This morning I was listening to a lecture on BBN Bible Institute on Balaam/Special Bible Characters. As a Sunday School teacher (of young children) I had remembered God’s warning to Balaam and the donkey speaking. In other words I did not remember much. I learned that Balaam was a preacher/a fine one who was a Gentile prophet. Balaam had two major problems that he clung onto and that was a LOVE of MONEY and a HEART of LUST. These were his two LOVES. (The two seem to be with us even today.) The Moab King , Balak, asked him to come preach and forbade him to speak of Israelites or future of the Israelite Nation. He would be given a large sum of MONEY. OMG was Balaam excited. He was determined to adhere to Balak’s demands of what not to preach BUT God would not allow Balaam’s tongue to say anything but what HE wanted to the KING to hear. Balaam felt OMG I’m going to lose the MONEY from Balak because I spoke what he forbade me not too. He thought I can not curse Israel because God forbade it. Balak at this point was madder than hell. Balaam instead of walking away and saying forget the money, I will walk with the Lord, he thought I know how to get the King to corrupt the nation. Balaam didn’t love God or God’s people. He loved the wages of unrighteousness. He did something that was totally against God and showed where his heart was. He suggested to the king if you cannot curse a nation which is blessed by God, then may I suggest they be judged. Sir he said, entangle the men with the women of Moab. Balaam picked up his money. He had sinned willfully after preaching the WORD of God because of his LOVE for the unrighteous. Balaam’s choice led to grave, grave peril – death – eternal life without God – hell.
When we think on this we can ask ourselves are we Balaam’s in the church. Do we speak one thing to others and yet cling to the unrighteousness in our lives LOVE OF MONEY, HEART of Lust, addictions, etc. Is Jesus first in our lives and his way of living first? Is our Father God or is our Father Satan – one or the other. Balaam made his choice long ago. What is our choice today? We still have time. Your friend, Rena
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Fruit tells the tales! Show and tell is a grown up game. Rena’s story speaks of money and lust! Galatians 5 gives the list of fruit which shows in color and love is ablazed in gold and red! If one loves money no love for God’s children of the world that John 3:16 speaks of. Just me, mine and what I can get and that includes what money can buy. Even how to produce children of one’s own by means of money, or abortion, and other issues, rather than food or medical care for ones God has throughout the war torn world. Also lust for sex producing children as gifts from God. This is a touchy subject but pricy and moral items that takes money and sex. I look at Brad/Jolien Pitt and see Jesus even thought I have no clue what they have to say about Jesus. I surely see Him when it comes to love of children and not their money. Preacher Balaam lied, deceived and had a fun time with his money he inherited from telling lies and not honest work where the wages were looking less than minimum. I Timothy 6:10 “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” I repeat my thoughts fruit shows. When I read; “pierced themselves with many griefs.” Look for fruit and it’s tattoos that reveals truth. Show and tell.
Rena, I, of course have the real answer here. Your story is Old Testament and my monkey thoughts are old school. We need to fess up to the new way and forget this old line of thinking. Maybe your teaching of Sunday School for children was the best way. Laugh could be on us. Did the soft teaching produce the new love.
One thing I believe deeply when a story is told from God’s Word, the Bible, it gives a key to unlock a room that one might think secret, skeleton in closet, or other term but it opens the door for all to see if one looks and not turns the head. Balaam and ass speaking is such a story!
Aweeee! Romans 14 is full of answers for us!
I read Romans 14, Sara, as you said it was full of answers for us. This vs 7,8 ” For we don’t live for ourselves or die for ourselves. If we live, it’s to honor the Lord. And if we die, it’s to honor the Lord.” looked like it had one answer. It refuted “Just me, mine and what I can get and that includes what money can buy….”
A friend shared a principle with me about her mind going around and round to get her way one way or another….said that she had overcome because she choose to. She gave her illustration and overcoming taken from;
Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, pages 145-161….
“…Emotion from the pain-body quickly gains control of your thinking, and once your mind has been taken over by the pain-body, your thinking becomes negative. The voice in your head will be telling sad, anxious, or angry stories about yourself or your life, about other people, about past, future, or imaginary events. The voice will be blaming, accusing, complaining, imagining. And you are totally identified with whatever the voice says, believe all its distorted thoughts. At that point, the addiction to unhappiness has set in.
It is not so much that you cannot stop your train of negative thoughts, but that you don’t want to. This is because the pain-body at that time is living through you, pretending to be you. And to the pain-body, pain is pleasure…”
And sometimes…doesn’t it SEEM that that’s the easier way out if one is REALLY looking for a way OUT like they say they are. ! Pain is the broad, FAMILIAR path. Much easier than having to “unlock your own resources” as the devotional put it.
And yet, how much labor does faith take? It takes FAITH to be delivered from one’s addictions. And the word addiction could almost mean “something I like or something I like to do” Yikes! What slavery!
Oh Sara I would rather err on the side of what the scripture says though they may be ancient of days as God is real to me and more than worthy. It seems that the difference between truth and untruth today the lines are being blurred to not existing at all. What is truth then! What is error then! But God’s Word is full of stories to help us see human characteristics and human frailities of people walking in the light and people who did not. We all flawed (sinful). Lord Jesus is working on us continually trying correct and let us see what we need to lay before him. The exercise and experience over the years if are wills do cause us to lay every sin at his feet, the process draws us closer to Him for He knows us and love us and we can testify to that. The question do we will to get rid of sin or not. Just like the women’s story above she chose to stop the ferris wheel of her mind.
This is very much like my story which involved a choice to get off.
In Romans 14 over differences among people, we are told to Paul wanted to promote unity and honor as far as possible the convictions of others. We are also told in the notes in the next chapter of Romans 15: 4 reads the knowledge of the Scriptures effects our attitude toward the present and the future. The more we know about what God has done in years past, the greater the confidence we have about what he will do in the days ahead. We need to diligently read our Bibles so we may have confidence that God’s will is best for us.
As we study God’s Word and read his stories how do we compare with the characters. It puts you/me on the hot seat as we peer in the mirror of scripture. Am I like him/her. Besides the story above, this morning I heard another speaker from BBN tell the story of Joab, a man at the helm of David. He was raised in a Godly home in fact he was the son of David’s sister. He was loyal of King David. You could find none better. He eventually turned on David as he did not think the way David did nor did he have the heart for the people that David did. He was finally handed over by David to be judged. How does this compare with us today. How does it mirror us. Hold it up and see! Yeeks! As the speaker of BBN said – some of us were raised in the church and we feel comfortable there just as JOAB. We may be loyal members like JOAB The big, big question is do we LOVE the Lord. If we did LOVE the Lord we would seek Him first as He loves each one of us and knows every situation we face and knows what will harm and be good for us. Our thinking would be in line with the Lord. (We would not have negative thinking, but forward thinking – hope in Jesus Christ) We, me to often, either don’t ask the Lord, or throw up a prayer but outrun Jesus to get what we want. We don’t wait to seek God’s truth or allow God to expose and error in our thinking. One of the speakers this morning said “Me first people are disqualified.” God’s disqualification is dire. We to will be judged! Guilty of NOT really LOVING OUR LORD or LOVING HIM. To love Him is to know Him. John 14: 4 says “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is… The direness is the loss of ever being with Jesus. How about trying to have a relationship with HIM this year. He’s waiting just for you!
I agree that scripture is the best medicine for whatever ails me as I have heard the old preachers say. But, do the now people look there or to science, movies or the tonight show or any show? Another issue might be worth some thought and dialogue would be morals. Is there room in our daily conversations for morals to be addressed?