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All right, amen. Numbers chapter 22. So if you remember last week, we talked about the last half of Balaam. It was more of a mansion, I guess, but we dealt with the part where the angel of the Lord is an adversary against him. This morning, we're going to take a look at the events prior to that. So if you would, look down to verse number 20. It says, And God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, 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." Sounds pretty straightforward, right? God says, hey, if these guys come and call thee, then you'll get up and go. Verse 21, And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab. And the anger of the Lord, I'm sorry, and God's anger was kindled, because he went, and the angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him. The title of the sermon this morning is deliberately misconstrued, deliberately misconstrued. That's exactly what Balaam's doing here, right? God gave him a set of instructions and said, hey, if these guys come and call thee, then you can get up and go with them. Well, what does Balaam do? He gets up the next morning and just goes with him. It doesn't say that the men came and called him, does it? Doesn't say that at all. So why does Balaam do that? Well, I think you know the reason why. Because he doesn't want to tell them no. He doesn't want, you know, to turn down the gifts that these honorable men are bringing him. He doesn't want to turn down this offer. So, in his mind, what he does is, well, God, you know, said it was okay that I could go if they call me, so it must mean he's okay if I just go anyways, right? So what is he doing? He's deliberately misconstruing what God said. You say, well, what does that mean? Well, the word misconstruing means to wrongfully construct, to misbuild, right? Sometimes we read the Bible and we accidentally misconstrue things here and there. I do it sometimes, you know, I misspeak, whatever. You know, you do that, somebody says something to you, maybe they're having a bad day or maybe they hurt themselves and it doesn't come out the way they intended to. You misconstrue that as, oh, you hate me. Or better yet, this one here, you guys will understand this one here. You send somebody a text message and they don't respond to you for a few hours and you're like, oh, they hate me, something's wrong, they're mad at me, maybe I offended, right? You start misconstruing that period of silence there. It's something that we all do, right? But when you deliberately do that, you intentionally do that, that's wrong. And we all have a great tendency to want to do that because there's things in this life that we want that we shouldn't have, right? That's exactly what you see going on here. I mean, think about this, people do this all the time, right? People want all their time to themselves because we live in a very selfish society, right? And people can't be bothered to go to church and edify their brother and sister in Christ and to pray for one another and to do the things that we do. So what do they do? They come up with this idea, oh, guess what? Well, Jesus said, hey, wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst. I'm always in church. I'm not doing anything wrong, right? You guys have all heard that one before. People do that with all sorts of things. What about Matthew chapter seven, which we'll turn to later? Judge not, right? Lest ye be judged. And then we're going to see that there's a formula and there's a pattern that you have to follow to judge. The Bible says the spiritual all things. It's right that we judge people if we do it according to God's word, but the person who stooped into sin and just, you know, filling their lives with all manner of just garbage, right? What do they do? They don't want that called out. So what do they say? Well, don't judge me. Don't judge my friends. Don't judge my decisions. But that's bad doctrine. That's not okay. That's a hindrance to the Christian life. Now, if you would look down at verse, look back at verse number 18. And what I want to do is I want to show you here, again, one of the biggest things that Balaam, his biggest problem, I guess you could say, is he has a hard time saying no. He's having a hard time saying no. He realized he knows who God is. He knows what God wants, but he also knows what he wants. And I want to show you this morning something very, very important, how he basically lived his life, just his manners. And there's something about his character that I want you to see here that sometimes we wind up using, and it sets us up for failure every single time. I'm going to show you that here. Look at verse 18. He says, and Balaam answered and said unto the servants of Balak, if Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord to do less or to do more. Now, at first glance, that sounds pretty good, right? He's like, he's calling God his God. He's saying, hey, I don't care if he gives me all of his money, all of his power, all his finances, all his wealth, whatever it is. He's like, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord. It sounds great, right? But there's a problem with that. There's a big problem with that because isn't that kind of what he said a few verses earlier? The Lord refuses to give me leave to go with you guys. Isn't that what he said? Do you see what he's doing here? You see, here's the problem. When you say I can't do something, you're placing the responsibility and the reasoning on someone else. You're not taking personal responsibility for your beliefs. So what Balaam should have done is said this. I don't go beyond the word of the Lord. I won't go beyond the word of the Lord. There's a big difference there. And just that simple tweak in your life can really change who you