Law & Grace - God's talking to you, but that's not good - Part II (Balaam)
Vern Peterman · Feb 6, 2011
Law & Grace, No. 10
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492622605177

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Starting last week, we looked at the account in Numbers 22 through 24, the account of Balaam, and we kind of stepped through. Here's what took place there in that initial event where Balaam is introduced. We'll be taking a look at the subsequent verses, particularly these three we read in the New Testament. But in fact, what we find is the Bible continues to bring up this guy Balaam up until what appears to be the last books of the New Testament. And so we'll be taking a look at that this morning.

The account, of course, follows the exodus of the Israelites from Goshen in the land of Egypt, crossing the sea, going down the Sinai Peninsula to the place where the law was delivered, and then up the east side of the Sinai Peninsula, wandering about there. A little bit more detail than what this shows. And then finally, the events of Numbers 22 through 24 taking place there in Moab, east of the Dead Sea and east of the Jordan River. So last Sunday's message, we learned about a donkey that had something to say, right?

And this is what Balaam encountered because Balaam was so intent and insistent upon selling out, if you will, This is where Balak, the head, the king of the people of Moab, kind of a tribal ruler, hired Balaam to curse the children of Israel because he had seen, Balak had seen, that the Israelites were very powerful. He didn't quite understand that it was a powerful god that was behind them. And so he was figuring in order to gain an advantage, he would have a certainly famous and well-known prophet such as Balaam come and put a curse on them. That was his plan anyway. The Lord, however, as Balaam was along the way, decided to underscore with Balaam, look, you only say what you're told to say.

Don't say anything else. You're not to go cursing these people. And Balaam wouldn't listen, so the donkey spoke. And what we thought was remarkable last week is not only did the donkey speak, but the donkey counted. You struck me three times, right? And on top of that, what's even more amazing is that Balaam talked to the donkey. Imagine having that conversation. What Balaam didn't see, but the donkey did, was the angel of the Lord there in front of Balaam. And finally, I think it took that donkey event in order for Balaam to be able to listen to the Lord's second reiteration. Look, Balaam, only say what I tell you. One of the things we underscored last week, there will be people who will read this account and say, ah, that's all legendary. There's no substance behind that, it's just mythology.

Well, there was an archaeological discovery in 1967 of an inscription in a temple at a place called Deir Allah in Jordan. And three times, guess what? There's exact same names in the Bible, Balaam, son of Baor, three times in that inscription. He was an actually known prophet. And by the way, this inscription was only found about 60 miles away from where these events took place in the Bible. So there is great confirmation of this event as an actual historical event and not simply mythology.

I give a reference. You have it in your handout. If typing in a bunch of strange codes is a little much, you can put in christiananswers.net and then search for Balaam. Okay, here's a picture of the transcription, a little hard to read from there, but nonetheless, that's where it is. Here's Deir Allah and the location just north of where Moab was by about 60 miles. Now, the passages addressing Balaam in the Old Testament, you also have this on page one of your handout. Numbers 22 through 24 that we've listed.

Further on, and one we didn't go to, but Numbers 31, 8 and 16 talks about how Balaam had told Balak, look, you don't need me to curse these guys, okay? You don't need me to curse them. What you need to do is to tempt the Israelites to fall into sin, and then they'll have curses anyway. That's what he told them. It was Balaam's teaching or counsel. Here's how you trip up the Israelites.

Deuteronomy 23. Deuteronomy is the second giving of the law. That's where Moses reiterated what took place there as recorded in the book of Numbers. Joshua, the next book in the Bible, also has a summary of that. Nehemiah, many centuries later, also had that. And Micah. Here we have them in sequential order historically. Passages and numbers to Joshua are approximately in the same time frame. And those are listed, Micah 6, 5 and the Deir Allah inscription occurring again about the same time. Here's the Deir Allah location there. Here's Nehemiah 13, 2 was the next one. And then finally, these passages we just read here in 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation.

I would suggest to you the fact that scripture is persistent about continuing to bring up this guy Balaam, and even to the point where some of the last books of the Bible address this fellow, that he is not an incidental character, but in fact a very important character and one that we could do well to take a look at. So these three New Testament passages, which we read just moments ago, each bring a focus on some aspect of Balaam's errant spirituality.

