Balaam's Talking Donkey: A Spiritual Perspective

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Good morning, good morning, we talk home, not do good morning good morning to you. Hey, uh, what you know we're gonna get busted with a copyright infringement. You know there, nobody's gonna listen that. No nobody cares here, Chris, Yeah, we're a big deal're gonna anchor. Man, I'm not sure you've heard, but I'm kind of a big deal. That's so good. You have many books. Yeah, my steady smells a rich mahogany. It's so good. It's so good. Okay, so hey, good morning to you, or maybe it's evening. But my name is Chris, this is Jeff. We're the Bible Guys. And before we jump into our segment today or excuse me, our passage today, we have a segment called Who's most Likely? Which I love. Okay, so we're just gonna we're just gonna read these We haven't read them. You have not pre read them. I have not, me neither, and let's just read them and then quickly we'll just who's We'll just okay, number one, Who's most likely to accidentally set off the fire alarm while cooking? You me, because you don't cook. Yes, that's correct. That is correct, so it really doesn't matters likely. That's rights. And I've already told a story this week about using a quote unquote smokeless grill in the kitchen. That's right, correct, that's Christ Okay. Number two, who's most likely to bring a pet to work and not tell anybody? I'd say me, Yeah, have you done it before? Nope? Never done it? Okay, Although I don't know either of us could sneak a pet into the office and not tell anybody. That's our problem. Yeah, that is our problem. That's the hang up. Although I will say this, does she know what? I will say this? About ten years ago, I worked at a church where there's like three hundred people on staff, and somebody had sent an email and said, hey, we found this cat in the road. It was this tiny lit kitten, just this teen tennant kitten they've just found on the road. Whoever wants it come get it. Well, at the time, we already had four cats. And then my daughter Sarah shows up and she literally she looks at me and I go, you're not here. And she and she goes stop. She goes, she's you didn't see me, You didn't see me. And I said, do not go upstairs and grab that cat. Do not. And she goes, la, la la, I'm not listening, La la la, la la. And she goes all the way upstairs and gets this cat, brings it home. And since then, we've actually lost three of those cats and now we're down to two. And one of them is that that is that goofy ken For a long time, so I kind of had a pet of work. Yeah, there you go, kind of your daughter did. Yeah, let's let's go for a while. My wife was bringing our brand new puppy to the office. Oh so, actually we should have said you then. Yeah, well, not tell anyone about it. Was the hang up for me on that one. Right, who's most likely to organize a last minute themed costume party? You definitely then that is you. You are. You're a party guy. Hey. We actually celebrated my daughter's thirtieth birthday and we all dressed like nineteen eighties musicians. Oh wow. And so we all flew down to Florida and we surprised her and all of us had costumes to the end degree. We went all out and then we made a music video. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, so that'll give you. My wife and I were just in Venice last week and that was the end of our vacation. We were there for three days. And they have all those costume shops for the Venetian Carnival. Oh wow, where you wear the fancy outfits and the did you buy them wear the mask? No? Dude, they're crazy expensive, are they? But she said, hey, let's come back for carnival sometime. I rent one. That'd be fun. Yeah, that'd be fun. All right, all right, So numbers it was most likely to organize an elaborate prank that gets everyone involved. You, Yeah, definitely, these are almost all you. No, no, not almost Hey, you know I have done elaborate pank pranks with a lot of people. Have you ever done Have you ever organized an elaborate prank? No? Really? Never? Wow? Never have? Yeah, I've done elaborate pranks, so wow crazy? Yeah? Okay, Well, then number five who is most likely to create a new absurd trend that everyone eventually follows? Not me. That's tough, I probably says, but I don't. I'm not absurd, but not trend. I don't. I don't know if I've ever created a trend, maybe a tradition, like you know, maybe maybe uh doing something crazy and doing it often enough to where people start doing it around their house or something. I've done those kinds of things, but a trend. U Trends are different, aren't they. That's a hard one. That's a tough one. Yeah. I don't know if I'm a trendy guy, but I guess I'll pick me just pretty absurd because I'm absurd. Yes, yes, a new absurd trend. You know, one time and everybody likes to follow you. I have to say this. One time in the seventies, I came out of the bathroom and I left my zipper down, and every started doing it. I started noticing people leaving their zipper downs. I think he caught on. I don't think so. No, no, no, no, I don't think that was They just people just forgot the hip. That's exactly right. Okay, okay, that would be it. Yeah, that's funny. Okay, we need to get out of this segment as soon as possible. Use Oh, come on, you done that? Uh one time? I actually I think you've done this haven't you ever you ever were you preaching? And then you realize your zipper is down. Whole service. My best one of my best