are. That can make you grow leaps and bounds very, very quickly. I mean, who in here has a hard time saying no, right? In any aspect of your life, whether it's to your children, whether it's to your coworkers, whether it's to honorable people that you know, all of us are tempted with wanting to please other people. But again, as the Bible-believing Christian, we live by a different set of rules. And look, I'm telling you guys, the only way to succeed here, right? The only way that this group is going to be here two years from now is if you adopt what I'm teaching you this morning. And here's the one thing that I want you to take away today. And it's this, it's not that I can't, it's that I don't and I won't. It's not that I can't go beyond the word of the Lord. It's that I don't and that I won't. Because you see, that says, hey, I've already adopted these principles and these teachings as part of my belief system and I don't do that. I take the responsibility for my actions. That is the difference. That's what makes a mature Bible- believing Christian that will come to church, win souls for Christ week after week, year after year. You say, what is it about some people that they just leave? Why is it that the church is different every two single years? It's because of that philosophy right there. You know, people come in here and they adopt the teaching and they start going good and they're like, hey, you know what, I can't do this. I can't watch that. I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't. And then the devil ups the stakes, sends you some more honorable people into your life. The rewards get greater and then all of a sudden you start to resent God because you're constantly using him as the excuse instead of adopting what he has taught you, what he has brought into your life as your own. There's a big difference there between just renting some words from the Bible versus owning them. So it's not that I can't, it's that I don't and I won't. You see, it's like, I just heard it yesterday was the first day that Hallmark, who knows what the Hallmark channel is, right? They used to have Hallmark stores around. Do they still have Hallmark stores around much? Yeah, they do. Okay, so Hallmark yesterday, they decide they're going to air a movie or something like that that features two lesbians getting married. First time they've ever decided to do something like that and I'm looking at all this chatter online, right? Facebook, all these different things, YouTube, you know, Jessica's telling me about it and there's all these Christians, they're super upset, they're super mad, right? And they should be. Romans chapter one says very plainly that we should not take pleasure in those that do that sort of stuff. It's not right. It's not for God's people. But here's what these people are saying. Now I can't watch the Hallmark channel. I cannot watch the Hallmark channel. I cannot go to the Hallmark store. I cannot watch any of the movies from this day forward. You mark my words, two years from now they'll be watching all of it. 100% all of it. You know why? Because they're using God as an excuse. They're putting all the reasoning, all the responsibility, all the blame on God. Well, he said I can't do it, so I can't. Instead of looking at the situation and developing that internal anger because people want to molest your mind and say, you know what? I won't watch Hallmark. I don't watch that kind of garbage. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes, right? I will say, why do you think David said that? I hate the work of them that turn aside, it shall not cleave unto me. He didn't say I cannot set no wicked thing before my eyes. He said I will not set no wicked thing before mine eyes. There is a huge, huge difference and I'm telling you guys, this is a big game changer. When you learn to say, you know what? It's not that I can't, it's that I won't and I don't. You know, when I moved here to Idaho and I got my job at Cody's appliance repair and they were asking me, do you have any scheduling conflicts or anything like that? I said, yeah, I don't work Wednesdays after five o'clock and they've been fighting with me ever since then, but I didn't say, oh, I can't do that. I said, I don't do that, you know, because then there's no debate. There's no argument. There's no like, oh, well, let's send some more, let's up the stakes, let's up the pain. They've never really tried that. They've tried sneaky stuff, you know. Oh, we forgot. We forgot it's Wednesday. I didn't mean to give you 18 jobs at four o'clock, you know. So it kind of changes the battle a little bit, but you get the point, right? See, the old man says I can't, and that's who we're battling every single day. It's the old man. We have two natures. It's a hard way to live, but it's a blessed way to live. You see, the new man is the one that says, you know what? I won't do that. We don't do that. Right. That's good. Turn to Revelation chapter number two. Revelation chapter number two. Heard people saying this stuff, you know, pretty much my whole Christian life, you know. Oh, started going to church, man, you know, reading the Bible. So I can't do this. I can't do that, you know, and they'll show up on a job site and, you know, oh, I can't, I can't eat that, I can't eat this, you know, I can't eat pork, right? It's like, why? Why not, you know? And these people always wind up caving, right? I can't eat pork. I can't eat shellfish, you know. They want to misconstrue the word so they can look and seem smarter than you. Oh, look, I'm following these Levitical laws that Jesus said I didn't have to follow dietarily, you know, but it gets them that attention that they want in the workplace, right? What's the one thing, you know, oh, I can't eat that. I can't. It's against my religion. You know what? Later