Another Inside Job

Over the past few weeks we have watched the enemy try to distract us from the mission, sow doubt in our hearts, pull us into the pit of despondency, and drive a wedge of division between us. Finally, we approach a topic none of us believes will happen to us: spiritual defilement.

Before we look at our final tactic, let’s acknowledge that this list of five “D’s” is not exhaustive. The Devil’s Playbook is thick. We haven’t even touched on his plays of fear, which paralyses a leader’s potential; shame, which convinces us to hide from God; or guilt, which tries to anchor us to a past that Jesus has already forgiven. The enemy has a vast arsenal, but by learning how to spot the strategies in this series, you will develop the spiritual discernment to recognize the rest.

Last week, we looked at division. That was our first look at an “inside job”—a strategy where the enemy uses our own people to crack the structure from within. But what happens when an organisation, a marriage, or a church is so focused, so faithful, and so united that they refuse to divide?

The Playbook has one final, devastating internal play: defilement. I place this as a last resort, although it may not always be so. However, in the case study we’ll examine here, it was the enemy’s final weapon against God’s people who seemed impervious to being cursed. We’ll see how Balaam was unable to even speak against Israel, but he didn’t give up there. He infiltrated the ranks with defilement, dilution and desecration.

If division is about cracking the structure, defilement is about rotting the foundation.To understand it, we can look at the strange, cautionary tale of Balaam the “mercenary prophet.”

The Consultant Who Sold the “How-To”

In Numbers 22–24, a Moabite King named Balak is terrified of the rising power of Israel. He does what many desperate leaders do: he hires a high-level consultant. He brings in Balaam, a famous Mesopotamian diviner, paying him handsomely to put a spiritual “hex” on Israel.

But there’s a problem.

Every time Balaam opens his mouth to curse Israel, God hijacks his tongue. In Numbers 23:11-12, Balak complains,

“What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have done nothing but bless them!”

Balaam tries three different times from three different mountains. Three times, the “external attack” completely fails.

At this point, most stories would end with a victory. And as a preacher, this goes down well: You’re un-curseable! Whatever angle the enemy tries to hit you with his lies, he cannot win!

But in the Devil’s Playbook, if you can’t defeat an enemy from the outside, you defile them from the inside. Balaam’s story doesn’t end here.

Equally, the Devil is relentless.

He won’t give up.

But now we can see inside his playbook, we know what to do and he is fighting a losing battle.

The “Balaam Counsel” – Spiritual Sabotage

While Balaam couldn’t curse Israel with his words, he provided King Balak with much more dangerous counsel.

The “secret sabotage” wasn’t fully revealed until Numbers 31:16 and if you think I’m pulling ideas from a random story buried in the Old Testament, you’re wrong. Later in Revelation 2:14, where Jesus Himself warns the church:

“You have people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to entice the Israelites to sin so that they ate food sacrificed to idols and committed sexual immorality.”

Balaam essentially told the enemy,

“You can’t fight them on the battlefield; God is protecting them. So, just invite them to your parties. Send your women into their camp. Get them to compromise their standards. If you can get them to defile themselves, their God’s own holiness will force Him to deal with them.”

It worked.

In Numbers 25, Israel fell into a deadly plague at Peor because they traded their distinction for defilement.

They cursed themselves.

The Modern Balaam

The enemy’s goal with defilement is to take what is “holy” (set apart for God) and make it feel “common” (just like everything else).

The Balaam counsel rarely arrives as an outright demand to abandon your faith. Instead, it often sounds like an advisor assuring a Christian business owner that tweaking expense reports isn’t lying, but merely playing the game, convincing them they can have both God’s blessing and the tax loophole.

In ministry and leadership, this counsel justifies toxic, cut-throat ambition under the guise of “holy hustle,” where leaders adopt ruthless, secular corporate structures to run a church under the delusion that the ends justify the means.

In our personal lives, it manifests as the slow, gradual lowering of our standards regarding the media we consume or the gossip we entertain, all rationalized away as simply staying culturally relevant.

In organisational leadership, this phenomenon is known as “cultural drift.” It is the slow lowering of the bar until your prophetic voice sounds exactly like the surrounding secular noise.

Consider a modern parallel to Balaam’s strategy: a thriving, faith-based charity is offered a massive, multi-year grant by a secular corporate sponsor. The sponsor doesn’t ask the charity to renounce its faith, they merely suggest the charity “soften” the biblical language on their website and invite the charity’s leaders to a corporate gala that conflicts with their core ethical values, just to “keep the relationship strong.”

Like the Israelites at Peor, the organisation is invited to the party, the boundaries are blurred for the sake of financial reward, and the foundation is quietly desecrated from within.

We can see the devastating, macro-level effects of this drift when we look at our own history. Many of the most prestigious universities in the UK were originally built on a solid Christian foundation, established explicitly to train leaders and pursue truth through the lens of Scripture.

Today, that foundation has been almost entirely lost. They weren’t conquered by an external enemy; they simply underwent centuries of slow dilution, trading their theological distinction for secular approval, academic funding, and cultural relevance until the original mission was completely forgotten.

Three Vital Lessons from the “Outsider” Prophet

Balaam’s life offers three stark warnings for modern readers about how defilement takes root:

1. Gift vs. Fruit

Balaam proves that you can possess authentic spiritual gifts, sharp intellect, and high-level skills without having spiritual character. Jesus warned in Matthew 7 that we would recognize false prophets not by their gifts, but by their fruit.

This is a vital distinction because in business or ministry, we often mistakenly hire for “skill” (the gift) only to get fired for “scale” (the lack of character).

