Study in the Epistle of Jude # 52: Verse 11

by Chris McCann

EBible Fellowship (http://www.ebiblefellowship.com)

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. We are currently looking at the book of Numbers as we are seeking to understand the reference to Balaam in Jude verse 11. In Numbers 22, we have seen that Balak the king of Moab had sent princes to Balaam to hire him to curse Israel—that was the historical account. Spiritually, Balak is a picture of Satan who is seeking to interrupt God’s salvation plan and to interfere with the elect of God who are coming out of Egypt, out of the world, and finding salvation by God’s grace. Balaam is the false prophet whom Satan is enlisting to do his work.

We are saying that Balak the king of Moab typifies Satan, but can we say that Satan is the king of the church? During the Great Tribulation, we definitely can; but what about during the Church Age? When we turn to Revelation 2, we see that Satan is in view. In Revelation 2:12-13, we read:

And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is…

To be seated or to sit in the Bible has to do with ruling. God here is addressing the church at Pergamos—how can Satan have a seat there? How can he rule in the congregation? He can if there are any unsaved individuals in the church of Pergamos.

As God is speaking to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, He is describing the Church Age itself. What is true of Pergamos is true of the whole corporate body, the church. Satan is ruling over the unsaved in the churches; they are his emissaries. When someone would rise to the position of pastor who has never become born again, someone who does not have Christ as his King or his Lord, someone who is still under the power of darkness and still in the kingdom of darkness even though he professes to be a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of Light, then his ruler is Satan. This is why God speaks of Satan’s seat being in the congregation, just as Balak, who is representing Satan, is the king of Moab. He is the king of the corporate body, as far as those who are not saved.

Balak goes about to enlist Balaam to curse the Israelites who are coming out of Egypt. This is going on in the church. This is Satan’s assault against the true believers, and it is from within the churches and congregations. He is not coming against them from the world, at least not in this case.

As we think about it, where do most of the adversaries of the truth and of the true Gospel come from? Do they come from the world? Is the world upset at what God teaches as far as His salvation plan is concerned? No, the world has no interest in the Gospel at all, unless it impacts them to some degree—then they will show their displeasure. But for the most part, they just let it be. They do not get involved with the Gospel.

We see this in some of the accounts in the book of Acts. The Jews would be raising a ruckus and bringing persecution upon the New Testament believers. They would come before some of the secular authorities, but the secular authorities would care nothing for their spiritual arguments. They would say, “See ye to it, ye Jews,” and they would have no interest in these things. We see this with Pilate also—he could not understand why the Jews were so set in their ways to have Christ crucified.

This is the situation of the world. As far as the teaching of the Word of God is concerned, the people of the world are not the ones whom the people of God have to constantly be wary of. Rather, it is from those who profess to be Christians themselves, from those who profess to be the people of God and to be brethren—this is where the assault normally comes from. It comes from within.

Satan has made inroads. He has sown tares among the wheat and gone his way (Matthew 13). He rules; he has a position of rulership. Already during the Church Age, Satan had a seat in the congregations, and Balak is a picture of this as he is a king who rules over Moab.

Let us continue reading the passage in Revelation 2. There, we see this church of Pergamos where Satan’s seat is. In verses 13-14, we read:

…and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth. But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication.

We find that Satan’s seat is there and then we find that they suffer, or allow, those who hold to the doctrine of Balaam. This is because Satan does have a seat there, because Balak has hired Balaam. Satan has hired the false prophet to come and curse Israel, to come and upset God’s plan of salvation. Thanks be to God that it cannot be upset! Yet this is the spiritual battle that is raging.

Let us go back to Numbers 22 and read verses 7-14. It says there:

And the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the rewards of divination in their hand; and they came unto Balaam, and spake unto him the words of Balak. And he said unto them, Lodge here this night, and I will bring you word again, as the LORD shall speak unto me: and the princes of Moab abode with Balaam. And God came unto Balaam, and said, What men are these with thee? And Balaam said unto God, Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, hath sent unto me, saying, Behold, there is a people come out of Egypt, which covereth the face of the earth: come now, curse me them; peradventure I shall be able to overcome them, and drive them out. And God said unto Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed. And Balaam rose up in the morning, and said unto the princes of Balak, Get you into your land: for the LORD refuseth to give me leave to go with you. And the princes of Moab rose up, and they went unto Balak, and said, Balaam refuseth to come with us.