We live in an era where it's fine to be vaguely spiritual. Have you noticed that? Being a Christian is sometimes not very well appreciated, but you can be spiritual in some sort of a vague sense, and the world is okay with that. Well, errant spirituality is the focus of these passages here, and we'll see what that means for us.

There are principles here that apply, in fact, both under law, as we've been looking at, and under grace, as we in the church are designed by God to be living with. The principles apply to both, interestingly enough. Law and grace have a great deal to contrast, and we've been looking at that in recent weeks and months, in fact. But the spiritual principles compare very well, as we'll soon see.

So here are these three passages. We have them on your handout in page one on the slide. And we will step through each one of these. The focus, and you'll see this on the slide, is on false teachers. Now they're not all the same aspect, but each of them are in a context dealing with false teachers in the church.

This first one here, in 2 Peter 2.15 that we read earlier, talks about the way of Balaam. The way of Balaam. Balaam's way was to hire himself out for religious or spiritual work.

In this case, to curse the Israelites, or ultimately, since the Lord wouldn't let them do that, to give Balak some advice. And here's how you can pull it off anyway. The Lord won't let me curse them, but you can make it happen anyhow, right? To override God's blessings of these people.

Now we have, in our own culture, a lot of people who will take money for religious work. Oh boy, do they take money. Some of them in a very big way. The income, and this is a recent figure but not the latest figure, the income for one of the popular televangelists that goes about doing things in stadiums and does things on TV, over a hundred million a year, all focused around one guy. That's pretty amazing. So anyway, we have people who today are following the way of Balaam.

They are spiritual sellouts. The starting point for Balaam should have been recognized that God's blessings and curses shouldn't be thought of as something that could be manipulated at any price. So which is heavier, if you get my drift here? Money or spiritual principles. Which carries more weight? And scripture would definitely say spiritual principle, not the money. So what was Balaam's problem here? If we really ask the deep question, what's the real problem? Balaam made a serious error in his behavior.

And as motivation, he founded his faith on his own feelings. He was drawn by a love of money above all else. It was that heart attachment to the money. That's what really motivated him. Everything else can be shifted and drifted and changed. But boy, that love of money, that's really going to hold the day.

Believers are to place their faith in the spiritual facts that have been revealed in God's word. And that first and not by the feelings or values founded contrary to God's word. Our culture teaches us to place faith, belief or trust, or alternate terms, in feelings and experiences. Increasingly, I would say in rough terms, since the end of World War II, the culture has taught us to trust our feelings. Luke, right? It can't be wrong if it feels so right. Right and wrong. Where you place your faith and trust, that's your feelings. Feelings and experiences. I feel a certain way.

As a matter of fact, we have often been taught in our culture to wait for a feeling in order to act. One of the things that Nancy and I encounter as we do both premarital and marriage counseling is this. We will find couples who are waiting to, well, here's a husband waiting for the wife to be lovable in order for him to love her. Waiting for the husband to be respectable before she will show him respect.

Does the Bible use that sequence? I'm going to wait for the other one to have the character to give me the feeling in order for me to react. And so each of them has their arms crossed, or their back up, waiting for the other one to act. The Bible does not spell out that feelings are the starting point.

It is faith in the facts. Husbands, love your wives. Is there an if in there, if they're lovable first? No. Wives respect your husbands if they respect... No. The if is not there. It's faith in the facts. Love is not primarily a feeling. It is faith in what's revealed. Faith in the spiritual facts that God has revealed in His Word. That's God's design for faith. Feelings follow. One of the ways we put that is that faith in the facts is like the train in the tracks, and like a caboose, the feelings follow. Got that? Faith in the facts is like a train in the tracks, and like a caboose, the feelings follow. The feelings follow, not lead. I was trying to look around. I couldn't quite pull it off in time. I was trying to look around at a picture of a bunch of people going down the freeway backwards at 65 miles an hour. Right? That is the way our culture has taught us to work.

We wonder why marriages don't work out. Guess what? If the husband is waiting for the wife to be lovable in order to love her, boy, you got trouble. If the wife is waiting for the husband to be respectable in order to show him respect, you got trouble. That's the world's message. It's not God's message. There are a great many things, I've picked the marriage example, but the reality is we are to put our faith in the facts that God has revealed.

