That night God came to Balaam and said, "Since these men have come to summon you, go with them, but do only what I tell you."
Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey and
went with the princes of Moab.
-Numbers 22:20, 21
The Bible says that Balaam rose up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and went with along with the princes of Moab. The men who had come to hire Balaam to curse Israel seemed to be getting what they wanted; Balaam was going with them. And the scripture says that God’s anger was kindled against Balaam because he went. Why was God angry with Balaam? Had not God told Balaam in verse 20 to go ahead and go with the men? The answer is yes, but the problem was the intention with which Balaam was going. God’s plan was for Balaam to go and bless Israel, but it appears that Balaam had every intention of trying to put a curse on them. And for this God was angry with Balaam.
Here is a classic case of someone knowing full well what it is that God wants him to do, yet doing the complete opposite. Have you ever done that? I would say that we all have at one time or another. There may have been a time when we wanted to go somewhere and do something which we knew in our hearts would displease God and go against His Word. So in essence God had told us not to do that – but we go ahead and do it anyway. Those kinds of circumstances will never produce a positive result. We get good results and we have peace in our hearts when we not only listen to what God tells us, but we then obey Him. It is a sad and sorry state of affairs to find ourselves somewhere that God has told us not to go doing something God has told us not to do.
Quite often the results will be a disaster - maybe not right then, but the Bible says that our sin will find us out. Balaam was a man going prepared to do something which would go against the will of God. He was about to go and try to curse the people of Israel.
The best course of action is faithfulness to God and a life characterized by integrity.
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