If Balaam had left it at that, if this were the end of the story, then we would think that he was a true child of God; we would think he was a true prophet. Yet we know that later on, he does end up going with the princes.

Balak sent his princes, and he sent them with the rewards of divination in their hand. In other words, he sent them with money to hire Balaam. That is why God speaks the way He does regarding Balaam and regarding those who follow in his footsteps. As Jude 11 says, “Woe unto them! For they have…ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward.” God is indicating that he went after the money. That is why he finally went.

2 Peter 2:15 says:

Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

Again we see the wages, the reward, the gold and the silver. Balak, whom we know to be representing Satan, sends princes and sends money in their hand. They come to Balaam at the word of Balak to convince him to come and curse Israel. What we have here, I think, is God giving us an inside look into how Satan operates in enlisting his emissaries. He is giving us some insight into how Satan is able to enlist those men who come as “ministers of righteousness,” as we read in 2 Corinthians 11. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 says:

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

Satan has ministers of righteousness and he is called an “angel of light.” The Lord Jesus Christ is the light of the world; Satan comes trying to look like Christ. He comes with false gospels. He tries to get as close to the truth as possible, but there are lies mixed with the truth—these are false gospels.

Here he wants Balaam. Balaam is the key; he is the one whom he will utilize to bring about the curse upon the Israelites coming out of Egypt. What is it that will convince Balaam to sign up with Balak? What is it that will get Balaam to come and curse Israel? “Let us send princes,” Balak thinks. “Let us send princes. Let us send men of renown. Let us send men of a name, men who are honorable, men of high standing.”

This is what Satan does—he works on the pride of man. When he is trying to enlist a man to be a minister of righteousness, he gets him to work in the gospel. He tries to convince him by all those who have come before him who are already princes and who are aligned with Satan. He entices them, “Look at how these men teach the gospel. Look at how they have prospered and how honorable and highly esteemed they are in the eyes of their congregations and their denominations. You too can be lifted up to this high and lofty position. You can get a nice salary if you become a pastor; it can be a good and profitable occupation for you. Never mind if you have never experienced true salvation or if you have never been broken by the Word of God. Never mind if you have never been humbled under the mighty hand of God or if God has not truly called you to Himself. You can take this upon yourself. You are the one who can go after this role of pastor, just like you would go after the position of doctor or lawyer or any other professional occupation, and you can get a handsome reward for it as well.” That is one way Satan works on someone.

We see how Balak came to Balaam, and to be fair, we see that Balaam resists. He has some character, he has some respect for the Lord, and he has some resistance to Balak’s attempts to draw him and lure him to himself. He goes to God, and God says in Numbers 22:12:

And God said unto Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed.

Balaam takes God at His Word. He rises up in the morning and says unto the princes of Balak, “Get you into your land: for the LORD refuseth to give me leave to go with you.” The princes of Moab rose up and went unto Balak. They said unto him, “Balaam refuseth to come with us.”

However, this is not the end of the story. If someone is an unsaved person, they are open game; it is open season for Satan there. Satan is the one who controls that person, and that is why Balak will not accept “no” for an answer. He knows the weaknesses of man. He knows where man is vulnerable, especially a man who is not protected by God, a man who does not have salvation or the Holy Spirit. Once sin enters the picture, once desire gets in the way, that man will go after his lust given enough time and given enough pressure. Whatever his sin weakness is, it will be found. Therefore Balak sends more princes. We read in verses 15-21:

And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honourable than they. And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith Balak the son of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from coming unto me: For I will promote thee unto very great honour, and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me: come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people. And Balaam answered and said unto the servants of Balak, If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the LORD my God, to do less or more. Now therefore, I pray you, tarry ye also here this night, that I may know what the LORD will say unto me more. And God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them; but yet the word which I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do. And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab.

Balaam refused at first. He said, “No.” He went to God, and God clearly said, “You shall not go with them. You will not curse these people, for they are blessed.” However, Balak does not give up, and neither does Satan give up in the churches and congregations during the Church Age. Balak sends more princes who are more honorable and more prestigious. We could think of this as those who have more doctorates, those that are widely known in the church world, those who are on Satan’s side on this doctrine and on that teaching. They come to Balaam and are applying pressure. God knows that men who are unsaved are very much subject to the pressures of their fellow man. That is why the Apostle Paul speaks of the importance of not pleasing man. We see this in Galatians 1:9-10, which says:

As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.

