Are we spiritual hitmen?

Balak | בלק | "Balak"                                             07.12.2025

Torah: Numbers 22:1 - 25:9

Prophets Micah 5:7(6) - 6:8

Brit Hadasha: Mark 11:12-25; 1 Corinthians 1:20-31; 2 Peter 2:1-22; Revelation 2:12-17

This week, I am piggy backing on the praise portion to roll into our teaching.  Once again, the Father is teaching the Torah portion of the week, before I even read it.  And I want to thank Him, not just for the lessons, but loving me enough to send an angel my way to stand in my way before I go off to destruction. To thank Him for loving us enough to intervene.  And thank Him for placing obedient people in our lives to speak to us in an audible way.

📖 So this week’s story is a neat one.  Unfortunately, we don’t get to see the full scope of it in English.  In the Hebrew it reads almost like an American nursery rhyme, with it’s lesson told through patterns, inflections and rhymes.

But to do my best to summarize, the story went a little like this.  We have a king who sees and hears of the Israelite people approaching.  😨He is terrified of them likely due to their number, and the stories of their conquest. Remember to the world, these are slaves.   Untrained yet operating a victorious military. So what does king Balak do?  He sends his servants to hire a spiritual hitman. 🦹🏻 Not just any one…. One known to be a babbling idiot.  (That’s what Balaam means in Hebrew)  The used car salesmen of prophets. 

Balaam…. Not the brightest dude.  Receives the servants and inquires of God.

💡Smarter than me, before doing anything, Balaam asked God what to do.  And God is very clear. 

Numbers 22:12 – “But God said to Balaam, ‘You shall not go with them. You shall not curse the people, for they are blessed.’

But God spoke plainly: “Don’t go. Don’t curse. They are blessed.”

There’s no ambiguity. No room for interpretation. And yet Balaam — like many of us — decides to go back and ask again.  Or in my case, not even ask.  Because this week, I tried to be smarter than God.  I thought: “How could it be wrong to help someone who seems like they’re in need?” 🤷🏻‍♀️

How often are we all guilty of this?  We say we only want God’s will, but we end up following our own.  There is no point in even bothering to ask the Lord, if we aren’t going to listen to Him.  But Balaam asks again anyway, knowing that God is unchanging.  He is fair.  He is just.  And isn’t one to change His mind. ⚖️

It makes me think of the doublemindedness spoken of in James.

James 1:6-8 – “...he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind... he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

In our hearts, we are unstable.  It’s a very dangerous place to be.  But on the surface… we look obedient.  Balaam looked obedient.  But his heart was already drifting.  He wanted to go to meet the King.  He wanted the reward.  So God let him, but not without a warning. ⚠️

God already had told Balaam not to go.  But Balaam kept asking.  So the Lord allowed it, but was fiercely angry. 🔥

So why did the Lord allow something that was against His will?

I have said it a hundred times, but it’s always true.  God is a gentlemen. 

💖In true gentlemen nature, God will not force Himself upon us.  He isn’t a slavemaster.  He wants us to serve Him out of love, in relationship, in honor.   If we want to go down the path to destruction, He will let us.  But thank God, in His mercy, He gives us warnings, rebukes by those close to us, and even consequences that serve as flashing lights, guard rails (or stone walls) or whatever it takes to get our attention to hopefully turn us around before we go off the cliff.

At this point in my week, it was Sunday.  And my heart wasn’t right.  I had extended an offer and the Holy Spirit began to wave those red flags 🚩 that something wasn’t right.  Balaam, knew too, deep down, God had already told him not to go.  But how do you turn around now?  You’ve already saddled up and headed down that road.  How do you tell the people around you that you’ve changed your mind? And without realizing it…before you even know it, you put the fear of man above the fear of God.

Now both myself and Balaam are in rebellion. 👎🏻

Our donkeys are saddled.  Now we are carrying baggage and going down a road we both know we aren’t supposed to be going. 🧳 So now what?

If you won’t listen to the still small voice... 👂🏻If you won’t heed the Word... 📖If you won’t respond to the Spirit... 🕊️

He will raise up someone and give them a voice to confront you. 🔊

Balaam’s case, God sent a donkey and an angel.  The donkey tried veering off the path. But Balaam beat him back. 🫏 It wasn’t until there was a stone wall on both sides, they couldn’t go right.  They couldn’t go left.  There was only a choice to go forward or turn back. 

