Greed has always been one of the most dangerous distortions of spiritual leadership. In Jude 10–11, false teachers are exposed as people who abandon God’s way for personal gain, following the paths of Cain and Balaam. This episode of Light on Life takes a clear-eyed look at Balaam’s error—how greed, divination, and profit-driven prophecy stand in direct opposition to trusting the living God. As Scripture interprets Scripture, we see that when people turn from God’s Word to pursue money, deception follows, truth is abandoned, and spiritual destruction is never far behind. That’s Why Money Hungering Greed Is Not God’s Way To Happiness.

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Accept the Challenge

Each week’s podcast contains a call to action. The Word of God will not produce in your life unless you put into operation.
This weeks call is:

Stay Grounded. Stay Free. Stay True.

This week, choose God’s way over gain.

Refuse to let money, promises, or pressure shape your spiritual decisions.

Remember this: Contentment keeps your heart free—and faith keeps you aligned with God.

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How can you tell when spiritual teaching shifts from truth to profit-driven motivation?

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Share one way you’ve learned to stay grounded in God’s Word when spiritual voices compete for attention.

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About Emery

Emery committed his life to the Lord Jesus Christ over 49 years ago and has served as both a full-time pastor and an itinerant minister. Both he and his wife Sharon of 44 years emphasize personal growth and development through the Word of God. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is both the focus and the hallmark of their mission. Read more about them here.

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Podcast Notes:

• Well again, welcome.
• Let’s pray.

Father God, thank you for your Word — thank you for admonishing us in the way in which we should go — thank you for your Holy Spirit who teaches and leads us and guides us into all the truth. We ask today that you would open the eyes of our understanding that we might see and know you.

The Way of Cain: A Review

Jude 10–11 (ESV) — 10 But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. 11 Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion.

• So here, in verses ten and eleven, Jude is talking about rogue teachers.
• In a previous podcast, we covered the ‘way of Cain’ and what that was.
• And, how his way should not be your way.
• We understood ‘the way of Cain’ to be a pattern of life rooted in unbelief.
• Grounded in disobedience and self-will.
• The way of Cain is the way of rebellion, setting aside God’s revealed will to follow his own personal agenda.
• This inward rebellion ultimately produced destructive outward behavior.
• Cain murdered his brother, demonstrating a complete disregard for human life.
• The Word of God connects hatred with murder, showing that the way of Cain is a path of hatred, violence, and contempt for others.
• After killing Abel, Cain lied directly to God, denying responsibility and refusing accountability.
• The way of Cain therefore includes lying, deception, and the rejection of truth.
• Finally, Cain dismissed the idea of being responsible for others when he said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
• The way of Cain is marked by indifference toward others, a refusal to love, care, or recognize that we are “members one of another.”
• Here is the Cliff notes version of the way of Cain.
• The Way of Cain Includes: • Unbelief • Disobedience • Self-will • Rebellion • Murder • Lying • Indifference

Greed: The Way of Balaam

• Now, that we’ve looked at the way of Cain, let’s look at the way of Balaam.
• Jude said that these false, rogue teachers…

abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error.

• So, to understand Balaam’s error, we need to look at the story of Balaam.
• That story starts in Numbers twenty-two with Balak the king sending for Balaam to curse Israel out of fear for them.
• Now, I encourage you to read his account but not only that account.
• If you only read the Numbers account of Balaam, and you may wonder, ‘Was Balaam a good guy, bad guy, or confused guy.
• I mean, what was he all about?
• Balaam had some sense of the spirit realm and that’s part of the confusion you might encounter.
• As a Jesus follower and a person of the spirit, you may be tempted to think that Balaam was a good spiritual kind of guy.
• I promise you he wasn’t.
• So, to put the story of Balaam into proper perspective so that you can see him as God saw him, we must engage in a fundamental law of Bible interpretation.
• That law says: ‘let scripture interpret scripture.’
• So, to do that with the story of Balaam, we must read EVERYTHING the Word of God says about him not just his story in the book of Numbers.

Greed: What We Know About Balaam from the Word of God

• So, what do the Bible references to Balaam outside of the book of Numbers show us?
• Take for example, what Joshua said about Balaam?
• You will find those words in chapter thirteen of the book of Joshua.

