NUMBERS xxiii. 19. God is not a man, that he should lie; neither
the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he
not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
If I was asked for any proof that the story of Balaam, as I find it
in the Bible, is a true story, I should lay my hand on this one
only--and that is, the deep knowledge of human nature which is shown
in it.
The character of Balaam is so perfectly natural, and yet of a kind
so very difficult to unravel and explain, that if the story was
invented by man, as poems or novels are, it must have been invented
very late indeed in the history of the Jews; at a time when they had
grown to be a far more civilised people, far more experienced in the
cunning tricks of the human heart than they were, as far as we can
see from the Bible, before the Babylonish captivity. But it was NOT
invented late; for no Jew in these later times would have thought of
making Balaam a heathen, to be a prophet of God, or a believer in
the true God at all. The later Jews took up the notion that God
spoke to and cared for the Jews only, and that all other nations
were accursed.
There is no reason, therefore, against simply believing the story as
it stands. It seems a very ancient story indeed, suiting exactly in
its smallest details the place where Moses, or whoever wrote the
Book of Numbers, has put it.
We, in these days, are accustomed to draw a sharp line between the
good and the bad, the converted and the unconverted, the children of
God and the children of this world, those who have God's Spirit and
those who have not, which we find nowhere in Scripture; and
therefore when we read of such a man as Balaam we cannot understand
him. He is a bad man, but yet he is a prophet. How can that be?
He knows the true God. More, he has the Spirit of God in him, and
thereby utters deep and wonderful prophecies; and yet he is a bad
man and a rogue. How can that be?
The puzzle, my friends, is one of our own making. If, instead of
taking up doctrines out of books, we will use our own eyes and ears
and common sense, and look honestly at this world as it is, and men
and women as they are, we shall find nothing unnatural or strange in
Balaam; we shall find him very like a good many people whom we know;
very like--nay, probably, too like--ourselves in some particulars.
Now bear in mind, first, that Balaam is no impostor or magician. He
is a wise man, and a prophet of God. God really speaks to him, and
really inspires him.
And bear in mind, too, that Balaam's inspiration did not merely open
his mouth to say wonderful words which he did not understand, but
opened his heart to say righteous and wise things which he did
understand.
'Remember,' says the prophet Micah, 'O my people, what Balak, king
of Moab, consulted, and what Balaam, the son of Beor, answered him
from Shittim unto Gilgal, that ye may know the righteousness of the
Lord. Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before
the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with
calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of
rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my
firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of
my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth
the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and
to walk humbly with thy God.' Why, what deeper or wiser words are
there in the whole Old Testament? This man Balaam had seen down
into the deepest depths of all morality, unto the deepest depths of
all religion. The man who knew that, knew more than ninety-nine in
a hundred do even in a Christian country now, and more than nine
hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine in a
million knew in those days. Let no one, after that speech, doubt
that Balaam was indeed a prophet of the Lord; and yet he was a bad
man, and came deservedly to a bad end.
So much easier, my friends, is it to know what is right than to do
what is right.
What then was wrong in Balaam?
This, that he was double-minded. He wished to serve God. True.
But he wished to serve himself by serving God, as too many do in all
times.
That was what was wrong with him--self-seeking; and the Bible story
brings out that self-seeking with a delicacy, a keenness, and a
perfect knowledge of human nature, which ought to teach us some of
the secrets of our own hearts. Watch how Balaam, as a matter of
course, inquires of the Lord whether he may go, and refuses,
seemingly at first honestly.
Then how the temptation grows on him; how, when he feels tempted, he
fights against it in fine-sounding professions, just because he
feels that he is going to yield to it. Then how he begins to tempt
God, by asking him again, in hopes that God may have changed his
mind. Then when he has his foolish wish granted he goes. Then when
the terrible warning comes to him that he is on the wrong road, that
God's wrath is gone out against him, and his angel ready to destroy
him, he is full still of hollow professions of obedience, instead of
casting himself utterly upon God's mercy, and confessing his sin,
and entreating pardon.
