Thank you, Lydia and Levi. You know I've said this before,
but we are so fortunate to have the young people in our church
that are dedicated to the Lord. I told them if they ever change,
I'm going to come back and haunt them.
But I appreciate them. That song is beautiful.
We do need the Lord, there's no doubt about it.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer and we'll start right off with
prayer. Father, we do need you.
God, we thank you so much for what you did for us on that
cross. God, we don't deserve it.
We still don't deserve it, Lord. Lord, you did it because you
loved us and we thank you so much for that.
We thank you for your word that you have deserved for us, that
you've given to us, God, and we we glean from it.
And we ask tonight, Lord, that in this account of what happened
in Numbers chapter 22, that you would just bring it to life to
us. Help us, Lord, to a pride to our
lives in Jesus name we pray, Amen.
Turn to Numbers chapter 22 in the way of introduction.
This is probably one of the funniest that can is this thing
too high? It's ringing in my ears, but
it's one of the funniest accounts, I think, that's
recorded in the Bible, but really one of the weirdest
accounts that's been recorded in the Bible too.
And it's the interaction actually between Balaam and his
donkey. But Balaam was there for a
reason. And I, I will say this, we're in
the Old Testament tonight. Brother Jim was in the Old
Testament this morning and brother Greg and Sunday school
was in the Old Testament this morning.
Now, you know, in the modern day church, the Old Testament is
just a bunch of stories. So we could have all stayed home
today if we are a modern church. But you know what the Bible says
that all Scripture, all scripture.
And so, so we, we don't take that we don't believe that.
We believe that everything that is written in the Bible has a
place in our life, and God has it there.
And guess what? It's eternal.
It's not going away. It's going to be with us in
heaven. So it's always going to be
there. And so we're going to be in the
Old Testament, We're going to take it, and we're going to see
what God has for us tonight. But to better understand this
story, I think we first of all need to understand a little bit
about the characters in this story.
And there's a lot of characters actually in it, but we are going
to look at basically three. We're going to look at Balak,
Balaam, and then the donkey. And those are the three
characters that we're going to look at tonight.
So let's first of all, I do want to talk just a little bit about
Balak First, I think we need to have a little understanding of
who Balak was and what he was doing.
So in in Numbers chapter 22, we're going to read the 1st 4
verses and the children of Israel set forth and pitched in
the plains of Moab on the side Jordan by Jericho and Baloch.
I'm going to say Balaam and I'm going to say Baloch.
And so they're probably going to get all twisted up.
But you, you know what I'm talking about.
You know who I'm talking about. But Baloch the son of Zeppler
saw all that Israel had done to the Amorite, and Moab was sore
afraid of the people because there were many.
And Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel.
And Moab said unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this company
lick up all that is around about us, as the ox licketh up the
grass of the field. And Balak the son of Zepper was
king of the Moabats at the time. Now here's what we know about
about Balak. We know that Balak, first of
all, was afraid of Israel. He showed tremendous fear here
of Israel, but he really didn't need to.
I want you to go over to Deuteronomy 23, three and four,
because in this verse we're going to see that God told
Israel, stay away from them. You don't want anything to do
with them at this point in in Deuteronomy 23 in three and
four, it says and the Amorite and the Moabites shall not enter
into the congregation of the Lord even to their 10th
generation. Shall they ever enter into the
synagogue of the Lord forever because they met you not in not
with bread and and water in the way when you came out of Egypt.
God didn't want anything having to do he didn't want the
Israelites to mix with Moab. So the Israelites were on the
plane beside Jordan there. But The thing is, they were just
passing through. They were getting ready.
They had already been in the wilderness around 40 years.
They were getting ready to go into the promised land.
They had no intentions of going up into the hills to to Moab and
conquer them. But we know here that Balick was
afraid of them. He was afraid probably because
he had already heard about the Amorite and how how God had had
worked miraculous miracles to to secure the victories there.
He had probably also learned about the strategic maneuvers
that Moses and Aaron came up with.
He was literally afraid of them. So we know that Balak was afraid
of the Israelites at this time, and he had heard about the sun
standing still, he had probably heard about the hailstones.
So he was afraid of Israel. So that's what we know about
Balak right now as far as it is to this story.
So he was desperate. He was desperate.
He knew that his armies could not defeat Israel because God
was on their side, because God had done miraculous things.
He saw it, he heard about it. He would probably had, it's
probably some of his spies had actually seen what was going on
in these other lands. And so he knew, hey, my armies
are not a match for these people.
If they come up to me, they're going to defeat us.
