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I know what some of you were thinking. You're like, does Bill even work here anymore? And I honestly, I don't know. I've been asking myself the same question. No. I'm just kidding. Bill has been over in Africa doing a church planting conference. We partner with a bunch of church planters over there. So he was there for a couple of weeks. Then because he's gotta do 12 services next week for Easter, we've at least gotten smart enough to give him the week off before. So he will be back next week for Easter. So if you're new, you're just joining us, welcome. We are so glad that you're here. If I have not had the chance to meet you, my name is Daniel. I am the teaching pastor here. And today we are wrapping up a series that we've been in for the last few weeks walking through the book of Numbers. And I promise you today is probably one of the weirdest stories in the entire Bible but I do believe that God is going to speak to us. So today, again, like we were talking about in worship, today's Palm Sunday which is the week before Jesus would ultimately go to the cross. He makes his triumphant final entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.
And the interesting part is we didn't plan it, but in God's providence today in the Old Testament, we're looking at a story of a talking donkey. And so again, it's a bizarre one, but I believe that God is going
speak to us. And for those of you who are skeptical in the room, you're like, wait, there's a talking donkey and you all believe it.
I know it's kind of weird, but our faith actually starts with the premise that a dead guy came back to life, which is much harder to believe than a donkey can talk. So we go with it if God says that it's cool. So Numbers 22, if you have a Bible turn there, I'll pray for us, we'll jump in. Father, God, we are so excited to be here today.
God, I believe that every single person in here is here for a purpose. They're not randomly here,
but they're here because you have something that you wanna say to them. And so for these next few moments, we just give you permission to speak. No matter how much skepticism we have in our heart about whether you're real or not, in these next few moments, would you speak to us? In Jesus name, all God's people said,
amen. I was thinking about it this week. My
dad's dad, my grandpa on his side was one of my favorite people on the planet. His name was Bompa. We all called him Bompa. And he was that guy that just, man, you let me have one more lunch or one more round of golf with anybody, it's this guy. Like you just laughed your butt off when he was around. He was
a good time, but he was also kind of that quintessential, he's here for a good time, not necessarily a long time.
He rode life and he rode it hard and unfortunately passed away pretty young. But when we were kids and he would come into town, you just knew we were gonna have a good time. Like he just was fun to be around. And one of the things that he used to do is he had a nickname for me and all of my siblings. And my older sister, again, grew up where you basically had one pair of shoes for school and then you had a different pair that you wore to church, but you could never wear your church shoes to school.
But my sister would always do that. She liked her church shoes more. So she would wear them and get them dirty and have to have my grandpa clean them or repair them when he was in town. So her nickname became Shoes.
Okay. I grew up again in the nineties, which the greatest era ever. And the king of the nineties, everybody knows wasn't Michael Jackson, right? And so I took all my baseball gloves and I cut all the fingers off of them and walked around doing the Michael Jackson dances. So my nickname was Jackson.
I wish somebody had told me that that was not going to age well for me. Right? But
in the nineties, it was cool to be associated with Michael Jackson. And then my brother underneath me was clutch because anything around you, he just was gonna grab really quickly and hold onto. And so my grandpa used to call him clutch. My youngest brother was in that stage of life where he would walk up to a group of people, he would say something that was unintelligible to all of us, but somehow my mom understood exactly what he was saying. Right? And so my grandpa called him mumbles because for the majority of us, it just sounded like he was mumbling. And the really funny part is after the last service, I was out there talking to a young family, their toddler mumbled. I had no idea what they said and the mom could interpret it specifically.
And it's one of the most bizarre things when you begin to have kids and your toddlers start to mumble, nobody else can understand it, but you know exactly what they're saying. And the reason that I was thinking about it this week is for me, when I was like a new Christian kind of going to church and being around Bible studies and being around Christian people,
I would hear them say things like, you know, God spoke to me or God said this.
And I was like, man, what do they mean by that? Right? Like, because it sounded to me like it maybe God was mumbling some unintelligible thing that I couldn't understand but these really spiritual people could get it. And if I could just become spiritual enough, maybe I would understand the mumblings of God. And I didn't understand that God speaking
was much more practical than it was mystical. And I spent a lot of time convincing myself that maybe God speaks in these really crazy abstract ways but what I've learned over the years that I wish I knew then that I wanna try to spend the next few moments convincing you of this morning
is that I believe that God is always speaking and he's not mumbling some unintelligible language. God wants you to be able to hear his voice. And what this story in Numbers 22 is going to show us and
play as a perfect example of is how I believe God most often speaks to you and I. Is kind of the big idea or the thesis that I wanna work from this morning.