Then how, instead of being frightened at God's letting him have his
way, he is emboldened by it to tempt God more and more, and begins
offering bullocks and rams on altars, first in this place and then
in that, in hopes still that GOD may change his mind, and let him
curse Israel; in hopes that God may be like one of the idols of the
heathen, who could (so the heathen thought) be coaxed and flattered
round by sacrifices to do whatever their worshippers wished.
Then, when he finds that all is of no use; that he must not curse
Israel, and must not earn Balak's silver and gold, he is forced to
be an honest man in spite of himself; and therefore he makes the
best of his disappointment by taking mighty credit to himself for
being honest, while he wishes all the while he might have been
allowed to have been dishonest. Oh, if all this is not poor human
nature, drawn by the pen of a truly inspired writer, what is it?
Moreover, it is curious to watch how as Balaam is forced step by
step to be an honest man, so step by step he rises. A weight falls
off his mind and heart, and the Spirit of God comes upon him.
He feels for once that he must speak his mind, that he must obey
God. As he looks down from off the mountain top, and sees the vast
encampment of the Israelites spread over the vale below, for miles
and miles, as far as the eye can see, all ordered, disciplined,
arranged according to their tribes, the Spirit of God comes upon
him, and he gives way to it and speaks.
The sight of that magnificent array wakens up in him the thought of
how divine is older, how strong is order, how order is the life and
root of a nation, and how much more, when that order is the order of
God.
'How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!
As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river's
side, as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as
cedar trees beside the waters. His king shall be higher than Agag,'
and all his wild Amalekite hordes. He will be a true nation,
civilized, ordered, loyal and united, for God is teaching him.
Who can resist such a nation as that? 'God has brought him out of
Egypt. He has the strength of an unicorn.' 'I shall see him,' he
says, 'but not now; I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall
come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel,
and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of
Sheth.' And when he looked on Amalek, he took up his parable, and
said, 'Amalek was the first of the nation; but his latter end shall
be that he perish for ever.' And he looked on the Kenites, and took
up his parable, and said, 'Strong is thy dwelling-place, and thou
puttest thy nest in a rock. Nevertheless, the Kenite shall be
wasted, till Asshur shall carry thee away captive.' 'Alas, who
shall live when God doeth this!'
And then, beyond all, after all the Canaanites and other Syrian
races have been destroyed, he sees, dimly and afar off, another
destruction still.
In his home in the far east the fame of the ships of Chittim has
reached him; the fame of the new people, the sea-roving heroes of
the Greeks, of whom old Homer sang; the handsomest, cunningest, most
daring of mankind, who are spreading their little trading colonies
along all the isles and shores, as we now are spreading ours over
the world. Those ships of Chittim, too, have a great and glorious
future before them. Some day or other they will come and afflict
Asshur, the great empire of the East, out of which Balaam probably
came; and afflict Eber too, the kingdom of the Jews, and they too
shall perish for ever.
Dimly he sees it, for it is very far away. But that it will come he
sees; and beyond that all is dark. He has said his say; he has
spoken the whole truth for once. Balak's house full of silver and
gold would not have bought him off and stopped his mouth when such
awful thoughts crowded on his mind. So he returns to his place--to
do what?
If he cannot earn Balak's gold by cursing Israel, he can do it by
giving him cunning and politic advice. He advises Balak to make
friends with the Israelites and mix them up with his people by
enticing them to the feasts of his idols, at which the women threw
themselves away in shameful profligacy, after the custom of the
heathens of these parts.
In the next chapter we read how Moses, and Phinehas, Aaron's
grandson, put down those filthy abominations with a high hand; and
how Balaam's detestable plot, instead of making peace, makes war;
and in chapter xxxi. you read the terrible destruction of the whole
nation of the Midianites, and among it this one short and terrible
hint: 'Balaam also, the son of Beor, they slew with the sword.'
But what may we learn from this ugly story?