So Balak hatches a plan, and that's in Numbers 5, starting in
verse 5. Let's read there and just
continue there. Excuse me, that's in #3 I think
hold up, you'd be good if I got out of Deuteronomy.
OK, so here was here was Balaams plan.
He sent messengers therefore, and to Balaam the son of Bior,
to Petor, which is, which is by the river of the land of the
children of his people, to call him, saying, Behold, there is a
people come out of Egypt, and behold, they cover the face of
the earth. See, he saw them, they were a
multitude. Cover the face of the earth, and
they abide over against me. Come now therefore, I pray thee,
curse me these people, for they are too mighty for me.
Pre adventure. I shall prevail, that we may
smite them, and that we may drive them out of the land.
For I wrought that he whom thou blessed is blessed, and he whom
thou cursed is cursed. So Balak was looking for
something supernatural. He knew he could not face the
Israelites with just an army. So he knew he needed something
natural. So he hatches this plan.
So let's talk a little bit about Balaam then.
Balaam is a real peculiar character in the Bible.
I will tell you some people have called him a prophet.
A prophet, and he really was, but he was a sorcerer.
He was a seer. And I do believe that he knew
the occults, but it says in the Scripture that he knew Jehovah
as well. Now that's weird to me, but we
have all heard that in today's, even in today's culture, it's
one thing to know who Christ is and another thing to be his
follower. And so I believe here what we
see is Balaam is a false prophet.
In fact, it later on in the New Testament, they even, they even
testify to this, he is a false prophet.
But The thing is, is he still knows God.
And we'll see that later as we go on because in verse 18,
Balaam uses the phrase the Lord my God, it's capitalized.
And so he does know who Jehovah is, but I think that it's
probably one of those things that he felt like, yeah, I know
Jehovah, he's probably the big God, but there's also little
gods. You ever met anybody like that
that said, oh, well, there's many ways to get to heaven.
And so I think Balak was a was a forerunner of that.
And I think that's the the attitude that we have today
sometimes in this world, at least the Christians, that it's
that way. But by this time, Balak would
have known the law of God and he would have heard about the 10
commandments by now. Balaam knew him.
And I'm not sure how he said there shall be no other God
before me. I guess maybe he just felt like,
well, I'm just not going to put any of these little gods before
Jehovah, but I can still have them.
We're doing that today as well. So Balaam was a false teacher.
Balaam was a sorcerer, Balaam was a seer.
So we know that about Balaam. So and it, it sounds like, by
the way, Balaam must have been very well known where Balaam was
and for where Balak was was over 400 miles.
They had to travel 400 miles to get this guy and 400 miles back.
So Balaam had a reputation in the whole area.
We don't know. It may have been world world
renowned at that time, but he had a reputation of who he was.
He says in that verse, he says whom thou blessed.
He said I know that whom thou blessed is blessed and whom thou
curses is cursed. Now that's Balak's testimony of
Balaam, so there must have been some evidence of that.
So let's read on. And now let's let's turn just a
little bit to the other character and that's the donkey.
Now donkeys, donkeys, I've never had donkeys, had horses, but
I've never had donkeys. But I do know a lot of people
that have had donkeys. They are different than horses.
Donkeys actually live longer than horses.
It's a horse will live 2530 years.
That's the average for a horse. A donkey can live into the 40s,
even 50s. So a donkey is is got longevity.
A donkey pound for pound is stronger than a horse.
So a donkey is a beast of burden.
But a donkey. When it comes to the horse
family, there is something called fear of flight.
If something scares a horse, a horse flights.
He doesn't fight, he flights. He'll take off.
He'll take off running. Donkeys are not like that.
Donkeys are more laid back. If something, if something
Spooks a donkey, a donkey will just stand still or they'll just
casually veer out of the way, whatever.
But that's the attitude of a donkey.
That's one of the reason. And a donkey doesn't eat as
much. A donkey doesn't need as much
water as a horse. So a donkey is usually something
that people keep for a long, long time.
And we'll see later that Balaam's donkey, he had had it
for a long time. In fact, the donkey even told
him, said I've been here with you for a long time.
So anyway, but but I can tell you this, I have never heard a
donkey talk. Now I have seen some horses that
really wanted to talk. I've had a few that that if if
you, if you watched them, they could talk to you.
But donkeys were more of the working class vehicle.
They were sort of the Fords of the society back then.
You know, they, they weren't Cadillacs.
The horse was the Cadillac. See, the kings rode horses.
They didn't ride donkeys. They rode horses.
The horses were majestic. I don't know if you've heard
this or not, but horse racing was the sport of kings.
