I could not go beyond the word of the Lord

Then Balaam answered and said to the servants of Balak, "Though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word of the LORD my God, to do less or more. – Numbers 22v18

I never have really studied through the whole story of Balak and Balaam. I need to do that someday, and maybe even preach on it so that I can make myself understand it better.

At this stage of the story Balaam is striving to do right. Balak has tried to hire him to curse the people of Israel. That was not God’s will and God told him to not do it because the people were to be blessed instead.

I do know that Balaam was not the greatest example of a faithful man of God. I don’t know whether he was genuine when he said this or he was just saying the words. Either way, the words he speaks here should be a great motivation for us all.

When Balak was trying to buy him off he said, ‘Even if Balak gave me a whole house full of gold and silver I still cannot go beyond the word of the Lord. I can’t do any more or less.’

Let’s just take his words at face value, shall we?

All of us, especially preachers and teachers, should take Balaam’s words here and make them out motto. Nothing should ever dissuade us from being faithful to God’s word and nothing else. We actually have His word recorded for us. We know what we are to proclaim. Hopefully, at least, none of us could be persuaded by money from saying what God wants is to say. We would all say something like, ‘I can’t be bribed from being faithful to the Bible.’

We need to be careful though that nothing can persuade us from proclaiming God’s word and only God’s word. We may be pressured by peer pressure, by our associates, or by the crowd. We as missionaries can be tempted to alter our preaching based on fear of the loss of support. Many things can keep us from proclaiming Hid word without adding to it or taking away from.

Do we let pressures keep us from faithfully proclaiming His word?