on, you're going to see them eating that stuff or worse or doing worse, right? Because that's what happens when we adopt this mindset that I can't. It puts the fault and it puts the blame on someone else, right? Oh, I can't hang out with you today, Mr. Sodomite. I got to go to church. No, that's not right. I don't hang out with Sodomites. I don't hang out with workers of iniquity. I don't hang out with people that hate God. And I don't put their smut in front of my eyes. I don't do that. Revelation chapter two, I want to show you, I mean, this is at the heart of the doctrine of Balaam. I want to show you what Jesus thinks about this inside of a church here. Look at Revelation 2 14. This is the letter to the church in Pergamum. It says, but I have, this is what Jesus says, but I have a few things against thee because thou has there 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. Turn to Romans chapter 14. So just by reading that verse there, I mean, what do you think the attitude of Jesus is towards the doctrine of Balaam? Any part of it. It's bad. But what does that also tell you? That people with that doctrine will come inside of churches. And look, these people, when they come in, it's like a big bowl of leaven, right? I mean, you won't even realize it's going on, but they'll just be telling you, oh yeah, I got rid of this. I can't do this. I can't do that. Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm with you here. I'm with you there. Right? And then all of a sudden they start getting sour. They start getting better. Why? Because the rewards of divination and the stakes get higher and they've never learned to let go of that offer. You see, if Balaam would have just said, hey, to the elders, hey, I don't do this. I don't go beyond the word of the Lord. The Lord said, don't curse these people. They're blessed. It's a done deal. Then Balak would have had to be like, crap, what are we going to do now? You know, maybe we need to torture them or something, but hey, at least you're better off. At least you have some integrity, right? At least you have some stones. At least you have some guts. And that's what we don't have in this country anymore. People that have guts. People that are willing to take a stand on anything. Romans chapter 14, look at verse number 13. This is what Paul tells the Romans. He says, hey, let us not therefore judge one another anymore, but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way. Look, this is why in a church, especially like this, we have to identify people who come in here and hold the doctrine of Balaam. People that are just in it for the show. Or maybe they start off and they do have good intentions. Maybe they do, but you know what's going to happen when they keep saying, I can't, I can't, I can't. Then they're going to say, I want, I want, I want, I want, but I can't, I can't, I can't. And then pretty soon they're going to say, well, it's really not that bad. And they're going to deliberately misconstrue the Bible. And then they're going to try to drag you down with them. That's how it goes. They may come off in here and start off on the right foot. Start off on the right path. But if they don't ever get this mindset, if they don't ever adopt this, it's not that I can't, it's that I don't and that I won't. You will watch these people get bitter over time. And it's sad and I don't want to see that happen to anybody in here. Now, go back to Numbers. I'm just going to read for you a couple of other verses about Balaam in the Bible. So 2 Peter 2 15 says, which have forsaken the right way and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. That's another big part of it. He loved those wages. When those elders came down with those rewards of divination, Balaam, he looked at that stuff and he's like, man, I want that. It doesn't say that, but you can tell by the language. What did he say to the elders? Oh, Terry, hear this night and I'll ask God and see what he says. What did he say to the more honorable men that came down? Terry, hear this night. That was a huge mistake. But because he loved the wages of unrighteousness, he never learned to let go of that. He always just, oh, I can't do this. It's God's fault that I can't do it. Oh, I can't do it. I can't do it. Oh, it's God's fault. You know, it's him. He won't allow me to do it. So I can't do it. You know, when you say I can't, it implies that you could under other circumstances, right? Like people are not on a diet. Oh, I can't eat that cake. I can't eat those cookies. I can't eat this dish. You're setting yourself up for failure. This applies across the board. It's not that I can't eat that cake or I can't eat that dish. It's that I won't and that I don't. When you adopt that mindset, then you will make that real change because you own that. And then it's not up for debate. And then the people around you are going to stop trying to shove it down your throat. I mean, we're always going to have stuff back here because this is a Baptist church. It just is the way it is. You got to come up here if you're on a diet and just not look at the unclean thing. All right. So again, you see the reason why. Jesus looks down at these churches, at his body and says, I don't want to see the doctrine of Balaam inside of my church, any part of it for any reason. He said, hey, church of Balaam, this one thing I've got against you. I have a problem with you. And so that tells me it is my job to preach this and to make sure this never comes in here and to make sure that we make the change. And I'm not saying we have a problem with this. This is just something that needs to be preached. It's something that we need to follow. This is a game changer. Again, we have 45 people in here today. If these 45 people learn to adopt this bottom line that I have for you this