"Woe to them!For they have
gone in the way of Cain and have run greedily after the error of Balaam for profit and perished in the rebellion of Korah"Jude 1:11
NKJV New King James Version.
NKJV New King James Version.
In the fourth shortest letter of the New
Testament, Apostle Jude in a no-nonsense approach admonished his readers to
“fight for the faith” as he warned them to be aware of false teachers and men
who were perverting the grace of God and
using it as a license for sin, (Jude 1:3
CEB Common English Bible). In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, these men were
promoting “cheap grace”.Jude gives three characteristics of these men,( Jude 1:4) and
then uses three negative biblical examples
as patterns they have followed; the way of Cain, the error of Balaam and the rebellion
of Korah (Jude 1:11).
I
knew about Cain ,after all he won the award of first murderer in the Bible(Genesis
4:8) and as for Korah,(Numbers 16:1-32)
he dared to question the authority of Moses , the man of God that God spoke to
face to face (Exodus 33:11)what nerve! But what about Balaam? It was just an error
or so I thought until I began to study closely and realized that like us, Balaam made several
errors along the way before culminating
in the one he is most famously known for(Numbers 22-23,2 Peter 2:15,Numbers 31: 16, Revelations 2:14).To help us
understand and avoid these errors ,a little background to the story is
necessary.
The children of Israel had begun making
their way to the Promised land and had defeated some of their enemies and were
about to conquer the land of Jericho (Numbers 22:1). Stories of their past
victories had made headline news and their success attracted both admirers- Rahab
(Joshua 2:10-11) and enemies (Numbers 22:2-6).Two of these enemies (Balak, the
king of the Moabites and the Midianites teamed up together to fight the
children of Israel as they feared their
land would be conquered soon. Not surprisingly, these enemies were actually
their relatives (Matthew 10:35).The Moabites were descendants of Moab, the
first son of Lot, Abraham’s nephew born out of incest with his first daughter
(Genesis 19:36-37) while the Midianites
were descendants of Abraham from his wife, Keturah after the death of Sarah(Genesis
25:1-4).To ensure victory, they decided to employ the supernatural and engage
the services of Balaam a prophet who lived
hundreds of miles away. They were ready
to pay honorarium and foot the bill as they believed in testimonies of the
success of his ministry and anointing to attack their enemy.
What an encouragement for us
to harness and continuously refine our
God given gifts as we
see scriptures fulfilled in Balaam’s life as his gift made a way for
him(Proverbs 18:16). Without the benefit of a Facebook or Twitter account, or
even a complimentary card, he had people sending for him across international
borders. We must be careful though to use our gifts to serve God and his purposes
rather than the enemy.
Enemies are a living reality of the fallen
world and we all have them – both “real ones” and “phantom ones”. Some we have acquired
foolishly and unnecessarily while others have been wrongfully blacklisted by us.
It may be possible that like the children of Israel, sadly it is the success of
these individuals, being painful reminders of our unaccomplished dreams that
have made them enemies. As for the real enemies, different battles require
different strategies( 2 Corinthians 10 4,1 Samuel 18: 14,Matthew 10 :16, 1
Peter 5:8).Thus we should act wisely with the assurance that in the economical nature of God , he is
able to fight our battles as well as
use our enemies to accomplish his
purpose(Psalms 23:6,Romans 8:28).
In our next post, we will consider Balaam.
In his Service,
Grace Tom-Lawyer.
