BITTER OR BETTER ENDS NUMBERS 22__21—35
LUKE 24:13—16, 28—32
The story found in the Book of Numbers about Balaam and his ass is one of the difficult passages in the Old Testament. For some folks, it is clear evidence that the Scriptures are an ancient relic that has absolutely no meaning for us today. For others, it is a clear sign of the miraculous within the Scriptures. How do we deal with a passage that has an animal talking?
First, let us look at the setting of the story The children of Israel were moving like a conquering army through what we call today the Holy Land. To acquire that land, they had to conquer each tribe as they moved through it. King Balak, of Moab, became very frightened as he saw this approach-ing army. He summoned to his court Balaam, who was a seer, visionary prophet or soothsayer. When Balaam first received the message from the king of Moab, he realized that Balak wanted him to place a curse on Israel to harm them. After he prayed for guidance, God told him not to go, so he refused Balak’s summons. Balak, however, felt that all Balaam needed was simply more inducement. He offered Balaam bigger and better possessions if he would come and curse the Israelites. Balaam responded, “Although Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the command of the Lord my God, to do less or more” (Num. 22:18). However, he said, he would pray about the matter a though he had received a message that God was not going to but bless them. The second time God directed him to go anyway talk to the king of Moab.
On his journey Balaam had to travel on a narrow road to get to Moab. The animal on which he was riding saw an angel with a flaming sword standing in the pathway and tried to get off the path. This happened 3 times, until finally the animal found itself in such a narrow place there was no room either to turn around or to get off the road. So it just lay down Balaam got up and hit the animal angrily At this point the animal spoke.
The ancient Israelites hearing or reading this story must have found it hilarious, a wonderful piece of narrative folklore. The fact that Balaam did not
seem surprised or express any wonder at the animals ability to speak indicates
the nature of this ancient drama. The important thing for the original audience was the message and not the medium of the message.
In several other places in the Scriptures one reads about trees speaking and snakes talking; here an ass talks. To the Israelites, this story would have been filled with humor. Balaam, who was pompous and overly confident, was not an Israelite, yet he was depicted as being used by the God of Israel. His own animal had to tell this pompous religious seer about the presence of God, because he was unable to see God in his path.
Our problem is that often we cannot hear a story because we take it too literally We seek to make the story historical instead of hearing the ancient message delivered through the medium of humorous folklore to an ancient people. Many of us often miss the truth about the presence of God. because we get bogged down in the impossibility of an animal’s talking The important point here is not that the animal spoke but what it had to say.
After the animal spoke, Balaam did see the angel standing in the path, who then told him that he was going against what God wanted him to do. That word seems troublesome to us in itself. Had not God told him to go to Moab and carry a message? We do not know exactly what had happened, but in some way the message was obviously distorted by Balaam.
He was attempting to do something that God did not want him to do. His pompous attitude had left him blind to the warnings of God along the way
The story we read this morning from the New Testament is the account of Jesus’ talking with two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus after the resurrection. These disciples could not believe the reports which they had heard. They were baffled, confused and depressed. Jesus walked along with them on the short journey fromJerusalem to Emmaus—about seven miles. As they walked, he unfolded the Scriptures to them. They did not know who he was until later, when he broke bread with them in their house. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him.
These two stories have some messages we need to hear today and carry with us.
The first is this: Balaam represents one who felt he could live his life in total independence. He felt that his own self-reliance and his own direction were sufficient. He twisted and distorted the message he got from God, and decided to carry his own word as the word from God about the people of Israel. He felt he could rely upon his own strength, his own understand-ing, his own methods, and his own ways. He was sufficient. He did not need to rely only on God’s word. But God confronted him with his own message and directed that he was to share that message, not his own words.
How many of us are like Balaam today? We go through life thinking that our self-reliance, our self-sufficiency, and our independence can take us through every situation. We believe that we do not need the power and presence of God. Nor do we really need other people.
None of us, however is really self-made or totally self-sufficient. The story is told of Napoleon planning the battle of Waterloo. As he instructed his soldiers where he wanted the artillery, the cavalry and the infantry placed, one of his aides asked him, “Should we not consider what the Divine might want in this? After all, man proposes and God disposes.” Napoleon drew himself up to his full short height and responded arrogantly, “Sir Napoleon proposes, Napoleon disposes.” But that very battle proved his undoing. The one who thought that he could always make his own deci-sions and set his will against nations soon found that he was defeated.
Too often we attempt to set our own will, purpose, and way against God. To those who do so, it doesn’t make any difference what God might want or what guidance other individuals might want to offer. They alone make the decision. When we try to live this way, we may find that life col-lapses around us, because we are not open to the power and presence of God’s direction. We have made ourselves the only source of guidance, and so our path may become blocked by our blind selfishness. Many of us live as though there were no God.
