Let’s conclude the pagan prophet Balaam’s betrayal of Israel…
After God rescued Israel from Egypt, God sent Moses up Mount Sinai to receive the 10 Commandments. While he was there the Israelites crafted a golden calf and worshiped it. They abandoned the God who saved them from slavery and worshiped instead a shiny man-made cow.
Israel’s repeated disobedience, defiance, refusal, and stubbornness caused God to exile the nation 38 years in the wilderness, instead of leading them immediately into their promised land. Much knowledge can be gleaned from Israel’s Old Testament behavior regarding our current world situation.
Just prior to Israel’s journey into Canaan, they disobeyed again, and as a result lost a major battle to the Canaanites. They prayed repentance and God honored them by allowing them to destroy Canaan. That battle won, the Israelites petitioned God to go through the land of Edom (descendants of Easu—Jacob’s older twin brother who gave over his birthright to Jacob), but God denied their request and sent the nation around the long way. God didn’t want them in there! Edom became Islam. Islam worships Allah. Allah is Satan. The kingdoms of Edom/Islam—Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, and all the rest—are Israel’s historic enemies today.
Israel grumbled and complained at having to trek around instead of taking the shortcut. They spoke angrily against God and His servant Moses. So God sent a plague, a multitude of poisonous serpents, against the people. All those complaining, were bitten, and died. Thousands of them! Again, they begged for repentance and God told Moses to cast a fiery brass serpent and hang it on a pole, and set it among the people. Anyone who was bitten only had to look at this symbol and they survived.
When one studies the remainder of the OT, there is no explanation regarding WHY God chose a serpent, the epitome of evil, to represent salvation. But in the New Testament, Paul the Apostle knew.
1 Corinthians 10:6-11 Paul says,
“Now the Israelites experiences serve as examples for us so that we won’t set our hearts on evil as they did. Let’s stop being idolaters, as some of them were…Let’s stop sinning sexually, as some of them were doing, as on a single day 23,000* fell dead. Let’s stop putting the Lord to the test, as some of them were doing, and were destroyed by snakes. You must stop complaining, as some of them were doing, and were annihilated by the destroyer. These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down as a warning for us in whom the culmination of the ages has been attained.”
Current events! We are scripturally warned to look back and learn from Israel’s mistakes.
Get this! Jesus explains the OT serpent on a pole in the NT just prior to the most frequently read verse in the entire Bible:
In John 3:14-16 Jesus says, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him would have eternal life. FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD: HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON SO THAT EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM SHALL NOT PERISH, BUT HAVE ETERNAL LIFE.”
Jesus, the perfect God, became sin for us. He paid for our sin by ransoming us from Satan, to give us salvation, redemption, and justification FOR FREE.
So Moses leads the Nation around Edom and north to the land between Moab and the Amorites (who dwell north of Moab). Moses asks the King of the Amorites if the Nation Israel can pass unmolested through his lands. The Amorite king denies Moses’ request and gathers his army against Israel. Then God had the Israelites utterly destroy all of the Amorites.
Moses turned north and led the people into the land of Bashan, which was ruled by King Og, a ‘giant’, a direct descendant of the Nephilim from Genesis 6, and after the flood—now called Rephaim. Moses’ OT book of Deuteronomy tells us how big Og’s bed was, 8×18 feet. The Israelites killed every man, woman, and child from Bashan.
Genocide of the Nephilim and Rephaim (Satan’s hybrids) deserves much research.
For instance, Gigas was misinterpreted in the Septuagint as giant, and while Og was rather tall, gigas actually means earth-born, from the earth—think the bowels thereof…and the hybrid’s future relationship to our current events culminates in the book of Revelation. In between then and now, understand that God demanded Joshua (after Moses) commit genocide on the tribes of Rephaim (translates ‘the walking dead’), Emim, Horim, Zamsummim, Arba, Anak, Anakim.
Unfortunately, Joshua did not obey, and to this day the Golan Heights, Hebron, and the Gaza Strip inhabitants are the descendants of Rephaim. They became Islamic Allah/Satan worshipers, who surround Israel today.
Ok, so after defeating the Amorites, Moses leads the people back south into Moab, where they are encamped on King Balak’s land. Balak is terrified that the Israelites will wipe out him and his nation, just like Og and the Amorites were.
Balak fails to do his research into Israel. If he had he would have understood that God would not allow the Israelites to war against either side of Abraham’s lineage—Jacob (Israel) on one side, and Esau mixed with Ishmael (Islam) on the opposite. The Moabites were descendants of Ishmael—they were pagans who sacrificed children to their idol gods.
Understanding that he could not defeat the Israelites, Balak hires the Mesopotamian seer Balaam, to curse Israel. And God uses Balaam to prophesy about Israel’s future.
So how did Balaam betray Israel? He pulled Balak aside and told him he could defeat the Israelites by having his most beautiful young women camp along the fringes of the Israeli encampment, thus enticing the men of Israel to have immoral relations with their enemy, and God would judge His people.
Balak takes Balaam’s private council and all hell breaks loose upon Israel, because the men were enticed by the Moabite whores.
Numbers 25:1-4—
And Israel began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab. And they called the people into their sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to the Moabite gods. And Israel joined themselves to Baal, and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel (God then sends a killing plague on the Nation). The Lord said to Moses, “Take all the leaders of the people and behead the men in broad daylight before Me, so that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn away from Israel.” So Moses said to the leaders, “each of you slay his men who have joined themselves to Baal.”
As the leaders went about the camp, one of the young Israelite men brings a Midianite whore into his tent right in front of Moses! Phinehas the grandson of Aaron (Moses’ brother) sees this and takes a spear and goes into the tent after the young Israelite man and the Midianite woman. Phinehas runs the spear through them both, killing them.
In the end *23,000 Israelites died from God’s plague, and 1,000 were beheaded.
In Numbers 31, God sends the Israelites to destroy all the Midianites. And Numbers 31:8 tells us they locate and kill Balaam for his treachery. But instead of wiping out the Midianites, the army brings the Midianite women and children back to Moses. The very same women who were responsible for Israel’s downfall are now back in their camp! Moses has the army kill all the women and every male child, but allows them to keep the Midianite girls.
Thus ends Balaam’s betrayal, but herein ties current events:
In His Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24) Jesus warns end-time believers away from false prophets. He discusses several issues regarding their false teachings, their greed for money, and their liberal freedom to be promiscuous. Additionally, Jesus warns against those who claim a believer can serve God and partake of the lusts of the world, instead of SEPARATING themselves from the world.
The Doctrine of Balaam is the belief that a ‘little sin’ won’t hurt (Galatians 5:9), especially if there is a personal or financial benefit involved (1 Timothy 6:5).
The Doctrine of Balaam teaches that a ‘Christian’ can—or even should!—compromise their convictions for the sake of popularity, money, sexual gratification, or personal gain, and many ‘Christians’ do. (Please research the post Believer and Christian to note the differences between the two)
These abominations against God 👆🏼are increasing every single day, which causes believers to be indistinguishable from ‘Christians’ and the unbelieving world (Matthew 5:13).
Boy, oh boy, believers—take heed! (2 Peter 2:15, Revelation 2:14, Jude 4 and 11)
Amen.