The Meaning of Balaam for Today

But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, forever and ever . . . Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. (Daniel 7:18; Hebrews 12:28)

The story of Balaam and Balak is surely one of the most curious in all of Scripture. For three long chapters—Numbers 22-24—Moses interrupted the story of Israel’s journey toward the promised land to report this semi-comical vignette involving an anxious king and a reluctant prophet, neither of them friends or members of the covenant people, but rank pagans. It’s a strange story, to be sure, but one fraught with enormous significance for us today.

A little background is in order.

BALAAM AND BALAK
The story of Balaam and Balak occurs some forty years after the events of Numbers 14, when the people of Israel balked at the report of the ten unfaithful spies and refused to enter the land God had been preparing for them. In spite of the urgent pleadings of Joshua and Caleb, the people reviled Moses and Aaron and insisted on returning to Egypt. In response, God condemned them to wander in the desert and turned their eleven-day journey into a sojourn of forty years (Deuteronomy 1:2,3). All that faithless generation died in the wilderness without ever realizing the promised land of God’s covenant.

Fast-forward to Numbers 22. Now, forty years later, a new generation of Israelites is preparing to enter the land. They have approached the land of Moab, east of the Jordan River, which would be their staging ground for the invasion of Canaan. Doubtless many of those old fears were beginning to rise in this new generation. They knew the Canaanites were many and strong. All their lives they had heard the rationalizations and excuses of their now-perished parents and grandparents concerning why they had not entered the land before: “The people there are giants! They live in walled cities and have iron chariots! We were like grasshoppers before them!” Why, many of them must have been thinking, should things be any different now?

The story of Balaam and Balak, injected at just this time in Moses’ narration of events, must have given the people great encouragement. However this story reached their ears—perhaps the report of spies (cf. Numbers 21:32)—it allowed the people to see the degree of fear and panic that had settled on the Canaanite peoples, and to understand that even they were aware that God was on the side of Israel and that His plans for a kingdom in Canaan would not fail.

Called upon three times to curse Israel and deliver Moab from them, Balaam could only reiterate, in more and more forceful terms, that God was with Israel, that He intended to bless them, and that anyone who stood in their way would be utterly destroyed. Balaam, it seems, was not too concerned about what he reported to Balak, his many protests to say only what God revealed to him notwithstanding. Apparently he had asked the Lord to do what Balak wanted, no doubt so that he could receive the handsome reward that had been offered (cf. Joshua 24:9; 2 Peter 2:15; Jude 11). So in spite of the fact that God had told him not to go to Balak, for He was determined to bless His people (Numbers 22:12), Balaam went anyway. God’s allowing him to do so was merely permission for Balaam to pursue his pecuniary interests to his own destruction (Numbers 31:8), but Israel’s encouragement.

In the reports of those spies Israel could hear from the pagans’ own mouths that God’s plan and promises were still intact, that His power would not be thwarted, and that His purpose of establishing a kingdom of righteousness in Canaan would surely be accomplished. Balaam’s story was worth the telling for the encouragement it must have given to that generation about to embark on the fight of their lives.

BALAAM’S SIGNIFICANCE FOR TODAY
The Scriptures indicate that our Lord Jesus Christ has received a kingdom from God, the Most High and Ancient of Days (cf. Daniel 7:13,14; Psalm 110; Acts 2:34-36). The design of that kingdom is that a rule of righteousness, peace, and joy should come into being on earth, as it is in heaven, bringing the renewal of all things and the reconciliation of the world to God, expanding and growing and overwhelming all opposition to fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of God (Romans 14:17; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Daniel 2:44,45; Isaiah 9:1-7; Habakkuk 2:14). This kingdom has been given to the saints of the Most High God (Daniel 7:18), who are instructed to receive it with thanksgiving (Hebrews 12:28), pray that it might daily come into fuller and more complete reality (Matthew 6:10), and seek it and its righteousness as their first priority in everything they do (Matthew 6:33).

God, in other words, is working to establish a kingdom in the Canaan of our postmodern world. We have His Word that His plan has not changed and His purposes will not fail. But because we, like that new generation of Israelites on the plains of Moab, are prone to unbelief and doubt, God is speaking through the Balaams of our generation to remind us that His program is on course and to urge us on in our labors for His kingdom. If we listen carefully, we can hear the voices of contemporary Balaams as they testify to the truth and reliability of the divine economy. They are bearing witness to the settled status of God’s kingdom program in at least four ways.