The feelings will follow. Nancy and I have been married for 37 years. I am crazy about her. I'm madly in love with her. Well, I was about to say just insane, but that's a little too much. I'm madly in love with her, but I've learned that it's not because I follow the feelings. It's a wonderful feeling to have, but it starts with faith in the facts. I love her as an act of will because that's what God says to do.

The feelings, are they there? Yes. Are they tremendous? Yes. Do I deny my feelings? No. But the feelings follow, not lead. Balaam let the feelings take the lead. I love the money. He says so everything else comes after that It's my love of that money.

That's what calls the shots in my life now in Jude 11 False teachers there We have the error of Balaam first. We had the way of Balaam now. We've got the error of Balaam Balaam not only had a way that was wrong, but he also had a twisted view, an error about the relationship between people and God.

He thought that God could be manipulated for human purposes. In all the pagan religions of the world, so in one way you can't blame Balaam, In all the pagan religions of the world in biblical times, it was common to think that the gods could be manipulated by sacrifices or other human favors to act and influence earthly events.

I want God to do this. So the soldiers would go and worship Athena because Athena was the god of war. That is, the god who helped the soldier fight. And so the soldiers would try to manipulate Athena. And we as Christians can fall into that same trap.

I want God to do this. I want God to have this outcome and that's what I want. And if God isn't going to do what I want, then I'm going to be ticked. I'm going to be quite angry at God because he didn't do what I want. That was the era of Balaam. I can manipulate God, and I ought to expect to manipulate God to do whatever I want. Now, He's the Lord, not me.

Christians can get into a mindset of wanting God to do things for them, to keep them out of trouble and problems. But we ought first to understand what it is that God wants. Let me make it clear. If God's job is to keep us out of trouble and problems, He's doing a terrible job! Wouldn't you agree? He's doing an awful job. If that's his job, he's just doing really, really awful. So a lot of Christians will get the idea, however, that if I do all the right stuff, then God's supposed to make everything cool, right? I mean, I'm on a smooth highway to heaven, right?

No. And so people will look at the Bible as that, how do I have to rub this thing, you know? And is it three times, or what's direction? I have to rub it on certain verses. If I rub certain verses, is it three times or four? I forget. So Christians can get into that mode. And we think of Jesus as, oh yeah, you got it, right? And that's his job because I rubbed the right verses the right way. It's easy for Christians to fall into that pattern. But as we said before here, This earth is a getting ready kind of place. You see, we're here to get ready for what's next. It is primarily about getting ready for what's next.

You know, if we're lucky, we might do like Bertha and live a hundred years or something like that. I suppose you'd call that lucky. But, you know, we might live a century more or less, you know, sometimes more, sometimes a lot less. We might live that long, but how does that compare to eternity? Eternity is a long time, right? Now, if you start weighing things by length of time, what matters most? What matters most?

This is a getting ready kind of place. That's exactly what this place is. This place that we're at now is not the place where it's all said and done, and it all wraps up, and it's all a nice bundle, and everything that happens here is, boy, it's all got to make sense right here. No. This is a getting ready kind of place. You're getting ready for somewhere else. So it's the getting ready process that counts, not making it all make sense and wrap up good here.

See the difference there? Big difference. God is always doing things to get us ready for a life somewhere else, not based here. This is more like we're living in a train station, right? We're getting ready to go somewhere else. So it's not about rubbing the Bible in the right way and calling up the Jesus genie and having things here just the way we wish. No, it's not that. It's getting ready for what really counts and what really lasts and what really will be a long, long time.

The other thing is God is a God of character. You can't just manipulate God to do what you want because God is a God of infinite qualities that are not changing. Aren't you glad that when the Bible says that God loves you, that God isn't just fickle? Would you like it if the Bible said, for God so loved the world this week, that He gave His only begotten Son, more or less, for a little while?

No. Eternally. That love He has is eternal. His grace is eternal. His mercy is eternal. God doesn't change. Based on those qualities, God does things, God has done things, God will do things, including what He says He will do and the things that He says He has done, all based on those qualities that will not change. And that's comforting. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.

