SUNDAY READING.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 June 1921, Page 9

SUNDAY READING.

BALAAM, THE PROPHET OF PETHOR “They went astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the hire of wrong-doing.” —IL Peter, 11. 15. (By Rev. A. 'H. Collins, New Plymouth.) Balaam, the Prophet of Pethor, is a problem, a problem old as man. To get the subject in its historic perspective you should read ’ the story in the Book of Numbers, a narrative which Ewald pronounced to be ’‘unparalleled in effectiveness, and unsurpassable in artistic finish.” To this history you should add the •seventh chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans,’ where the Apostle says: “1 find a law in my members, that when I would do good, evil is present with me, so that the good I would 1 do not, and the evil 1 would not that 1 do.” in modern literature,- tire same psychological problem is diecussed with wonderful innight by Robert Louis Stevenson in that weird and uncanny book, “The Strange ease of Dr. Jekyll and Air, Hyde.” Then if you would bring the story up to date, and see Balaam in red blood, and twentieth century dress, a looking glass, and a little imagination, will supply ali you need, for in sober truth. 1 tell you, Balaam is sitting in this congregation, and Balaam is speaking to you now! Keble, in one of the noblest passages in “The Christian Year,” exclaims:

“Oh! for a sculptured hand That thou mightst take thy stand. Thy wild hair floating in the Eastern breeze, Thy tranced, yet eager, gaze Fixed on the desert haze, As one who deep in heaven Some airy pageant flies.”

But concerning this man, whose story we are to study, there is no need to sigh for the sculptor’s hand. Few men of the Bible stand forth with such sombre splendor as this Prophet of Pethor. His ancestry is mysterious as Melchesidie, ■ King of Salem, his coming as sudden and dramatic as Elijah the Tishbite; his character as mixed as the dream-image of Daniel, with its head of gold and feet of clay. Yet this man is entirely human, singularly modern, and emphatically well worth careful study. Pope described Lord Bacon as “the wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind,” and some men use that brilliant and cruel epigram of Balaam. In certain circles it is common to speak of him as wicked, and only wicked, a man utterly devoid of moral principle, and abandoned to evil. This harsh judgment need not surprise us. for three of the New Testament writers have applied to him words of scathing condemnation. Saint Peter, Saint Jude and -SaintJohn speak of him in language singularly fierce and denunciatory. It is not my purpose to make light of his offences, and still leas to dress in the garb of a saint this very frail and very fallible brother man. But no man is wholly evil. 'Even the most abandoned have some reileeming quality, some lingering traces of better things. He may be a ruined temple, but that he is a temple in ruins may be seen in broken shafts and pillars. If you think of Balaam as a false prophet and a bad man, with no exceptions, it is plain you have not considered all flu* facts, or reached a just judgment. Good and evil rubbed shoulders; obedience to God’s will, and flairrant disregard of God’s will, extraordinary spiritual illumination, and amazing moral obliquity, desire for the highest, and greedy pursuit of the lowest, in turn find expression, so that he might have said: “To good and evil, both intent 1 am a devil and a saint.” And it is only when we recognise this strange blend of opposites that Balaam's history becomes really serviceable to us. It is when you regard the prophet as no impossible monster, but “a man of like passions with ouirielve<s,” that he becomes an object of deep and melancholy 'interest, weighted with lessons we need to ponder exceeding well. For here is one of ourselves, who succeeded in beguiling an enlightened and vigorous intellect, and deceived a. conscience that once had been tender, until looking at him as Roland Hill looked at the drunken sot in the gutter, we might say: “There lies my very self, but for jihe mercy pf God.”

AN ANGEL AND A DEVIL. I say Balaam is a problem. What is that problem? It is the wonderful duality of our nature. A man is not simply one. He is two, perhaps more than two. VI e are all dual. The mistake we make is the mistake of insisting that a man ■is good-all good, or he is bad—all bad. It isn’t true to Scripture or experience. There is good and bad in us all. Theologians account for it by what they call “the' Fall.” Scientists account for it by saying we are progressing from a low animalism up to a lofty spirituality, from the tiger and the ape to the sons of God, and this is the transitional stage between animalism and spirituality. 1 don’t know what you think about it, but 1 do know there is a good and a bad, an angel and a devil, in every man, and the problem is how these two can exist with such marked contrast in one life. Recall the story. Balak, King of Moab, is dismayed by the presence of Israel. He sees their multitude. He hears their battle shout. He is panicstricken. If it comes to hard fighting he knows his cause is hopeless. But Balak has heard of the name and the fame of the Prophet of Pethor, with his occult powers, and concludes that if he can win the Prophet over to his side, and bribe him to sow the air with curses, the curses will do more than all his swords and soldiery. Balak was right in principle. No cause can permanently prosper which has Heaven against it. Where, he blundered was in supposing that Heaven’s gate opens with a golden key. So Balak sent for Balaam, and he refused to go. His answer was a curt, round, full-throated “No.” If* only he had held to that! Balak returned to his appeal for help with more liberal promises of reward, anil when the second appeal reached Balaam, his answer, though spelt the same way, did not moan as much. There is a way of saying “No” which means “Perhaps*! will if you call again.” Temptation can be met in a way that invites the tempter to come back. So the messengers of Balak returned with bigger bribes, and promises of promotion, and, instead of meeting them with flashing eye and thunderous refusal, this Simon Magus promised he would pray about it! That was the first false step. There are some things about which a decent man never prays, for some prayers are not only vain and superstitious, they are down-right wicked. You need never ask the God of truth to sanction a ‘‘white lie,’’ or condone a slight departure from the straight course. The Almighty listened to this orthodox sceptic, and was angry that His former decision was appealed against, and in His anger

