LESSONS FROM BALAAM March 22, 2015 morning service
Transcription
LESSONS FROM BALAAM March 22, 2015 morning service
LESSONS FROM BALAAM March 22, 2015 morning service Revelation 2:14 Take your Bible this morning and go to the book of Revelation chapter 2. We’ve just finished up preaching toward our young people’s mind and then three messages out of Matthew 6 and we’re marching toward Easter and so next Sunday with Palm Sunday we focus on the cross. One Sunday here and then a Sunday after. Pastors call this spot preaching. It’s a standalone message. It’s not in a series. I’ll be doing that. When we get to May I’ll begin a new series of sermons that I’m working on now. But this morning – for the last several weeks this has just gripped my heart and I wanted to share with you just what I’m sensing God’s teaching me. Over in the fourth book of the Bible, the book of Numbers, there is a story about a man named Balaam. He’s a soothsayer. He’s a prophet. He’s a spirit man. He knows of God and maybe knows God and he hears from God. Well there are hundreds of people in the Old Testament but this particular man, three writers of the New Testament take his story and pick it up and put it over in their writing in the New Testament as a warning to all of us. So there’s something we need to learn from Balaam. Now most of us know about Balaam just one thing. His donkey talked to him. When we think of Balaam, we think of that. In the King James it says that Balaam rode an ass and that his ass spoke. It’s a preacher’s joke. We talk about it all the time. You know, if God can use a donkey he can use you. That’s what we usually think about but there’s much more to Balaam than simply his donkey talking to him. The Israelites are moving right up on the Promised Land. They’re about to go in and Balak, not Balaam, but Balak, the king of the Moabites is frightened about Israel moving forward. So he sends a team of his men to find Balaam. They said, “Balaam, come. We’ll pay you a big love offering. Curse Israel.” Balaam says, “I can’t do it. I can only say what God says.” And Balaam winds up giving four of the most beautiful, powerful, affirming blessings on the nation Israel that you find anywhere in scripture. After he told them no, they send an entourage back and said, “We’ll pay you more money.” They said to him again and again, “Please come. Please come.” Balaam said, “Give me all the gold and silver in Balak’s house, I’m not coming to do that. I can only say what God says.” Finally that’s when he gets on his donkey and he comes and his donkey can see God but Balaam can’t and God deals with him. Finally he awakens and he goes and you find in Numbers 22, 23, and 24 this story. You ought to read it sometime but something wicked happened with Balaam. As positive as he looks, something wicked is at work here. As positive as some Baptists look, sometimes there is something wicked at work here. Three New Testament writers take three verses and this is what they say about Balaam and I want us to learn from him some lessons this morning. Revelation 2:14. John is writing and he’s writing the seven churches and he writes to the church at Pergamum and he says: But I have a few things against you, because you have there some who hold the teaching of Balaam, who kept teaching Balak [that’s the king of Moab] to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit acts of immorality.1 Peter takes Balaam’s illustration and in II Peter 2:15 we find the word of God says this: forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages [that’s the money they offered him, the wages] of unrighteousness. John warns us, Peter warns us, and then Jude in verse 11 also warns us of the teaching of Balaam. Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. Those are three different things. Korah was a sinner, Cain was a sinner, but also they rushed – he’s speaking here to the unfaithful in the church. They rushed headlong into the error, not the blessing, but there’s an error of Balaam. Balaam is a strange and intriguing personality. Israel is camped there on the border of Canaan and Balak, that king of Moab fearfully looks for help to turn Israel away. He seeks to employ Balaam, this soothsayer to curse Israel. This gifted man, they want to hire him to curse the nation Israel. Don’t miss this. Spiritual giftedness plus corrupt character always equals the withered branch of John 15:6. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. That’s exactly what happened to Balaam. Spiritual giftedness, I mean preach the stars out of heaven but you add to that corrupt character and you will find a withered branch. How many times it seems that the most gifted among us couple their giftedness with corrupt action and their testimony goes out the window and Jesus says if they don’t continue, even the most gifted, to abide in Me they’re going to be hewn down, cut out, cast into the fire, and burned up. There’s a lot of gifted people in our church. Musically, teaching, testimony, work with their hands, love kids, but oh how often you find that most gifted person falling to corrupt action and character and it doesn’t matter how great a servant they have been. When that corrupt character comes, they become a withered branch. Balaam is a warning shot to all of God’s people today and some lessons we must learn. There are four of them and I want you to see them with me this morning out of this life of Balaam. Number one is what I simply call the lesson of covenant. Balaam speaks four times to affirm God’s unchanging purpose to bless Israel and judge their enemies. 1 ® Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible , Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. 2 Balak comes and says, “Curse them.” He says, “I can’t do it.” “Curse them.” “Can’t do it.” “Curse them.” “Can’t do it.” Four times and Balaam says over and over – you can read it in Numbers 23 and 24. He gives these several verses of beautiful blessing. What a spiritual gift this man has and he wraps it all up in Numbers 24:9 and here’s what Balaam said: “He couches, he lies down as a lion, And as a lion, who dares rouse him? [Who’s going to wake up a lion? If you come upon a lion in the road the last thing you want to do is punch him with a stick. Just leave him alone. Balaam says, “I’m telling you, the lion is there and”] Blessed is everyone who blesses you [he’s speaking to Israel], And cursed is everyone who curses you.” You see, God is in covenant with the Jews. You don’t have to understand that. You don’t even have to like it but let me tell you this. When this world is done the generation of the Jew will still be here. They’re not going anywhere. Iran can get a nuclear weapon but in the end you won’t find Amalekites and Hivites and Jebusites. As a matter of fact, have you ever met one? Have you ever met a Hivite? Not me. Ever met a Jebusite? Not me. Ever meet a Jew? Sure you have. They’re God’s covenant people. God in His sovereignty chose them and through that generation came the Messiah and God has a future plan for them. Here in Numbers we find that word. It’s the lesson of covenant. Now let me apply that to you. Not only has the Jew got this relationship with the Lord, the believer has a covenant relationship with God and you never, ever lose that relationship once you have it. You are once saved, always saved. Now you don’t have to like that phrase. It’s not in the Bible anywhere but I’m telling you, eternal security of the believer, it starts with God, not with you. God hunted you. You didn’t hunt Him. God saved you. You didn’t save yourself. You see, God begins this covenant. I have two kids. There is nothing I can do to not be their father. I can disown them. I can do away with them. I cannot give to them but they still have my blood in their veins. They are mine by birth and covenant and I’m telling you, I’m God’s child by second birth and covenant and the lesson of Balaam is this. You are saved eternal forever Amen. Love it, like it, act like it, stop sinning, and go with God because He’s going with you. It’s a covenant relationship that if you ever know God, you’ll always – people say, “Well that’s a license to sin.” No. Let me tell you, friend, if you know God and if you are really saved and if you have ever willfully sinned and been to God’s woodshed, that’s the last time you wanted that license because He wore you out. Yes, He did. Some of you can sin and it doesn’t bother you. You want to know why? You’re lost. You’ve never been saved. You’ve got religion. You might be a Baptist, but let me tell you, if you can willfully walk away from God and that doesn’t bother you and there’s no conviction in you and God doesn’t deal with you, you just don’t know Him because He disciplines His children. Balaam teaches us the lesson of covenant. Secondly, Balaam teaches us the lesson of cash. Yeah. Money. They offered him a pot of money to come over there and curse Israel. He wouldn’t do it. Then they offered him two pots of money. They 3 said, “We’ll give you….” He said, “If you give me all the gold and all the silver in the house of the king, I cannot do anything save what God says.” However, Balaam got the offering. I’m going to show you in point three what Balaam did. He would not curse Israel but he gave instruction to the king of how to defeat and bother Israel. Nowhere in scripture does it tell us that we see him physically taking the money. However, when you go to the book of Jude, we looked at it in verse 11 that you saw, they rushed headway into the error. What was that error? Then look at the passage we looked at in II Peter 2:15. We see it come up on the board. Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam… who loved [what?] the wages of unrighteousness. I’m telling you, they paid him for his sinfulness. You mark it down. Be very careful. We know what the Bible says in I Timothy 6:9-10. We know what it says about the love of money because when you find a person with the love for cash, you’ve found the root of evil in their life. It happens to preachers. It happens to deacons. It happens to people all in this congregation. You will sell your soul for a dollar. I was looking at a new place to invest a little money this week. Brother Jon, we were singing that song awhile ago and I got confirmation. The name of the product was the Stronghold Corporation. Something didn’t ring right in my heart about that. Friend, I’m telling you, I don’t need any more strongholds in my life. I’ve got enough of them. There are strongholds that come and I’m telling you, chief among strongholds for God’s people are money. They’ll argue about money. They’ll be crooked about money. They’ll come sit in this building right here and they’ll even give their money but then they will go out and they will crush a widow in order to gain more money. Balaam had a heart problem. It had to do with finance. It was a trigger. Oh he said all the right things but in the end he did the wrong thing and the wages of unrighteousness brought judgment to his life. II Corinthians 2:17. Jot this verse down. For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God. Paul said, “I’m not going to be like some of these folks. I’m not peddling the word of God. I’m not for hire.” I know some folks that are for hire. A church and ministry must be squeaky clean when it comes to cash. Tonight we will have a business session at the end of our FACE service and we will adopt our new budget, $8.7 something, somewhere along in there. There’s vision built into that. We didn’t give that much this year but we also build some vision there and there’s some things we will do if we have a great year and if we don’t then we ride on that. We just don’t spend more than we take in. Dan Beard sees to that. It must be squeaky clean. We’ve moved some things around in that budget this year. The deacons were looking at it the other night. We have a finance committee and a personnel group and the deacons took a hard, long look at it and they asked questions. You’ll see the budget if you pick one up and come back tonight and look at 4 it. In the personnel section, there’s the executive staff and then there’s the pastoral staff level, and then there’s the support staff level. In that pastoral staff level it looks like there’s been a big increase and somebody said, “It looks like the pastor got a big raise.” I said, “No, I’m in the executive level and there’s no raise up there.” And we smiled but people look at that and ask questions about it. Well they should. We deal with it. If a church can’t be above more about its finances, I’m telling you, it’ll go downhill in a hurry. It’ll stink because it’s rotten. This church is 120 years old this year. There’s never been a major division within this church because people have been guarding the unity of the church. Now that doesn’t mean we don’t lose people. Sometimes we have blessed subtractions but there’s never been this big rift and divide and I’m going to burn the building because people have put the church ahead of their own self, the unity of the bride ahead of their own, but you go back and most every time you’ll find in church, even before doctrine splits a church, money will split a church. Balaam. You must have great accounting, great budgetary process, and the Lord being our helper, we’ve always tried to do that thing right there. Cash. There’s a lesson. Be careful that you love it above your principles. It’s like the elderly lady that came and told the pastor her dog died and said, “I want you to bury my dog.” He said, “I can’t do that. I can’t do that.” She said, “Well I have got $25,000 set aside for whoever buries my dog.” He said, “Well I didn’t know the dog was a Baptist.” Let me tell you, if you can be bought, you’re a hireling. Make sure your principles are not predicated on the cash. Baptist dogs. There’s a third lesson I want you to see. The lesson of covenant, the lesson of cash, thirdly there’s the lesson of compromise. It goes right into that. Balaam, in chapter 25 of Numbers when you look at chapter 25 in Numbers you’ll find that Balaam has gone off the scene. He left