---

Balaam was a man who had frequent and extraordinary communications with God. Balaam was undoubtedly a man of great light; and his gifts were rare and transcendent. If you ask, "Were they from God or from the Evil One?" I do not know. I should say both. If God endowed him, certainly Satan occupied him: if Satan taught him, as certainly God used him. The light and the darkness were in tremendous nearness and antagonism in that one breast. The restraining power was very large; the determination of will was stronger still. He had very soft seasons: but they passed like April gleams! His convictions were real and deep; but they proved quite barren. His aspirations were beautiful and holy: "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!" but his faith never grasped, and his life never followed, those high desires. He acknowledged fully the blessedness of the people of God: "God hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob": "Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee"; but he never tried to be one of those happy ones. Israel's future was clear and bright to him — in all its safety and its joy — but it was never more than a confession, which played before his fancy! He saw the Lord Jesus Himself — as in a vista — but ii was a Jesus seen, but not known; admired, but never felt. See, then, the exact position of Balaam. On his lips, "I have sinned"; probably in his heart a condemning sense that he was wrong; a conviction that he had made a great mistake; but his passions high wrought; a resolute will and purpose in direct antagonism to the known will of God; one sin, all the while, tightly grasped; and a worldly, covetous affection in the ascendant! This was Balaam, as he went out at Pethor that early morning, through the vineyards of the city. I need not follow him further. You remember how his gifts grew greater, and his prescience grew clearer, and his language grew lovelier, and his pretensions grew loftier — just in the same proportion as his determination grew sterner, and his desires more grovelling — till the sure end came at last, and he became carnal, his counsel was gross, his wisdom diabolical, and he laid, with his own hand, the scheme to his own destruction; and his unsanctified and debased talent was his own scourge, and his own ruin! Reduce the picture to the scale of ordinary life, and it is the life of many. A man of religious knowledge — very impulsive and feeling — a clever man, with strong inward conflict — conversant with God — with the language of piety on his lips — speaking, not without some reality, the words of true penitence, and yet, at the very same time, with a direct hostility to God — harbouring a secret, evil appetite in his heart — and bent only upon selfishness! Draw near, and say whether you see yourself anywhere in the portrait? There is an acknowledgment of sin, under sorrow, which often clothes itself in very strong expressions, even to tears, and which is little else than a passion. It is not altogether an hypocrisy. At the moment it is sincere, very earnest. But it is an emotion — only an emotion. There is no real love to God in it, no true sense of sin, no relation to Christ. It does not go on to action. I have known a person — whose wonder and regret was that his penitence never seemed to deepen or increase; yet he said, and said often, and said truly, "I have sinned." The reason was, he never put the "I have sinned" upon the right thing. He said it about his sins generally, or he said it about some particular sin; but, all the while, there was another sin behind, about which he did not say it. The sin he willingly forgot — he connived at it — he allowed it I All the rest he was willing to give up, but not that. And that was his sin. And that sin reserved and in the background, poisoned and deadened the repentance of all other sins! The "I have sinned" fell to the ground impotent — like a withered blossom. That was Balaam — and that may be you! Or is it thus? You have an object in life very dear. You know that the object is not after God's will, but still you pursue it. You recur to it again and again — after voices-after providences — which have all told you that it is wrong. But you will have your darling object at any cost — even though it forfeit peace of mind, and though you lose God's favour. This, again, is Balaam. Can you wonder if the "I have sinned" goes for nothing at all, and if you are left to your own rash, reckless way? There is many a man who says, in his own room, very often, and at church, "I have sinned"; but throughout the week, every day, and all the day, he is grasping in his business, he is anxious in his home, he is occupied in his thoughts about money. It is money, money everywhere. Money gives its tone and colour to his whole life. That is Balaam to the very letter.

(James Vaughan, M. A.)

---

---

KJV: And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honourable than they.

WEB: Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honorable than they.