And that's why kings also sometimes kings collected horses
and, and had horses just to show their power.
But horses were a majestic animal.
But donkeys, they were more for the for the lower class, for the
meekness. And you've seen many times in
the in the scriptures where prophets would ride donkeys.
And it's because that is the meek that that shows a little
bit of meekness. Now I want you to do something
for me. I want you to turn over to
Matthew 21, one and four. This is a little bit off
subject, but I just felt like the Lord want me to put this in
here. So I'm going to Matthew 21 and
I'm going to read one through 4. And when they do try, when they
drew nigh into Jerusalem, and we're come to Bethpage unto the
Mount of Olives, then sent Jesus 2 disciples, saying unto them,
Go into the village over against you, and straightway you shall
find an ass tied, and a coat with her.
Loose them, and bring them unto Me.
And if any man say not unto you, you shall say, The Lord hath
need of them, and straightway he will send them.
All this was done that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken
by the prophet saying, Tell ye the daughter of Zion, behold,
thy king cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass and a
colt as the foal of an ass. Now I want you to turn over to
Revelation chapter 19, Revelation chapter 19 and we're
going to read verse 11 and verses 16 said, And I saw heaven
open, and behold, a White Horse. And he that sat up on him was
called faithful and true, and in righteousness he doth judge and
make war. And then jumped down to verse 6.
And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written King
of kings, Lord of Lords. That's Christ coming back on a
horse. He left on a donkey.
He's coming back on the horse Now.
I tell you that to to make you to give you some insight that
donkeys were really, they show meekness.
So we're looking at Balaam here and Balaam has a donkey.
But folks, Balaam was rich. Balaam was well known for
getting money for his curses and for his services, for even for
his blessings. He knew he had money.
Balaam could afford a horse, is what I'm trying to say.
So why did he wear a? Why did he ride a donkey?
Because he wanted to show people that he was me.
But he wasn't. So you see, Balaam was not what
he really was. We didn't see he was trying to
project an image. So that was Balaam.
OK, and, and, and the donkey. But let's talk now about what
happened in these verses with them.
Let's go back to 22, back to Numbers 22, and let's go on
starting in verse 5. And we're talking about Balak.
And he sent messengers therefore unto Balaam, the son of the
earth pier, which is by the river of the land, of the land
of the children of his people, to call him, saying, Behold,
there is a people come out of Egypt.
Behold, they come cover the face of the earth, and they abode
against me. And then jump down to verse 7.
And the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with
the rewards of the devidation in their land, and they came into
Balaam. And they spake unto him the word
of Balak. And he said unto them, Lodge
here this night, and I will bring you word again, as the
Lord shall speak unto me. And the Princess of Moab abode
with Balaam. Now we know right here Balaam
should have never even entertained it.
They told Balaam that they wanted to that Balak wanted him
to curse the Israelites. But this is a God that he's
called my God, his people, and Balaam is accepting them.
He's even entertaining them so and and so he said, and as as as
the Lord speak unto me. And the Princess of Moab abode
with Balaam. And God came unto Balaam and
said, What men are these with thee, and going on?
And Balak said unto God, Balaam, the son of Zephyr, king of Moab,
hath sent unto me, saying, Sent unto me, saying, Behold, there
is a people come out of Egypt which covers the face of the
earth. Come now, curse me them pre
adventure. I shall be able to overcome them
and drive them out. And I want you to listen to what
God said, God said. And God said unto Balaam, Thou
shall not go, OK, that's the first thing, thou shall not go.
But look at the second one. Thou shall not curse the people,
for they are blessed. Remember that.
Remember when God blessed Israel, so how can he curse
somebody that God has blessed? And so he tells him, he said,
don't go, do not go. So Balaam, he says it rose up
early in the morning, said into the Princess of Balak, get you
into your land, for the Lord refuses to give me leave to go
with you. Now notice what he said there.
He's sort of saying God's just not going to let me go with you.
And he didn't say God's not going to God's not going to
accept a curse. He just says, look, I can't go.
Now, I don't know, maybe in the back of my mind I'm believing
that Balaam is probably thinking now, well, maybe if I send them
away, maybe they'll come back with a bigger purse.
That may have been Balak. That may have been what he did,
because that's exactly what they did.
So Balak, for the sake of time, we're going to skip around here
just a little bit. So Balaam, they go back to Balak
and Balak says, OK, I'm going to send even more important people
this second time. I'm sending more important
people. And I'm going to send him a
blank check. And I want you to listen.
