The sin of Willfulness and what you must consider when serving as Balaam’s Donkey
We are all guilty of this.
When, you say glory be to God or God’s will be done, you at exuding righteousness. However, When serving God in the position of Balaam’s Donkey, consider that someone will always be riding your back, you will largely be ignored until you get to speak, you will be whipped and beat. And, you will get fed up. You will be in the presence of evil that flys in the face of God, willful sinfulness just like Satan. Saints do not like this, we are God’s children but be of good cheer, God is with you. And much of it is so sinful it becomes humorous—like the sublime to the ridiculous. So keep good humor about, you’ll need it. Intelligence from an impossible source: human speech from an animal.
Balaam’s story is found in Numbers. He was a non-Israelite prophet in the Bible (Numbers 22–24) hired by King Balak of Moab to stop the Israelites being at first, lead by Moses as they traversed the Wilderness.
Driven by fear of scarcity, just like now, is the basis for all of these problems along with disobedience.(Sometimes we can tell who grew up with scarcity. It reshapes your personality if you have little faith.)
Let’s begin at a familiar satanic choke point regarding willfulness in the Bible: the Bronze Snake.
Num 21: Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”
A Complaint.
Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.
A Punishment.
The Lord said to Moses, “Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.”
A Blessing.
So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.
Fast forward.
“Let us pass through your country. We will not turn aside into any field or vineyard, or drink water from any well. We will travel along the King’s Highway until we have passed through your territory.”
The Amorites said no, so the Israelites made war and took all of their land.
Now Balak son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites and they were on their way towards them.
Fast forward.
The Moabites said to the elders of Midian, “This horde is going to lick up everything around us, as an ox licks up the grass of the field.”
So the Moabites sent messengers to summon Balaam. He curses and blesses for a fee. The king wanted Baalam to curse the Israelites so that they would lose in a fight with them.
God said no, and to go nowhere with them. Balaam told them no, because God was against it.
They offered more money by prestigious officials, but he told them,
“Even if Balak gave me all the silver and gold in his palace, I could not do anything great or small to go beyond the command of the Lord my God.”
God let him go with the officials but he had to obey God and not curse.
God knows the hearts of all men. God was angry that he went with the prestigious officials. An Angel of Death met him on his way. God opened Balaam’s eye so he could see what the donkey saw, finally.
Balaam’s willfulness got him in grave danger so much so, one of the times the donkey stopped, it purposely crushed Baalam’s foot and it got beat for it. You have to read it for yourself but I can see many parallels within my own life. Sometimes I’m Balaam and sometimes the donkey.
As the story goes on, they look at the Israelites from three different vantage points, still asking God for permission to curse so Balaam can be paid and the Moabites can win in battle. They didn’t care about God’s will being done, on earth or in heaven. But Balaam could only say the words God put in his mouth, which were blessings.
“I summoned you to curse my enemies, but you have blessed them these three times. Now leave at once and go home! I said I would reward you handsomely, but the Lord has kept you from being rewarded.”
Balaam essentially told the king God is sovereign. In other words, we don’t control God.
Seem familiar? Balaam doesn’t seem different from any of us in our dealings with God and he is considered an evil prophet.
Although he couldn’t curse, he is said in Rev 2 to have used his influence for evil, still harming the Israelites in spite of God’s blessings.
“While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immorality with Moabite women,
Read Num 31:12-16
16: They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people.
And confirmed:
Rev 2:12 “To the angel of the church in Pergamum write:
These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword.
I know where you live—where Satan has his throne. Yet you remain true to my name. You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness,who was put to death in your city—where Satan lives.
14 Nevertheless, I have a few things against you: There are some among you who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality.
Balaam found a way to finesse the Israelites out of God’s full blessing because his heart or will was not with God. He wanted his money. I don’t know where the Bible says he got paid anything because it says they parted ways at Num 24:25, the last verse of that chapter, 25:1 opens with evil debauchery.
“While Israel was staying in Shittim, the men began to indulge in sexual immoralitywith Moabite women,
2: who invited them to the sacrifices to their gods. The people ate the sacrificial meal and bowed down before these gods.
3: So Israel yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor. And the Lord’s anger burned against them.
4: The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of these people, kill them and expose them in broad daylight before the Lord, so that the Lord’s fierce anger may turn away from Israel.” So Moses said to Israel’s judges, “Each of you must put to death those of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.”
8: and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear into both of them, right through the Israelite man and into the woman’s stomach. Then the plague against the Israelites was stopped; (24,000 died)
17: Treat the Midianites as enemies and kill them.
18: They treated you as enemies when they deceived you in the Peor incident involving their sister Kozbi, the daughter of a Midianite leader, the woman who was killed when the plague came as a result of that incident.”
But God makes a difference between old and new:
26:65 For the Lord had told those Israelites they would surely die in the wilderness, and not one of them was left except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
27:14 for when the community rebelled at the waters in the Desert of Zin, both of you disobeyed my command to honor me as holy before their eyes.” (These were the waters of Meribah Kadesh, in the Desert of Zin.)
21: He is to stand before Eleazar the priest, who will obtain decisions for him by inquiring of the Urim before the Lord. At his command he and the entire community of the Israelites will go out, and at his command they will come in.
22: Moses did as the Lord commanded him. He took Joshua and had him stand before Eleazar the priest and the whole assembly.
God trimmed them down and cleaned them up.
Then, a little bit of yeast…
31:2 (the Lord said) Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”
7: They fought against Midian, as the Lord commanded Moses, and killed every man.
8: Among their victims were Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur and Reba—the five kings of Midian. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword.
31:12 and brought the captives, spoils and plunder (money) to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the Israelite assembly at their camp on the plains of Moab, by the Jordan across from Jericho.
Moses wasn’t blinded by the money and the People were still disobedient and put what their appetite/flesh/will wanted over God’s will.
14: Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.
15: “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he asked them. 31:16 They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people,” thus saith the Word.
Maybe they had taken the sinful women as wives, concubines or girlfriends? We don’t know why they didn’t kill all of the women. We can only speculate.
Problem: They did some of what God wanted, just like the fallen angels, the evil prophet, Balaam (who they killed in this battle) and all of mankind (except Jesus who has incorruptible flesh. Acts 2:27-31 prophecy fulfilled that his flesh would not see corruption;1 Corinthians 15:42-54 describing the resurrected body as incorruptible; and Hebrews 7:26-28 describing him as holy and spotless).
A little bit of pride and disobedience goes a very long way. Generations, really. Burdens we cannot carry.
By 32:9 - 11 God separated those who would remain in the wilderness and those who would go forward into the Promised Land due to the disregard of God’s will regarding the allocation of land and fighting for the nation of Israel. In other words, agreement with flesh/evil rather than Goodness and Righteousness out of fear/loss of life.
Remember, God’s will is to be done on earth as in heaven.
32:13 -15 The Lord’s anger burned against Israel and he made them wander in the wilderness 40 years, until the whole generation of those who had done evil in his sight was gone.
Whew. Our willfulness must be put down!
Enjoy your Passover or Easter.