friends, sitting on the front row, and he didn't let me know the whole time. Oh yeah, I realized that because somebody motioned to me. It was actually the pastor, and so I said, everybody, let's pray. And it was right in the middle of my sermon. I was like, you know what, I'm just going to pray every every closed and I was like exhibiting. I didn't know. I didn't known till the service was over. That's terrible jerk. Friends. Yeah, okay, you know who you are too. Oh do they really? Oh yeah, they know who they are. Oh, still listening to the box. So after the service he comes up and he goes, hey, man, I wanted to tell you so bad, but your answer it what Zip? A fan? Like, how come we do tell me? He said, I didn't want to disturb or interrupt the service? I said, he interrupt the service for seven hundred people. I was the only one who didn't know. Right right, I got news for you. The service was already interrupted. Zip. Let me know. I would have fixed it. Okay, So This is one of the most talking about absurd. This is one of the most amazing stories in the Bible. It centers around a guy named Balem and talking donkey. Yes, you just gave away the whole thing. They had a reason to listen, and now you told them, Oh, you were going to deliver it as if nobody knew. Yes to the person who doesn't know, to the person who doesn't know, gip that part. Hey, hey, just in case you're wondering, Jesus does rise from the grave like Easter. Okay. Well, hey, now you're ruining the whole thing. Why even bother give it away? That's right? Okay, So numbers chapter twenty two. Well, I'm gonna start in verse twenty one. I'm gonna be a rebel. Okay. So the next morning Balem got up saddled as donkey and started off with the Mobid officials. But God was angry. Let me, let me, let me do this. So the Mobid officials wanted Bayleem to come and curse the King of Israel. Right, So they're gonna pay him. They're going to give you some money, like he's some kind of sorcerer, right, And so we're gonna give you some money, and we're getting ready to go fight Israel, and we want you to curse the King of Israel. And so Baalem this isn't something he should be doing, but he does so. The next morning, Balem got up saddled as donkey and started off with the Moabid officials. But God was angry that Balem was going, so he sent the Angel of the Lord to stand in the road to block his way. As Baalem and two servants were riding along, Balem's donkey saw the Angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand. The donkey bolted off the road into a field, but Balem beat it and turned it back onto the road. Then the Angel Lord stood at a place where the road narrowed betwe two vineyard walls. When the donkey saw the Angel of the Lord, tried to squeeze by and crushed Balem's foot against the wall. So Balem beat the donkey again. Then the Angel the Lord moved further down the road and stood in a place too narrow for the donkey to get by at all. This time, when the donkey saw the angel, it lay down under Balem in a fit of rage, Balem beat the animal again with his staff. Then the Lord gave the donkey the ability to speak. What have I done to you that deserves you're beating me three times? It asked Balem, You've maybe looked like a fool. Balem shouted, if I had a sword of me, i'd kill you. But I'm the same donkey you've ridden all your life. The donkey answered, have I ever done anything like this before? No, Balem admitted. Then the Lord opened Balem's eyes and he saw the Angel Lord standing on the roadway with a drawn sword in his hand. Balem bowed his head and fell face down on the ground before him. Why did you beat your donkey those three times? The Angel the Lord demanded, Look, I've come to block you away because you are stubbornly resisting me three times. The donkey saw me and shied away. Otherwise I certainly would have killed you by now, and spared the donkey. Then Baalem confessed to the Angel of the Lord, I have sinned. I didn't realize you were standing in the road to block my way. I will return home if you are against my going. But the Angel of the Lord told Balem go with these men, but say only what I tell you to say. So Balem went with Bailack's officials. When King Bailak heard that Balem was on his way, he went out to meet him at a Mobikee town on the Arnon River at the farthest border of his land. And then he goes on from there and winds up blessing rather than cursing the king. Yes, that's what happens, right, but yeah, which is uh? And and by the way, I think I already know what you're going to say, because that's what I'm going to say. I think it's what everybody's thinking. Do you know what it is? I don't know that Balem didn't seem surprised that his donkey was talking. No, no, right, that's what blows my mind as well. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. Is Baylim just starts arguing with the donkey, and by the way, he may have been surprised, and in fact he probably was. It doesn't say because the scripture doesn't record didn't doesn't mean that it didn't happen, because you know, it says that Bayalem shouted the donkey, yeah right, So I mean he's straight up aren't you shout shouted back in a regular argument, right, just just as if you would, and like your child or something. I'm telling you he doesn't realize what's going on right now. He doesn't realize how odd of his mind he is. You think he's so angry, Well, think about the times you've been out of your mind angry. Yeah, you're not thinking sanely In the moment, everything makes sense in me. Yeah, that could be an explanation. I've never thought that, though. I've always thought one of two things. Well, you haven't thought right, then, is that right? I've thought one of two things, and again we don't know the answer this side of heaven. But I thought either one of two things. Either number one, because God spoke audibly, because things were magical, because there were sorcery. You know, there were sorcerers who could turn staffs into snakes, right, I mean, there were there were things like that that existed in the Old Testament, and there weren't you know, there was rumors of the partings of Red Sea, and miracles and and all these different things. I think that maybe perhaps either things that were supernatural weren't as unusual as they are today. I think that that could have been it, or perhaps Baylim was absolutely surprised, but it just didn't record that part in the Bible, which could be completely true as well. It doesn't go out of his way to say he wasn't surprised. Yeah, so I'm sure that we're gonna get to have it and realize there's a lot of context, you know, stuff in context that we don't realize. Yeah. I don't think it's either of those. You think it's just he was I think he was so enraged. Well, he's already beat this donkey three times and he's hurt physically, so his foot got hurt that donkey sat down on him, right, I think I think he's just he's furious. But how how upset do you have to be to not recognize that you're donkey talking? Well, I think that he's not thinking clearly anyways, in his sin, willing to sell out and go bring curses against the he's not thinking clearly. He's just he's That's that's what I think it is, all right. I think he is just so full of himself and so angry in the moment that he's not even paying attention. Okay, So I bet you, I bet you five bucks. Yeah, okay, Hey, I wonder if that really true. I wonder if God's gonna harmor me and give me five dollars. She's not gonna give you five. You just lost. You know, He's going to be like Jeff was, right, Yeah, right, maybe if God said, if if I wanted you to know that he was surprised, I would have I wonder what currency would choose. He probably give us a piece of gravel off the side of the road, straight of gold, streets of gold. Dude. So hey, here, here's here's graduation. Here's some pavement. That's really all right. So let's go back to the scripture. So so here's uh, that's a probably good place. Yeah, God, God is actually did this thing to grab Balem's attention. And you know, God doesn't do anything by accident. So I have to believe that he's teaching Baalim a lesson because here Baylim doesn't see what other people see, or in this case, it's the donkey. But you know, so here's here's the angel saying, why did you beat your donkey three times? Well, it seems like an unreasonable question, which actually makes me wonder if Baalim was tuned into God. Would he have seen him? Or is it because he was so entrenched in sin and you know, being willing to be paid off to curse you know, the king of Israel, which is God's chosen people. You know, had he been in a different state of mind, would he have seen the angel? Like, why would the angel ask such a thing? You know, why did you beat your donkey? Well, hello, donkey wasn't doing what I was telling it to do, right, you know. So it just there's all these little things in there that's that make me wonder about the story. So the notes in numbers chapter twenty two kind of highlight the idea that Balem wasn't really a servant of God like you would think of a normal prophet of God, right, that he's really a sorcerer. And so the real question is why would God use a sorcerer in general? Anyway, sorcers would be supposed to be put to death. And I think the reason is because the Mobike king had already decided to use the sorcerer. So God in the same way that God chose to use Pharaoh. For instance, God says to Balim, Okay, now here's the thing. You're not going to curse the King of Israel. Well maybe that's why he wasn't surprised if he's a sorcerer. Yeah, you know what, I'm not even I'm just being transparent here. I'm not really sure that I knew that he was a sorcerer. But that's pretty crazy and so so in this instance, then God's just saying, you're not supposed to curse my people, and he's trying to send a message to the Mobike King. But the Mobike King had already chosen to use this guy, so God decides I'm going to use him too. But then this angel, the Lord's stand there, are going to strike him down, going to kill him, right, so God's God's like, you know, I think I'm going to kill this guy, wipe him out. That's the message I'm going to send to the Mobike King. Is this sudden death kind of moment from an angel and the donkey can see him? So I didn't we have one time? A uh, somebody asked on the stump to pastor, somebody asks because of this story, yeah they did. You know, can can animals see angels? Because sometimes I think, remember I think she wrote something, because sometimes I think my cat can see angels or something, yeah, yeah, or they see the supernes, see the supernatural. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, in movies they certainly portray that, they portray that dogs are sensitive to ghosts and they know things like yeah, like those kinds of things, right, like the the unseen or whatever, those kind of things are. Well, this is the only place in the Bible that has that kind of idea right in it was that this for some reason, this donkey could see this angel. Yeah, because what was that other scripture in the Bible where it says, hey, it was it Elisha who said open his eyes that he may see, and he saw the church for a servant, because Elisha wasn't afraid, right, and Elisha's servant was terrified. We can't go out there. We're gonna get killed. And he said and he said, open open your servant's eyes. Let let your servants see. Yeah, And then all of a sudden he was able to see the chariots that God had placed there, and he was an entire army from heaven. Yeah. It's just an amazing thing. Right, So there's an unseen world, and that's probably that's a good sermon that comes out of this passage is that we completely believe that the Bible teaches that there's an unseen world and that's there's a spiritual battle that goes on every day, and so the scripture teaches this right now that we believe that even now, right now during this podcast, that there's there's an unseen battle that is taking place in the spiritual realmah, and there's an invisible realm, and there is a visible realm, and we believe that when Heaven comes together, that you know, when the New Jerusalem comes down, we believe that there's an invisible realm that's going to merge with the physical realm and that that that that will be like heaven, because that's the way that Heaven was in the beginning, right Heaven or Paradise all of existence? Yeah, yeah, all of existence. So Paradise was a place where God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, right in the garden. He walked with them. And so now we you know, we're told that God is a spirit, He's an invisible spirit. But yet we are also told that when we get to heaven, that God is the source of light, that God can be you know, identified as someone being on the throne, that Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father. These are physical, tangible images in heaven, and yet for us currently they're invisible. Yeah, yeah, I always feel bad for this donkey, right, So somehow he has this spiritual vision he can see when Balem can't. But Balem loses his mind on this donkey. Donkeys are extremely dependable, right, So mules are not. Mules are strong, they're stronger than donkeys, but they're very, very undependable. You just they're difficult to work with. But a donkey, a well trained donkey, will live for decades and will just work hard and very dependable. So this donkey goes Bayalem, you've ridden me like your whole life? Have I ever done anything wrong to you before? And he's like right, But for some reason, now you know, this donkey is broken down on him and he's mad about it. And this donkey saved Balem's life. But there's a really interesting note in the Life Application study Bible says the donkey saved Balem's life but made him look foolish in the process. So Balem lashed out at the donkey. We sometimes strike out at blameless people who get in our way because we're embarrassed or our pride is heard. Lashing out at others can be a sign that something is wrong within us. Don't allow your own hurt pride to let you hurt others, hurt people, hurt people. Isn't that powerful? Four innocent donkeys saved this guy's life and he went off on even beating, And a lot of times it has way more to do with what's inside of us and what's happening outside of us. Yeah, you know our reactions, you know, it's it's a it's a funny thing because I'm fifty three, so are you fifty three? But it seems like the older I get, the more I realize more and more that none of us really ever get past being twelve years old. We really don't, you know, something in us, you know, you know, anything bad or negative which is oftentimes comes out of us is really a result of like unprocessed wounds that we have, you know, And I think that a lot of us we have either bad reactions or we feel something emotionally, and it really takes a really well educated and well exp in person to realize, like, wow, I shouldn't be reacting this way, and I wonder why I'm reacting this way, and it's probably because something in our past. And it's amazing to me how we're controlled by that and our brokenness, and we don't realize how broken we are as humans. But every time we react but poorly, I'm convinced it's probably because of an unprocessed wound that we have as children. We just never we're not perfect. We're imperfect people, right, and we live out of our brokenness a lot of time. Or this guy, he's just godless. Yeah, well that's definitely the case here. Right, doesn't say anything about his dad being mean to him when he was a kid, just that he was going against God. God said don't go, and the mobite said, hey, we'll give you lots of money if you go, and he went, oh, okay, i'll take the money. I'll go. Anyways, Then the angel decides, okay, well I'm gonna have to count him. Yeah, well, it's probably both right, because none of us can can be free of unprocessed wounds. Sure, God godless or not, you know, godly are godless, But but yeah, you're certainly right there. I honestly didn't know he was a sorcerer. But that that explains a lot, and that to me it feels like the reason why he's probably not too shocked because he probably taps into powers that yeah, perhaps all kinds of demonic stuff. Yeah, all kinds of demonic stuff. Well, hey, there's a lot of sermons hitting in there, so that's pretty good. So hopefully we will catch you next time on Monday. If you're following day by day on the Bible, guys,