in chapter 24. Balaam arose, departed, returned to his place, and Balak went his way. But in chapter 25, Israel, the people, they began to play the harlot with the daughters of Moab. What happened? Israel was looking good but all of a sudden, they intermarried and intermingled, verse 2. They invited the people to their sacrifices of their gods and the people ate and bowed down to their gods and so Israel joined themselves to Baal of Peor and the Lord was angry against Israel. When you to go to Numbers 31 and verse number 16 you find these words: Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the Lord. How in the world did Israel begin, the King James says, to go into whoredom with the pagans? I’m going to tell you how that happened. Balaam, when he left, said to the king, “I can’t curse Israel but, Balak, if you’ll send the good looking gals over there, those Jews will fall for them and if you can ever get those Jews to come over here and go to church with you, they’ll compromise. I’m telling you, I know them well enough. They’ll compromise for a sexual relationship and you can see the judgment of God come without my curse being on them.” That’s exactly what happened. There began to 5 be compromise in Israel as they enticed the Jews to come and have relationships outside of the covenant of the law. Now watch this. In our youthful generation, the first thing that compromises is the relationship. “I’m a Baptist, I’m an evangelical, I believe the Bible to be the word of God, and all of a sudden I began to date outside of my faith. I’m going to win him to faith.” Let me tell you, friend dating is not an evangelistic tool. You take that relationship outside and say, “Well, I’ll go to church with him,” or “He’ll go to church with me.” “He’s a Muslim. I’ll go to church with him.” I’m telling you, friend, if you think that strains it, if you really want to put a strain on a young Baptist relationship, you let them begin to go to Catholic mass. I’ll wade in the water here and I’ll get bad mail this week but I’m just going to tell you, I don’t give a rip, alright? Because when you stop saying that you’re going to church where they preach the gospel is by faith in Christ and Christ alone and then all of the sudden there’s six steps to salvation over here that the Catholic mass will teach you, that you’ve got to touch these six things, I’m telling you, it is not the same. It is altogether different. It’s why there was a Protestant Reformation that we protested against. Man, I know a lot of great Catholics. I’ve got good Catholic friends but I don’t go to church with them and they disagree with me. That’s why they don’t come here. I’m telling you, when you begin to violate that relationship of faith, the next thing that happens is that your doctrine is compromised and then your convictions become compromised. You’ll move from relationship to doctrine to convictions and those last two are not – you don’t go from relationship to conviction and then to doctrine. No, no, no. Your doctrine will drive your conviction and when you change your doctrine because of your relationship, you’ll have a different – that’s exactly what Balaam led them to do. He said, “Go over and have relationships with the people at Baal Peor,” and when they came over they had relationships. Then they changed what they believed. They went into the pagan places of worship and then their convictions went right down the sink. Compromise. There are some things I can compromise on. I come together with people to do some stuff in the city and we have the Ministerial Alliance and I love these guys. You know, we come together around an abortion issue. Some of our Catholic friends are much greater champions for that than we are. Let me tell you, the Presbyterian Church this week voted, I mean they put it in their papers that same-sex marriage is okay. It’s just right up there with everything else. I’m telling you, if you can stay in that, I’m just telling you, your doctrine changes, your conviction’s going to change. When conviction changes in that area, it doesn’t just stop there. It becomes a slippery slope. I can compromise on some things. I’m just telling you, I will. I’ll get along. I really do like folks. I’ve been cussed and I’ve been blessed and I’d rather be blessed. I like to get along with people but there are some lines. We talk about the 6 Baptist tent and my deal with this young generation. I always say, “There’s a Baptist tent and it does have flaps on it.” You don’t just kind of wander in and out. If you’re going to be of us, then there’s some convictions to have. They’re there. When you begin with relationships outside of your evangelical tent, outside of your biblical