A Scottish shepherd once said that when sheep are caught in a blizzard, they can live seven or eight days protected by their own wool. But if the blizzard continues too long, they will freeze to death. When we attempt to live off our own resources, without drawing on the power and presence of God or the help other people can offer us, we soon find that we lose our stability and we may encounter the presence of God who blocks our way.
Notice also in these stories that these people met God in unexpected places. Balaam thought he already had a message from God. After all, he had his vision; he had his dream, and now he was traveling to deliver that message to the king of Moab. But he met God unexpectedly when he wasi hemmed in—caught in a narrow place. The disciples thought that every-] thing was over in their dream about the coming Messiah. They w defeated and depressed. While they were going home on the road Emmaus Christ walked with them and later revealed himself to them.
How often God encounters us in unexpected places. We hadn’t anticipated meeting God, we hadn’t planned it, yet God appears and is present and touches our lives. Moses was attending sheep on when he encountered God in a wilderness place. Isaiah went to the temple grieving because of the loss of his beloved king, and there in that experience of worship, he met God. Jeremiah was on a casual walk when he say an almond tree blooming, and from that ordinary experience, he had revelation from God. While Paul was traveling on the road to fl to persecute and put to death the first Christians, he met the Christ whe, he was seeking to defeat. His life was changed forever. Down through history people have encountered God in all kinds of places.
You and I may meet God in strange places. We may meet God in affliction and illness. We may meet God in our work, on the playground, in the gym or in a school classroom. We may meet God at a ball game, in our living room, on a trip or in church, in a conversation with a friend or in an encounter with a stranger. Sometimes unexpectedly, God comes into our lives. We may be washing dishes, changing a tire, doing our daily work, helping a friend who is ill or recovering from surgery Suddenly we sense the presence of God. We had not anticipated it nor expected it, but God comes.
I recall standing by the bedside of a fourteen-year-old girl. She was dying and her family had gathered around her. I thought there was going to be only depression and despair. Suddenly in that moment of tragedy, the whole family, including myself, was gripped with an overwhelming sense of Gods presence. I have been beside the beds of people when they were in their last hours, and have sensed great peace and strength emanating from them. As they died, they had an awareness of the presence of God. In the narrow places of life we may encounter God unexpectedly when God comes to meet us and assist us.
I also recall some beautiful places in which I have met God. One was the fellowship hall of my home church where I made my profession of faith as a fifteen-year-old. There Gods Spirit moved into my life. Later, while working in scout camps in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, I would get up early and walk over the mountain trails to a small lake and sense the awesome presence of Another. One summer I worked in the Hawaiian Islands, where the beauty and splendor spoke to me again of the presence of God. In later years, as I looked down on my newborn children and beheld the life that I had a small part in creating, I experienced in a new way the presence and power of God. In unexpected, narrow places, and sometimes in beautiful places, we may find God.
In one community a store called The Surprise Shop advertised items
for people eight to eighty and urged them to come in and browse. The store
continued to attract visitors because people were really surprised at what
was sold there.1 Life, I think, is a surprise shop. I think God meets us again
and again in surprising places. In unexpected places and in unexpected
ways God speaks to us. It may be in a narrow pass, or it may be on a beautiful, lovely day But notice also in these stories that the word of God came in judgment.
When Balaam finally saw the angel of God, the angel held a drawn sword. God confronted Balaam as an adversary Balaam was going to Balak with the wrong message. We are not certain how the message had become distorted. It is uncertain whether Balaam was going there to misrepresent what God had told him to say Was he going there to curse the people of Israel and not to bless them? Had he assumed that his message was God’s message?
That has become the curse of too many preachers. We turn our opinion into God’s word. Whatever we think and whatever our opinion is automatically God’s opinion. Perhaps that is what happened to Balaam. We do not know for certain, but he is confronted by the angel of God. God told him to go and deliver only what he had told him to say God confronted him in judgment.
For the disciples walking on the road to Emmaus, Christ came to rebuke their disbelief, perplexity and despair. He judged their lack of faith by opening the Scriptures to them and revealing the power and wisdom of what God had done.
Before we can sense the power of God, he must first come in judgment into our lives. He comes in judgment to change us and direct us to open our lives so we can be transformed by his power, to become the people he has created us to be.
Sometimes in our churches, before miracles are performed, there must be the casting out of demons and devils. God’s Spirit must sweep through our lives to purge the sinfulness within us and make us clean and whole.