I believe that hearing God's voice is much more practical than it is mystical. John 10, Jesus said that my sheep, they hear my voice and know me and I know them. That I think God wants us to be able to hear his voice.
And I wanna try to show you that hearing his voice is much more simple and practical than we realize. There aren't always skies parting and doves descending when God speaks, oftentimes it's very practical. Okay, where we are in Numbers 22, if you're just joining us is
at the tail end of a forty year journey that the nation of Israel, God's people have been on. God has delivered them out of captivity in Egypt and He's bringing them to the promised land called Canaan.
But because of some of their disobedience, God has allowed them to wander this desert for forty years waiting for the previous generation to die off. And then the next generation will enter into the promised land. In Numbers 22, they're basically right there. They're about to cross the Jordan River and go into the promised land. They've just had to get through a couple of these last cities and they've had to navigate how God has told them to get through these cities. Some of them, they've just marched through and they've actually fought them like an army and they destroyed some of them. Others, God has told them to just strategically go around them. And in Numbers 22, they are now camped in what's called the Moab Valley.
They're essentially in a valley, there's 2,000,000 of them camped out and the king of Moab that sits up on a hill, he looks down and he sees this 2,000,000 numbered group of people and he's heard the stories of them running through these other cities and he gets nervous.
He starts to think that they're gonna do the same thing to him in their city that they've done to these other towns. But instead of going to Moses, the leader of God's people and just asking him, he instead is going to try to do it through his own power. He's going to solicit
this guy named Balaam. He's gonna go get this prophet, this like person that he knows is somewhat connected to the gods. He's gonna try to get him to curse
God's people. Okay, again, cards on the table. This is a bizarre story, but if we can get beyond the weirdness of it, I believe that God has a message for us. Couple key characters that going to see, I've already talked about them, but I just wanna show you real quickly. This is King Balak. Okay, everybody say Balak.
Balak. Balak. Okay, he's one of the main characters. The other guy we're going to see, this is the prophet, he's gonna go higher. This is Balaam. This is a scene that we will see later. So everybody now say Balaam. Balaam. One last character that we're gonna see in here, okay? This
is Balaam's talking donkey. Then obviously this is the donkey from Shrek, but in similar nature, he's able to talk. And it is weird, yes and amen, but there is a purpose to this. Balak is terrified because of the people of God camped around him. He's going to send people to go hire Balaam,
this prophet that is somewhat of like a person of God, but he's also a very, very much a person of this world who is motivated primarily by greed. Okay, and here's how the story begins in Numbers 20 two:seven.
Balak's messengers who were the elders of Moab's in Midian, the king set out with money to pay Balaam to place a curse upon Israel.
They went to Balaam the prophet and delivered Balak's message to him. Stay here overnight, Balaam said. In the morning, I will tell you whatever the Lord directs me to say. So the officials from Moab stayed there with Balaam. That night, God came to Balaam and asked him, who are these men visiting you?
Quick side point, again, this isn't the main point of the message, but in verse nine, God, the God who knows all, sees all, is at all places at one time, knows what's in the heart of every human.
He asks Balaam a question, who are these men? Now here's what we have to do when we read scripture and we see God asking a human a question. You will be tempted to think that God is asking them a question because God needs more clarity on the situation. That's not why God ever asks humans a question.
Remember the Garden Of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned and their sin produced something in them that they weren't built to experience? They had never felt it before. It was called shame.
And they realized that they were now naked and there was a barrier between them and God. What did they do? They hid. They ran and they tried to hide from God and cover themselves with fig leaves to which God asks Adam, Adam where are you?
Not because God didn't know but because God was trying to get Adam to acknowledge how far he had fallen. How far he had gone. What God often does is he asks a question of a human for the human to understand where they are. God asked Balaam,
who are these men? Not because God didn't know who they were, but he was getting the prophet of God to acknowledge what he was entertaining. Who he was allowing into his home. Balaam, who are these men? What are you allowing into your home? To which Balaam the prophet responds in verse 10, Balaam said to God,
Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab has sent me this message. Look, a vast horde of people has arrived from Egypt and they cover the face of the earth. Come and curse these people for me, then perhaps I will be able to stand up to them and drive them from the land. But God told Balaam,
do not go with them. You are not to curse these people for they have been blessed. Okay, here's what's happening. The king Balak sends a designation of his people to go to the prophet Balaam that he's heard is somehow connected to the gods. Gods out there, one of them being the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Yahweh.
He has some influence with this God. And if we just go to him and offer him some money, he will curse God's people. And Balaam has at least enough wisdom to go, okay, stay overnight. I will ask God about this and I'll see what he says. To which God immediately tells him, of course you can't.
