Evil Tactics to Destroy God's People

      A human being has free will and can create ideas and feelings that could be in harmony or in conflict with God's. The Lord does not punish us for acting in an erroneous way for lack of knowledge. Sin appears when we are able to have access to the attitude God would like us to have in a circumstance, and we don't look for his will, or once we've found it, we do not follow it. Sin is born when we keep ideas and feelings which we know are against God's will. In other words, it is good to arrange our feelings, thoughts and ideas to conform God's. Not doing so is sin.

      When Balaam became aware of God's will for Israel (Num 22:12), he should have taken sides in their favor. From then on he should have performed the way God wanted. He did not align his will to God's; on the contrary, he continued wanting to go with the messengers of Balak to curse those who God had blessed. The only thing he would not do, because of fear of consequences, was to perform the action himself. His feelings never changed. In other words, in spite of knowing God's will, he rejected it, and instead embraced Balak's will who would give him earthly rewards.

“12 And God said unto Balaam: Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people, for they are blessed. 13 And Balaam rose up in the morning and said unto the princes of Balak: Get you into your land, for the LORD refuseth to give me leave to go with you.” (Num. 22:12-13)

      In verse 22:13, instead of saying “I don't want to go because God doesn't want me to curse his people, I advise you to seek peace with Moses, etc...;”, what he does is blame God when he says: “The Lord refuses to let me go”. This means that if God didn't refuse, he would even go against God's will.

      In verse 22:18, instead of saying: “I do not want to go with you, because God already warned me once” he says: … “I cannot go against Jehovah's word…” This means that if he could he would go against him.

      In verse 22:19, he asks God one more time, even though he knew God's will. This demonstrates to us that he preferred Balak, who gave him gifts, instead of God. After all, it was God who gave power to Balaam, which is why Balak would offer him gifts.

      The last part in verse 22:38, he justifies with Balak and says: “I am come unto thee, have I now any power at all to say anything?” It was reasonable to think that if Balak was calling him to curse God's people, and because he knew God had blessed him, the most logical thing would be not to go to Balak. This way he would not have to do anything to please Balak, despite all this, Balaam went. He hoped to be able to do something to satisfy Balak.

      The perverse attitude that Balaam displays is why the angel of God (who is the one dealing with this prophet as mentioned in Num 22:35) is filled with rage when Balaam goes to Balak. The angel allows him to go, but knowing that Balaam is very pleased to go, he becomes angry. Balaam does not curse God's people because God does not allow him to do so. He doesn't show it physically but his heart is full of evil desires. He doesn't curse them physically with his mouth but with a ploy he harms them. How?

      Given that God did not prevent him to give counsel against Israel, Balaam takes advantage of this and gives counsel to the Midianites. It is Balaam who teaches the midianites that if God's people sin, God would take away his protection and they could defeat them. Therefore he teaches them that the best strategy they had against God's people was to give them women as bait, to make them fall into sexual immorality and idolatry.

“1 And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab, 2 and they called the people unto the sacrifices of their Gods; and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods. 3 And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor; and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel.” (Num. 25:1-3)

 

“15 And Moses said unto them: Have ye saved all the women alive? 16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.” (Num. 31:15-16)

      Even though thousand of years have passed since then, this is the same tactic that the enemies of God followed against God's people. Satan stills uses women he controls so God's people will sin, so they will not have God's protection and therefore could be destroyed. (See Article #50 from this series)

      In summary, Balaam did not do what God prohibited him, because he could not. Nonetheless, he would look for other ways to go against God's will. Good proof of this is when Balaam stayed with the Midianites instead of going back to his home. When Israel went to war with the Midianites, Balaam was one of the casualties.

“And they slew the kings of Midian, beside the rest of them that were slain; namely, Evi, and Rekem, and Zur, and Hur, and Reba, five kings of Midian; Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword” (Num. 31:8)

      Lastly, we could see that in 2 Peter 2:15, the apostle testifies that Balaam loved the prize. Also, in Jude 1:11, he accuses Balaam of loving the reward. When we read these things, we reaffirm that his inner desire was effectively evil, and that is why the angel of God was angry.

      It is good to have in mind the tactic invented by Balaam, not only to avoid it on our daily lives, but also to understand what is said in Rev 2:14, in the letter to the angel of the church of Pergamum.

“But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.” (Rev. 2:14)

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