Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword. – Numbers 31:8, KJV

Don’t think it can’t happen to you.

In Numbers 22, Balak, king of Moab, made his first attempt to hire the prophet Balaam to curse the children of Israel. God communed with Balaam and told him specifically to reject the offer. Balaam obeyed, but then Balak offered Balaam a greater reward. With dollar signs in his head, Balaam gave place to temptation, taking a step towards sin. Angry at his disobedience, God confronted Balaam, and in reverential fear of God, Balaam blessed Israel three times, much to Balak’s dismay.

But the story doesn’t end there. In Numbers 25:1-2, Israel began “to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab” and worshipped their gods, resulting in a God-sent plague that killed 24,000 Israelites (Numbers 25:9). How did the whoredom begin? At the counsel of Balaam. Both Numbers 31:16 and Revelation 2:14 identify Balaam as the instigator behind Israel’s corruption, and both 2 Peter 2:15 and Jude 1:11 identify Balaam’s reason for doing so as the love of money and position. In return for his love of money and position, Balaam died at the hands of the Israeli army in Numbers 31:8.

Balaam is not the only child of God in Scripture that fell into such disarray. Lot, too, fell down this same slippery slope, following wealth, status, and sin into Sodom and Gomorrah. His gradual fall culminated in incestuous relationships with his daughters that gave birth to the nations of Moab (ironically, the very nation whose king Balak later tempted Balaam to sin) and Ammon, two archenemies of Israel. In return for his love of wealth and status, God rewarded Lot with a loathsome, post-Sodom existence in the wilderness.

Men and women who are true, saved sons and daughters of God fall into deep sin every day. When first confronted with temptation, they fear it, but they give just enough place to it in their minds and hearts to allow it to root. With continued exposure to the temptation, they come to long for it more and more. Eventually, rather than run away from the temptation, as Joseph did, they run to it, as Balaam and Lot did. Before long, they become slaves to the very sin that Christ died to free them from, dishonoring both themselves and their Savior in return for the pleasures of self-gratification.

Such falls result in destruction for both the perpetrators and for others around them. Never does our sin affect just us, and never be fooled by those who claim that we alone bear the consequences of our sin. Just as the actions of both Balaam and Lot caused pain for the Israelites, our wicked actions will bring pain to those around us – usually the ones we love the most.

The next time you feel the pull of sin on your heart and on your mind, remember Balaam and remember Lot. Fear their ends. Run away from the slippery slope of sin down which both of them slid to destruction, and give no root in your heart or your mind to temptation.