Like this is one of those things where Balaam is seeking an answer from God in prayer that he already had. You don't need to pray to God and ask him if you can curse his people that he spent the last forty years supernaturally providing for and protecting in the wilderness, in the desert.
Yet here's where I think the lesson is for you and I. Because in our humanity, it's one thing to know something, it's a whole other thing to actually believe it enough to do it. See what Balaam knew is that there's no way that God was going to allow him to curse his people.
Why? Because God is never going to contradict himself. If you ever in prayer seek God and you get an answer from him that seems to be contradictory to what is revealed in God's word, you need to question what you just received in prayer.
Because God has already revealed who he is, his nature, his character, his plan for humanity. All of that is revealed in the scriptures. And if Balaam had just spent time understanding God's word, God's plan in humanity, what he was doing at this moment in time, he would have understood
that the entire redemption of humanity rests on these people's ability to get to the promised land. So why would I ever need to pray about whether or not I can curse these people? I already have the answer. See, but this is the danger when you think God speaks in these very big mystical ways,
you will be tempted to think you have to pray about everything. I'm not saying we shouldn't pray without ceasing because the scriptures do say that we should be people who pray without ceasing but that doesn't mean we need to pray about everything. What do I mean? I think there are things that you and I are potentially
praying for, asking God to give us an answer to that we already have the answer for. We are seeking an answer in prayer that God's like, if you would just read the Bible, you would see I've already spoken about these things.
See, here's the thing that I wish I had learned fifteen, sixteen years ago when I first gave my life to Jesus. The primary voice of God in your and I's life is always his word.
The primary way that God is going to give you clarity into our future, to give us wisdom into the decisions that we're going to make, it will come primarily through his revealed word. This is why the scripture is so paramount to our faith.
It's not because we read the Bible because one day we're gonna get in front of God and he's gonna say the entrance to heaven is one hundred and fifty hours of reading your Bible. Are you there? Awesome, you made it. No, no, no. The word of God, it is God's plan for humanity
put out on paper for us to understand his character, his nature, his calling, what he asks us to do. And this is why it's so important. Because oftentimes where we get lost and confused in our human process and journey is we get lost trying to discern
God's specific will for our life. The number one question that I get asked as a pastor from people is, Hey Daniel, I'm thinking about this. I'm trying to figure out whether I should move to Austin or if I should go to, you know, Dallas, Texas.
And I go, well, I don't know what's motivating you to go to Austin or Dallas. And they're like, I just think there's a great opportunity. And I think we've mistakenly thought that God has to give us specific direction for every single step of our life when that's not how the scriptures work.
What you won't find when you read the scriptures is your specific answers about every single situation. But here's what you will find, what the scriptures are full of. All of God's ways
in what he's shown you that your heart is supposed to be about, what your life is supposed to be about, who you are called to be, why you are considering decisions,
all of that is abundantly clear. God's ways are explicitly clear in scripture. And here's the beautiful place of where you and I will always find the smack center of God's will for our life is when God's ways become your ways and your will begins to align with his will. When you walk in God's ways, you will always be in God's will. Here's what I mean more specifically.
If you're sitting here today and you're a single person and you're trying to figure out whether or not you should date this person, but you know that they're not a Christian,
that's not something you have to pray about. Why? Because the Bible has already told us to not be unequally yoked. It is unwise for somebody who believes in God who says Jesus is the most important thing in my life to bridle yourself, to put yourself under a yoke of somebody else who doesn't have the same conviction,
that it's going to lead you to some dangerous places. Yet sometimes even though we know that, we don't like that. And we go, yeah, but God, have you seen his six pack? Like,
I know he's not technically a Christian, but abs, I mean, come on somebody, right? Like he checks spiritual on hismatch.com profile. Like I think I can get him to convert, right? Like this. And sometimes we're praying for things that we already have the answer to.
You don't have to pray about the business idea that is just slightly illegal.
There's sometimes the reason it seems like God is so quiet is because we're asking really dumb questions. Like a prophet going to God saying, Hey, can I curse your people? Expecting an answer other than God's already revealed will. God will never contradict himself.
God will never speak to you in a way that stands in contradiction to his word. Anytime you think you receive a word from God, you better check it against his word because if it doesn't line up, this word was not from God. Then we have to remember there's a lot of things speaking to us but the primary way that God wants to speak to you is he wants to do it through his word, through his revealed
word. But Balaam doesn't really like that. So he's gonna try to pray about a decision that he should be running from. Look how the story continues in verse 13. It says, The next morning Balaam got up and told Balak's officials,
'Go on home. The Lord will not let me go with you.' So the Moabite officials returned to King Balak and reported, Balaam refused to come with us. Then Balak tried again.
