5-31-26 Wisdom from an Unexpected Source (Numbers)

Join Pastor Ken as he looks at Numbers 22.

Transcript

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We've been going through numbers and we're going to continue to do so today. But first, I got a question for you. Have you ever been saved from disaster by some weird event, some unexpected delay, some problem that came up that was at first frustrating, but then you understood it was good that it happened. When I was a boy in high school, freshman, my parents got a box of chickens. They would get these little baby chicks, 50 of them at a time, and then we would raise them and keep some for laying eggs, and other ones became friars, you know. And while I was at school, some animal had probably tried to get in the chicken pin and had dug a little hole, and the baby chicks discovered it and were escaping. And my dad was trying to get them back in. He was worried that the neighborhood dogs were going to get him if he didn't. And he couldn't do it by himself, so he went and told my mom, I need you to come out here and help me. And she was frustrated because she was trying to get things done in the house. But she went out to help him, and a few minutes later, the hot water tank exploded, shooting flames to that house, and it burned down in just a very short amount of time. And we felt like that had been God's providence delivering her from possibly terrible injury or even death. Sometimes people ignored the warnings, though, right? At the Battle of the Wilderness, right afterwards, John Sedgwick, one of the Union commanders, was placing batteries from a distance, and shells started whistling by bullets, and one of the soldiers said, General, they're sharpshooters shooting at you. And his famous last words were, they couldn't hit an elephant at that range, right before he was taken down by a sharpshooter. You don't want to be like the guy on the plane that was surprised to find he was the only person on there. Usually they're packed down. He has the stewardess, what's going on? And she said, Yeah, we had a full plane, but all these people were going to a conference on prophetic issues, and they canceled at the last moment. Take a look with me at Numbers chapter 22, beginning with verse 2, and stand as you are able, please, for the reading of God's word. Now Balak, son of Zippor, saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites. Moab was in great dread of the people, because they were so numerous. Moab was overcome with fear of the Israelites. And Moab said to the elders of Midian, This horde will now lick up all that is around us as an ox licks up the grass of the field. Now Balak, son of Zippor, was king of Moab at that time. He sent messengers to Balaam, son of Beor at Pethor, which is on the Euphrates in the land of Amad, to summon him, saying, A people has come out of Egypt. They have spread over the face of the earth, and they have settled next to me. Come now, curse this people for me, since they are stronger than I. Perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them from the land, for I know that whomever you bless is blessed, and whomever you curse is cursed. This is the word of God for the people of God. Please be seated. So Balak, the king of Moab, calls on Balaam to come and curse Israel. His people are afraid of the Israelites. They are moving towards the land that God has promised to them. Moab is on the Jordan, the kind of east side of the Jordan, what's now the state of Jordan, and the people are nervous about this huge crowd that shows up. And so Balak turns to magic. The idea of the evil eye, the curse that you put on somebody. The idea is that that curse weakens them, it has an effect on them, and then you can defeat them or take advantage of it. I was in Morocco to meet my daughter who was studying there while I was on a trip to Spain in 2010. And I quickly noticed moving around in Morocco that you see on the doors of houses, you see up in the windows, this hand with an inscription on it. It's the hand of Fatima. And it's meant to ward off the evil eye. The idea that people will curse other people and that that curse has magic effect upon them. Now we're going to look next Sunday at the actual curses and blessings when Balaam gets to that point. We've got other things to focus on this week. Now, I do want to mention that the reason that Balach sends to Balaam is that he was a famous seer, perhaps sorcerer, diviner of the time. In fact, there was an inscription discovered in, I think it was the 1960s, at a place called Deer Allah in Jordan, a plaster wall that had partially fallen down, but they were able to read on the wall an inscription from the 8th century BC that talks about Balaam, son of Beor, exactly as in the scripture, who is a great seer who puts curses on people. And it's not an Israelite inscription. In fact, it talks about a lot of different gods and goddesses. So he was famous among the people of the area. Now, we're going to skip over this kind of back and forth where Balaam says, No, I can't go, and Balaak says, I'll reward you if you come. We'll talk about that later, focus on that later. So let's pick up the story with verses 20 and following. That night God came to Balaam and said to him, If the men have come to summon you, get up and go with them, but do only what I tell you to do. So Balaam got up in the morning, saddled his donkey, and went with the officials of Moab. God's anger was kindled because he was going, and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the road as his adversary. Now he was riding on the donkey, and his two servants were with him. The donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand. So the donkey turned off the road and went into the field, and Balaam struck the donkey to turn it back onto the road. Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between the vineyards with a wall on either side. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it scraped against the wall and scraped Balaam's foot against the wall, so he struck it again. Then the angel of the Lord went ahead and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn, either to the right or to the left. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it lay down under Balaam, and Balaam's anger was kindled, and he struck the donkey with his staff. Then the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, and it said to Balaam, What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times? Balaam said to the donkey, Because you have made a fool of me. I wish I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now. But the donkey said to Balaam, Am I not your donkey, which you have ridden all your life to this day? Have I been in the habit of treating you this way? And he said, No. Balaam's stubborn donkey, or road rage on the way of the seer. So Balaam sets out on his faithful donkey. I wanted to go to King James Version here. If you guys have ever read this in King James Version, you know the language changes and it's used as a different word for donkey. And I was going to tile my sermon, Balaam's donkey. Saves Balaam's, you know, donkey. But Jordan said, I have to behave. And so I'm going to try to behave here. And we went to a more modern translation on them. But you know, you see these all over if you've been to Israel or Jordan or Egypt, these Middle Eastern donkeys. And they're about as wide as they are tall sometimes. And it's really hilarious to see a grown man riding one because their legs scrape the ground usually. And so their legs, the men have to kind of stick their legs straight out to keep from scraping the ground on one of these little donkeys that they ride all over the place. But they're known for their mobility. They can go places a horse cannot go. They can go up and down trails in different places. They're known for their durability. They can survive a long time without water. They're very strong. They can bear heavy loads. And they're also known for their stubbornness, for their willingness to stand up to their owners. You hear their bray, you know what I'm talking about. They ee-aw, ee-aw, ee-aw. And it reminds you of hee-haw and things like that, right? Maybe it's a mule on hee-haw. But anyway, they are also have the reputation of being the dumbest of the domestic animals of that area and that time. The angel of the Lord, though, threatens Balaam three times. Three times he stands in the way and threatens him, and Balaam doesn't see it. Have you ever looked in your pet's eyes and wondered what's going on in there? Have you ever wondered whether they recognize that they are created by God? That they are a part of God's creation? Do you ever see the dances and the calls of birds and think, are they singing praises to the God that they know created them? The incredible reproductivity of the animal world and think, are they can fulfilling that command of being fruitful and multiply that God gives them? In Genesis chapter 1, Job's 12, Job 12, 7 through 3 says, ask the animals, and they will tell you of the presence of the Lord. Kind of like that song that we just sang talks about. Creation praising God, creation knowing God in ways that we as humans are often resistant to admit. Creation teaches us about God in its beauty and its complexity and the power of life and its variety. And so every time this donkey swerves, he's saving Balaam's life, although Balaam doesn't get it. He blames the donkey for just being stubborn, for being stupid, for not cooperating with his will. And each time he beats him for swaying to avoid certain death. When the way gets more narrow, the donkey trying to get around, the angel rubs his foot on the wall. I used to have a Shetland pony when I was a kid. My folks got him for me when I was about 10 years old, and it was a female buttons and bows. And again, she kind of looked like a donkey. She was about as wide as she was tall. And she had been at one of those places that they just have the kids ride around and around. So if you got on her back, she would just go in circles. And I used to lay on her back and read a book and just kind of hang out with her, and she would get tired of me after a while and try to wipe me off by going close to the fence where I couldn't stay on her back. Every time, though, it gets riskier until finally the donkey can't get around or swerve to avoid the angel with the sword, and it literally lays down underneath Balaam. Have you ever had a pet take care of you or a child? When we lived in Loveland, Colorado, my brother was just a toddler, and we had one of those porches that you went up several steps, and then it was a stone porch that had the walls around it. And my mom would put my brother and I out there, and my brother would want to crawl out or toddle out to the street, and we had a dog, and it would just literally lay down across the steps, and it would herd my brother back onto the porch so that he couldn't escape from there. Let's pick up the story. Numbers 22, 31 through 35. Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with his drawn sword in his hand, and he bowed down, falling on his face. The angel of the Lord said to him, Why have you struck your donkey these three times? I have come out as an adversary because of your because your way is perverse before me. The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If it had not turned away from me, surely just now I would have killed you and let it live. Then Balaam said to the angel of the Lord, I have sinned, for I did not know that you were standing in the road to oppose me. Now therefore, if it is displeasing to you, I will return home. The angel of the Lord said to Balaam, Go with the men, but speak only what I tell you to speak. So Balaam went on with the officials of Balach. Listening to God keeps us alive. Both in this world and eternally. Let me repeat that. Listening to God keeps you and I alive. Balaam finally realizes what's going on when the Lord opens his eye to this angel. And of course, there's a huge amount of irony here. The seer, the guy with the special prophetic abilities, can't see that death is staring him in the face, but the dumb donkey sees it three times. The cursor of nations, who is more powerful than a sword, wishes that he had a sword so he could kill his donkey that keeps saving his life by stopping before the angel gets him. The brute rage of the prophet and his violence towards his donkey is a huge contrast to seeing a donkey as a brute beast, an ignorant beast. There's a painting at St. Louis Art Museum called Attachment. You may have seen it. It's about a true story. A man named Charles Gow in 1805 fell to his death while hiking with his dog, Foxy. And for the next three months, the dog stayed by his side, driving off any kind of scavengers, staying there until his basically his body was down to the bones before it moved on. It's a painting that pictures the loyalty of animals to us. Why, why, why does Balaam show so ignorance when his donkey shows such devotion, such presence? I mean, he seems to be so caught up in what he wants, such a hurry to get to where he wants, such a worry about getting what Balak has promised him. He keeps telling him in his messengers, I'm going to reward you greatly if you come and curse these people that he doesn't think about anything else. I mean, isn't that kind of the recipe for road rage? That we're focused on either being in a hurry or not being in a hurry. I was driving down Green Mount, crossing over I-64 the other day, and I came to that stoplight that has both the exit going west and also the entrance to going west there. And there's a line of cars at the exit just sitting there, and the lights red where I am, and I'm thinking, why are they just sitting there? And I look up and their light's green the whole time, and I look over, and there's a guy in a military uniform flipping off the people behind him and just sitting there blocking it for everybody. And they're honking, and he's just waited until the light turned red, just sit there. Somebody probably got mad because the person behind him honked and said, hurry up, finish that text so the rest of us can drive. And so he just sat there. People rush to their destruction and ignore warnings because they get so focused on something else, so focused on a particular desire, a particular thing, so angry if something gets in their way. And they fail to listen to God. They fail to see the nature of threats around them. They fail to deal with reality and the reality of other people. And God speaks to us in many ways if we're willing to listen. If we're willing to listen. If you go to the scripture, you find God speaks to people through angels, through dreams, through writing on a wall, through a cloud by day and fire by night, through the holy dyes, through Urim and Thumum that the priest has, through a burning bush, through miracles, and of course, God speaks verbally by prophets and holy men, by pastors, by proclaimers, by apostles, and most of all by his son. God speaks to us through our parents, through our friends, and of course, he speaks to us in the words of his Bible. But to get the message of God, you need to be paying attention. You need to be willing to listen. You need to sometimes be humble enough to realize that it might be a dumb animal or a little child that tells you those profound lessons that you need to hear. You need to be open. Could you be missing out because you're so focused on something else? In such a hurry, so focused on doing something else, so distracted with the things of this world. There's a story about a student who went to a master and said, Teach me about the ways of life that I might find my fortune. And they set off on the road and they spent the night by a tree. And the master says to the student, The bees here are acting really strange. I think they're trying to communicate to us. And the student said, I don't have any time for bees. I'm out to find my fortune. So they get up the next day and go on. They come to a river and they're waiting for the ferry, and a fish comes up to them, and it's acting really strange. And the master says, I think this fish is trying to communicate to us. And the student says, I have no time for fish. I'm out finding my fortune. And they pay their fare and cross the river. They stop for lunch, and as they're sitting under a tree eating, some ants come up. And the master says, These ants, they seem to be trying to get our attention. I think