Recollect what I said at first, that we should find Balaam too like
many people now-a-days; perhaps too like ourselves.
Too like indeed. For never were men more tempted to sin as Balaam
did than in these days, when religion is all the fashion, and pays a
man, and helps him on in life; when, indeed, a man cannot expect to
succeed without professing some sort of religion or other.
Thereby comes a terrible temptation to many men. I do not mean to
hypocrites, but to really well-meaning men. They like religion.
They wish to be good; they have the feeling of devotion. They pray,
they read their Bibles, they are attentive to services and to
sermons, and are more or less pious people. But soon--too soon--
they find that their piety is profitable. Their business increases.
Their credit increases. They are trusted and respected; their
advice is asked and taken. They gain power over their fellow-men.
What a fine thing it is, they think, to be pious!
Then creeps in the love of the world; the love of money, or power,
or admiration; and they begin to value religion because it helps
them to get on in the world. They begin more and more to love Piety
not for its own sake, but for the sake of what it brings; not
because it pleases God, but because it pleases the world; not
because it enables them to help their fellow-men, but because it
enables them to help themselves.
So they get double-minded, unstable, inconsistent, as St. James
says, in all their ways; trying to serve God and Mammon at once.
Trying to do good--as long as doing good does not hurt them in the
world's eyes; but longing oftener and oftener to do wrong, if only
God would not be angry. Then comes on Balaam's frame of mind, 'If
Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go
beyond the commandment of the Lord.'
Oh no. They would not do a wrong thing for the world--only they
must be quite sure first that it is wrong. Has God really forbidden
it? Why should they not take care of their interest? Why should
they not get on in the world? So they begin, like Balaam, to tempt
God, to see how far they can go; to see if God has forbidden this
and that mean, or cowardly, or covetous, or ambitious deed. So they
soon settle for themselves what God has forbidden and what he has
not; and their rule of life becomes this--that whatsoever is safe
and whatsoever is profitable is pretty sure to be right; and after
that no wonder if, like Balaam, they indulge themselves in every
sort of sin, provided only it is respectable, and does not hurt them
in the world's eyes.
And all the while they keep up their religion. Ay, they are often
more attentive than ever to religion, because their consciences
pinch them at times, and have to be silenced and drugged by
continual church-goings and chapel-goings, and readings and
prayings, in order that they may be able to say to themselves with
Balaam, 'Thus saith Balaam, he who heard the word of God, and had
the knowledge of the Most High.'
So they say to themselves, 'I must be right. How religious I am;
how fond of sermons, and of church services, and church
restorations, and missionary meetings, and charitable institutions,
and everything that is good and pious. I MUST be right with God.'
Deceiving their ownselves, and saying to themselves, 'I am rich and
increased with goods, I have need of nothing,' and not knowing that
they are wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked.
Would God that such people, of whom there are too many, would take
St. John's warning and buy of the Lord gold tried in the fire--the
true gold of honesty--that they may be truly rich, and anoint their
eyes with eye-salve that they may see themselves for once as they
are.
But what does this story teach us concerning God? For remember, as
I tell you every Sunday, that each fresh story in the Pentateuch
reveals to us something fresh about the character of God. What does
Balaam's story reveal? Balaam himself tells us in the text, 'God is
not a man that he should lie, nor the son of man that he should
repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it?'
Yes. Fancy not that any wishes or prayers of yours can persuade God
to alter his everlasting laws of right and wrong. If he has
commanded a thing, he has commanded it because it is according to
his everlasting laws, which cannot change, because they are made in
his eternal image and likeness. Therefore if God has commanded you
a thing, DO IT heartily, fully, without arguing or complaining. If
you begin arguing with God's law, excusing yourself from it,
inventing reasons why YOU need not obey it in this particular
instance, though every one else ought, then you will end, like
Balaam, in disobeying the law, and it will grind you to powder.
But if you obey God's law honestly, with a single eye and a whole
heart, you will find in it a blessing, and peace, and strength, and
everlasting life.