listen to the donkey

“They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Boer, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he was rebuked for his iniquity: a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet” (2 Peter 2:15-16).
 
One of the most fascinating stories in the Old Testament is the story of Balaam and his donkey, who balked at going forward in spite of the fact that Balaam beat him three times. The donkey, of course, saw an angel with a drawn sword in the way ahead.
 
As Peter is trying to impress on those to whom he writes the importance of following the “right way”—that is, the way of God—he uses Balaam as an example of one who defied God’s way so that he could do what he wanted to.
 
Peter emphasizes that the false teachers among these people are just like Balaam: they are unrighteous—he has already described them as depraved, self-serving, evil men whose only desire is to please the flesh. His point is that they are not to listen to these false teachers because they will lead them to the same condemnation that Balaam received.
 
The same principle applies to us today. We are not to listen to false teachers who twist God’s word to suit their own agenda or who promote modern ideas to win people to themselves. Rather, we need to listen to Balaam’s donkey—that is, we pay attention to the warnings that can alert us to departures from God’s word.