You may have read in the paper that counterfeit bills have been turning up here and there around town. What you may have not heard about, is the amateur counterfeiter that was operating here in town. It turns out that this armature counterfeiter accidentally printed a large amount of 21 dollar bills. Only after he printed a large stack of these 21 dollar bills did he notice his mistake. At first he was just going to throw the counterfeit bills out, but upon closer examination, he saw that besides the 21 dollar amount, he did an excellent job creating these bills.
So he thought to himself, “I would love to pass these bills off…but who in Anchorage is would accept a 21 dollar bill”? Then it hit him – the Alaska state fair was in progress, certainly he could find someone at the fair he could pawn his 21 dollar bills on.
As he arrived at the fair in Palmer he was going to try giving the parking attendant one of his 21 dollar bills, but, on second thought, he figured that wouldn’t be too wise. Walking through the fairgrounds, he spotted several opportunities, various food booths, different artists…he even almost tried the honey booth, but chickened out at the last second. He thought, “All these people deal with money all day long, certainly I can’t fool them”. He became quite discouraged, perhaps the fair wasn’t such a good idea after all.
Just then the counterfeiter had an epiphany – “The Christians at the fair don’t deal with money, they just talk about religion, I’ll just go over to one of their booths”. With his new found enthusiasm the counterfeiter headed to the closest booth dealing with Christianity. After a bit of small talk with a nice young man, the counterfeiter slyly pulled out one of his crisp 21 dollars bills, held his breath and asked, “I was wondering….would you be able to give me change for a 21 dollar bill?”
“Why sure”, responded the young Christian man taking the 21 dollar bill, “would two sixes and a nine be ok”?
In our Scripture today we see the prophet Balaam, who not only has a great reputation for understanding spiritual matters but also presents himself to others as an expert on spiritual matters, but the reality is, the donkey he is riding is far more perceptive about spiritual things than Balaam is. Balaam is a spiritual counterfeit, his understanding of the spiritual is flawed.
Why is that?
Balaam understands and interacts with the spiritual through the eyes of the world and you know what, in the world there is great spiritual confusion. As a result, Balaam places himself in a precarious situation – but he is completely oblivious to it. Balaam’s spirituality isn’t spiritual at all.
Let’s look at the Word of God and see how we can apply it to our lives.
The Hebrews who have lived in the wilderness for about 40 years are now moving into the promise land. We see in the verses just prior to what we read this morning that the Hebrews are camped on the plains of Moab on the river Jordan, right across from the city of Jericho. The Moabites are afraid of the Hebrews – though they shouldn’t be – the Moabites are cousins to the Hebrews and the Hebrews have no intention of attacking them. The Moabites fear that the large population of the Hebrews will strip their land of produce, in other words, they fear the Hebrews will literally eat them out of house and home. They feel that the land cannot support themselves and the Hebrews. So the king of the Moabites, Balak, contracts with the prophet Balaam to place a curse on the Hebrews. The nature of the curse is to make the Hebrews go away. Balak wants Balaam to place a curse on the Hebrews so they will leave the area. I think that is known as, the visiting mother in law curse….oh come on, I’m just kidding.
As we move into our Scripture today, we need to know that, in the proceeding verses God has spoken directly to Balaam and told him not to go to Moab and not to place a curse on the Hebrews. But, Balaam, is intent on going anyway, so curiously God tells Balaam to go, but to do only what God tells him to do. So we arrive at our Scripture today and see that Balaam has saddled up his donkey and headed out with his two servants.
Balaam is not an Israelite, nor is he a Moabite, he is from Pethor, which is along the banks of the Sajur river, which is a tributary of the Euphrates river, and located in northern Syria. This is about 370 miles away and it would take about three weeks to journey to see king Balak in Moab. What all this means is that Balaam has quite the reputation, he is internationally known, verse 6 of chapter 22, says his curses were effective – so it is apparent that Balaam frequently places curses under contract.
Balaam is known as a seer, a pagan prophet. We see that Balaam knows the name of God (Yahweh), and he also knows something about God, but don’t take this as a sign that Balaam believes – we can know all about God, and not believe a thing. God speaks to Balaam, again, don’t take this as Balaam having faith, God does and will speak to unbelievers.
So, there in verse 23 we see that God is angry with Balaam and so he sends the angel of the Lord to oppose him. Ok, wait a second, in the previous section we see God telling Balaam to go to Balak in Moab, but here, we see God is mad at Balaam for going. God tells Balaam to go, and then God is mad at Balaam for going? Balaam is doing what God asked, why is God angry? What is going on here? Is God contradicting himself? Is God changing his mind?
