Numbers 22:30

They are carrying on a conversation!

Now that is the end of the conversation.

I think that it is incredible that Balaam even spoke back. There are four parts there to the whole conversation, two speaking parts each.

This is a miracle—there is only one other place in the Bible where an animal speaks—Genesis 3 (the serpent to Eve)—and Balaam seems to act as if this happens to him every day!

I guess he probably thought, "Well I've talked to her enough, she's bound to answer me sometime."

But, here the donkey asked him questions! And he answers!

This is what I mean when I say that he's totally, spiritually out of it. He has no thought for God. He has no thought for spiritual things. He is so self-possessed, so full of self-interest that he can't think beyond the end of his nose!

All he's thinking about is, "What am I going to do when I get to Balak? And he's going to pile all this money on me? How am I going to set up these sacrifices? What am I going to do? How am I going to say this? I know God will let me do it because I'm just a wonderful negotiator, and that's just the way it is. All the other gods have done exactly what I've said, so I think..." As he talks to himself, thinking about this wonderful job he's got ahead of him.

And when these amazing things happen they don't faze him. They don't make him wonder what is going on. He doesn't even think why the donkey was treating him in a way that she had never done before. Yet, she was totally out of character! She speaks, and he answers!

It just illustrates the depth of his spiritual blindness. He couldn't see God if God had bit him!

Now, in today's lingo, we would call Balaam absolutely, totally materialistic. Everything was based on what he could see, feel, hear, and all the other senses. He couldn't see beyond that.

He was probably involved in spiritism, with all the augury, enchanting, and such. But, there is nothing spiritual about him. There is no depth to him whatsoever.

That's why I said he was thoroughly evil, and had the nice façade. It made him look spiritual. But, there was nothing there. The donkey was more spiritual than he was. I'm talking truly spiritual.

He may have had some knowledge, but it didn't work in him properly, because he never put it into practice. He may have known about Israel. He may have known about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He may have known some of the things that were taught. He certainly knew God was, in all His power and sovereignty, working for them.

But, none of this knowledge that he may have had did him any good. He talked to God! God talked back to him! God was doing all these things in his life, and he was thoroughly blind to all of it.

The incredible thing here that I see is that Balaam acted as if these things happened to him every day. But they didn't!

These were once-in-a-lifetime things that were happening to Balaam. But, he was so self- centered that he threw them off, and ignored them as if they didn't matter. Here was the great sovereign God saying, "Wake up, Balaam! I'm here! Can't you see Me? Can't you see me working?"

And, Balaam is blind. He can't see a thing because he is so stuck on the here and now, and what's in my hand, and what's in my pocket.

Numbers 22:26-34

Notice, there was weakness. Balaam simply did not know the entire situation. He just acted carnally; that is all there was to it—the way he had been trained to think and go and do. He did not know that the Angel was blocking the way and making the donkey do what it did. What this teaches us is that sin does not always occur in a straightforward manner. We will see a little later where God, in a sense (He did not actually do this), but came close to making David sin. David did it on his own, but God was involved.

God was involved in this situation we just read, because the Angel was there and Balaam did not have any idea what was going on. He was being used to present a lesson for you and me about the way He judges. He took that into consideration. What this teaches us is that sin does not always occur in a straightforward manner, with everyone involved fully informed so as to be able to discern right and wrong.

Numbers 22:28-34

What Balaam did was quickly forgiven, overlooked. Now what does this teach us? It teaches us that sin does not always occur in a straight-forward manner. As we saw with Abimelech and Abraham, Abimelech was led into almost sinning grievously, and he would have sinned had not God intervened. Abraham was the more guilty of the two because he was leading Abimelech into the sin by his lie. But we also know from the context that Abraham too committed a sin of weakness. "Out of fear I was afraid," and so Abraham too did not sin willfully. It was not presumptuous.

Numbers 22:28-30

Absurdity is another form of humor God uses as a tool for instruction. Consider the absurd situation in Numbers 22:28-30, when an angel blocked the path of Balaam. But the donkey Balaam rode clearly saw the angel and stopped. When Balaam tried to goad the donkey forward, the donkey was enabled to speak to Balaam, evoking a response from the thick-headed rider on his back. Similarly, when we become stubborn, adamantly refusing to heed His word or direction, we should not be surprised if God does some bizarre thing to get our flagging attention.