The donkey crushed Balaam’s foot and laid down. Balaam, in his blindness, beat the donkey.  But the Lord gave the donkey a voice and opened Balaam’s eyes to see the Angel of the Lord.  And another warning was issued.

🪽The Angel threatened Balaam’s life.  He told him he was going against the Lord.  And instead of Balaam repenting and immediately running backwards ↩️ (teshuva), Balaam pleaded….. well…. If you really want me to go back, I guess I will….

Balaam’s heart was exposed again.  He really didn’t want to back. He didn’t feel any remorse or even fear, even now after being threatened and standing face to face with a talking donkey and the Angel of the Lord.  🤯Crazy!  So the Lord let him continue down this road….

Thankfully, this is where my story takes a different path.  Over the next few days, the Holy Spirit kept showing me and telling me I was in a place of spiritual danger.⚡  I had gone off on my own, and I was no longer in God’s will.  And it wasn’t a pretty place.  It was scary.  It was heavy.  It was chaos.  I knew I was outside of His protection and had no idea how to fix it now.  So the Lord sent me an angel in the form of a human. 

He raised up someone in my life and gave them a voice to speak to me, and those close to me, who I was also putting in danger.  And there I found myself, between two rock 🪨 walls.  I couldn’t go right.  I couldn’t go left.  It was either continue forward down this path, or repent and run!  🪧

I actually ran and then repented.  But at least I turned around when God opened my eyes to see that it wasn’t just me that I was endangering when I was outside of God’s will.  I put us all in danger. I was at risk of damaging my marriage, my family, my job, my friend’s, my friend’s marriage, our fellowship. He let me see that how this one, quick, 2 am decision that I made without first stopping to pray, was quickly about to snowball and get way out of hand. 

That wasn’t my intention.  But that was my consequence.  And the Lord gave me an out.  I could turn around.  But I had to choose Him.  🙇🏻‍♂️ I had to surrender to His will.  I had to be more concerned about what He thought, more so that what people would think.  I had to fear Him more than facing the awkwardness and rejection that I feared I would face from people, by turning around. 

🙏🏻Thank God, He let me turn around.  And he showed me this.

Numbers 23:8 – “How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how shall I denounce whom the Lord has not denounced?”

And the opposite is true.  How can we bless, whom God has not blessed?  And how can we prosper what the Lord has not prospered?

Three times, Balaam tries to curse Israel. Three times, God flips the words into blessings.  What if in my disobedience, God had turned what I wanted for a blessing into a curse?  What if?  The biblical precedence is there.  He very well could have.  Then what harm would I have done?  The harm would have been even bigger than just me and us.  It would have been harmful to them too.  And then that’s when God ever so loving me reminded me that I, too, can be a hypocrite.

How much have I talked over the last two months about being ‘tov’? Tov, meaning good in Hebrew, means being in the right place, at the right time, doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing.  We talked about the dangers that places everyone in, and looked at the example of the soldier, who is off his post and puts the whole army camp in danger.

This week, I was the solider off post.  🪖And I repent to God, and I repent to all of you. And I praise God for his mercy and His love and for the obedient people He places in my life.

So the moral of my story this week: You cannot curse what God has blessed. You also cannot bless what God has not blessed.

We tried to bless a situation He never put His hand on. And it backfired.

It doesn’t matter how noble your motives are.

If it’s not from God, it will not prosper.

Micah 6:8 – “He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Obedience requires humility. Not assumption.

But let’s talk about what happened to Balaam next. He continued down the road against God’s will. 

👑He really wanted to hangout with the king and get the king’s reward I believe. He partnered with this King making sacrifices to Baal.  This should have been another red flag, but Balaam tried to out do it.  He told Balak to make more & bigger sacrifices to Yahweh. 🤦🏻‍♀️

After the first round of sacrifices, Balaam went to meet with God.  God gave him blessings to speak over Israel.

After the second round of sacrifices, Balaam went to meet with God.  God, again, gave him blessings to speak over Israel.

So after the third round of sacrifices, Balaam didn’t go to meet with God.  And decided to bless Israel himself. But the Spirit of God came over him anyway, and He blessed them again.