morning, it's going to be 85 in two more years. It's possible because it's not like, oh, you know, I can't, I can't go do this activity with you because I got church. It's like, no, I don't do that. It's not that I can't do this because I got soul wanting. It's that I don't do this because I have soul wanting. And that opens up so many doors, so many opportunities, and so much growth for you. It's unbelievable. You know, if you haven't been to Verity Baptist Church, you know, come see me. I'll find a way to send you down there because that's a church filled with people that have this mindset. It's not that I can't, it's that I don't. There's 200 people that say that, or Sure Foundation Baptist Church. You know, we have brother Justin here. He'll tell you, these people have that mindset. You know, what do we start up there with? 40 people? Something like that? 20 something, 20 people? And most of those people are still there. A good group of people. And that's what I want to see here because they learned a long time ago. It's not that I can't do all this stuff. It's that I don't and I won't. So let's keep moving along here. All right, let's see here. Look at verse number 18 again. And Balaam answered and said unto the servants of Balak, 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 do more. And, you know, don't ask, I don't know if Balaam was saved or not. You know, it's one that I've wrestled with off and on because, you know, it's him that's saying, you know, the Lord, my God. But in Joshua, we read that the narrator of the Bible, the Holy Ghost says that Joshua was, or not Joshua, that Balaam was a soothsayer. So kind of weird, kind of weird there. But here's point number one. Learn to turn your can'ts into don'ts. Learn to turn your can'ts into don'ts and I won'ts. Very simple here. Go to the book of James. Go to the book of James right before Hebrews. Go to James chapter one. James chapter number one. You know, when we were up at Liberty Baptist Church in Tacoma, you know, remember Richter, Justin knows him. You can ask him, you know, we went to church for like two years up there before we were new IFB, you know, before any of this stuff ever started. And one thing that Richter would always talk about was that he doesn't change. And he's right. Even when he's, he don't change, you know. And, you know, overall, he was a good man of God. You know, I mean, he went soul wanting faithfully multiple times a week, you know, and took care of people. But, you know, he had a lot of old IFB stuff in him, you know, and if pedophiles came in to a certain extent, he would just let them come in, you know, and that's obviously you guys know that's a big problem here. We don't allow that. But he would always say this. This was his thing. I don't change. He's like, I don't change. And you know what? It's not that he can't change. It's that he won't change. You know what I mean? And so that's a good principle, I thought, you know, something that, you know, would do us all well to adopt. Because you know what? He's never going to change on the Bible version. He's never going to change on his standards. He's never going to change on any of that stuff. You know, now where it gets tricky here is when you get called out or, you know, when you're wrong, it's like, okay, we do need to make some changes sometimes. And that's a sermon for another day. Look at this here. James chapter one. Look at verse number 17. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. So you can see right there. What does the Bible say? Look, God, there's no variable in this. There's no changing. There's no, you know, flip flopping, pancaking, whatever you want to call it with God. Everybody knows that. When God, hey, when God wrote this book, he's like, hey, don't be writing 5000 other versions of it and twisting my words and doing all this crazy stuff. God hates that stuff. There's no variableness with him. There's no change. His law, his commandments, his statutes, they are what they are. And that's it. It's a done deal. Look at verse 18. Of his own will begot he us with the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. So that tells me that we need to strive to become a people that do not change, that there's no variableness with. When you decide, you know what, I'm going to adopt the doctrines of the Bible. I want to live by these things to please God. I want to be a warrior for Christ. I want to be a disciple. I want to go beyond just being saved. Right? Guess what? You need to decide in your heart right now that there's going to be no variableness with you. No change. You're going to do this. You're going to take it. You're going to own it and get it done. Because you know what? That takes the debate out of it. Look, guys, when you're at work, you don't ever tell people, oh, I can't eat that. I can't do that. I can't watch that. I can't look at that. No, it's I don't. And I won't look at any of that garbage. I don't eat this stuff. You watch the change in your culture at your work. They will stop coming at you with that stuff. They might start mocking you and doing other things, but we have other sermons to deal with that. Okay. So go back. Let's see here. Yeah. Go back to numbers. Go back to numbers. So verse number 19, numbers 2219. Of course, Balaam's a big mistake here. Numbers 2219, he says, now, therefore, I pray you, Terry, ye also hear this night, that I may know what the Lord will say unto me more. Again, huge mistake. Huge problem in Balaam's life. He doesn't want to say no. And look, all of us are tempted with this at some degree, right? We don't want to tell our kids no. Or maybe you're close with your family. You got saved and they have a different set of standards than you do. And they ask you to do something. They ask you to view something. You don't want to upset