Joshua 13:22 (ESV) — 22 Balaam also, the son of Beor, the one who practiced divination, was killed with the sword by the people of Israel among the rest of their slain.

• Oh there’s a key piece: Balaam practiced divination.
• What in the world is divination?
• Divination was the attempt to gain supernatural knowledge, either to understand why something occurred or to predict the future.
• That’s opposed to asking God.
• Divination is a cousin to magic and was widely practiced in the ancient world.
• A world that did not acknowledge God as God.
• Both divination and magic were human efforts to try to understand, and or control or manipulate the divine realm by methods believed to practically guarantee the desired results.¹
• Again these are attempts apart from God.
• In fact, the New Testament calls this kind of thing a ‘work of the flesh.’

Galatians 5:19–20 (ESV) — 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions,

• Divination is a work of the flesh not a work of the spirit.
• Magic is the same deal.
• It attempts to use supernatural powers to influence people, events or other supernatural beings.
• All of this is fleshly.
• Here’s an example of divination recorded by Ezekiel concerning the King of Babylon.

Ezekiel 21:21 (ESV) — 21 For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination. He shakes the arrows; he consults the teraphim; he looks at the liver.

• For information sake, teraphim were small idols or figures that were kept and worshipped in a person’s house.
• So, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, was trying to divine or predict the future by throwing arrows — probably arrowheads and trying to read them to see if he should attack Jerusalem.
• He was consulting idols in his house for the same reason — he even threw in looking at the liver of a sheep to see if his Jerusalem aspirations would be successful.
• Reading a liver?
• Yes, animal livers and other organs were often used to predict the future in the ancient world.
• All of this is divination — fleshly — and ungodly.
• Balaam was a diviner.
• Now, the Bible absolutely condemns these kinds of practices.

Deuteronomy 18:9–12 (ESV) — 9 “When you come into the land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, 12 for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD. And because of these abominations the LORD your God is driving them out before you.

• Again, Joshua tells us that Balaam was a diviner, a ‘liver reader,’ an arrow interpreter.
• Even when we come over into the New Testament we can see that magic was very much in evidence in Jesus day.
• We have this account from the city of Ephesus.

Acts 19:18–20 (ESV) — 18 Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. 19 And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. 20 So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

• So what does this scripture tell us?
• It shows us that when the Word of God grows in someone’s life, the urge to chase after ‘flesh-generated’ predictions fades.
• They fade because we have access to the one true God.
• We trust Him.
• Jesus followers put their faith in the God who actually holds the future.
• We can talk directly to Him if we want to know something about tomorrow or if we need direction — we don’t have to read a liver!
• Aren’t you glad about that?
• I know the sheep are glad about that too!
• So, Balaam was not a lover of the Word that came from God’s mouth.
• What he was a lover of money— he was greedy.
• All he wanted to do was cash in on his divining abilities.
• So, clearly from these verses, Balaam is on God’s wrong side.
• He was an enemy of Israel and that’s why Joshua records his death.

Numbers 31:1–2, 7,8 (ESV) — 1 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites. Afterward you shall be gathered to your people…” 7 They warred against Midian, as the LORD commanded Moses, and killed every male. 8 They killed the kings of Midian with the rest of their slain, Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba, the five kings of Midian. And they also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword.

• This later account in Numbers tells us that Balaam was classed with Midian, an enemy of Israel.
• You know Moses wrote the book of Numbers and he also wrote Deuteronomy as well.

Deuteronomy 23:5–6 (ESV) — 5 But the LORD your God would not listen to Balaam; instead the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the LORD your God loved you. 6 You shall not seek their peace or their prosperity all your days forever.

• Balaam tried to curse Israel but God would not listen to Him.
• You cannot curse whom God has blessed.
• Instead the Lord took Balaam’s words and boomeranged them turning the attempted curse from Balaam’s mouth into a blessing.
• Nehemiah shares the same thing.

