This is a thought in which all the world would agree, if they could speak out their real feelings. Those who are most backward and unwilling to lead the life of the righteous man even they would wish to die the righteous man's death.
I. By the death of the righteous is not meant merely a happy end, but any circumstances of death whatever after a holy and obedient life. The worst death of those who are accounted righteous before God is better than the best and easiest death of an unrighteous person.
II. Nothing can exceed the apparent truth and piety of Balaam's thoughts concerning death. Yet at the time he uttered them he was about the devil's work, doing all he could to corrupt souls, and make God and man enemies to each other, for the sake of a little filthy lucre. His words have passed into a kind of proverb, as describing a happy death. His own death was perhaps the most miserable of all that are recorded in the Old Testament.
III. Let no man, therefore, deceive himself, nor imagine that all is as yet tolerably right between him and his God, because he feels his heart warm at devout expressions like this of Balaam; because, when he thinks of it, he would wish to die the death of the righteous. Do not rest satisfied with anything short of consistent Christian practice. Other ways may make you comfortable for a time, but this will bring a man peace at the last.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to Tracts for the Times,vol. iv., p. 63.
I. Balaam was half converted, and so he was not converted at all. He would not wholly part with his besetting sin, and so it mastered him and destroyed him. He would not serve God more than he thought he need, and so he ended in deadly opposition to God, disserving God as greatly as he could, and seducing others from His service, and so soon as he had finished his work of evil losing his life and his soul.
II. What the direct warnings or inspirations of God were to Balaam, that God's voice in His word and in our consciences is to us. The special sin of Balaam was that he indulged and fed with his heart's blood one darling passion (covetousness), and that, not daring or wishing to go against the direct command of God, he tried in every way he could to evade it. While our soul keeps back one thing, while we are contriving in one thing to cheat our conscience and hold back part of the price from God, all is but Balaam-service; we are as yet none of His.
E. B. Pusey, Lenten Sermons,p. 69.
References: Numbers 23:10. F. W. Robertson, Sermons,4th series, p. 42; H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. iii., p. 218; T. T. Munger, The Appeal to Life,p. 109; M. Dix, Sermons Doctrinal and Practical,p. 1; Sermons for the Christian Seasons,1st series, vol. ii., p. 493; C. C. Bartholomew, Sermons chiefly Practical,p. 1; E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation,1st series, p. 210; Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xiii, No. 746; New Manual of Sunday-school Addresses,p. 258; C. J. Vaughan, Harrow Sermons,2nd series, p. 247; E. Bickersteth, Oxford Lent Sermons,1858, No. 11; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. viii., p. 218, and vol. xii., p. 221; G. Calthrop, Pulpit Recollections,p. 42; S. Leathes, Truth and Life,p. 86; R. Heber, Parish Sermons,p. 354; Preacher's Monthly,vol. v., p. 335, and vol. vii., p. 290; Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,2nd series, p. 17; I. Williams, Characters of the Old Testament, p. 126.