them, but you're in a position now where you got to say no. Don't make excuses. Don't put that on somebody else because all it's doing is setting you up for failure every single time. You don't have to turn around and just going to read for you Romans 13, 14, but put you on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. What do you think about that? You know, don't put yourself in a position that's going to tempt you with something you know you have a problem with. For example, if you're, you know, if you're on a diet, stay away from the red table back there on Sundays. Sunday nights you can go back there. I mean, if you're able to eat chips and salsa, and sometimes that salsa will burn all kinds of stuff out of you. All right? Hey, some days that's just hotter than others. I don't know what. Somebody's running back there putting stuff in there. You know, Kinley used to do stuff like that when I was, when she was real little. She'd get up, no joke, she'd get up in the middle of the night and put these ghost pepper flakes in my lunch. She almost sent me to the hospital a couple times. I have no idea why I'm even telling you this, but I don't know what point I had to do anything, but whatever. Here's an illustration. Here's an example, right? You're a new believer or, you know, somebody that's honorable in your life to some degree comes up to you, hey, down at this church down here called Life Church. They have this Bible study. It's great. You have a great time. Kinley, come with me. Kinley, come down there. We've been friends for years. I've known you since you were this age or whatever. Kinley, just come down here with me, but inside now all of a sudden you're asked that question. You know they're going to reach you out of the ESV, the NIV, all these false Bible versions, talk about stuff that you don't even believe in. Now all of a sudden you have a conflict of interest here. You're like, well, I don't want to tell this person no. I don't want to be rude. I want, you know, the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword. It's going to cause division. Jesus said, hey, I came to not to bring peace, but a sword, and then you're gonna have to tell that person. You know what? It's not that I can't go down there with you. It's that I won't. It's that I don't. I don't do stuff like that. I want all of God's word. Hey, and God spake all these words. Numbers back up here, and we're going to start reading here real quick in verse number five. So point number one was learn to turn your can'ts into don'ts. How do you do that? What's the way you go about doing that? By deciding there's going to be no variableness with your decisions, no change, and by not making provision for the flesh, right? Don't make matters worse on you by putting something that you struggle with or putting yourself in a situation that you know is going to bring reproach on Christ in front of you. It's unprofitable. You're setting yourself up for failure. So we're going to get ready for one number two here. So Numbers chapter 22, look at verse five. Let me turn there myself. Almost read to you Romans. I was like, wait a minute. That ain't numbers. All right, look at verse five. It says, he sent messengers, talking about Balak, he sent messengers therefore unto Balan the son of Beor to Pithor, which is by the river of the land of the children of his people to call him, sing. Behold, there is a people come out 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 are too mighty for me. Peredventure, which means perhaps. So he says, pairedventure, 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 blessed is blessed and he who now curses is cursed. So Balan, or I'm sorry, Balak's message is saying, hey, I want, what does that mean? The word what? W-O-T. That is the present tense of wit, which means to know. So Balak is saying, hey, I know from experience, Balan, that whoever you curse is cursed and whoever you bless is blessed. He's like, I know that. See, Balan had this reputation of cursing people or blessing people and it worked. What he did, whatever it is, we don't know a whole lot about him, but whatever he did, it worked and people knew it, including the ruler of this country. And he sees this multitude and he's like, hey, there's no hope for us unless you, Balan, come down here and curse these guys for me. And so notice how he pours it on them though. Oh, woe is me. Maybe if you help us, we could smite them. Isn't that how people come at us sometimes? You need to learn, somebody comes at you with that and they're not giving you like the full meal deal, the full story. They're just, oh, hey, hey, and they just just poured it on. Oh, woe is me, I'm gonna get destroyed if you don't help me, if you don't give me this money, if you don't do this, you know. There's churches like that, if you guys don't all write checks, if you guys don't all get this dealt, we're all gonna crumble, we're gonna die, we're gonna have to cease from being a church. Does that sound like somebody who's trusting God? Verse number seven, and the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with rewards of divination in their hand and they came out to Balan and spake unto him the words of Balak. Verse eight, and he said unto 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 Balan. So again, he should not have done this. He should have just told these guys, hey, get away. But the problem is, is that Balan, he's got no discernment. He cannot see the intentions of these people and he can't see the development of the entire situation, right? What about these other people? Who are they? What are they about? How do you know they're going to destroy us? He didn't ask any of those questions. He doesn't read any of that information. Now look at verse number nine. It says, and God came unto Balaam and