Nehemiah 13:1–2 (ESV) — 1 On that day they read from the Book of Moses in the hearing of the people. And in it was found written that no Ammonite or Moabite should ever enter the assembly of God, 2 for they did not meet the people of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them—yet our God turned the curse into a blessing.

• So, Nehemiah, Joshua, and Moses tell God’s perspective of the way of Balaam in the Old Testament.

Greed: The Way of Abandonment

• So, now we are in Jude eleven and Jude says that these false teachers abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error.
• So, Jude is emphasizing that these rogue teachers are greedy just like Balaam was.
• These hell-bound teachers ‘abandoned’ themselves for the sake of gain — for the sake of money — just like Balaam did.
• The story of false prophets is a story of abandonment.
• The Greek word ‘abandoned’ means to pour out, to give oneself totally in commitment to, to give oneself up to, to dedicate oneself, to be totally consumed.²
• These rogue teachers pour themselves out in totally commitment to money.
• The way of Balaam is the way of greed and these false believers have “abandoned themselves” to this kind of lifestyle.
• They prophesy for a price.
• They preach for profit.
• I heard my spiritual dad make this comment on several occasions as he addressed us young ministers of the gospel.
• And with that thought, here is the Quote of the Day.

There are three “G’s” that ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ need to be very watchful of. The three G’s are the girls, the gold, and the glory.

• That is watch your conduct with the opposite sex.
• Two, never make money your ultimate goal in ministry.
• And, three, never take the glory from God.
• The error of Balaam is the error of greed.
• Balaam prophesied for both price and profit.
• That’s what Jude said about these false teachers: they abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error.

Greed: The Way of Balaam As the New Testament Records It

• The most compelling record of what God thought about Balaam was recorded in Second Peter.
• As we get ready to read a portion of what Peter said, pay attention to the similarities to Jude’s letter.
• You might be tempted to think you’re reading the letter to Jude but you’re not — you’re reading Peter.
• Scholars go back and forth as to who they think influenced who.
• Did Peter read Jude’s letter and then write his or vice versa?
• I don’t know and it doesn’t matter — we have both letters in the Word of God and that’s what counts.
• We’re in the second chapter of the second letter.
• Listen to what Peter says about Balaam as he warns the church about false prophets and teachers.
• These false ones…

2 Peter 2:14 (ESV) — 14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin…

• That’s what my spiritual dad said — the girls, the gold, and the glory.
• These false prophets were after the girls — still are!

2 Peter 2:14 (ESV) — …They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children!

• Hearts trained in greed — That’s the gold which is two out of the three.
• The Greek word ‘greed’ is the one we want to look at and, with that thought, here is the Definition of the Day.
• The Greek word ‘greed’ means the state of desiring to have more than one’s due, insatiableness, avarice, or covetousness³
• The word basically means an excessive longing for wanting more and is used ten times in the New Testament: more food, more money, or more power.
• I like this one definition: to forge ahead at the expense of others.
• It is the opposite of contentment.⁴

Hebrews 13:5 (ESV) — 5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Trained for Greed

• Peter said these false prophets have ‘hearts trained in greed.’
• Let’s look at the word ‘trained.’
• The Greek word ‘trained’ is a term used for athletes who trained in the gymnasium in the nude.
• The word means to train, or undergo discipline.⁵
• How does as an athlete go about training?
• Well, they practice over and over again.
• How do Olympians train? They strive to improve and do a little more every time.
• These false teachers were Olympic-minded in their pursuit of adding gold to their bank accounts.
• They will talk it out of you.
• They will come up with all kinds of schemes to get at the gold — your gold.
• Maybe, tell them some made up story — some dream — put a spiritual twist maybe they will buy-in.
• These rogue teachers were always after money.
• Beware of the way of Balaam — make sure it is not your way.

2 Peter 2:15 (ESV) — 15 Forsaking the right way, they [these false prophets and teachers] have gone astray…

• The word ‘forsake’ means to see something in place and to leave it behind or abandon it.
• So then this forsaking was intentional not accidental.
• You know sometimes you accidentally leave something behind — you forsook it but you did not do it on purpose.
• For the last couple of days, I left one of my reference books behind.
• I didn’t intend to do that — quite the contrary, I wanted to bring it.
• So, in the sense of this Greek word, ‘I unintentionally forsook this book.’
• These rogue teachers, however, knew about Jesus, and intentionally abandoned Him.
• Now, why they did is plain to see in this letter.
• Their values were not Jesus values.
• Jesus said.

