A Talking Donkey and a Prophetic Jackass

A Talking Donkey and  a Prophetic Jackass 

Numbers 21-25

“And Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel camping tribe by tribe, and the Spirit of God came upon him.”

                  The story of Balaam is full of paradoxes and irony.  The story begins with a donkey rebuking Balaam and Balaam pronouncing the blessing upon Israel but concludes with Balaam becoming the epitome of ungodliness.  Rather than being a godly prophet, Balaam was the ultimate jackass; a person who was characterized in Scripture as a detestable person who was a local prophet for hire and more concerned about financial gain than he was about honoring and obeying God.

Balak, fearing the success and threat of Israel, sought out a local seer known to communicate with the gods.  From the outset, it is clear that Balaam is not a genuine prophet of God but a local seer who claimed to be able to communicate with the gods of the land.  He was a prophet for hire.  At first, when Balak asked Balaam to pronounce a curse upon Israel, Balaam refused because God supernaturally prohibited Balaam from doing so.  However,  the allure of promised wealth and gain enticed Balaam to do as Balak wished to gain the financial rewards he promised.    Even though God had permitted Balaam to go with Balak, he was to do so only if he faithfully communicated God's message. The first hint that Balaam’s motives were not grounded in obedience but greed is revealed by the appearance of the Angel of the Lord with a drawn sword ready to kill Balaam.  Only through the intervention of a talking donkey was Balaam spared.

                  This brush with death was enough to convince Balam to share only the message of God.  As a result, much to the disappointment of Balak, instead of pronouncing a curse upon Israel, in each of his prophetic proclamations, he pronounced God’s blessing upon Israel. However, the story does not end with the pronouncements of blessings.  At first glance, the events that followed in Peor (25:1-3) and Israel’s compromise by intermarrying with the Canaanites and embracing their idolatry seem unconnected.  However, In Numbers 31:16, we discover this came from Balaam’s advice.  If they wanted to weaken Israel and nullify the blessing of God, instead of confronting them in war, they should undermined their faith by involving them in the worship of false gods. As a result, Balaam became an example of extreme ungodliness and one who profited from evil (2 Peter 2:15; Jude 11). 

                  The story of the talking donkey is a story about a talking jackass (i.e., Balaam) who was responsible for corrupting the people of Israel and introducing and integrating idolatry into their religious practices.  Yet, this is the tactic used by Satan throughout history.  If he cannot defeat us with the lure of open rebellion against God, he deceives people with the subtlety of spiritual compromises.  Instead of destroying our faith with the lure of sin, he seeks to distort our faith with the lure of compromise. Instead of listening and obeying God, we start to listen and embrace the world.  As the saying goes, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”  But in this case, it is “If you can’t beat them, then get them to join you.”  It is spiritual defeat through the back door.  The danger of compromise is that often, it sneaks into our lives without our awareness.  We start to embrace the world because of its appeal to us.  The only solution is to keep our focus on the Scriptures. God warned Israel not to adopt the worship of idols and false Gods (Exodus 20:4-5 see also Deut. 13:1).  Yet this is precisely what they did.

                  In our spiritual life, we constantly need to examine our lives to ensure that our direction and focus are governed by Scripture rather than the culture in which we live.  Being faithful to God is to remain vigilant to the deception and false worship of the world.  Romans 12:2 reminds us, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”  It is easy to be vigilant when the enemy approaches an army, but we can easily be deceived when they extend the hand of fellowship and invite us to participate in their sin.  We are to love our enemy, but we must also be careful not to be led astray by our enemy.

                  In your life, who are you following and listening to?  Do you allow God and His word to define how you live, or are you listening to the world around you?  Sometimes the donkeys may talk, but we need to be wary of the talking jackass who invites us to compromise our faith.