First, we see them clinging for precious life to the law of God. Oh, they may protest the appearance of the Ten Commandments in the local court house or public school. And they will harrumph and snort to keep references to God’s law out of all manner of public policy debate. But there it is, prominently at work, protecting their property, their lives, and their honor by forbidding stealing, murder, slander, and a whole lot else besides. Our modern pagans can’t live with the law of God, but they can’t live without it. It provides the only workable framework for a just and civil society. Those nations and peoples who scorn the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—which our forebears derived from their understanding of God’s law—are regarded as barbaric and tyrannical. Today’s pagans shriek and cry and warn and fulminate against the law of God, but it’s so much a part of their everyday lives, that they couldn’t give it up entirely if they had to. God’s program is still on course, whether they like it or not.

Second, we see the steady advance of God’s kingdom in the salutary attitude of all men toward the institutions of charity. Only the most churlish laugh at those who give of their time and resources to help the victims of natural disaster, war, famine, and crime. It’s always good news when, in the wake of some tragedy, someone shows up to help. Helping others to survive, recover, and prosper once again—not exactly a Darwinian kind of thing to do. Yet there they are, all our contemporary Canaanites, wiping away tears of gratitude at every indication of a tender heart and a sacrificial gift. God is trampling out the pathway of His rule over their hearts, and they can’t help themselves but applaud His progress.

Third, the persistence of beauty among the unbelievers of our age reminds us that God is still on the radar screen of their aesthetic sense. While ideas about beauty change from one generation to the next, the idea of beauty has been a constant in every age and culture. Beauty speaks to men of something transcendent, ideal, unchanging, and desirable. It speaks to them that way because, made in the image of God, men are made to know and appreciate beauty, and to see a witness to God in beautiful things (Genesis 2:9).

We live in a highly materialistic age, when worth is measured in terms of wealth and all that can be gained by it. Yet this cannot possibly explain the wide spread popularity of such things as poetry, music lessons for our children, finger painting, the crafts movement, and the care and pride people take in their landscaping. We long for beauty. We long to be creators. And this irrepressible longing, rampant throughout the pagan population of the world, reminds us that God is not finished with them—or His kingdom—quite yet.

Finally, concern for the environment reminds us that the God who created us to exercise stewardship over the creatures is still plunking the heart-strings of men and women today over this issue. Were it truly consistent with its “Sha, la, la-la-la-la, live for today” rallying cry, this generation of unbelievers wouldn’t care less about whether the polar ice caps submerge their great-grandchildren. They would think it a matter of no consequence whatsoever if snail darters and moose go the way of passenger pigeons and dodos. Who cares? Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

But something continues to say to them, from a depth of their souls they only vaguely understand: “You are stewards of the earth, and everything in it. Conserve. Care about the environment. Think about the generations to come.” This can only be the all-but-suppressed image of God, reminding them of a calling beyond mere self-interest which has its origins in a Creator whose agenda continues advancing irresistibly, even in spite of its adversaries (Psalm 8:5-8).

So take heart!

Look around. Everywhere you can see that the pagan deniers, detractors, and denouncers are playing into the hand of God and paving the way for the progress of His kingdom. They rail against His law, but feign obedience to it, for they know it serves their selfish purposes (Psalm 81:15). They pursue an ideal of love which is almost entirely self-serving, though they doff their hats and thank their lucky stars for the charity that comes their way from selfless people they don’t even know. They repudiate all ideas of absolute goodness and beauty, except, of course, those which appeal most to them. And they motor around in their gas-guzzling SUVs even as they recycle their bottles and cans like good little conservationists.

Sometimes the unbelievers of our age show more awareness of the inescapability and inevitability of the kingdom of God than believers. We have been commanded to seek the kingdom of God, to lay hold on it with all the strength and force we can muster (Matthew 11:12), and to intrude the realm of righteousness, peace, and joy into every area of human life and interest, taking every thought captive and making it obedient to Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

We are charged with proclaiming the kingdom and the King whose sacrifice, resurrection, and present reign make righteousness, peace, and joy a reality for our everyday lives. And the evidence suggests that the unbelievers in our generation have already given in to the inevitability of God and His reign. Yet we flounder, wringing our hands on the plains of Moab, insisting (as many do) that the kingdom is only for the “end times” and for now we’re better off circling the wagons and hunkering down against the gathering storm of secularism, relativism, Darwinism, and postmodernism. Maybe the Lord will come back soon.

If we would but listen to the Balaams and Balaks of our day, we would be as encouraged as ancient Israel was to take heart and take up the calling to seek the kingdom of God with renewed vigor and sacrifice. The King rides forth each day, His scepter and sword in hand, to advance the kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy (Psalm 45:4-6; Revelation 6:2). Are we content for Him to go it alone?

FOR REFLECTION
Are you seeking the kingdom of God? What does that look like in your life? How do others see that you are seeking the kingdom that God has given you through Jesus?

T. M. Moore is dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics, (Waxed Tablet). He and his wife and editor, Susie, make their home in Concord, Tenn.