Praise the Lord. We have to be thankful and can be thankful for that. So when God loves us with a great love and is determined to show us wealth, It is richness of mercy and grace and has said so. Any expectation that you might do otherwise is utter ignorance and total foolishness.

Revelation 2.14 puts the focus like this. I have to say we're coming into Revelation chapter 2 and 3. churches are being addressed by the Lord Jesus Christ, and so we're taking a little snippet from that, so realizing that we're taking it out of a larger context.

Christ has said positive things, but now says I have these few things against you to this church, because you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam. What did Balaam teach? Now Balaam went through this episode with the donkey and he did in fact as numbers 22 and 23 and 24 record he did actually bless the Israelites but he taught Balak he counseled Balak as an aside he said you can get these people to trip up anyhow you don't need me to curse them so don't be frustrated that I'm blessing them because God wouldn't let me do anything but that but Balak you can cause these people to get tripped up the teaching of Balaam. Balaam was constrained by God to say only what God told him to say, so he could only say blessings.

So what do you expect? But aside from such things, Balaam told Balak how to bring the Israelites down. Get them all to compromise with idolatry and immorality and you can gain an unfair advantage. Give them the compromise and you can gain an unfair advantage. Even for us now who are in Christ, any teaching, remember this last thing we read was written to churches who are under grace, any teaching towards moral or spiritual compromise is false. God is gracious so he can do anything, right? After all, isn't God going to forgive everything? And that's his job. So I'll give him plenty to forgive, right?

That would be a philosophy that you might work up in your mind. He says, that's wrong. That's got problems. Now, when we think about idolatry, we can easily think about things that are made of metal and things made of stone or wood or some other substance, but typically those. That's what we think of. We think of some object that is an idol. But let me give you a definition of an idol.

Anything that dictates how we should live or think above and ahead of what God has revealed is idolatry. Including, I'll put it this way, if the husband is waiting for the wife to be lovable before he loves her, that's idolatry. Because it is waiting for feelings to dictate how I live instead of faith in the facts. See the difference there? Anything that dictates how I live that's contrary to what God has revealed is idolatry. So I don't need a piece of wood or metal or stone or glass or anything else. Anything that dictates how I live apart from what God has revealed is idolatry.

Now, what is immorality? Physical, sexual intimacy outside of marriage, of any form, is immorality. Any form. The word in the Greek New Testament is pornea. We get our word pornography from that. But basically anything outside of marriage, as God intended it, is immorality. So even for us now who are in Christ, any teaching towards moral or spiritual compromise is false.

Now we have, and this is shown on page two of your handout, three different slides on law and grace, comparison and contrast. Comparison, what's similar? Contrast, what's different? The first one goes like this. Those living under a principle of law, that is, as the Jews were, as they were under Moses, are blessed if they obey, and are cursed if they don't obey. It certainly shows up other places, but Deuteronomy chapter 28 is the principal place for that. We showed some slides. Here's Deuteronomy 28, 1 through 3. Here is Moses speaking for God to the Israelites.

Now it shall be if you diligently obey the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments which I command you today, The Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come upon you and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God. Blessings if. That's the way the law works. Curses as well. But it shall come about if you do not obey the Lord your God. And by the way, you've got all 613 laws in the Old Testament. Remember all of them. Got them memorized? Good luck. To observe and do all his commandments and his statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Then it begins the curses that go on for dozens of verses. Cursed shall you be in the city and cursed shall you be in the country.

Now, but God had also promised Abraham, we have the reference here in Genesis 12, 1-3, Anyone trying to curse these Israelites as descendants of Abraham will be cursed by God. We showed last week this slide. Here's Genesis 12, 1 through 3. And verse 3 particularly says this, I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.

So this attempt to curse by Balaam was one that was not going to come out well for him. Those living under the principle of grace, that is thus You know, it's this body here in the church, those living under principle of grace are all blessed and obedience is to be motivated by grace. It's because you have been blessed, because you've been saved and forgiven, because all those things are true, that is the motivation. So under the law, you'd better not steal, you had better not lie, or you will not be blessed.

Under grace, we see it as we see it here in Ephesians 1.3, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Later on, starting in chapters 4 and 5, that's where he starts talking about, okay, now that I've told you about all the ways you've been blessed, now let's start talking about your stealing and lying problem. Do you see the difference there? You are motivated by grace instead of being given the carrot and the stick.