they have something to tell us. And the student says, I have no time for ants. I have to fulfill my destiny. I have to make my fortune. They go a little further, and the teacher says, Oh, I think I must have lost my knife at that tree we spent the night at. Let's go back and get it. And on the way back, they run into another teacher with his student and they're rejoicing. And they say, What's going on? The student says, These ants were trying to communicate something, and I followed them to their trail, and I found this huge chunk of gold was blocking their anthill. And I took it out. I have made my fortune. They get to the river, and there's another student with his master rejoicing, and the student says, I've followed this fish that was acting really funny. And he had a coin in his mouth, and I relieved him of that coin so he could breathe. And he took me to this sunken treasure. I have made my fortune. They go on to the tree where they spent the night. And there's a third master and his student. And the student is rejoicing, and they say, What's happening? He said, There were these bees that were trying to communicate to me that a log had fallen and blocked their entrance to their hive. And so I got up there and I took it out. And now I have all this honey. I have made my fortune. The student turned to his master and said, Three times you have failed me. I will go find a master that knows how to make your fortune. You know, there's a version of that story that doesn't focus upon the material things, it focuses on the deeper lessons, the community work that bees teach us, the will for life and the struggle of life that the fish exhibits, the hard work and dedication that the ants teach us about making it through life and our fortune. Could you be missing on what God has for you? Could you be not reading the things that are out there, not listening, not studying, being so distracted, so focused on the things of this world and your feelings and your anger and your upsetness that you miss the very point of what God's teaching you. The mongoose destroys the powerful cobra by distracting it with his tail. The devil loves to distract us with the things of the world, with the things that are passing away. God is intent on teaching Balaam the truth. He tells him first not to go. Balaam keeps asking over and over, and finally he tells him to go, and then it says it displeases him, and you have this whole thing with the donkey. Why is it that God goes back and forth? Well, I think probably what's going on is God is trying to impress upon him a deeper lesson of obeying him because Balaam's intention, Balaam's temptation, if you will, is to go and make a whole lot of money off this and enhance his reputation. And what would it hurt if he put a little curse on Israel? And God keeps trying to impress upon him. If you go, you better do what I tell you to do. You better listen to me. He gives him a humble lesson from a humble animal. Open your eyes to the spiritual reality around you, to the spiritual threats, to what's really important in life. To revelation of God Himself. Let's go to the old or the New Testament, Hebrews chapter 1, verses 1 through 4. Long ago, God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in his last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact imprint of God's very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs. The amount of revelation that we have received as Christians is incredible. The things we know that the ancient prophets, the Old Testament heroes long to see is incredible. God has revealed to us, not just through angels and writing on the wall and prophetic messages and symbolic actions and miracles. He has revealed to us through the very Son, the member of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Son has brought us the very image of God and has made possible for us to connect to God for eternity. What is God trying to tell you through his son? Are you listening carefully? Even to the unexpected places? You know, it always drove me crazy when I'm teaching a class full of college students that when I talk, some of them, not as many now as used to, would write notes. When I stopped talking, and while the students talk, they'd all put their pins down. And I'd say, wait a minute. And this was the same with the second career ministers. I said, they might have something as important to say as I do. You need to pay attention to what others around you say as well. What message does God have for you? What has he revealed to you? Are you searching to know his will, to understand him, to get closer to him, to be conformed to the image of the Son? Are you following him and trusting in him and headed to life, finding your true destiny and fortune in Jesus Christ, the one who has revealed the very heart of God to us? The good news is in him you can have life. Will you pray with me? Heavenly Father, I thank you for your incredible love, for all the ways you bless us and provide for us. Help us to be the people who perceive, who understand, who see the truth and live on the basis of that truth. Help us to be those that are open to your word and your guidance and your presence, whether it comes to a little child or an animal or the stars in the heavens or through your word, the Bible. Thank you for all the ways you're willing to talk to us and express your will to us. And help us to always remember that when we need to know what you want us to do, we can turn to you and find that in Jesus' name. Amen.