Did Balaam obey God?

Obedience is one of the controversial topics related to faith. On the one hand, the majority of Christians believe that obedience is important, but on the other, they understand it in different, sometimes contradictory, ways.

There are some Christians for whom obedience to God is not directly related to keeping God's commandments. They believe that God changed his law and thus changed the requirements that must be met for man to be saved.

There are also Christians who believe that keeping the commandments is important, but they are convinced that we do not need to worry about our disobedience, because someday God will change us so that the problem of disobedience will disappear. Failure to keep the commandments here and now is not a problem.

From a logical point of view, it is obvious that only one view can be true, but I do not want to deal now with the relationship between obedience and God's law, but on obedience itself. What is obedience? It is surrendering to someone's will. For example, Wikipedia gives this definition of obedience:

„Obedience, in human behavior, is a form of ‘social influence in which a person yields to explicit instructions or orders from an authority figure’” (Wikipedia).

Obedience to God is therefore the submission of man to God's instructions and orders. What exactly is this submission? For anyone who knows something about the history of Israel, obedience is not about keeping the external signs of obeying God's commands. Jesus explained this in a sermon upstairs, but I want to discuss it on another example.

As Israel approached the Promised Land after forty years in the desert, the inhabitants of Canaan and the surrounding area began to feel more and more fear. This fear is the natural reaction of sinful nature when God's glory is revealed. Such fear was felt by the Israelites themselves, when God revealed their presence on Mount Horeb to them, the same fear will be felt in the future by those who will call to the mountains and rocks: "Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?" (Rev 6: 16-17). The inhabitants of Jericho felt the same fear, and Rahab confirmed this when she spoke to two Israeli spies (Joshua 2). These people sensed the impending danger and were aware that they were opposed to God, but it is far more important that they did not want to submit to God and tried to save their lives in various ways. Everyone has a special gift from God, which is conscience. It is the voice of conscience that warns us of the danger of making the wrong decision. The voice of conscience is the voice of God who says, "Don't do it," or suggests which decision is right. It was through the voice of conscience that God warned Balak, king of Moab, giving him a chance to save not so much life as salvation. However, Balak did not want to do what his conscience told him. He was too attached to his life and therefore tried to find another way out.

If Balak were to rationally assess the whole situation, it would be logical to conclude that it is better to run away before Israel than to lose life. However, when a person does not listen to the voice of conscience, he begins to lose the ability to think logically, and in such a state he cannot make rational decisions. Balak decided to use the prophet to weaken and then defeat Israel. So he sent messengers to Balaam, who he knew was God's prophet. With the promise of a generous payment, he wanted to convince Balaam to come and curse Israel. And this point begins this part of this story that talks about obedience.

When the messengers came to Balaam and presented to him King Balak's offer, the prophet replied to them: "Lodge here tonight, and I will bring back word to you, as the Lord speaks to me" (Numbers 22:8). At night, God came to talk to Bileam and finally told him: “You shall not go with them; you shall not curse the people, for they are blessed”. According to what he heard, in the morning Balaam told the messengers: “Go back to your land, for the Lord has refused to give me permission to go with you”. They returned to Balak, but the king did not change his mind and sent a larger group of messengers with the same task. They again tried to persuade the prophet to go to Moab. Balaam replied to them, “Though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word of the Lord my God, to do less or more. Now therefore, please, you also stay here tonight, that I may know what more the Lord will say to me”. God again came at night to the prophet and told him: “If the men come to call you, rise and go with them; but only the word which I speak to you—that you shall do”. In the morning Balaam got up and went with the princes of Moab.

Was Balaam obeying God until then? The first time God told Balaam not to go to Moab and the prophet would stay home. The second time God told Balaam to go with the messengers, but to do what God would tell him. And Balaam went on a trip to Moab. Did he do what God told him to do? If so, why, when “Balaam rose in the morning, saddled his donkey, and went with the princes of Moab”, “God’s anger was aroused because he went”? Was God angry at Balaam because the prophet obeyed Him? I think no one who beliefs agree with this conclusion. In that case, how did Balaam not obey God? Let's take a closer look at what God said to Balaam. “Rise and go with them; but only the word which I speak to you—that you shall do". There are two commands in this sentence. First, "rise and go with them", and second one, "only the word which I speak to you—that you shall do "? All depends on how we understand the word "do". If we think that deed is just an external manifestation of our activity, then we should state that Balaam also did the second command, because God told him "stand up and go". However, this definition of deed is not biblically correct, because Jesus in the sermon on the mount explained that physical activity is closely related to motivation, physical activity is the result of our thoughts, feelings, desires and what is important to us. For God deed is not only physical action, but much more motivation, because God knows our hearts and knows why we do something. Balaam literally fulfill God's command, but his motivation was not correct. God told him to do only what He commanded, but Balaam was more interested in the reward promised by Balak than not to curse the blessed people. The desire to receive the promised prize was so great that Balaam could not see the angel of the Lord standing on his way. This is strange because Balaam was a prophet of God. God not only met with him, but also talked to him. Who among us has such a relationship with God as Balaam? Who among us talks to the Creator like a Madian prophet? Who among us hears and understands God's voice?

