Beware of balaams

[creativemechanic]

The explanation of this  can be found in revelation 2.14 and numbers 25

[creativemechanic]

1st  impression of spirituality. Since 1st impressions are lasting ones we may drop out guards because of them.

[Jayne]

Your cartoon has a point.  Don't trust people's leadership when they are leading you astray.  Have some discernment.

At the same time, it wasn't Balaam who led the people of Israel astray.  It was the women of Moab.

• God wouldn't allow Balaam to curse Israel.
• Balaam wanted to keep getting paid from  Balak, kind of Moab.
• So Balaam told the King Balak about destroying Israel from the inside and he counseled him on what to do. [Micah 6]
• The women of Moab - just as wicked as the men of Moab - were told by Balak to seduce the men of Israel into worshipping their false god. [Numbers 31]  That's why Moses wanted these women dead.
• The men fell for it hook, line, and sinker and did and a great plague came upon them.
• Balaam merely had the idea.  He did not lure the men.

But you are correct in the idea that many leaders are false and we must have the spiritual backbone to know when they are false.

Edited December 20, 2018 by Jayne

[Michael37]

3 hours ago, creativemechanic said:

1st  impression of spirituality. Since 1st impressions are lasting ones we may drop out guards because of them.

Yes, a great topic, creativemechanic. Worthy of our attention at all times. Certainly we are reinforced of its seriousness in these passages and their context. Notice the three different descriptions given: the way of Balaam (Peter), the error of Balaam (Jude), and the doctrine of Balaam (John/Revelation). We sometimes see a progression from something being a way that developes into error and gets included in doctrine, as your OP depicts. Well done on raising this!!!

2Pe 2:12-22
(12)  But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
(13)  And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;
(14)  Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:
(15)  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;
(16)  But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad the madness of the prophet.
(17)  These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.
(18)  For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
(19)  While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
(20)  For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
(21)  For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
(22)  But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
Jud 1:10-13
(10)  But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
(11)  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.
(12)  These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;
(13)  Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.
Rev 2:14
(14)  But I have a few things against thee, because you have 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.