Tragically, we think that we can keep on sinning and still be loyal church
members. We refuse to respond or turn to God. God comes to us bringing
love, grace and redemption. But if our lives are constantly filled with
hatred, self-love, jealousy, and other sins, we are not able to receive God’s
love and grace. First he must cast out the evil spirits within us so that he
can fill us with love, hope and righteousness. When our lives are filled with lies, distrust and hatred, God cannot fill us with his grace, hope, love and mercy. He must first come in judgment. The holiness of God cannot stand in the presence of sin. God must purge us, transform us and cleanse us.
A church youth worker was walking on a beach one day and saw one of his teenagers wearing a T-shirt. When the young man saw his leader, he immediately crossed his arms. The leader walked up to him and said, “Oh, you have on one of those T-shirts with a message. I can’t quite read what it says. Does it say, ‘University of Virginia’?”
The teenager looked down and said, “No.
“Well, let me see,” the man said.
The youth dropped his arms. Written on the shirt were the words, “Stamp out virginity” “If you don’t think I ought to wear it,” the young man said, “I’ll take it off.”
“I have a better suggestion,” the youth worker said. “Why don’t you take it home, have it laundered and put it in a bag. You look like a young man who’s going to get married some day and have a family. Save it, and when your daughter goes on her first date, I want you to give it to her then.
The teenager looked back at the youth worker and said, “I get your message. If my father had said that to me, I would never have worn it.”
When does the church stand up and pronounce judgment against the sinfulness of today’s distortion of sex? It is not okay to do anything, any-where, at any time. There is a sanctity to sex that needs to be recovered. Free sex and free love as depicted on our television sets and movies is not the Christian lifestyle. Free sex is never free. It is always costly Too often young people are never told what its price tag is.
The word from God may come to us as judgment. God comes as the change agent to transform us by his Spirit. So, God may first come as an adversary to tell us our lives need to be different. As we walk with the God who is the holy God of the universe, we cannot do anything we want to and still think we are being Christian. God has called us to a higher way, a higher lifestyle. We are to follow in his steps.
Finally, notice that in both of these stories, the main characters are met by the presence of God. The Old Testament expression “the angel of the Lord” does not refer to God’s helpers but to the presence of God himself. When Balaam is confronted by the angel of the Lord, it means he experienced God himself. God confronted him and challenged him. When the disciples were walking on the road to Emmaus, their eyes were not opened until the invited guest, Jesus, broke bread, blessed it, and handed it to them. Then they saw that this unknown companion had been the Lord himself.
It is in the narrow places of life that we may experience the presence of God, the angel of the Lord who comes and ministers to us. He may come to you in the narrow place of grief, illness, pain or suffering. He may come to you in the narrow place of rejection, ridicule, loneliness, or depression. He may minister to your need and lift you up through a friend’s voice, a telephone call, a note, or a letter. God may come to you in many places and ways and communicate his presence to you as power, grace and love. In the narrow places of life God is there. Let him open your eyes.
One of the messages that comes to us from Jesus’ Emmaus appearance is that God is not always just at our disposal. After Jesus revealed himself~ he disappeared. The two disciples met him in the word and in the fellow-ship at the table. But God is not somebody we can manipulate with little schemes and systems. We cannot memorize a few things that will automatically produce God for us. God is not on a string for our use. The Lord is not simply available at our whim or our disposal. He may surprise us by the manner of his coming, but we do not control or manipulate him. He is the God who comes at his own will. He is the God who moves in our lives in his own way. We must be open to his coming in unexpected places and in unexpected ways. We need the miracle of the “opened eyes” and the 1 “burning heart.”
The great preacher Paul Scherer wrote in one of his books about the
misrepresentation of a phrase that he stumbled across. Often, he said, we
talk about seeing something through “to the bitter end.”2 In the research he
did on that phrase, Scherer discovered that the phrase really implies “the
better end.” It~s a nautical phrase. When a ship was caught in a storm, the anchors were let out full into the water. Then the ship moved out to the end of the cables that reached deep into the hull of the ship and were secured around the bitts far within the hull. They moved to the bitter end. When the storm battered the ship, because the cables were secured, the ship could ride out the storm and endure it.
Too many of us try to live out life to “the bitter end,” when the alter-native is to let God be with us to “the better end,” trusting that God is hold-ing us and will sustain us. God may first come to meet us in judgment. We may sense him in narrow places and in unexpected ways, where we may be surprised by his coming. Come he will. Be assured of that. But we can-not predict how or when. I hope that we will not give way to the bitter end. I hope we will learn to embrace the better end where the presence of God will sustain us and carry us through.
1) Outline and some illustrations are from REV. DR. WILLIAM POWELL TUCK’s sermon , “LESSONS FROM THE NARROW PLACES OF LIFE “
Charles R. Scott
Church of the Good Shepherd, Indianapolis, In
crscott@email.com