You can please man or you can please God—it is one or the other. An unsaved person feels the pressure. He feels the peer pressure of his fellowman when he starts teaching the truth of the Bible. Often, a man happens to be in a congregation where most of the people are unsaved, including many in authority, the elders and deacons. They are princes of Balak, to use the figure of speech from Numbers 22. They are emissaries of Satan, the ministers of righteousness, but they are not truly ministers of God. They start applying the pressure—”You are teaching too much about Hell and about election. You are driving the people out of the church.” Eventually, the unsaved person is going to cave in and give up. Either he is going to quit and run away or he is going to compromise and give in to what his fellowman wants. Rather than obeying God, he will obey man.

Balak sends more princes who are more honorable to Balaam. Balaam begins to think, “Well, did God really say, ‘Thou shalt not go’? Did He really say that the people are blessed? Let me go check again.” He goes back to God yet again and he wants to hear it again from the Lord’s mouth. At this point, we see that Balaam is not a true child of God. God had already told him, “You will not go, for the people are blessed,” yet he is going back to God to find out if he can curse the people, these people of whom God said, “You shall not curse, for they are blessed.”

Let us use this comparison. Let us say that there is a man who has become divorced and he hears what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that once someone is divorced, they are never to remarry unless they remarry their first husband or their first wife, and that only if their first husband or wife has not remarried someone else. They can get back together with that person, but if they are divorced and they meet someone else, they are not to countenance the idea of remarriage. They are not to be remarried because the Bible says that it would be an adulterous marriage.

Now here is a man who has just been divorced. He hears this part of the Gospel; he sees the verses and he recognizes, “Yes, this is what God says. This is the truth of what the Bible says. I figure that I am going to have to consign myself. I am going to have to recognize that I cannot get remarried—I must stay a single man.” Then down the line, he meets a woman and, “Wow, what a beautiful woman,” he thinks. “What a lovely woman. I have always desired to be married to a woman like this, and now here she is in my life. Finally, God must have brought her into my path. This must be God’s will. Let me go back and look at the Bible again. Let me turn to the Scriptures once more.”

He has already heard from the Bible. He has already seen what God teaches—that there is not to be divorce, and if you are divorced, there is not to be remarriage. It is forbidden by God; it is not permissible in any case. There is no exception whatsoever. Yet he goes back to the Bible because now his desire is stronger. Now it is profitable for him to find some evidence in the Bible. It would be to his benefit if he could find something that would allow him to remarry.

Therefore, he is looking at the Word of God, not with the intent to allow the Bible to be its own interpreter, not with the intent to allow God to define His own terms, not with the intent to be in submission to whatever the Bible says, but with a mindset to find the answer that he wants to hear. He goes to Matthew 19 and he finds something that says, “Except for fornication.” Somehow, he relates that to his marriage relationship. He is able to come up with up a whole doctrine and conclude that he can get remarried. He found what he wanted to find.

However, nothing has changed in the Bible. He is misunderstanding Matthew 19 where it says, “Except for fornication.” All the other Scriptures still stand. A divorced man is never to remarry. “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder” (Matthew 19:6). He is still married to his first wife according to the Bible. If he were to remarry another woman, he would have a second wife, and this is contrary to the will of God. “The twain shall be one flesh,” Matthew 19:5 says. Still, he goes ahead and gets married.

In one sense, God has allowed this. God has permitted him to carry on with this sinful desire. God did not stop him; in other words, He did not prevent him from going ahead and becoming married.

This is exactly what we have here with Balaam. Balaam heard the Lord’s will—”Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people, for they are blessed.” But now, more princes who are more honorable come with promises of greater glory and greater honor and greater money. It is certainly in Balaam’s best interest to go. It is certainly his increasing desire to go with these men and curse Israel. This is the desire of his heart—he wants to be lifted up. He wants to receive these riches and he wants this reward for his prophecy. He goes to God. Who knows how this worked out, but in Numbers 22:20, we read:

And God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them; but yet the word which I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do.

God is not saying that it is now His will that Balaam go and curse Israel, but God is permitting Balaam to go down his wicked way and to travel down that road that leads to destruction. We see this in verse 22, which says:

And God’s anger was kindled because he went…

God sometimes allows us to go on and sin. He permits us to fall into this sin or that sin; however, it does not mean that God is pleased with that in any way.

In our next study, Lord willing, we will pick up with Numbers 22:22.