Don’t be wishy-washy about your eternal destiny. Jesus must be your Savior or Judge. You choose!
The most remarkable thing about Balaam’s donkey speaking is that Balaam answered him! The donkey was more aware of the situation than this false prophet. “Now the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand, and the donkey turned aside” (Num 22:23). It shows how spiritually insensible Balaam really was. The Angel said, “Behold, I have come out to stand against you, because your way is perverse before Me” (v 32). The word perverse again emphasizes the prophet’s haste to do evil, meaning “to rush headlong” or “to be rash.” Balaam relents and offers, “If it displeases You, I will turn back” (v 34). No, he should go on, because the Lord intends to reprogram his speech. Every time he opens his mouth to curse the children of Israel, a blessing will come out instead. When he arrives in Moab, Balak takes him to three promontories on which to see the people he wants cursed. First, “up to the high places of Baal” (v 41). After a lot of hocus-pocus, he gives his first parable (23:7-10). He intones, “How shall I curse whom God has not cursed?…For from the top of the rocks I see him…There! A people dwelling alone, not reckoning itself among the nations” (vv 8-9). This is as true of the Church as it was of Israel. We also are to be separate from the nations. As Jesus said, “The world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” (Jn 17:14). Then Balaam adds, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my end be like his!” (Num 23:10). It’s a fine sentiment, held by many churchgoers today, but it will not be. Why? Because they are “following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness” (2 Pet 2:15). You can’t have it both ways!