The False Prophet Balaam: When Opportunity Knocked, He Answered Series

(Edited from and based on a message preached Sunday evening, 2-16-25 at New Hope Baptist Church of Fulton, MO; this is not an exact transcription.)

Introduction: The story of Balaam is, or at least used to be, one of the saddest in the entire Bible. It seems he knew the One True God and could speak to Him honestly and openly. Still, he gave some chilling advice to a pagan king which resulted in the death of over 20,000 Israelites.

As with any series, there is much to discover about false prophets like Balaam, This first message begins when opportunity knocked, and Balaam agreed to the “deal”. Let’s see what the Word has to say about all this:

1 The Reality of the Situation

Text: Numbers 22:1-6, KJV: 1 And the children of Israel set forward, and pitched in the plains of Moab on this side Jordan by Jericho. 2 And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. 3 And Moab was sore afraid of the people, because they were many: and Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel. 4 And Moab said unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field. And Balak the son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at that time. 5 He sent messengers therefore unto Balaam the son of Beor to Pethor, which is by the river of the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying, Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt: behold, they cover the face of the earth, and they abide over against me: 6 Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land: for I wot that he whom thou blesses is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed.

If anyone were to come to this passage “cold”, or not aware of the context, that person might well be a little confused by what’s happening here. To set the stage a little, remember that Numbers had records of various things including a census of all military-age males (age 20 and up); plus a detailed account (chapter 7) of what each tribe gave the Tabernacle and priests over a 12-day period. More recently, Israel had come to the east side of the Jordan River and had defeated Sihon and Og, kings of various tracts of land in Bashan, also east of the Jordan.

Israel victory was complete and, maybe not surprisingly, Moab was now scared of what they thought was going to happen. Balak may have thought, “We’re next,” even though the LORD had expressly forbidden Israel to take any of Moab’s land (Deuteronomy 2:8-9).

Further, Midian seemed to be allied with Moab, although it’s never mentioned elsewhere in Scripture. Even so, with all this manpower, and the advantage of fighting on their own soil, Moab and Midian were very afraid of what Israel might do. Balak even used a colorful figure of speech when he said Israel will lick up the territory around them, just like an ox would “lick up the grass of the field”. Now, the church where I pastor is very fortunate to have a very experienced pastor emeritus. Pastor B has a lot of knowledge and explained to me that an ox would use its tongue to raise the grass up before the ox would chew the grass from the ground.

It’s been said that fear can be a powerful motivator and this fear of Israel led Balak to choose a seemingly unusual strategy. He sent messengers to Balaam, son of Beor, who was living near the “river (usually taken to mean the Euphrates)”. Balak decided to send messengers to Balaam, asking him to come and curse “a people come from Egypt” but not mentioning just who those people were. Note, then, how sly Balak tried to be here: “Come and curse a people for me, but I can’t or won’t tell you who they are."

Balak also seemed to be aware of the LORD’s promise to Abraham which, among other things, guaranteed that the LORD would bless those who bless Abraham and his descendants, and that the LORD would curse those who cursed Abraham and his descendants (Gen 12:1-3). How that promise came to Balaam is something I’ve never figured out, as Balaam was in the line of Esau or Edom (Gen 36:1, 32; allowing for the same Beor to be father to Balaam as well as Bela).

The messengers then went their way to find Balaam. They found him, all right, but they didn’t exactly find everything they were looking for.