tent, those relationships are born. I’m just telling you, your doctrine will change your convictions. If you’re single, you better be careful who you marry. You better be careful who you date. You better be careful who you hang out with because when those relationships – I’m just telling you, when they go south. Why is it going south is...? Let me tell you, when those relationships go north, you’re going to have trouble with your convictions after awhile, alright? It’s exactly what happened. It’s what Balaam did. He drew the people away. In the late 1800’s there was a gentleman teaching at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, our mother seminary, our first seminary where Al Mohler is our good friend and he is the seminary president there today. Where Dr. Mohler is, Crawford Toy, T-O-Y, Crawford Toy was a professor of Old Testament. He taught Hebrew and Old Testament. He was single and he was dating Lottie Moon. Lottie Moon who is, if we have a patron saint in Baptist life, she’s it. Lottie Moon is the lady that our Christmas offering for foreign missions is named after, the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Crawford Toy and Lottie Moon were dating. She was already a missionary to China. It was a long distance and she would come home at furlough and other times. Crawford Toy began to say that the Bible is not the inerrant word of God. Crawford Toy left the Baptist faith and became a Unitarian saying that everyone is going to heaven. Lottie Moon was on the mission field and she had a choice to make because her heart was turned to Crawford. So does she marry the man denying the faith that she is on the mission field for? I’ve watched a lot of our kids walk down this aisle and be called to missions, marry the wrong person and they never go on missions. They never serve. Why? Their life changed because a relationship got in the way of their doctrine that led to different convictions. Lottie Moon, as much as it hurt her heart, said, “I cannot continue in that relationship” and broke that relationship off. Everybody that’s a Baptist has heard of Lottie Moon. Nobody knows who Crawford Toy is. It doesn’t matter really that men know your name but the legacy of Dr. Crawford Toy is one of unbelief and all but atheism and the legacy of Lottie Moon is missions, the word of God, the gospel for the globe. She would not compromise. Balaam compromised. He took the cash and compromised. Then fourthly, very quickly, is the lesson of character. Balaam, look at this guy. He is gifted by God, he’s got a vision of God, God speaks to him, he heard God, he 7 spoke God’s message about – but I want you to hear me now. Listen. Don’t miss this. There is a difference in spiritual giftedness and spiritual fruitfulness. There is a difference in having a spiritual gift and bearing spiritual fruit. Spiritual giftedness comes in a single impartation, in a moment. I’m telling you, when I was 17 years old God called me to preach and I could preach then. At 17 I could preach the gospel. I didn’t know much but I had a giftedness. I could stand up, read a passage and what little I knew I could impart. I needed to have my sword sharpened, I needed to have my mind ready, but there was a gift that God placed in my life. I preached this last week, 61 years old, at Grand Bay in a little country church over here trying to help a friend and I’m preaching in that church and there was a man that walked out of there. He was an old, old fellow, 97. He told me one of the funniest stories by the way. He introduced me to his wife. He said, “This is my wife.” He said, “We’ve both been married before. I’m 97. Both of our spouses died.” He said, “Many years ago I sold her husband ten acres of land and he died and I married her and I got my land back.” I looked at her and I said, “Is that right?” She said, “That’s a true story.” One of those old men, not that man but another elderly man walked out of there and he took me by the hand and he said, “I’ll tell you, preacher, you’ve got a gift. You’ve got a gift.” I want you to know, everybody in here that’s saved has got a gift. Everybody. I don’t know what your gift is. Mine is what I’m doing right now. Mine is exhortation. I’m not an evangelist. I’m an exhorter. God gave me the gift of exhortation, some capability of communication. But now there is a big difference in having a spiritual gift and bearing spiritual fruit. A gift comes in a moment. God gives you an ability but fruit is character and it must go through the process of development where God takes some things away and He puts some things in. He says, “Man, you don’t need any more of that,” and He knocks that out of you and then He adds this over here and