Study in the Epistle of Jude # 57: Verse 11

by Chris McCann

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

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. We are currently going through the book of Jude. We have come to verse 11, where we read about Balaam. We have been looking at the account of Balaam and his donkey as God describes it in Numbers 22. In our last study, we came to Numbers 22:31, which says:

Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face.

Since God is using this kind of language, we have been wondering whether or not there is any possibility that God might have saved Balaam. He does speak of opening the eyes of Balaam so that he might see the Angel of the Lord standing in the way.

As we mentioned before, when the donkey, the ass, was able to see the Angel of the Lord those three times, it represented the true believers being given spiritual eyesight. Has it now developed that Balaam himself has spiritual eyes to see? Is he able to see the judgment of God now that the Lord God has opened his eyes? He does see the Angel of the Lord standing in the way.

We have seen that when the donkey was able to see this, it was a picture of the Great Tribulation in which the true believers see that God is now bringing judgment upon the church. The believers can no longer go any further with the Balaams of the world, with the unsaved within the congregations; therefore, they are typified by the donkey as she falls down under Balaam and goes no further with him.

We definitely know that as the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, this in no way means that he became saved. All the other language of the Bible indicates that he was not a true child of God, that he never became saved. Therefore, we have to conclude that God’s opening up his eyes is not pointing to salvation, but it must mean something else.

In Job 33:15-17 (this relates to what we looked at earlier in connection with Balaam’s seeking the Lord’s will as the princes of Moab came to hire him, but it also relates to this current verse where the Lord opened up the eyes of Balaam), we read:

In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; Then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man.

This has to do with the opening of the ears, not the opening of the eyes as we see in Numbers 22:31, but it is the same principle. God opens the ears. Normally, if we saw that type of language elsewhere in the Bible, we would think that it was referring to someone who became saved; but this is not saying that at all. God opens the ears of men as they lie upon their beds in time of sleep, and He seals their instruction.

This is indicating that God is sovereign in all things and that His will is paramount in everything; even as unsaved men go about their lives in open rebellion against God, God is working behind the scenes and orchestrating all events—He is sealing man’s instructions. Everyone is actually conducting their lives according to the sovereign will of God.

This does not mean that God is the author of sin in any way. Men will go about their daily lives committing sinful acts. God is only saying that as man is falling into this sin or that sin, it is because God has loosened his hand of restraint. That is why man goes further into a particular sin.

Then why is it that a man during the day will refrain from this sin or that sin? It is because God’s hand of restraint is upon him. According to the degree that God restrains His hand, so will men conduct their lives. In this sense, God has sealed their instructions. Everything is working out always in accordance with the will of God.

In this way, I think, we can understand what God is saying to Balaam as He is opening his eyes. We go on to read in Numbers 22:32-35:

And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me: And the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times: unless she had turned from me, surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive. And Balaam said unto the angel of the LORD, I have sinned; for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me: now therefore, if it displease thee, I will get me back again. And the angel of the LORD said unto Balaam, Go with the men: but only the word that I shall speak unto thee, that thou shalt speak. So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.

Balaam has his eyes opened, but not to salvation. He continues going down the same path; he continues traveling with these princes of Balak to go to curse Israel, contrary to the will of God. We read that this was contrary to God’s will in verse 12, which says:

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

Balaam has his eyes opened to some degree, so that now he has some understanding, we could say, of the judgment of God.

I think that we can relate this to those who are in the churches. They may come to the point where they can see some judgment of God in the sense that they realize, as they look at the condition of the church of today, that God is not pleased. He is not pleased with the way that the church is going; He is angry at the churches for their rebelliousness and unfaithfulness towards the Word of God. Certainly, we can understand that there are some in the churches that will recognize these things.

I know of some people who would even admit and confess that God is judging the church, but they stop short. They do not believe that God is completely judging the church to the point that God has left them and given them up into the hands of Satan. They will not admit to that truth from the Bible. They will recognize that it is hard to find a faithful church and that there are very few faithful churches in the world, to the point that you could probably count them upon one or two hands they are so rare. They will admit that, but they will not come to the point where they recognize that the Church Age has come to an end and that it is time to get out of the church, as God commands in Revelation 18:4.

We could say that they have their eyes open to some degree, so that they can see certain things that God has given them the ability to see. They recognize just how terrible, spiritually, the condition of the church is; yet they continue going down the same path. They do not leave the church; rather, they continue to try and find a faithful church. Therefore, they are typified by Balaam as he continued on his way.

Now as Balaam does go on in his way to go to try to pronounce this curse against Israel, we no longer read anything about the donkey. The donkey is no longer in view; Balaam’s ass has said her piece. She has fallen down under him and has refused to go any further because she recognized the Angel of the Lord standing there with His sword drawn ready to slay, and that is the last we ever see of Balaam’s donkey. We do not read that Balaam saddled his ass yet again or that he turned the ass back into the way or that he got her to stand up and got back on and continued traveling upon her. The ass is now entirely out of the picture.

Historically, something certainly happened to that donkey. Maybe she did get back up; maybe Balaam did begin to ride her again—we do not know, for God does not tell us what happened to the donkey. That is because the spiritual picture is that Balaam spiritually killed her with the staff, and then she ceased to travel the same road as Balaam.

Spiritually, this donkey represents believers who are at the point of the history of the world when it gets to the time of Great Tribulation. They will, for a period, be slain. As Revelation 11 tells us, the dead bodies of the two witnesses lie in the street for three and a half days. Then, they rise up on their feet. That rising up on their feet after three and a half days points to the time when believers will come out of the church. At that point in time, they will cease to travel with the unsaved in the churches. There will no longer be the wheat and the tares growing together (Matthew 13:24-30). Balaam and his donkey will have been separated.

