How Balaam Led Israel Into Sin
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Israel anciently. The warnings given the Hebrews against assimilating
with the heathen were not more explicit than are those forbidding
Christians to conform to the spirit and customs of the ungodly. We
cannot be too decided in shunning the company of those who exert an
influence to draw us away from God. While we pray, “Lead us not
into temptation,” we are to shun temptation so far as possible.
When the Israelites were in ease and security they were led into
sin. Ease and self-indulgence left the citadel of the soul unguarded,
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and debasing thoughts found entrance. Traitors within the walls over-
threw the strongholds of principle and betrayed Israel into the power
of Satan. It is thus that Satan seeks to ruin the soul. A long prepara-
tory process, unknown to the world, goes on in the heart before the
Christian commits open sin. The mind does not come down at once
from purity and holiness to depravity, corruption, and crime. By the
indulgence of impure thoughts, sin once loathed will become pleasant.
We cannot walk the streets of our cities without encountering
flaring notices of crime to be presented in some novel, or to be acted
at some theater. The course pursued by the base and vile is kept
before the people in periodicals, and everything that can excite passion
is brought before them in exciting stories. They hear so much of
debasing crime that the conscience becomes hardened, and they dwell
upon these things with greedy interest.
Many amusements popular with those who claim to be Christians
tend to the same end as did those of the heathen. Through the drama
Satan has worked for ages to excite passion and glorify vice. The
opera, the dance, the card table, Satan employs to open the door to
sensual indulgence. In every gathering for pleasure where pride is
fostered or appetite indulged, where one is led to forget God and lose
sight of eternal interests, there Satan is binding his chains about the
soul.
How to Overcome Temptation
The heart must be renewed by divine grace. He who attempts
to build up a virtuous character independent of the grace of Christ
is building his house upon shifting sand. In the fierce storms of
temptation it will surely be overthrown. David’s prayer should be the