He gives you the kind of wife you need and she hones you a little bit. Then He gives you a first child and that child teaches you some stuff and then you get another child and get another child and then you get these folks and you’ve got your mother-in-law and you’ve got all those things that come in. Then God puts you in Henrietta church and God shapes you there a little bit. Then He takes you down to Dallas and He beats you up down in Dallas for a little while and then He brings you to Pensacola. Then you go through some wars and so God’s just always – the gift’s still there but if you’re going to bear fruit, I’m just telling you, God’s shaping you and forming you. Jeremiah said, “It’s like a lump of clay that he puts on that wheel and he’s making a pot. Oh that doesn’t look good.” Then he puts it all together and then he starts again. God does that in your life. He does that in my life. There is the lesson here we must learn of character. Balaam prayed a prayer. In Numbers 23:10 he prayed a prayer. 8 Here was his prayer. “Lord, let me die the death of the righteous. Lord, I want to die a righteous man.” But in Numbers 31:8 they took him out and executed him. Moses had him killed because of his compromise. His life was crushed. He didn’t die a righteous death. He died at the hand of the executioner. Because he didn’t live a righteous life, therefore, he couldn’t die a righteous death. The word of God says in Matthew 7:21-23 these words that ought to scare you to death. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy [like Balaam] in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” Beloved, it’s not the show. It’s not the show. It’s the substance. It’s the substance. It’s who you are in Christ. Be careful of the error of Balaam. He compromised for money and he taught the people of God to sin and God crushed him. God’ll do that in the life of a nation. He’ll do it in the life of a church. He’ll do it in the life of a family. In Matthew 7 Jesus says He’ll do it in the life of the individual. “Depart from Me. I never knew you.” Friend, if you don’t know Christ today, you ought to run down this aisle. You say, “Preacher, I’m confused.” If I was confused when I hear a sermon, I’d run down this aisle. I’ll fall in that altar and I’d say, “Dear God, be merciful. Help me know that I know I know.” I have not said today that a saved man will never sin. I’m a preacher of the gospel and I sinned before I got up here this morning. My attitude early this morning wasn’t what it ought to have been. I had to repent sitting on the back patio of my house, eating my little breakfast and drinking that energy drink. I said, “Dear God, forgive me.” I wrote my sin in my prayer book this morning, my journal. I said, “Lord, forgive me of that.” Worry’s a sin and I wrote that down. “Lord, it’s going to rain today. Not many people are coming because it’s going to rain.” You know, I’m like telling Him it’s going to rain. He’s got that. He’s looking and saying, “Yeah, there it’s coming.” I could just hear the Lord this morning. I wrote it down. “You know, Lord, it’s going to rain,” and He said, “Oh man, I didn’t know that.” I just had to confess my unbelief. I’m not telling you that when you become a believer, you don’t sin. I’m telling you, sin will come into your life. You’ll struggle with that until you get to the other side. I’m telling you, when you do, God will deal with you and if He does not deal with you – you see, God disciplines His own. If He doesn’t discipline you, you can just add that up that you’re not His own. You need to know Him and you need to be sold out to Him. Don’t let the wages of unrighteousness and the error of Balaam cause you to live in compromise when you look good on Sunday but you stink it up before Monday morning. 9 There needs to be a fifth “C” in this and it is the blessing of consistency that the Christ life puts in you. We’re going to sing a song and when we sing this song, in that balcony, I want you to get up and come talk to me. On this ground floor, I want you to come. Just you, by yourself, maybe a whole family that needs to join this church, maybe a couple. I don’t know but the Spirit of God knows and He’s wooing you and calling you. He’s saying, “Come today.” Then when we sing this song, this song’s just for you. It’s an invitation. You’re not going to have to get up and sing a song or make a speech. We’re going to go right out these doors and into a quiet place and sit down and talk. Then we’re going to pray and ask God to do something fresh in your heart. It’s your time, your day, God’s call. You come this day. We welcome you with open arms. We’re on our feet. We’re standing and God’s calling. You come today. 10