Error of Balaam 11 -a look at Balak

Balaam’s First Message

1 Balaam said, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.” 

2Balak did as Balaam said, and the two of them offered a bull and a ram on each altar. 

3 Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offering while I go aside. Perhaps the LORD will come to meet with me. Whatever he reveals to me I will tell you.” Then he went off to a barren height Numbers 23:1-1 NIV New International Version 

For quite a while now,we have been discussing the "Error of Balaam" with the emphasis being the several different errors Balaam made along the way to the main error for which he is popularly known. It appears that the various choices he made along the way were feeders into the stream that eventually brought his downfall.

As I read through Chapter twenty three of Numbers and moved closer to the scene when Balaam begins to eventually do what Balak wanted him to do, I have been reading with the desire to see not only errors but if there are some things he did that we can emulate.I noticed another error which appears to have been committed by Balak and it is an error we sometimes commit.

Balak prepared his offerings and also built seven altars. This was someone who was not a believer but had the outward show. He built altars and was ready to sacrifice bulla and rams so as to achieve his purpose. As a people. we must be careful not to be involved in spiritual acttivity in a bid to further our cause rather than the cause of God. In the Bible whenever altars were built, it usually signified a place of meeting with God , as a place of divine encounter that brought change to the lives. Sometimes serving as a place of worship, it also serves as a place of revelation but with Balak, we see him building this altar not to further enhance his relationship with God but to curse his enemies.

And what is interesting is the fact that the very next verse states categorically that  although Balak was the one who built the altar, it was both Balaam and Balak  who offered the sacrifices on each altar. I am not sure why Balaam did this and would like to consider that in the next post.

Yours in His Service

Grace Tom-lawyer