said, what men are these with thee? What men are these with thee? What is God asking? What kind of people are here with you, Balak or Balaam? What kind of people are before you? I mean, God knows who these people are. He knows what they're about. Why does God ask this question? It's because he wants Balaam to figure it out on his own. These are bad people. Where's your discernment? Why can you not see? Verse 10. Now notice how Balaam responds here and ask yourself, is he going to answer the question? Look at verse 10. And Balaam said unto God, Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, hath sent unto me saying, behold, there is a people come out of Egypt, which covers the face of the earth. Come now, curse me them, pair adventure. I shall be able to overcome them and drive them out. Verse 12. And God said unto Balaam, thou shall not go with them. Thou shall not curse the people for they are blessed. And Balaam rose up in the morning and said unto the princess of Balak, get you into your land for the Lord refuses to giveth me leave with you. You see that? He puts the fault. He puts the reasoning on God instead of saying, hey, you know what? God taught me something. Those people are blessed and I will not curse them. I don't do stuff like that. You see that? Here's point number two. Unchecked desires to please men will blind you. Unchecked desires to please men will blind you. When, look, this is something that you have to internalize, something that you have to look into your own soul and figure out if you have this problem or if you're experiencing this. If you're in a situation and you know, you stop for a minute and you think, you know what? I want to please this person and I shouldn't. You're in trouble, but you're ahead of Balaam because now you can see, okay, wait a minute, what's going on here? This guy's trying to get me to do something, which is contrary to the word of God, contrary to the way I should live. But why couldn't Balaam do the right thing? And it's because he's a man pleaser, because he loved the wages of unrighteousness. He wanted those rewards of divination. He wanted what those honorable men had to offer. He wanted that, but because he wanted that, he could not see truth. And that's why he couldn't answer God when God said, what men are these with you? He had no answer. He couldn't answer. He just repeated what they told him. And God's probably thinking like, that's not what I asked you. I asked you what kind of men are these that are in front of you? Why can't you see that? Why don't you have discernment, Balaam? Oh, it's because you want to be a man pleaser. Who here knows some suck-ups at work? Probably some of the most blind, ignorant people that you've ever met, because all they do is hurt the crew, right? That's what they do. They hurt the workforce. They hurt the crew. They hurt churches. They hurt neighborhoods. I mean, they hurt everything, because they're only interested in their own game. And they'll do it at any cost, including selling you out to go please somebody else. Turn to Matthew chapter 7. Again, last year, I was invited to go to a Christmas party at work, right? At first, I was like, ah, maybe we'll go. Cool. And then I start seeing all this chatter on Google Hangouts. We're going to be so drunk, it's going to be great. I'm going to be drunk for the rest of the week. I won't even be able to work, stuff like that. Right? And so then they come by. Hey, you know, you haven't registered for your ticket yet. Are you going to go? No. I'm not going. The tech manager calls. Hey, I heard you're not going. I want to know why. Yeah, I don't go to drunken kegger festivals. That's why. He's like, okay, cool. I figured. That was it. He brought it up several times later, just to kind of just lightly tease me or whatever. But they never upped the stakes. Never said, we'll give you orange juice. I'll give you some carbonated water. Please come. You know why they didn't do that to me? Because I said, I don't go to stuff like that. And that shut them down. It's a done deal. That's it. And to this day, for the time being, I'm still working there, unfortunately. I'm just kidding. You know, but I mean, look, if you've got a job, you've worked, you've gone to school, you've lived life for any length of time, you've had this happen to you. Look, when I was working on the shipyard, it was the same thing. You have to go to this dinner, man, you have to, or you're not going to get this. You're not going to, I don't go to stuff like that. Oh boy, you're going to get it. I got it all right. I got a promotion every single time. Every time. Because I just said, look, I just learned a long time ago. I don't do stuff like that. I don't blame God for it. I'm like, oh, God won't let me do that. Oh, the Bible just won't let me know. I don't do that stuff. Matthew chapter seven, look at verse number three. It says, and why beholdest thou the moat that is in thy brother's eye, but consider is not the beam that is in thine own eye. Or how would they'll say to thy brother, let me pull out the moat out of thine eye and behold a beam, or behold a beam is in thine own eye. So what do you have going on here? You got a guy who's got a big two by four, right? In his eye, so to speak. And he can't clearly see out of both eyes. He's got enough vision to recognize a speck in someone else's eye. But because he does, he's a hypocrite, Jesus says, and he has a desire to make a show, to please men by going around saying, hey, I can tell you what's wrong with you, you, you, you, all of you. And lift myself up above the heavens. I'm looking pretty good, right? But he's banging his head all over the place because he can't see. Right? And Jesus is like, that's not the way to be. That's not the kind of judgment I want. That's the wrong kind of judgment. He's