Luke 16:13 (ESV) — 13 No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

• The Son of God is about giving — not about greed.
• Greed distorts spiritual priorities.
• Graspy greed enslaves the soul of a man.

Luke 12:15 (ESV) — 15 And he said to them, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

• Jesus addressed greed multiple times during his earth-walk.

Matthew 23:25 (ESV) — 25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

• Now, here is the thing about these rogue teachers.
• They knew these things about Jesus.
• They knew the right way but these despicable souls talked themselves out of God’s way, intentionally forsaking Him.

2 Peter 2:15 (ESV) — 15 …They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, [Peter says]

• The Greek word ‘loved’ here means to find something very enjoyable or agreeable.
• It means to like or love something on the basis of a high regard for its value or importance.⁶
• False teachers ‘love’ money.
• They have a high regard for its value or importance.
• We could easily say they had am inordinately high regard for it.
• Everyone needs money but needing it and living only for it are two different things.

What Paul Said about Greed

• So, Jesus had something to say about greed.
• Jude had something to say about it as well.
• Peter did too.
• Of course, Paul talked about it to.

1 Corinthians 5:9–11 (ESV) — 9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. 11 But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.

• Paul said don’t even eat with someone who is greedy.

1 Corinthians 6:9–11 (ESV) — 9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

• Wow, this is a pretty potent list of bad people.
• None of these people will inherit the Kingdom of God.

Greed: A Modern Day Illustration

• Did you hear that the greedy are included in this list in verse ten?
• Now the Spirit of God gave us this verse many years ago but it’s a timeless truth.
• And with that thought, here is the Illustration of the Day.
• This story is about John D. Rockefeller, a man who had wealth but had no peace.

The books record that John D. Rockefeller became the wealthiest man in American history. By his early fifties, he controlled nearly 90 percent of the oil industry in the United States and possessed more money than he could ever spend. Yet at the height of his financial power, Rockefeller was physically broken. He suffered from severe digestive problems, insomnia, and anxiety. His doctors feared he would not live much longer [Imagine that! He’s in his early fifties]. Despite unimaginable wealth, he was miserable, isolated, and unable to enjoy life.

It wasn’t until Rockefeller radically changed his priorities —stepping away from relentless accumulation and turning toward generosity — that his health and outlook began to improve. Rockefeller later acknowledged that wealth alone did not bring peace or satisfaction, famously remarking that a man with nothing but money is truly poor. His life became a testimony to a simple truth: money can build an empire, but it cannot build peace. Greed promised fulfillment, but it delivered emptiness.

How Do I Apply the Word of God on the Subject of Greed?

• So, how do I put this Word of God, I heard today, into action?
• Well first, don’t just listen to this podcast—discern and respond.
• If this teaching sharpened your awareness of spiritual compromise, take time this week to evaluate the voices you trust, the motives you follow, and the values shaping your decisions.
• Evaluate the spiritual voices you are hearing.
• When you hear a teaching, a prophecy, or promises of blessing, ask yourself this question.
• Where is this in the Word of God?
• We must stay hooked to God’s Word.
• Here’s another thing you can do: practice being happy with what you have.
• Guard your heart.
• Choose the gratitude attitude.
• Godliness with contentment is great gain is what the Word of God says.
• Here’s a third thing you can put into operation.
• Reject any notion or any message that suggests that your access to God can be heightened in exchange for money.
• The gospel is free and your access to God is always available because of Jesus.
• If this episode helped you, share it with someone who needs clarity.
• These and other podcasts are always and will always be available without cost at www.emeryhorvath.com.

Now Father God thank you for Jesus. Thank you for giving Him to us and for us. Freely you gave, freely we give the gospel of the glorious grace of God. We thank you for these things in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

• Why Money Hungering Greed Is Not God’s Way To Happiness.
• You guys have a great God week and we will see you next time for another edition of Light on Life.

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