No. Here is what is going on: Balaam is intent on going to Balak in Moab no matter what happens, and God, who is all knowing, knows this. God sends the angel of the Lord to oppose Balaam, but, NOT to stop him. God is not stopping Balaam from going to Moab, God is cluing in Balaam on who he is. The Lord God is not just another spirit that Balaam has dealt with in the past, God is very real, and had very real authority and very real power – and Balaam is about to experience it.
Let me say a few words about curses. We here in this room may simply dismiss a curse as folklore, and we may dismiss the activity of evil spirits as imaginary, or folklore as well. Well, the fact is, most of us assume that curses are folklore and that occult activity is imaginary, simply because we have never knowingly come into contact with it. However, Scripture takes all this at face value. We see in ex 21:17, that the death penalty is prescribed for those who curse their parents. The Hebrews took the concept of a curse very seriously.
If you take the time to study the occult, especially in connection with Scripture, you will come to an unavoidable conclusion – occult activity is very real. Look, here in chapter 22, there is no allusion to, innuendo of or even a direct statement that informs us that a curse is folklore, no, in fact the ability to curse is taken at face value – Scripture takes the existence of evil spirits at face value – AND the person of Jesus Christ takes the existence of evil spirits at face value as well. Here in this Scripture, what we have is a man, Balaam who has had contact with evil spirits, has had some sort of success in occult activity, and he is off to place his success in occult activity for financial gain.
Are evil spirits real? Yes. Do evil spirits have real power. Yes. Can humans manipulate evil spirits? Perhaps. Is God afraid of the power of the curse that Balaam will place upon the Hebrews? No. God has, ultimate power over anything and everything. Balaam assumes that God who has spoken to him, is just another spirit he can manipulate – this ticks God off – God can never be manipulated, God will show Balaam who he is dealing with.
See, what is going on here is more than two groups of people facing off. It is more than two nations at odds with each other. It is more than a king attempting to protect his self interest. There is in fact something more happening behind the scenes, we are given a little insight into it here. Think of it this way: If there are in fact evil spirits (which Scripture claims there are) and these evil spirits are working against the things of God, wouldn’t it make sense that they would do whatever they possibly could to oppose the people of God? Here we have a man who is intent upon summoning evil spirits to work against the people of God, and here we have God having no intention of letting that happen.
Consider that.
Ok, Balaam is riding his donkey with his servants in tow. We see that three times the animal turns aside and three times Balaam beats his donkey. The word used for hitting the animal means to hit with full force mercilessly, it is an all out crazy beating. Balaam is giving it all he’s got. Balaam is focused on himself, and nothing else.
The animal turns, then stops to lay down because it sees the angel of the Lord. Balaam is so clueless, even a dumb animal has more spiritual insight. See, Balaam has in fact experienced the spiritual world, but that does not mean he is spiritual. He may have experience the spiritual, but this does not mean he can perceive it. True spirituality has to do with the things of God – outside of that – we find the spirituality of the world, which is confusion. Balaam is internationally known in his dealings with the spiritual, but, his view of the spiritual is worldly based, and is ignorance at best, so a donkey shows him up when it comes to spiritual things.
All around us we have people claiming to have spiritual experiences, or claiming to be spiritual. Just because someone claims to have a spiritual experience, does not mean they have had a spiritual experience, and just because someone claims to be spiritual doesn’t in any way mean they are.
You know, people imagine all sorts of things as spiritual. Did you read that article in the paper recently about the people who are the raw food enthusiasts? It was about a small group of people who are vegetarians, with a twist – everything they eat is uncooked, raw. I found it an interesting read, and then was fascinated by one of the people in the article who claimed that eating only raw food was a spiritual experience, that eating raw food somehow made her more spiritual. Really? How do we know that this woman even knows what a spiritual experience is? How do we judge her statement as true or delusional? Well, is that what Scripture teaches? In Matthew 15 Jesus explains that food does not make us spiritual and Acts 10 we see Peter have a vision telling him that all foods are ok to eat – eating one kind of food will not make you spiritual and another make you less spiritual. So this woman eats raw food and imagines that she is feeding her soul – is she spiritually perceptive, or simply ignorant? Food has no effect on our spirituality – spirituality is not based upon food intake, it is based upon relationship, specifically a relationship with Jesus Christ.
At this point, let me make a book recommendation for us all. The pastors and the elders are just beginning our fall study, and the book we are using is Francis Schaefer’s “True Spirituality”. Excellent reading. Get this book, read it, and put to rest false assumptions about what is spiritual and what is not.