saying, hey, get yourself right. And then you can clearly see. Then you can clearly see. Look at verse five. Thou hypocrite first cast out the beam out of thine own eye and then shout thou see clearly to cast out the moat out of thy brother's eye. So if you struggle with a certain sin, and we all struggle with sins, every single person in here, you know, don't go around to the people doing the same things that you're doing and be like, hey, man, what's wrong with you? You know, it's kind of like getting on YouTube and, you know, blasting people when you don't even go to church. Right? You don't even go to church. But you're going to go around and just start railing on pastors and deacons and, you know, church members and tell them how they're in a cult and not spiritual and you're judgmental just because you used to go to church. And then you quit. And now all of a sudden, man, that pride has gone to the roof. Blind is what you are. You cannot see because you never learned to take responsibility. You never learned to own your own beliefs. And it's a tragedy. Go to Ephesians chapter six. Ephesians chapter number six. So again, point number two, unchecked desires to please men will blind you. If you are the kind of person that wants to please other people all the time, just know you're going to be blind spiritually. I mean, you might be able to physically see out of both your eyes. You might have 20, 20. You might have better than that. I don't know. Here's what I know. You're going to make some pretty stupid decisions in your life. That's what I know. That is what the Bible is teaching us here. What manner of men are with you? Who are these people, Balaam? They want me to help these guys out. Ephesians six, look at verse number five. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters, according to the flesh with fear and trembling and singleness of your heart as unto Christ. Right? So the people that are over you in your life, like we talked about this with the kids, you know, listen to your parents. You know, you guys that have jobs, listen to your boss, even though they suck sometimes, you know, that is if you can figure out who your boss is. I'm serious. I don't know what it is, but I have a hard time figuring out who's running the show where I work. I really don't know who to listen to sometimes. But again, that's a sermon for another day. Look at verse six, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. Doing the will of God from the heart. You say, I want to be able to have discernment in my life. I want to be able to tell people no. I want to be able to grow. I want to be able to do all of these things. I want to have success in my life. Look, I'm not trying to sound like Joel Osteen, but I'm trying to tell you that you can have that stuff. If you can learn to see, if you can learn to do the will of God from your heart. Well, I'm out here because I have to. How do you think this church would be if I was just like, well, I have to. I got ordained and pastor men have sent me here, so I got to get up here and read these Bible verses to you. You guys know most of you bounce, right? And I wouldn't blame you. Look at verse seven, with good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. That's how you get your rewards. That's how you get your promotion. That's how you make it in life. Doing things from the heart, not as a man pleaser. It didn't work out for Saul too well, did it? Wanted to please Agag. What did that do for Saul? It led to him falling on the sword. Go back to Numbers. Go back to Numbers. So again, I said point number one, we need to learn to turn our cans into I don'ts and I won'ts. Point number two is that we need to make sure that we are checking our unpleased desires. What did I say? Unchecked desires to please man will blind you. Right? If you don't get this temptation away from you to please man in any capacity, it's going to blind you. And you're going to be going down the wrong road. You're going to lose friends. You're going to lose a lot in your life. Numbers chapter 22. You look at verse number 20. It says, And God came unto Balaam at night. And this is obviously the second time Balak has sent messengers unto him. And God came unto Balaam at night and said unto him, 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. And Balaam rose up in the morning and saddled his ass and went with the princes of Moab. Real quickly here, verse 22. And God's anger was kindled because he went and the angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass with his two servants and his two servants were with him. So why is God mad at Balaam? Because he disobeyed what he told him. He said, Hey, if these guys come to thee and call thee, then you can go. Balaam deliberately misconstrues what God told him because he wants to please man. He wants the honor. He wants these rewards. He's blind. He can't see because of those desires, those unchecked desires, because he never learned to turn his can into I don't and I won't. And guess what? Now he's got the chastisement of God on his life. And point number three is just deliberately misconstruing God's word to find an out will lead you to enmity with God every time. Deliberately, intentionally misconstruing what God has said is going to turn you into the enemy of God, or it's going to bring you at enmity with God basically. And don't say, Oh, well, I'm saying I can't become at enmity with God because you can because I just mentioned Saul. What about Moses? Moses was the meekest person on the earth. Moses was a great prophet. Moses certainly wasn't the enemy of God. But do you know what happened when he smote the rock? He was so upset. He was so concerned with placating the children of Israel. God said, Hey, go speak to this rock and it will give the people water. If he would have done that, that