That is why God simply stops talking about the donkey. He does not give us any further information about her because the picture is that she is no longer with Balaam at all. The donkey, who had spiritual eyes to see; the donkey, whose mouth God opened in order to warn Balaam—she is now removed from the picture. Balaam no longer has the warning coming from the donkey.

As the true believers come out, the unsaved in the congregations are left in a much worse condition than they were previously. They did not exactly like the fact that the two witnesses tormented them by bringing the true Gospel; nonetheless, it is a blessing of God to be in contact with those who are messengers of the true Gospel. As God has removed His people, the true children of God, from the churches and congregations, this leaves the vast majority of those still within the church as being unsaved. We will allow that there could be a few in the churches who have not yet come out yet who are true children of God; but more and more, those remaining in the churches are unsaved people. They are not being blessed by those who are carrying the true Gospel and who desire to bring the whole counsel of God.

This means that there will be a lot less talk of judgment in the church. There will be a lot less talk of Hell. There will be a lot less talk about the judgment upon the church itself and about all the doctrines of the Bible that the true believers desire to be faithful to. The unsaved simply do not have that same kind of concern. They want to be faithful to what their church teaches. They want to be faithful to what their confession or creed upholds, not so much what the Bible teaches.

Therefore, in that church or congregation where the believers have come out, they might be happier because they are not being troubled by those few in the congregation who kept reminding them of the truth of God’s Word; yet on the other hand, now they are free to go deeper down their erroneous paths and deeper into false teachings and false doctrines. Now they are free to wander farther from the truth of the Word of God without any reminder that the way that they are going, the way of Cain, the way of Balaam, leads to destruction. Without the donkey there to point the way to the field or to crush their foot against the wall to remind them that they have to bring the true Gospel to the world, they are going to go all the more readily down the road that leads to eternal damnation.

It is no blessing at all for those in the churches that the true believers have come out. Yet, the true believers cannot remain; they cannot stay, and, therefore, they are leaving at God’s command, His beckoning call. They must come out of the congregations. The only prayer of the believer for those remaining is that they might take warning from the believer’s action and remember that these believers left the church because the judgment of God was upon it.

Here and there, there might be one or two within the congregation who are considering and remembering that a child of God who seemed to be so faithful stopped attending church. One or two individuals in the church might stop and consider, “What was really causing that? Those who stopped coming to church were not the ones that cared nothing for the Gospel. You meet those that do not really care for the Word of God. They come to church for a few weeks, then their interest wanes and you never see them again because they are being attracted back to the world. Yet, how unusual it is, how very unusual, that someone who was so interested in the Bible and the Gospel, left the church. They didn’t leave the church because they wanted to go back to the world. They left the church because they were claiming that it was the command of God to come out of the church. They still believe in God and in the Bible; they still have an interest in sharing the Gospel, yet they feel that they cannot worship in the church any longer because the church has come under the wrath of God and God has left it. Now that is highly unusual.”

So it could be that there might be one or two who will think about this and ponder these things in their heart and then look at what the church is teaching. Possibly, God will open their eyes to look to the Bible to see if what the church is teaching is matching what the Bible says.

Of course, if they do that, they will see that the church of today, whatever denomination, is not teaching what the Bible says on many points of doctrine. It could be that over time, this individual, while considering the child of God who has come out and while looking to the Bible, might likewise understand himself and see that it is time to leave the churches and congregations of the world.

We have now come to the end of our study on Balaam. We have taken a good look at him as well as Cain. Let us read Jude verse 11 again, which says:

Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

Korah is another individual who is also written about in the book of Numbers. He is found in Numbers 16, a little earlier in the book than Balaam. Let us read verses 1-3 of that chapter:

Now Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and On, the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men: And they rose up before Moses, with certain of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown: And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the LORD?

This is commonly known as “Korah’s rebellion,” who rebelled along with Dathan and Abiram. These men who rose up were not just any old men in the congregation—they were the spiritual leaders of the congregation. These men were the princes of the congregation, the ones who had oversight over large groups of Israelites. We read this in Numbers 1:16, which says:

These were the renowned of the congregation, princes of the tribes of their fathers, heads of thousands in Israel.

Here we see that 250 princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown, gathered themselves together. They rose up in rebellion against Moses and Aaron. It would not be too far of a stretch to say that these 250 princes possibly represented a very large portion of the whole nation of Israel, considering that the princes would be heads over thousands and here we have 250 of them.

The number 250 is an interesting number. It is made up of five times five times ten, so we see that the number five is clearly in view. The number five in the Bible, if it has a spiritual meaning, points to either the grace of God or the judgment of God. In this case, as we will go on to see very definitely, it points to the judgment of God. Furthermore, the number ten has to do with the completeness of whatever is in view.

Therefore, when we go on to read about the judgment that God is going to bring on these 250 princes and some others of Israel, we can understand that the spiritual picture is one of God’s judgment upon all the unsaved in the congregation, as these men will perish. We remember that this is what Jude verse 11 tells us is in view. We read there that they “perished in the gainsaying of Core.” All the unsaved, all the false prophets who would later follow, are typified by those who perished in the gainsaying of Core.

Therefore, this chapter of Numbers 16 will involve itself with the final judgment, with the casting off of the unsaved on the Last Day. I think that it will also get involved with the time of Great Tribulation, which comes right up against the end of the world. We have seen already with the two false prophets, Cain and Balaam, that God has given us information regarding the end times, and likewise with Korah, we will see that there is information for our present day.