Joshua 13:22 Balaam also the son of Beor, the soothsayer, did the children of Israel slay with the sword among them that were slain by them. A study of pathetic interest; one of the great "might-have-beens" of the world. One capable of winning an immortal fame, but actually finding only an immortal infamy. The Judas of the Old Testament: one travelling on the right road till within sight of heaven, and then turning aside to perdition. Consider - I. THE GREATNESS OF THE MAN. Evidently his position is one of great dignity and influence. He has raised himself to priest-kingship among the Midianitish tribes. He is considered to have such power in divination and forecast that he is brought all the way from a city in Mesopotamia to the borders of Canaan to "curse Israel." This reputation would lead you to expect to find him at least a man possessed of great spiritual insight; able at least to guess well concerning all moral probabilities, He has, moreover, reached a clear knowledge of God; has not become entangled by any service of the lower deities whose degrading worship was so prevalent; showing that he was a spiritually minded man, who had gone on and on following the light which reached him, until that light exceeded that of any one else among his people. His divination is no black art - carried on by appeals to demons - but by pure sacrifices offered to the supreme God. He had evidently been accustomed to utter exactly what God imparted. Pleasant or painful, what God sent him he said. And his honesty and courage are conspicuous in his actual declarations concerning Israel. When we have put together these qualities: spirituality sufficient to discover and serve the true God; great strength of integrity; the keen perception which can discern the essential differences and destinies of things; the fear of God to which "the secret of the Lord is always revealed" - you get a character of the first quality, one that has in it the making of a Moses or an Abraham, one who could and should have been one of the grandest of the prophets of the Lord. If only he had reached the full development of his spiritual powers, Midian might have been another Israel, for generations a source of highest good. Doubtless till middle life this course of high righteousness, consecration to and communion with God had gone on. But beginning well and running well, he falls at last into ignominy and shame. Mark - II. THE PROCESS OF HIS FALL. It must not be dated strictly from the temptation before which he fell. There is always, or almost always, some declension before a fall. No one falls into crime by one stumble. Can we trace the process? The writer of the Apocalypse, with his power of going straight to the mark, sums up in one word: He loved the wages of iniquity; not iniquity, but what iniquity could give him. First the selling of his spiritual power was a declension. To seek God's light in order to get man's money was an activity damaging to his conscience. Whether it be the sale of masses, absolutions, indulgences, or oracles, the vitiation is in each case the same. A seemingly slender line divides Samuel's acceptance of an honorarium from Balaam's eager desire for it. But seeming alike, they essentially differ. In Balaam's case the greed got headway, and instead of the prophet's simple acceptance of gifts as a means of living, there was a valuing of all his spiritual powers and privileges only for their market value. [It is an awful thing when a Christian minister values his creed and his experience only as a means of making money.] Then hankering after money, he soon loses the fine edge of honour. When once God refused to give him leave to go with the messengers of Balak, there should have been no reopening of the question. But so anxious is he for the "rewards of divination," that on their second embassy he goes to God for a second time, for the chance of finding Him permit what He had already refused. Declining to accept a reluctant service, God at once permits and punishes a less honourable course. Again and again he tries to get permission to curse Israel, just in order to get gold. That desire to get a different light from what God has given him is degrading and demoralising. Each dishonourable and dishonouring attempt to get God's anathemas to hurl against a righteous nation fails to hurt Israel, but terribly damages himself; until, hunting after some means of possessing himself of Balak's gold, in the pursuit he falls down, and down in degradation until, God refusing to inspire him with evil, his heart is ready to welcome and utter an inspiration from below. And his character is so disintegrated in this hankering after money, that at last he gives the most diabolical advice that man could give; viz., that instead of fighting Israel, they should endeavour to corrupt them (Numbers 31:16). The licentious feasts, the heathen orgies are of his counselling, and but for Phinehas might have been as disastrous to Israel as their intent was diabolical. What a fall, from the level of highest character, influence, and opportunity, down to the level of a Satanic crime. The love of money is daily making wrecks equally disastrous and irreparable. Beware of it. III. Lastly observe THE RETRIBUTION. Likely enough he got his reward, and was for a moment as pleased as Achan. But had he satisfaction in it? (1) Israel, in whose future well being he recognised the source of the world's best help, is crippled, degraded, weakened through his advice, and that would pain him. (2) Midian is all but completely annihilated. All the males and most of the women are slain (Numbers 31.). (3) Balaam himself has but a short lived enjoyment of his wealth, for he also is slain (Numbers 31:8). (4) The loss of life probably pained less than the everlasting infamy that made what hitherto had been an honoured name a proverb for the vilest form of treacherous wickedness. These penalties are obvious. In the world of spirits there must have been others more serious still. May we fear dishonourable gold, as that which makes the heaviest of all millstones to drown men in perdition! - G. Parallel Verses KJV: Balaam also the son of Beor, the soothsayer, did the children of Israel slay with the sword among them that were slain by them. |
    |