In Ephesians 4.32, forgive one another as God in Christ, past tense, has forgiven you. Why do you forgive? Not because you have this threat, boy, if you don't forgive, God won't forgive you. But because you've been forgiven.

Grace is the motivator. Living under grace doesn't mean that we just cut off all control and now morality doesn't count. What it means is that morality is based on God already having blessed and forgiven. That's why. The other difference is that the Israelites were blessed in earthly things. We are blessed in heavenly things.

But earthly based curses can't touch heavenly blessings. Balaam could not come and curse us here. Why? Because he can't touch heavenly blessings. He can't get there. All of our blessings are in Christ. Nobody can touch them. This word untouchable now has a new meaning, right? You're untouchable in that your blessings are all in heavenly places where nobody can reach them.

They're fixed there. They're set there. Contrast two. Under law, the Israelites were blessed if they obeyed and cursed if they didn't. And the blessings and curses were all earthly. Under grace, the church is blessed whether they obey in faith or not. And the blessings are all heavenly in Christ, every single one.

Now I want to tell you a little story. Years ago, this was almost 40 years ago, I was traveling with a friend north of the Golden Gate Bridge on 101 North there, if you're familiar with that, and we were in Marin County, and we were driving on 101 North, and that sign right about there was what we saw, and we saw a guy on the side of the road pushing a motorcycle.

And so we kind of pulled up in front of him and said, could you use some help? He says, yeah, I ran out of gas. I said, well, why don't you leave your motorcycle off to the side where hopefully it won't get hit and let's go get you some gas. So he did that and we got in the car and we took him to a gas station, which is a good thing he didn't have to push because it was a little distance up. And we pulled off on the off ramp and went and found a gas station and looped around, brought him back to the place where he could put gas in his motorcycle. And boy, when we were all done, he said, well, God bless you. And my friend and I looked at each other and we looked at him. We said, he already has. We've already been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Whether expressed through the law of Moses, as we see with Israel in the Old Testament, or by the life of Christ, God is a God of morality. Morality is because of who He is. For those under the law, it's you'd better be moral or else. For those of us under grace, it's morality because of what He's already done, because He's blessed us, because He's already forgiven us. That's the grace motivation.

Contrast number three. The people of Israel were to live out the law, though they were given no means of doing so. Just do it. It's the Nike approach. Right? Just do it. Here's the law. 613 rules. 365 of them were things not to do. Just the Nike approach. Just do it. No enablement to pull it off.

In the coming reign of the Lord Jesus Christ on this earth, as he reigns in the coming kingdom, the Israelites will know all 613 laws by heart. They will not even need anyone to teach them because the Holy Spirit indwelling them will cause them to walk in his statutes. Ezekiel 36 and also chapter 37 and chapter 38 and 39 talk about this blessing that they will have, but that's the law written on their heart, their heart, not ours.

We in the body of Christ are empowered to live by the life of Christ apart from the law. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit who indwells us. Walking and living by faith in Christ, that's what we mean by faith in the facts, and who we are in Him and who He is in us. This is the ultimate thing of grace, is we are graciously empowered and enabled to live out the life God intends.

Not because we've been given all the rules. Not because we've got umpires who are there to tweet on the whistle when we break the rules and bring us back in line. But because we have the power of the Holy Spirit to empower and enable and energize us to live that life by faith.

Bringing it into the marriage context as I have. So this is the husband loving the wife, not because she's lovable. It would be nice if she is. But that's not why he loves her. It's the wife respecting her husband, not waiting for him to be respectable. It's by faith in what God has revealed, not waiting for the right feelings. As a matter of fact, if you're waiting for the right feelings, that's wrong. Oh boy. Okay.

Let's go to Lord in prayer and we'll complete our time here. Lord, we thank you that as we look at your word, as we look at what you've revealed, you have indeed some things for us to learn from. You have indeed things for us, Lord, to ponder and to think about in our hearts and lives, and even to think about what motivates us. What is the right understanding so that we can step aside from the way and the error and the false teaching that Balaam presented here. And particularly because it's found in the New Testament, we know it's relevant to us. We thank you for that relevance. Bring it home to our hearts. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.