Ok, Balaam is crazy beating his donkey, when the donkey suddenly speaks to him (verse 28). What is great is that Balaam engages in conversation with his donkey. Now, outside of the three Shrek movies we generally don’t see donkeys engage in conversation. In fact, physiologically speaking, it is impossible for a donkey to vocalize. So over the years many would look at this incident and see it as folklore (along with curses and evil spirits). But the words used here in verse 28 in the Hebrew for opening the donkey’s mouth are the same words used in Ezekiel when God speaks of opening the prophets mouth (Ezek 3:27, Ezek 33:2). The prophet Ezekiel, like Balaam’s donkey, does not have the ability to speak the word of God – without God himself opening his mouth. So, as the prophet Ezekiel’s mouth is opened, so is the mouth of this animal. This is purely an act of God – no physical analysis is necessary.
Now the angel of the Lord confronts Balaam. Who is the angel of the Lord? Is it an angel, is it a specific angel, is it a specific type of angel? The precise identity of the angel of the Lord is not specifically given. However, upon analysis it become clear who he is. First we see that when the definite article is used (the word, “the”) it always refers to a specific being – the phrase THE angel of the Lord as opposed to, AN angel of the Lord. Jehovah Witnesses will point out that when you look at the Hebrew text you will not always see the word “the” before the word angel. In fact, in this passage the Hebrew word for “the” is not there before the word angel. Of course we need to note that Jehovah Witness leadership does not know a lick of Hebrew beyond the ability to real an interlinear bible. Hebrew is a contextual language and sentence structure rather than specific words determine when the word “the” is applied. Here it is very much applicable.
In the OT we see that when the angel of the Lord appears, in some instances people fear, because they “have seen the Lord”. (Angel of the Lord Scriptures----Genesis 16:7-12; 21: 17-18; 22:11-18; Exodus 3:2; Judges 2:1-4; 5:23; 6:11-24; 13:3-22; 2 Samuel 24:16; Zechariah 1:12; 3:1; 12:8) In Genesis 16 the angel of the Lord who visits Abraham is clearly more than another angel. The angel of the Lord will accept worship, and speaks the words of God. We see that appearances of the angel of the Lord cease in the NT, why? Because the angel of the Lord is a Christophany, an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ.
Who Balaam experiences is none other than the person of Jesus Christ. The angel of the Lord, that being Jesus Christ, says in verse 34, “I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me.” This is a difficult verse to translate, and I believe the best rendering is not, “your path is reckless”, but instead “your path is evil”. Balaam is not only on a journey to oppose the people of God, he is planning on invoking evil spirits to carry out his wishes against the people of God. This is not only wrong, it is evil.
Remember the angel of the Lord is not there to stop Balaam, but to show him that God is real, and Lord over all. God will allow Balaam to go, but since God cannot be manipulated, Balaam will only be able to say to Balak what God wants him to say, and He will not be able to invoke evil spirits with a curse. Num. 22:35 The angel of the LORD said to Balaam, “Go with the men, but speak only what I tell you.” God is in control of Balaam, Balaam is not in control of God. Balaam only thinks he knows the spiritual, and now God shows him the spiritual.
31, Balaam’s eyes open, which means he is allowed to see things as they really are. God opens his eyes to the reality around him and he sees the angel of the Lord. What is Balaam’s response? On the surface it looks good. In verse 31 has bows before the angel of the Lord and in verse 34 he acknowledges his sin…or does he? Actually, Balaam admits he made a mistake by not seeing the angel in the road. He does not acknowledge that his intentions to place a curse are evil. He only is sorry that he did not see what lay ahead of him.
Amazingly, Balaam is confronted with God himself and unlike Moses, unlike St. Paul, his heart is not changed. Where as Moses and St. Paul are dramatically changed, Balaam is who he always was, Balaam is the same old Balaam. Now look, Balaam has had a very real spiritual experience, an experience from God, but you know, experience is experience, and an experience that is spiritual is NOT a commitment to God, nor is it faith, James 2:19 tells us, “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.”
I want to challenge you this morning. I want you to reflect upon your faith, your belief, your understanding of the spiritual. Are you here this morning because you have had an experience with God? Are you here this morning because you know God is real? Are you here this morning because you know and understand thing about who God is? All those reasons for being here are NOT faith, they are not belief. Balaam experiences God speaking to him, Balaam experiences the person of God standing before him, Balaam has seen it, he knows it is real, and in fact he will go and do what the Lord has commanded him to do. But that is not faith, Balaam, is not a believer.
This morning let us say, farewell to false intentions we have had before God; farewell to false confessions we have made before God; farewell to hollow words that defend our sin; farewell to fake affection we confuse with faith. Let us say farewell to the ways of Balaam that depend upon the world’s view of what is spiritual and keeps us ignorant of what Scripture acknowledges as real.
Let us relentlessly pursue true spirituality which is not based upon ritual, food or intellectual ability but is based upon an ever growing relationship with Jesus Christ our Lord.