The enemy loves a highly gifted leader with a hollowed-out heart.

If you’ve ever had to work under a leader like this, you know exactly how hard it is. It creates a toxic environment, leading to constant frustration and ultimately pressuring you into doing things you know aren’t right, just to keep the peace and keep up the pace.

2. Manipulation vs. Submission

It is crucial to clarify that Balaam was not an Israelite. It can be tricky for modern readers to wrap their heads around someone completely outside the covenant “seeking God,” but as a recognised diviner, Balaam had genuine access to the unseen, spiritual realm.

But he “sought God” not to find the truth, but to find a loophole.

He repeatedly asked God if he could go with Balak, hoping God would eventually change His mind so Balaam could get paid.

Although we are part of God’s New Covenant, nothing like Balaam in that way, there is still the temptation to treat God in a transactional way rather than coming to him in reverence.

While we are sons and daughters and can enjoy beautiful intimacy with God, he is not there to be manipulated. True seeking is about aligning your will with God’s.

“Balaam-style” seeking is negotiating with God until He gives you a “yes” for a bad idea, treating prayer as a business transaction rather than an act of submission. 

3. The Mercenary Mindset

The New Testament writers Peter, Jude, and John all remember Balaam as a man defined by greed. Jude 11 says they

“have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error.”

He was a mercenary who sold the “how-to” of deception to the highest bidder. 

Ultimately, if your “book of business” or your ministry is built on profit at the expense of purpose and purity, you are running the Balaam play. You might get the “fee,” but you will inevitably lose the “foundation.”

And when you lose the foundation, everything built on top of it is living on borrowed time. A business or life built on compromise will eventually collapse under its own weight. If we have skyscraper faith for a towering legacy that impacts nations and generations, we must first build on firm foundations.

Putting profit and personal gain above God’s plan is no foundation for a lasting legacy.

The only legacy Balaam left is being remembered for his error.

The Counter-Play: Protecting Your Distinction

While we’ve seen above the errors Balaam made, it’s equally important to recognise how to stop the “slow defilement” and actively live out Romans 12:2:

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

For me, it requires more than just good intentions. I need a structural “Firewall” around my soul and around any organisation I am part of.

Here’s how:

1. Audit the “Counsel” (The Voices)

The Balaam trap relies on the voices you invite into your inner circle. If your primary advisors are people whose only metric is profit or speed, you will eventually mirror their values.

Perform a quarterly audit of your “Kitchen Cabinet.”

Are your closest advisors those who encourage you to hold the line of holiness, or are they subtly teaching you how to “seduce the system” for a quicker win? 

If your council lacks a “prophetic check,” you are vulnerable.

2. Identify the “Peor” Moments (The Temptations)

“Peor” is rarely a mountain-top temptation. It is usually a mundane invitation to a “party” where you eventually feel comfortable trading your identity for acceptance.

Map your week.

Where are the moments you feel the internal pressure to “soften” your language, compromise your integrity, or blur your ethical boundaries to “keep the peace” or “win the contract”? These are your Peor moments. 

Name them. Pre-decide your response so you aren’t negotiating in the heat of the moment.

3. Seek His Face, Not His Permission (The Heart Posture)

Let’s not treat prayer like a business transaction. “Balaam-style” seeking is trying to twist God’s arm into a “yes” for a bad idea.

Adopt the “24-Hour Cooling Off” rule. 

When a high-stakes opportunity arises that feels “grey,” refuse to act until you have spent a full, silent period in prayer without asking for a specific outcome. Let peace be your guide.

Here’s a good prayer: “Lord, does this align with Your Kingdom, or am I building my own?” 

If you find yourself hunting for loopholes in the Great Commission, you know you’ve stopped seeking His face!

4. Build the “Firewall”

Defilement thrives in the absence of structure. If you do not have a defined standard of “holiness,” you will be dragged down to the standard of the culture.

Establish three non-negotiables for your life and work that you will never trade, even if the reward is massive. When you have a hard line, the enemy’s invitation to “just a little compromise” loses its power. 

Examples of some of my “Firewall” non-negotiables:

• I refuse to use over-exaggeration to win people over or to make things sound better in my life than they already are. If I can’t back something up with real experience or fact, I’d rather be honest than risk the credibility of the Kingdom I represent.
• I keep a 24 hour Sabbath every week. That means anything that ‘feels’ like work is off-limits on that day. This builds a wall against the anxiety that drives “holy hustle” and reminds us that the world spins perfectly well without our constant intervention.
• I won’t make promises I can’t keep. If it’s in the diary, it’s happening. If I’m unsure, I won’t guarantee my presence. When I do show up, it’s because I’m 100% available to be fully present. I won’t promise finance I don’t have. I won’t borrow money unless I know how I will pay it back.

Maybe you have your own non-negotiables. These are just 3 of mine that came to mind as I write this. When you know where the boundaries are, you’ll know when you’ve crossed them! 

Conclusion: The Race Marked Out

We have completed our interrogation of the Devil’s Playbook.

• Distraction tries to stop you starting.
• Doubt tries to stop you believing.
• Despondency tries to stop you feeling.
• Division tries to stop you standing.
• Defilement tries to stop you being holy.

But remember the scripture we started with: We are not unaware of his schemes. 

By identifying these “Ds,” you have already taken the first step toward victory. 

You are a leader called to love God, love people, and make disciples. 

You have the power of the Resurrection behind you.

As we established in the introduction to this series, our ultimate counter-play to every one of these tactics is found in Hebrews 12:2: 

“Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” 

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About Jon Petts