By Jill Roberts and Michael Canalé
Michael so powerfully says,
“Glory has always been attached to military battles, but true glory has its great potential in spiritual battles.”
Last week, we left Balaam just beginning his spiritual journey to meet King Balek and with God very angry that he was going. Right before Balaam left, he paid lip service to his complete allegiance to God, telling King Balek’s emissaries that,
“…Even if Balek gave me all the silver and gold in the palace, I could not do anything great or small to go beyond the command of the LORD my God.”
(Numbers 22:18) NIV
To this, however, he apparently reasoned that, just in case God had changed His mind and decided that with more money on the table, this would be grounds for Balaam to curse the Israelites, he needed to,
“…find out what else the LORD will tell me.”
(Numbers 22:19) NIV
As earlier noted, a more absurd idea could hardly have been imagined. God had plainly told Balaam, as to accompanying King Balek’s representatives to meet the King and cursing the Israelites,
“…Do not go with them. You must not put a curse on those people, because they are blessed.”
That was God’s command. It was not subject to revision.
But, Balaam, the Everyman of this story, did what every man/woman often does when God’s clear and unequivocal will is placed in front of them. — He looks for some wiggle room.
This tendency of mankind has got more history than all the books in the Library of Congress. Did Balaam stand out from humanity in revisiting God’s will and words as to no trip and no curse? Hardly. What Balaam did was to place himself among the masses of all of us.
Have we not all heard God clearly say something, only to, once again, consult Him as to this same matter? What were the enemy’s chilling words to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?
“Did God really say?”
(Genesis 3:1) NIV
As Michael sets forth,
“The pattern is to keep asking for a different god, a god who fits a person’s purpose, whose words reflect man’s agenda. It’s really a matter of trying to maneuver God’s thought.”
This is exactly what Balaam sought in a second audience with God. And the outcome of this? God knew that the increased bribe from King Balek had turned Balaam’s head.
God did not in the Garden of Eden, did not in the age of Balaam and does not now violate a person’s free will. His heart breaks, but His resolve does not. He will not override man’s foolishness, no matter where it leads.
In the case of Balaam, it led to a road that ended at the very doorstep of King Balek, a man hell bent on having Balaam curse the very Israelites whom God had chosen and blessed.
God saw the meeting between these two men coming and He was angry. — angry, yes, but ready to give up? Far from it. While God won’t ever violate our free will, He will never fail to invest in the arc of history and to thereby turn up the heat on what barrels toward disaster:
“Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and went with the Moabite officials. But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the LORD stood in the road to oppose him.”
(Numbers22:21-22) NIV
During the next several verses, the angel of the LORD is referred to nine times! This storied angel puts up every possible obstacle to Balaam’s continuing on. Some of these are ways which one can imagine and one is too extraordinary to even imagine. This latter one involves Balaam’s donkey.
Balaam fought this divine angelic intervention with every ounce of energy he had, because, while the donkey could see the angel, Balaam could not. With regard to the very angel of the LORD, Balaam’s donkey had a clear vision, while a man who held himself as a spiritual visionary, was entirely blind as to the presence of the LORD, Himself, as to God’s own angel. Oh, the irony in this amazing story!
God help us! The animal had the physical, leather blinders firmly affixed around his face and yet could still see what was so obvious. On the other hand, a man, Balaam wore spiritual blinders, the ones that cloud the transparent will of God. Yes, God had said, “No journey to King Balek,” and now Balaam was on the road with the singular destination of the king’s dominion.
Do we judge Balaam? Do we break ranks with his likes? Or, do we say that we are cut out of the same fabric, often moving ahead when God and His angels would have us stay.
The angel of the LORD, with a drawn sword in his hand, stood in front of Balaam who was riding his donkey on the road. The donkey, seeing the angel, turned off of the road into a field, but Balaam beat the animal to get him back on that same road that was leading him to the King.
Once again, the donkey saw the angel. This time, the angel had increased the obstacle, by standing in a narrow path. The donkey crushed Balaam’s foot against a close wall, and Balaam, still blind to the angel, again beat his animal.
Finally,
“Then the angel of the LORD moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there was no room to turn, either to the right or to the left.”
(Numbers 22:26) NIV
Now, God was the one upping the ante, hemming Balaam in, as He so often does today, in our lives. Again, the donkey saw the angel. This time, the animal lay down, causing Balaam to angrily beat him yet again.
“Then the LORD opened the donkey’s mouth and it said to Balaam, ‘What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?’
Balaam answered the donkey, ‘You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”
(Numbers) 22:28-29) NIV
Has it not been most of our experiences that, when a person has become a fool, this individual need look no further than the mirror to find the source of their foolishness? Certainly, in the case of Balaam, this is true.
God had spoken in the beginning about this trip but Balaam had pressed on. God sent His angel but Balaam continued. Well, we might say, God said to go — eventually. And besides, Balaam couldn’t see the angel of the LORD trying to stop him from continuing on the road.
To this, we are triggered to go to irony, for is it not ironic that Balaam, a mystic, a man of signs, was blind to the sign of God’s anger, and then was again blind to the sign when God placed His angel to impede Balaam’s path toward King Balek?
Isn’t it a fact, that when we don’t want to see, whether we’re a master of signs or not, we just close our eyes. We shut them tightly. We don’t require a donkey to make a fool of us; we can manage this quite nicely on our own.
The now reasonable donkey is juxtaposed to the foolish Balaam, asking his master whether he, the donkey, had ever acted this way before. Balaam had to say he had not.
“Then the LORD opened Balaam’s eyes and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell face down.”
(Numbers 22:31) NIV
The angel of the LORD then told Balaam something very central in this story:
“I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me.”
(Numbers 22:32) NIV
When the angel of God says that you’re on a “reckless path,” things just couldn’t get any more serious than this. Or could they? The next words out of the mouth of the angel belie this:
“The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If he had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now…”
(Numbers 22:33) NIV
This angel was not sent by God to cajole Balaam; he was sent to stop him. Full stop. What was Balaam’s reaction?
“Balaam said to the angel of the LORD, ‘I have sinned. I did not realize you were standing in the road to oppose me. Now, if you are displeased, I will go back.”
(Numbers 22:34) NIV
“If you are displeased!” The angel said Balaam was on a reckless road. The angel said he would have killed Balaam, if the donkey hadn’t stopped them. God had earlier said, ‘Don’t go.”
Lip service, nothing but lip service is being offered by Balaam. He knows full well that God abhors the thought of him going, of him meeting King Balek. Balaam says all the right words but his heart is already in Moab, with the king, within sight of the Israelites and God knows it.
Again, God refuses to override Balaam’s free will, saying, through His angel,
“Go with the men but speak only what I tell you.”
And here are the haunting words:
“So Balaam went with Balek’s officials.”
(Numbers 22:35) NIV
In a few days, Balaam, a highly intelligent and spiritual man, one who spoke all the right words to God, was in the presence of evil. King Balek went out to meet him, hardly able to wait for him to arrive. The king was a man with a curse on his mind and a reward in his hand.
Now, only one question remained: was Balaam going to declare that curse and receive that reward? As stated, with all Balaam’s perfect words, would he be God’s man or would he be the puppet of the king?
As Michael began this study, it is the spiritual battle we are seeing here, the moral dilemma.
Why is this story in the Bible? Michael continues:
“It is to refine our own path.”
Next week, we will finally find out the path of Balaam, our protagonist. Good or bad, curse or blessing? It is a Bible passage that will keep us guessing to the very end.
Suspenseful! ❤️