I want you to look. But what Balaam, Balaam said
here. And Balaam said, and Balaam
answered and said unto the servants of Balak, If Balak
would give me this house full of silver and gold, I cannot go
beyond the word of the Lord my God to do less or more.
Now therefore I pray you, tarry you here also this night, that
you may know what the Lord will say unto me more.
Look, he's he's playing with God.
You ever played with God? We don't mean to, but we bargain
with the Lord sometimes and he's playing with God here.
Now the first thing was Balaam had servants with him.
We can assume that that there were other people around him
because he was so famous. He had workers, he had servants
around him. When he saw Balak's people
coming, he should have never entertained them, but he did.
He entertained them, and then he tells them, Let me sleep on it.
Maybe God's got something else to say to me about it.
So he does that and listen to what God did.
And God came into Balaam at night and said unto him, If the
men come to call thee, rise up, go with them.
But yet the word which I shall say unto thee, that shall
they'll do. And Balaam rose up in the
morning, saddled his ass, and went with the Princess of Moab.
Now I believe here what God was doing is simply saying, Balaam,
do what you want to do. It didn't mean that God was
giving him his authority. It simply meant, Balaam, you've
got a free will. Because in that next verse, look
what it says. And God's anger was kindled
because he went, and the Angel of the Lord stood in his way for
an adversary, adversary against him.
Now this is where Balaam and his donkey comes into play.
Balaam, we already know, is on his donkey.
He took it and he's going down the road.
And then for whatever reason, I think it was God's mercy, God's
mercy that gave Balaam another chance.
And here's what happened. Let's read, continue reading.
And. And he said now he was riding
upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.
And the ass saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the way, and
his sword drawn in his hand, And the ass turned aside out of the
way, and went in the field, and Balaam smoked the ass to turn
her into the way. You see the donkey saw the
Angel. Balaam couldn't see the Angel
Balaam is spiritually blind. You ever seen somebody blind
walking down the street who is blind, a busy or busy sidewalk,
and they have a CNI dog right beside them and the dog is
weaving them in and out? That's what Balaam had.
Balaam was spiritually blind. Balaam just simply had a CNI
donkey and the donkey was avoiding the danger, but Balaam
couldn't see it. So Balaam was beating the
donkey. So Balaam goes on.
God gives him a second chance in verse 24.
But the Angel of the Lord stood in a path in the vineyards, a
wall being on one side and a wall being on the on the other
on the other side. And when the ass saw the Angel
of the Lord, this is the second time the the the donkey's seen
him, she thrust herself into the wall and crushed Balaam's foot
against the wall, and he smote her again.
Now I have had that happen riding a horse, where the horse
would push me into the wall for one reason or the other and hurt
my foot. Notice this second chance that
He gave caused a little pain to Balaam.
The first time it was just that she just took her out of the
way. It was an inconvenience and He
got her back on the road or wherever.
This time God applied just a little bit of pain.
He was trying to get Balaam's attention.
I truly believe that sometimes we do that.
God tries to direct their paths. He gives us those little CNI
donkeys in our lives and sometimes they just, it beers us
out of the way. And instead of beating the
donkey, he should have looked around and said, what is scaring
this donkey? He had this donkey for years.
He knew this donkey. He knew this donkey didn't
normally didn't normally act like this.
Don't you think that the rightful thing would be for
Balaam to say, wow, wait a minute, now the donkey took me
out of the way. That was weird.
Now the donkey pushes me up against the wall and hurts my
foot. That's not like this donkey.
This is how spiritually blind Balaam was.
He still couldn't see. God gives him another chance.
Keep reading in 26. And the Angel of the Lord went
further and stood in a narrow way where there was no way to
turn either to the right or to the left.
And when the ass saw the Angel of the Lord, she fell down upon
up, fell down under Balaam. And Balaam's anger was kindled
and he smoked the ass with his staff.
So it's getting a little worse. Balaam's mad.
Now, one of the reasons Balaam is mad is this.
He had all of these dignitaries going back with him towards
Balak, and every one of those guys were probably riding
horses. And here Balaam is riding an
insignificant little donkey and the donkey, he can't even
control the donkey. See his pride, It was very
evident that his pride was made a lot of difference in what
Balaam did. But Balaam could still not see
the Angel of the Lord standing in the way.
And folks, if you read on, the Angel of the Lord was going to
kill Balaam. He was going to kill him.
If it hadn't been for the donkey, Balaam would have been
killed. In fact, the Angel tells them
that later on it in the verse that I would have killed you and
saved the donkey. So there was a purpose for this
and God was trying to get his attention and and you can study
the rest of it out. Balaam goes on.