And here we read Numbers 24:5 - “How lovely are your tents, Ya‘akov; your encampments, Isra’el!”

Once again, we see what the enemy meant for evil God can use for good. This blessing is sung all over synagoes and fellowships every single Shabbat still to this today.  We even sang it ourselves today.

🎶Ma Tovu O Halecha Ya‘akovMishkenotecha Yisreal

How lovely are Thy tents O Jacob Thy tabernacles Isra’el🎵

So needless to say, the story didn’t pan out the way that Balaam expected.  He wanted to try and balance outward obedience to God while still seeking his own will and seeking to serve his flesh.  Which common sense should tell us, will never work.  But how many times are we guilty of doing the same exact thing?

Balaam didn’t get his reward.  He left with nothing but rebuke from the king.

And even after all these blessings and protection from Yahweh, what did Israel do?  They fell. 

In the same manner that God didn’t force obedience on Balaam.  He won’t force obedience on Israel, or us either for that matter.

As long as Israel was walking with the Lord: walking in obedience to His ways, His statutes and His decrees – they were untouchable.  The presence of the Lord provided this hedge of protection that even the devil himself couldn’t cross.

But when we open the door to sin, the enemy rushes in and we open ourselves up to death. 

Deut 30:15-20 - 15“Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster. 16For I command you this day to love the LORD your God and to keep his commands, decrees, and regulations by walking in his ways. If you do this, you will live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you and the land you are about to enter and occupy.

17“But if your heart turns away and you refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship other gods, 18then I warn you now that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live a long, good life in the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy.

19“Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! 20You can make this choice by loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. And if you love and obey the LORD, you will live long in the land the LORD swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

This Israelites chose sin. 

Numbers 25:1-3 - Isra’el stayed at Sheetim, and there the people began whoring with the women of Mo’av. ² These women invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, where the people ate and bowed down to their gods. ³ With Isra’el thus joined to Ba‘al-P‘or, the anger of Adonai blazed up against Isra’el.

So Balak didn’t have to curse Israel.  They ultimately cursed themselves.  This sin let in a plague that killed 24000 of them before Phineas rose up, and got their attention.  (But that’s a story for next week.)

But the lesson remains.  We must not follow the way of Balaam — doing what’s religious on the outside, while still clinging to rebellion in the heart.  Sin is enticing.  Whether it is the fleshly desire to do what feels right in the name of generosity, or the feeding the flesh with sexual sin.  Sin is enticing through power and wealth and influence. Sin is the fruit of seduction and compromise, and it leads to death.  This powerful lesson and reminder is found all throughout the scripture.

2 Peter 2:15 – “They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam... who loved the wages of unrighteousness.”

Revelation 2:14 – “But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam... who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel.”

Not only did Balaam disobey, but later he taught Balak how to corrupt Israel through seduction and compromise (Numbers 25:1-3).

It’s a sobering warning.  One we are guilty of, and cannot ignore. 

We need to remember this warning, and be willing to audit ourselves.  In this week’s reading we also read the story of the fig tree. 🌳

It had leaves 🍃— a sign of life — but no fruit. 🚫

The same is true for Balaam. He had gifts, knowledge, reputation, but his heart was barren.🫗

And if we’re not careful, so will ours be.

1 Corinthians 1:27-29 – “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise... so that no flesh should glory in His presence.”

This isn’t about your gifting — it’s about your obedience. I saw this week even generosity, without God’s will is rebellion.

If I could give you one takeaway today, it’s this:

Don’t try to bless what God hasn’t blessed. Don’t ask for His word unless you’re willing to obey it.

Before you move, before you open your door, before you say yes out of pity or pride or urgency — ask Him first.

Even if it’s awkward, even if you think you don’t have time. 

Stop. 🛑 Pray. 🧎🏻‍♂️‍➡️ Ask.  🙏🏻 Listen. 👂🏻

Because even good things, outside of His will, can lead to devastation.

As I self audit, maybe you can too. Ask yourself:

• Have I been seeking God’s approval — or my own will disguised in prayer?

• Have I opened doors without His instruction?

• Have I tried to bless what He has not?

Let’s repent. Let’s listen again. Let’s quiet our hearts until we hear Him say, “Yes. "And if He doesn’t say yes — let’s have the faith to stay still.

Proverbs 3:5-6 – “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.”