God said: “if the men call thee, go.” That is. “GJ if yuu want 10 go. You are a free man. Do as your heart inclines, only remember my will is not changed, and the word that. 1 shall day unto thee thou shalt do.” Every answered prayer is not a blessing. I have lived long enough to thank God for unanswered prayers. Israel clamored for quails, and would not take “No” for an answer. “He gave them their desires, but he. sent leanness into their souls.” They got the quails, served up with a sauce that spoiled their flavor. It -is a pitiful spectacle to see thiis Prohpet of God dangling at the libels of Balak, and moving from hill-top to hill-top in hope of finding a spot where he could curse the Lord’s annointed, only to discover his own folly. “We wrestle and we strive against great Nature’s plan, We thwart the Deity and ’tie decreed. Who thwarts His will shall contradict his own. BLAMING DUMB 'THINGS. " The passage that follows has been the subject of endless quibble. Rationalists, suffering badly from, “intellectualitis,” and Christians with almost miraculous woodenness, have discussed it; the one to make merry, and the other to wriggle out of a seeming absurdity. What a lot of black ink has been spilt, and iy*iat an amount of unholy heat has been kindled over the question whether or no "the dumb ass speaking with a man’s voice forbade the madness of the Prophet.” Farrar says the whole passage was never intended for anything but a profound Eastern parable. Others say that Balaam’s heart smote him for his cruelty, and put these words into his mouth. The whole discussion is singularly barren and unprofitable. If anyone tells me the donkey spoke in the Hebrew tongue I could say nothing Jthat would convince him otherwise; aAd T i don’t think I should try. He cannot prove his assertion; neither can I disprove it. But all speech is not the same speech. There is one speech of birds, and another of beasts, and another of flowers. There is speech celestial and speech terrestrial. Eyes talk, so do hands, so Ido feet. Are things seen and heard in 1 dreams less real than things seen in the ’ light of common day ? Why should it ; be thought impossible that’ the dumb, i patient beast of burden spoke like a man ! when we have so many examples of man 1 speaking like his four-footed friend? j The point is this. Balaam did what we so often do when we find ourselves in a false position. We blame dumb things, heredity, education, or environment. We belabor the dumb and innocent occasion as if it were the cause. The fault lay in the Prophet’s own heart, and he vented his ill-temper on brute things. But you can’t escape the rebuking angel by any subterfuge of that sort. Sooner or later we have to go God's way, or suffer, lhe story is not to be road as historv. it is the record of things seen in a. vision while Balak’l3 servants were waiting Balaam’s reply. The jest, of the sceptic*, and the wrangle of the schools, might have been spared if only people would read their Bible with a bit of sanctified imagination, and not treat poetry as prose, or allegory as historv.

IMPRESSIONS SUMMARISED. And now, to sum up our impressions of this bright dull, this noble mean, this enlightened blind, man who is so startlingly like ourselves. What shall we say? First, Balaam is “Mr. Bye-ends of the town of Fair-speech.” What a talker he was! You will find nothing finer than this man’s words in the Bible or out of it. Moses, Isaiah, and Saint Paul said nothing nobler. “Let me die the death of the righteous, lot my last end be like His.” Splendid! “God is not a man that He should lie, or the son of man that he should repent.” True! “I shall see Him. but. not now; 1 shall behold Him but not nigh.” Pronhetie! “The Lord hath showed thee, 6 man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.” Sublime! You cannot improve on that. You cannot refine pure gold, or touch lilies with paint. Surely this man was a saint ! Did he not use the Holy Name? Did he not vow obedience to God’s authority? Did he .not build an all ar and offer many prayers? And yet! and yet! It is so much easier to build an altar than io lie down on it! So much easier to be mechanically orthodox than to be simply good! So much easier to talk than to ‘live the life. Secondly, Balaam was “Mr. World ly Wiseman.” He wanted to “make the best of both worlds.” He told Barak “No”; nothing would tempt him to yield. If the King gave him a house full of silver and gold he would not go with him. He was Jehovah's servant, and he would do as Jehovah said. Meanwhile his palm was itching! Why not take a second thought? Why could lie not be a prophet and a profiteer? Why not spend a ha If-night in prayer, and curse the people? Why not sell whisky, and build a new chancel in the church? Why not run with the hare and hunt with the hounds? So do we poison conscience! So do we wear the livery of heaven and serve the devil! Thirdly: Balaam was “the man with the muck rake,” his eyes glued to the earth, and blind to the crown above his head. He “loved the wages of unrighteousness,” says the Apostle; “and in the New Testament, this man, whose morning dawned so fair, is jibbeted as the betrayer of truth, a palterer with conseisence, and the corrupter of a nation!” Was he, then, a designing scoundrel? Not at all. He was made of the same human stuff that we are. Was he lost? I don’t know. Some men are “saved yet so as by fire.”

“Owning his weakness, his sinful behaviour, And leaving in meekness his sins to his Saviour.”

“And let him that thinketh ho standeth take heed lest he fall”—fall into “the error of Balaam.”

A remarkable story of how Lord Allenby saved Jerusalem from bombardment was told at Norwich (England) by Mr. B. Lipschote, a missionary (says the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle). When the famous cavalry leader arrived in Egypt to take command of the army, said Mr. Lipschote. his first act was to hold a prayer meeting. He. prayed that it might not be necessary for him to bpmbard Jerusalem, because he felt that ! a shell might fall on the spot where our Saviour was crucified. When the British army was approaching the Holy City, General Allenby saw that it might be necessary to shell it, and ho cabled to the War Office for definite instructions. In reply he was told to use his own judgment. He was not satisfied and communicated directly with the King. The King’s reply was very short, ■but much to the point. It was “Pray about it.” General Allenby did so, and, as everybody knew, when he arrived at the gates of the city it surrendered l