Balaam was God's prophet, during this short story in Numbers 22-24 he spoke to God twice and received four prophecies. I think that not only today, but also in the past, this has not happened very often. And yet, despite such good contact with God, Bileam fell. At the most important moment, he was tempted and chose to love the treasures of this world. Because God would not let him curse Israel, he chose another way to win the prize. He presented Balak a plan to weaken Israel with the help of Moab women. The Israelites were strong not because of their numbers, but because of their obedience. The people who had just defeated Sidon, the king of Amor, and Og, king of Bashan, were not the same people who had left Egypt forty years earlier. Of the more than half a million men who left Egypt, only a few remained. Most Israelites grew up in the desert. They believed in God, but their faith had not yet been seriously tested. They did not know the "charms" of earthly life, their world was a desert, they were just approaching a land where life looked completely different to life on desert. The time of a serious trial for the Israelites was approaching, and this trial was the result of a plan developed by Balaam. The same Israelites, who could not be overcome by force, turned into weak men because of the action of special weapon, the mysterious charm of Moab women who were completely unlike Israeli women. Tough and fearless warriors turned out to be wax in the hands of seemingly weak women. And a man who was God's prophet led to it.

Did Balaam obey God? True obedience to God is not only physical submission to commands, but first and foremost the willingness to obey. This desire to live in accordance with all that God says is a state in which there is no room for forcing himself to follow orders, there is no place for the contradiction between what a person does and what he wants to do. It is a state of perfect harmony between the body and spirit of man and God. Such a man accepts by faith all the new truths revealed to him by God, especially those that concern him and show him what must be changed in his life. Because sinful nature does not want to accept such truths, the voice of conscience is activated, which God tries to convince the sinner. Balaam heard the voice but did not listen. And the more often we disregard the voice of conscience, the less it is heard. This is what happened with Balaam, and this is also what happens with everyone who follows the same path. And at the end of this path is death. „And they warred against the Midianites, just as the Lord commanded Moses, and they killed all the males. They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of those who were killed—Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. Balaam the son of Beor they also killed with the sword” (Numbers 31:7-8).

When we consider obedience, we must remember about its two important aspects. Firstly, what is obedience, and secondly, how can you become obedient. I have already written about the first, now I will deal with the second. How can you become obedient?

It turns out that this question is more difficult than the first. Each of us had moments in life when you wanted to change something. Usually we know what we want to change in such situations, but finding a way to achieve this change is not so easy. And when we find a way, it is often not easy, because it requires commitment and consistency. Life shows that many people would like to change something in their lives, but not everyone realizes their desires. Jesus said to his disciples: "Who among you, wanting to build a tower, will not sit first and calculate the cost, is it to finish?" (Luke 14:28). When the price is high and requires giving up certain things to which we are attached, we give up such a change. The price we are willing to pay depends on the importance of the change we are thinking about. Each of us has our own hierarchy of values, priorities that guide us when we make decisions. The higher is the priority, the higher is the price we are ready to pay. And higher priority results from greater desire. "Where is your treasure - your heart will be there" (Mt 6,21). What sets our priorities is what we store in our heart, which is what we love. It is love that guides our lives, and our decisions depend on what we love. There are different types of love, but Jesus said: "No one has greater love, like when someone lays down his life for his friends" (Jn 15:13). Such love is 'agape' love, consisting in total self-sacrifice for the good of those whom you love. The Bible also talks about 'fileo' love, friendly love that lacks an element of total self-sacrifice, and 'eros' love, which is sexual desire rather than true love. The Bible also speaks of a another kind of love, but in this case it hardly to use the word ‘love’, because this is self-love, selfishness. 'Agape' and 'fileo' are types of love based on giving, 'eros' and egoism are based on taking. True obedience to God is connected with love 'agape'. It is such obedience which basis is the desire to serve others in such a way as to bring them to God. A man obedient to God does not think about himself, but he wants to serve others with all his heart. "Love does not hurt a neighbor; therefore the law is fulfilling love"(Romans 13:10).

Our priorities depend on what kind of love fills our hearts, what we love, what is at the very top of our desires. The truth is that the more we love something, the easier it is for us to realize what is associated with this love. Even the biggest obstacles are not big enough to stop us from doing something that we really care about to do something that love drives us to do. And this is the key to becoming obedient. Obedience cannot be our goal because true obedience is the result of love for God. Focusing on obedience to God will never make us obey our Creator. But when we know God well enough to love Him, this love will fill our hearts, and obedience will appear without our will, it will automatically appear as a result of love.

What filled Balaam's heart? Perhaps for some part of his life there was love for God in him, but at one point it was repressed by love of the world's riches. His heart became selfish because he began to think about satisfying his own lusts. Egoism blinded him and took away his ability to rational and logical thinking. He succumbed to the temptations suggested to him by Satan, and thus to Satan's deception. King David said of such people: “For the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire (...) He has said in his heart, ‘God has forgotten; He hides His face; He will never see’” (Ps 10,3.11). Can anyone who has met God believe that God will not notice? Or that he will forget something? Can such a person think that one can stand before God with a heart in which there is an attachment to something that does not come from God? "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God" (Matthew 5:8).

Did Balaam obey God? Am I obeying Him?