In Balaam we have a man who, while his audacity and superstition are monstrous, still has a strong fear of Almighty God upon him, a determination not to disobey Him openly, a hope that at last he may be found on God's side. But it was with him as it is with others who deceive themselves and perform a juggler's trick with their own soul. First they wish to have their own way in life and then have it blessed by God as if it were His way. Next they cease to think it impossible to elude or deceive even God. We see here a man beseeching God to allow him to do what He had twice and thrice forbidden him to do. God punished him by letting him take his own course. And it is after his example that all will be lost who from a high standing fall into wickedness. Take these three points:
I. If Balaam was lost, it was through himself that he was lost. God gave him both an earnest desire to be saved and the knowledge how to be saved. Yet he is a lost man already when he comes before us. He was lost because he did not follow out his wish into action, and because he did not use the knowledge which he had.
II. What was the means he took for his own destruction, when he had both the wish and the knowledge to be saved? Exactly that which offers itself to us as very natural an attempt to combine the service of God and the service of the world. He wished to stand well with the Lord God, but he also wished to have a brilliant alliance with and a strong influence over one of the principal personages of his time.
III. Even the disobedient prophet prophesied of Christ; even the disobedient boy serves Christ's will. Both do it without meaning it; therefore they have no reward. But they cannot choose but serve Him one way or another.
Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays in Wellington College,p. 204.
Reference: Numbers 24:1. Preacher's Monthly,vol. v., p. 237.