus sayeth the Lord. This is what the Bible says. You know, the Bible says, be not many masters knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation because it's a great responsibility to lead and especially to lead spiritually is a huge responsibility. And so anyone who is leading God's people, who is speaking the word of God should be scared to death to get up and say something that isn't true. You know, and I would be scared to death even to just omit things and to just be like, well, I know this is what the Bible says, but you know, I'm gonna have to skip that part because it's going to make people upset, it's going to get people mad at me, it's going to get me into trouble. You know, I would just, I would feel so much better about just ceasing to pastor. You know what I mean? Like I would just feel so much better if I lost my nerve. If I got to the point where I have no more fight in me and I don't have the nerve to get up here and boldly preach the entire word of God and I kind of get timid in my old age and I get a little bit soft. You know, I would much rather just say, okay, time for me to retire. You know, I'll be like a firefighter or a policeman where they retire after 20 years or something. You know, I would much rather do that than to just get up here and censor the sermon that God has called me to preach the whole counsel of God, to get up and water that down or leave things out or say, well, I don't want to touch on this, I don't want to touch on that. That's too scary. That's too scary because you know what, if you just decide, you know what, I'm not cut out to preach, I'm not cut out to be a pastor, I'm just going to serve God as a layman. That's not going to bring the curse of God on your life. Nobody says that you have to be a pastor. Nobody says that I have to be a pastor, right? If any man desire the office of a Bishop, he desire with a good work, right? So hey, if you want to be a pastor, great, but you know what? You better do it God's way. You better understand the responsibility and take it seriously because you know what, you'd be better off to just not go into the ministry than to be another phony preacher getting up and preaching lies. If you're not going to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth behind the pulpit, then just do something else. Do something else. Nobody's forcing you to be in the ministry. Nobody's forcing me to be in the ministry. And look, I hope that I never get to the point where I lose my nerve, where I lose my fight, where I lose the desire to be up here preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ. I don't believe I ever will. You know, I plan to be here till the bitter end of my, my number one goal in life is to still be up here when I'm 90 preaching hard when I'm 90 and you know, you could laugh at that, but you know, I've met some 90 year olds that were pretty spry. I've read some 90 year olds that were pretty sharp and I've, I've sat in church and listened to a sermon preach by a 95 year old man that was a powerful sermon. I was there. Okay. And so it's possible. So don't kill my dream. All right. So, Hey, I'm trying to take care of my health, but most importantly, I better be taking care of my spirit because think about that. That's a long time, you know, to be able to stay with it and to stay on fire for God and to stay passionate and to keep my nerve for the next 50 years. That's the plan. That's the goal, but I will make this commitment to you right now. I will never become some phony watered down, lame preacher who is censoring the word of God. I will step down before that ever happens cause I'd much rather just do something else because then I don't have, you know, and let me tell you why, cause I fear God. I'd be too scared of God getting up and teaching things that aren't true or even just failing to teach things that are true, claiming to be up here, you know, giving you the whole council of God and then only giving you part of it. You know, that's too scary of a thought for me. I look, if I were to be a quitter, I don't think that would please God for me to quit either. But you know what? That's a lot less scary than getting up here and not being real. That should be super scary, but if it's so scary, why are so many people doing it? You know what it tells me is that they have no fear of God because if they had the fear of God, they would be scared to death to get up and be another watered down fake preacher. You know, if they really had the fear of God, they'd be like, man, you know, okay, these people are going to get mad. This persecution is going to come. This is the price I'm going to have to pay. But none of that's near as scary as, you know, falling into the hands of the living God. I mean, what can man do unto me? Whatever man can do unto me, it's nothing compared to what God can do to me. God can really mess me up. And so I'd much rather be messed with by man. I'd rather make everybody infuriated at me. I'd rather just be a pariah and everywhere I go in public, have people hate me and spit on me and they don't do that to me, of course. But I'm saying even if they did, I'd rather have that than to think that God's up in heaven ready to mess me up. I'd much rather have God on my side and the whole world against me than to have anybody against me. I mean, I'd rather have anybody against me than God, I'll put it that way. And so there's no fear of God in false prophets because they, if they're not saved, which I believe that Balaam is just a bogus guy, start to finish. He's burning in hell. But there are a lot of saved preachers who can still, even though they're not as bad as Balaam, they're not a fully Balaam guy, they can start acting a little bit like Balaam where they start getting into money and they start teaching things that aren't true or whatever, right? Because even a godly Christian can get backslidden and obviously they're not going to become unsaved. They're not going to become a reprobate. They're not going to become a false prophet. But you know what? They could become a prophet that displeases the Lord though by doing things that false teachers and unsaved people do because they're just walking in the old man and they're just controlled by the flesh and they're just no longer caring what's right and so forth. And you know what? Those people are going to get severely punished on this earth. I mean, if a pastor who's actually saved apostatizes, he's going to be severely punished on this earth. If he's not saved, well, he might get away with it. You know, I mean, hey, Billy Graham lived to be 90 some years old and seemed like he died and peaceful, but his last peaceful moment was the last breath that he drew because then his neck, he lift up his eyes and he was in hell. So I don't care if he lived to be 105. I don't care if he lived to be 115 years old and everybody's surrounding him at his death bed and they're holding his hand and they're all singing, shall we gather at the river as he slowly expires? Because the next moment he's burning in hell, my friend, because he's a false prophet who taught lies, who was, you say proof, prove Billy Graham's a false prophet. He's loved by the world, loved by unsaved people, loved by atheists and agnostics alike, loved by the media, loved by Hollywood, loved by Roman Catholics, loved by every false religion, loved