He does not curse Israel. Balak tries to get him to curse
Israel three times. Balaam will not curse Israel.
And even later on, if you read later on, you'll find out that
Balaam even prophecies about the Lord coming, but yet not long
after that he turns on Israel. Again, inconsistent.
You see, he knew God, but he didn't know God and that was the
problem. And if it hadn't have been for
that talk that that if it hadn't have been for the donkey, Balaam
would have died a long time ago. But the question tonight is
this. How many times does God try to
use things in our lives to get us to open our eyes?
Blindness in the Word of God is everywhere.
Whether we're saved, we can still be blind to the things of
God. If you're not saved, you can
certainly be blind to God, even to salvation.
And the Bible tells us. And if we had the time tonight,
we would go through it. But the Bible tells us that
there's two definite things that will keep us blinded,
spiritually blind. One is pride.
Jim or somebody mentioned it this morning.
Pride. Pride will keep us from opening
in our eyes to see what we wanted, what God wants us to
see. Balaam couldn't see the the
Angel because he was prideful. The other thing is material
things, folks, we are materialistic whether we want to
say we are or not. We in America, we are
materialistic. We are so well off, and we've
said this before, as we go out canvas and homes, you go into
these, well, these wealthy neighborhoods and try to knock
on the door. They don't need God.
They need God, but they don't think they need good God.
They have everything they need. They have more than three meals
a day. They don't have to count on God
for anything. So as God puts these things in
your life, as God puts these little donkeys in your life,
he's talking donkeys. God is trying to talk to us now.
He may not work in the same way that he might work with Bailey.
I mean, I, as I said, I'd be, I'd love for, I'd love to take a
talking donkey with me on visitation, wouldn't you?
How about that? How about that?
That'd wake some people up, wouldn't it?
But The thing is, is this, we can be spiritually blind and God
can be trying to get us back on the road where he wants us to
be. And if we are blinded by pride,
if we are blinded with the things that we have and the fact
that we we don't think we need anything, we may never see the
blessing that God has for us. I believe, I do believe this.
I believe that if Balaam had turned, I believe Balaam would
be in heaven today or going to heaven.
I believe he'd have gotten saved.
But he wouldn't you say, Well, Brother Gary, wait a minute.
He was a sorcerer. He was a God can save anybody.
It doesn't make any difference what the sins are.
God can save anybody. And in this story, I do believe
God would have saved him, but he never opened his eyes.
In fact, if you read on, you'll see he never opened his eyes.
He did see the Angel, but he didn't see the Angel because he
opened his eyes. It's because God opened his eyes
and his attitude was, wow, oh man, I didn't know he was there.
That was his attitude. He said it.
He said it fell on his face in front of the Angel and said,
boy, I've sinned. I've I've gone the wrong way
here. But he really wasn't.
He just got caught. He just got caught.
I think the lesson from this tonight is God puts things in
our lives to move us in certain directions.
And sometimes even as good of Christians as we think we are in
certain areas, we can get blinded and we may not see.
And sometimes God's gentle in doing that, in moving us to a,
to a particular place in our life.
Sometimes it may cause a little pain, sometimes it might just
stop us, just like he did Balaam when that when that donkey fell
underneath Balaam, it just stopped Balaam.
There was no forward progress. But I think that's what God will
do for us too. And I think God tries to do that
as often as you can. God's long-suffering.
But there will come a time when God's suffering turns into
judgement. A long-suffering can turn into
judgement. So we have to be careful of
that. We have to be careful that we do
not try to play God, play with God.
So tonight I hope you can, I hope you go back and read this
story or this account. I do.
I hope you go back and read it on your own time.
And you look at it, We didn't get a chance to cover half of
what I had here to cover. It's just too much in this just
so much. But I probably didn't cover
probably 40%. So go back and read it.
Go back and study it and look how God used that donkey, tried
to use that donkey, but Balaam wouldn't listen.
Balaam was later killed by the Israelites, later killed by the
Israelites. Now let's pray.
Father, we do thank you for this, this remarkable story in
your word and God, so often we don't even know that we're
blinded. We don't even know that we don't
see the things that you want us to see God do.
We do pray for your long-suffering on that.
We pray God that you would keep just you keep pricking us, Lord,
that we might be able to to finally see it.
You told Paul, Lord, you know, how long are you going to do
this to me And, and Paul, you know, finally gave in.
So God, we pray that you will not give up on us, Lord, that
you'll keep touching us. You'll keep touching our minds
and our hearts that we might turn to what you the way that
you want us to turn. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.