would have brought glory on God wouldn't have. If he would have just walked up to the rock spoke to it and water came out. But what does he do? He walks up there angry, completely blind at what God just told him to do. And he smacks that thing. And then the water comes out. Now it looks like he had something to do with that. So yeah, you could deliberately misconstrue God's word and get some results for a little while for a temporary period and make other people think that you're all smart and you're super spiritual and ultra separated and all that garbage. But the reality is, you're never going to see the promised land, because that's what happened. That was the result of Moses's decision to deliberately misconstrue God's word. He did not make it to the promised land. He got to see it, but he couldn't go in. Don't play games with God like that. Turn to Deuteronomy chapter six. So you're in Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy. Pretty close. Deuteronomy chapter six. I just want to show you the remedy for this. Pretty simple, pretty easy to do. Psalm 119 and 11 says, Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. This is the key here. This is the secret. If Balaam would have listened to what God said and hid that, if they come to call thee, if, if, if, if, if. If he would have hid that in his heart, maybe, just maybe he would have made the right decision. Maybe he wouldn't have made that stupid mistake. Maybe he would have, maybe there would have been a different outcome, because then he could have said, you know what? Yeah, I can't do that. So there's something very powerful when we hide God's word in our heart and we get put in that moment of truth where we've got to make a decision. We've got to cut somebody out because they're trying to get us to go against the word of God. It's that word in your heart that you hid there that's going to save you. Deuteronomy six, look at verse six. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sit us in thine house and when thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up. Every aspect of your life needs to be centered around the word of God. Everything, not just on Sunday mornings, but you need to learn to start talking about these things all the time because that's going to help hide these concepts and these doctrines and these statutes into your heart. Verse eight, and thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand on thine hand and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. You see that's what's going to be your spiritual headlamp. That's how you're going to see and discern and realize should I associate with this person? Should I do the request or not? The only way you're going to do that is if you hide the word of God in your heart. Verse nine, now shall write them upon the post of thy house and on thy gates. You know when we hide God's word in our heart this is how we're going to catch ourselves, right? This is how we're going to catch ourselves when we're tempted to want to please somebody. When we're tempted to not want to say no. That's also how we're going to catch other people when they're trying to subtly get us to do something that we shouldn't do because remember the devil is going to up the stakes on you. Send a more honorable people to you. They're going to have a better story. They're going to have a more eloquent presentation to convince you, right? They're going to learn what you said you can't do and they're going to try to find loopholes and make those loopholes convincing to you and cause you to go against the word of the Lord. But the way around that is really again it's that bottom line I don't do this. Look guys it's not that I can't it's that I don't and I won't. You don't have to turn there we're almost done but Colossians chapter 3 verse 15 says this, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts to the which also you're called in one body and be thankful let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing with grace in your hearts the Lord. You're going to do that wherever two or three are gathered together? You doubt it. You know at any given time there might be two or three saved people at Fred Meyer. Is that church? Oh it's ridiculous. Bottom line is again you know you need we need to hide these things in our hearts. That's how we're going to catch and recognize this behavior and it's going to save us a lot of trouble. I mean think about it Matthew chapter 4. The devil what is he doing? He's tempting Jesus. He's trying to get him to falter. What does Jesus do every single time? Write to the bible. He goes to the bible. He goes to the bible every time and he's not like oh I can't do this. I can't take this kingdom. I can't. No. He's like hey no it's written this right. He says I won't do that. I don't do that. The bible says this. There's nothing wrong with saying that right but it's in the presentation. It's in the attitude. Again it's not that I can't. It's that I don't and I won't. If you can just adopt that mindset right there. Just that. You forget everything else I said. All these stories I told you. You can forget all that. Hopefully you won't but if you do and you just remember that one thing it's not that I can't. It's that I don't. I won't. It's going to change your life I promise you. You will be a different person. Everybody understand that? All right let's have a word of prayer. Thank you so much Lord again for bringing us here and I just pray you help us to adopt this mindset Lord and to not be like Balaam Lord. To seem like we're doing the right thing and to portray that as if we're doing it Lord but to really take ownership in what you have taught us and make it our own Lord and instead of causing blame or reason or fault to fall on you Lord that we adopted ourselves and we just take it our own.