by, woe unto you when all men speak well of you for so did their fathers under the false prophets. This is the biggest proof right there. Guy who just lives for fame and money and he's just a false teacher and gets no chastisement from God. Where was the chastisement from God? If Billy Graham were saved and he's just a total sellout, getting on TV saying, oh, people can be saved without even knowing the name of Jesus, without even, they're just following the light that they have and they're saved and we'll see them in heaven and they don't have to believe in Jesus. If a saved person said something so absurd, which I don't even think a saved person would ever even say that, but let's say a saved person were somehow just to say that lie for whatever reason, wouldn't they get a severe chastening from God? He didn't get any chastening because he's not saved. He's a false prophet. He taught lies and by the way, we could find plenty of clips of him teaching a wrong gospel. And so there's plenty of evidence for that, but the point is that God's people are chastened when they do wrong and unsaved people, they might get away with things because they're going to go to hell so they don't really get away with anything. So at the end of the day, remember, what's the theme tonight? We're God's people in the New Testament. We cannot be destroyed from outside. We can only destroy ourselves and what will destroy us from the inside? The doctrine of Balaam will destroy us from the inside. A doctrine that says fornication is fine. A doctrine that says it's okay for us to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. You know, a doctrine that's a permissive, anything goes, doctrine that gets us sinning and gets us thinking that sin is fine. And look, there are plenty of churches out there that are totally fine with drunkenness, fornication, you know, they'll encourage you, they'll help you divorce your spouse and marry someone else and tell you that it's totally fine and they will totally just prop you up no matter what sin you're involved in. They'll just be like, you go girl, you know, no matter what sin you're doing, you're fine. They'll write books like God's not mad at you, no matter what you've done, no matter who you are. God is not mad at you. Whereas God gets mad at people in the Bible all the time, you got mad at Moses, let alone the ungodly. He even gets mad at the good guys when they're being a bozo, okay? Even the good guys. And so, but this is the doctrine of Balaam, isn't it? God's not mad at you. That's the doctrine of Balaam. Bringing in worldliness, anything goes, permissive living, stop preaching against sin. Many churches, I mean, look, you might take for granted, well, surely every church is against fornication. Think again, number one, or, but number two, let's say for a moment that every Baptist church is against fornication because, you know, surely at least 99.9% of Baptist churches would be against fornication, amen? You know, I mean, mainline Protestants, no. You know, some of the non-denom crowd, maybe not. But surely Baptists, right, 99.9%, I believe Baptists would say, of course fornication is wrong. Of course you need to wait till you're married to go to bed to get, you know, like that's kind of obvious. And I'm sure 99.9% of Baptists would agree. But here's what I want to say about that. What good does it do? Don't miss this. What good does it do if you have some document somewhere, some statement of faith somewhere that says, hey, fornication is a sin and, you know, uh, you get, your marriage is between a man and a woman or whatever, you know, what good does that do if it's not being preached? So if I can go to a church for a year and never hear preaching against fornication, which now all of a sudden that's a lot of Baptist churches, you know, finding a Baptist church that would say, hey, it's okay to sleep together before you're married. That's going to be pretty rare. But finding a Baptist church that could go a year, two years, even three years with no mention of that from the pulpit is super easy. Okay. Why? Because they're too busy only teaching positive things. And so you're not going to hear sermons about alcohol. They're not going to rip on drug abuse. They're not going to rip on fornication. They're not talking about staying married. They're not preaching that the Lord God of Israel hadeth divorce. You know, that's not a sermon title that you're going to find on Sunday morning down at, you know, elevation church or something, you know, one of the, and I'm just making up that name. I think that is the name of a church, but you know, altitude church or whatever. Let's get high together church or whatever. You know, all these weird churches that are called like sandals, you know, or like, you know, I don't know, crossroads. I thought the crossroads is where you like meet with the devil to sell your soul or something. Right. And then it's like, Hey, let's go to crossroads. And then I saw this one that was called the Grove. When the Bible literally talks about like, they worship Satan in the Grove and you know, don't worship in the high place. Don't worry. We're in the Grove. It's like, yeah, crossroads, the Grove. Yeah. But I'm telling you, these churches, they love the wages of unrighteousness and they hold to the doctrine of Balaam. And it's possible even for a church that has the right doctrine on paper and even a church where people are saved, not to be Balaam, but to fall into the doctrine of Balaam. Because correct me if I'm wrong in Revelation chapter two, are we talking about a biblical church or not? Are we talking about, uh, some cult or are we talking about an actual scriptural church? We're talking about scriptural church, right? Church of Pergamos is a biblical church that God respects and yet he says, you guys have the doctrine of Balaam and if you don't fix it, I'm going to remove the candlestick, right? You guys are going to cease to be a biblical church that shows that a scriptural church can fall into what? The doctrine of Balaam. And so we need to be aware of this permissive attitude. So don't get weary of hearing preaching on sin, okay? We need preaching against sin. And if it's on the doctrinal statement, but it's not thundering from the pulpit, it doesn't really do us a lot of good, does it? We need a pulpit that is saying, hey, this is why you shouldn't be gambling at the casino. This is why you shouldn't be drinking. This is why you need to quit taking drugs. This is why you need to be a virgin when you get married. This is why you need to stay married to the same person. This is why you need to, you know, flee fornication, blah, blah, blah, and all down the list, right? We need that stuff because we don't want to be falling into this doctrine of Balaam because then that's how we can be destroyed from within by letting sin into the camp. Let's rise and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and for this story about Balaam, Lord, that we could learn from, and Lord, I pray that this morning's sermon and tonight's sermon together would build our understanding about why Balaam is such an important character in scripture and why we need to make sure that we don't go down this dark path that Balaam and the Balaams of this world would want to lead us down. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.