Balaam and the Nicolaitians.
But I have a few complaints against you. You tolerate some among you whose teaching is like that of Balaam, who showed Balak how to trip up the people of Israel. He taught them to sin by eating food offered to idols and by committing sexual sin. 15 In a similar way, you have some Nicolaitans among you who follow the same teaching. – Revelation 2:14-15 NLT
Here is a classic example of Revelation using an Old Testament story. Apparently, teachings similar to those of Balaam were held in the church at Pergamum. They, like him, attempted to entice others astray with these teachings. The text also mentions the teaching of the Nicolaitans. The Greek root for the word Nicolaitans (nikolaos) means “the one who conquers the people” while the Hebrew name, Balaam, means “one who swallows up the people.” These two terms reflect different languages yet they mean essentially the same thing.
When the king of Moab saw the Israelites coming, he realized that the God of Israel was far too powerful for his armies to overcome. So the king, Balak, had a brilliant idea. He would find a true prophet of their God who was willing to come and curse them. Then perhaps their God would forsake them and he could conquer them in battle. Having heard about Balaam, Balak sent a representative to approach him. Balaam was a greedy sort and decided to accept the offer of money in spite of Yahweh’s displeasure.
On his way to Moab, Balaam had his famous conversation with a donkey! In spite of this ‘hint’ from God that he was on the wrong track, he continued on his journey to Moab and tried to curse Israel. But instead of curses, blessings came out of his mouth. The king who hired him was furious (see Numbers 22-24 for the larger story).
Balaam then used the fascination of pagan feasts and the lure of sexual immorality to attract a number of Israelites to sin through food sacrificed to idols and sexual immorality. As a result, God withdrew His protection from Israel and a great plague destroyed many of them (see Numbers 25 and 31:16).
The story of Balaam illustrates our dependence on God’s protection. The sins that seem so innocuous to us have disastrous implications if they succeed in separating us from God. The church at Pergamum felt justified in its compromises, yet placed itself in grave danger.
Eating food offered to an idol may seem like a rather small issue to complain about. And young people often ask, “What could possibly be wrong with ‘a little harmless sex?’” The actions that Balaam and Balak led Israel into must not have seemed so wrong to many Israelites. But when temptation leads to sin, we often discover that the consequences of sin vastly outweigh any pleasure that may have occurred. The end result of Baal-Peor, the event in the Old Testament that our text refers to, was the death of 24,000 Israelites.
Consider this as you contemplate the text. Recent discoveries give us a new understanding of the complexities of outer space. Long predicted by theory, but never confirmed, scientists now know that so-called “black holes” are massive fields of gravity that can literally rip a star apart. Invisible to the naked eye their presence can be detected by X-ray telescopes.
There are photographs showing a star disintegrating from the pull of a black hole, stretched beyond its breaking point. This unlucky star just wandered into the wrong neighbourhood.
The interesting part is that the star was not swallowed up by the black hole. Only one per cent of its total mass was consumed. But the momentum and energy triggered by the consumption process actually flung most of the star’s gas away from the black hole. All the black hole did was initiate the process by eroding the star’s critical mass. Once the star was disrupted in this way its destruction took on a life of its own and it disintegrated from there.
Sin is like this black hole. Its attraction on our lives is as powerful as gravity. It is pulling at our being all the time. Attractive and seductive temptations draw us steadily into the hold of its gravitational pull. And like the black hole that destroys the star by just breaking apart its vital structure, yielding to sin can damage us just enough to set a process of ultimate destruction into motion. The Word of God is clear, even small sins can lead to destruction and eventually death!
May the Lord, help us to take sin very seriously. Salvation is by grace, yet sin attracts us away from God and His grace, leading in dangerous and destructive directions.