This time he sent a larger number of even more distinguished officials than those he had sent the first time. They went to Balaam and delivered this message to him. This is what Balak, the son of Zippor says, Please don't let anything stop you from coming to help me. I will pay you very well and do whatever you tell me.
Just come and curse these people for me. But Balaam responded to Balak's messengers, even if Balak were to fill his entire palace with silver and gold, I would be powerless to do anything against the will of the Lord my God. But stay here one more night and I will see if the Lord has anything else to say to me.
He's like, look, man, it is really clear. God has made it abundantly clear. I asked him, he said, no, I can't go. So his delegation goes home. The king's delegation makes the six day journey back to the king. The king doesn't like the answer so he says, try again, offer more money, send more distinguished people and they make the six day journey back. And Balaam the prophet
has now had twelve days to think about what he just said no to. To think about the reality of how much money that really is. To think about what would really change for his family if he received this promotion.
And yes, I know it's technically not something that God wants me to do. And technically it would cause me to compromise. But here's what happens when you over a twelve day period begin to tell yourself rational little lies. You will rationalize yourself into compromise.
And here's what you and I have to understand friends, just because you resisted the temptation one time doesn't mean it's not coming. It doesn't mean it's not coming again and it's not coming stronger the second time. The enemy knows the thing that you struggle with in the darkness that nobody else knows about.
And I promise you, he is going to up the ante and try to entice you with a better offer. It is coming again the moment that you are going to have to make a decision.
And if you haven't fully wrestled to the ground, this thing inside of you, you haven't invited the Holy Spirit in to help you win and get victory over this thing, eventually you, when you're asked again, you will do what Balaam does here. It's a really subtle thing. Balaam hypothetically proposes,
if there was a room, a palace filled with silver and gold, maybe I could see if God would do something different. And maybe I'll pray about this thing and see if God will give me a different answer. See what he's doing is what you and I often love to do, to externally appear spiritual,
to appear on the outside like we all have it together. When the truth is, is the motivation of our heart is extremely dark. This is why humans can be so deceiving because what's on the outside isn't what's always on the inside.
And Balaam is appearing to be spiritual but the truth is he's dealing with some really dark things. He's primarily motivated by greed. And he tells the king's officials, let me pray about it one more time. And these next couple of verses get a little bit bizarre because it almost seems like God changes his mind.
But again, this is a whole rabbit hole that I don't have time to go down, but what we're about to see is God's perfect will compared to God's redemptive will. God's perfect will is you and I just walking in complete obedience to him saying yes and yielding to his instructions.
That is God's perfect will but oftentimes because we're stubborn and God's given us free will, that isn't always where we end up. And so then we enter into the realm of God's redemptive will. Where God knows that you and I are hell bent on making a decision that is contrary to our best but God loves us so much that he doesn't just throw us out the door and get a new plan and get a new person. God then begins to enact a rescue mission. This is Romans eight twenty eight that not all things are good but God works out all things for good. This is how God begins to initiate his redemptive will for our lives. Look how the story continues. He says, I'm gonna pray about it one more time.
And then that night, verse 20, God came to Balaam and told him, since these men have come to you, get up and go with them but do only what I tell you to do. Okay? He says, I'll let you go but this is the concession, only do what I tell you to do. So the next morning, Balaam got up, saddled his donkey and started off with the Moabite officials.
But God was angry that Balaam was going so he sent the angel of the Lord to stand in the road to block his way. This is one of those stories that reminds me of like a Friday night trying to figure out a restaurant to eat at with my wife. It's like, wait, are we going? Are we not going? Are you mad at me? Are you not mad at me? Like, I don't know what's happening. Just tell me what to do. All right?
It's like, God says, no, God says go. Balaam goes and God's mad at him. And again, this is the part why it can be so difficult when people come to me and go, Hey, is this God's will for my life? It's like, I don't know because what I don't know is what's in your heart that only you and God know.
See the right actions with the wrong motive is still compromising the eyes of God.
And this is what's hard is we will focus on action, but God's searching the heart. See, we look at external, but God is consumed with the condition of your heart. When you read scripture, God will tell you what should be in your heart. What you should be about, what your character should look like, what your motivation should be. But what we do is we get fixated on external action. Then we read a story like this and it just doesn't make sense. God tells him, Don't go, you can't curse my people. But because you're so hell bent on doing this, sure, here's my compromise.
Go but only say and do what I tell you to do and say. And what Balaam does is he makes the fatal mistake that you and I will make often. We take God's concession as God's blessing and God's approval.
And so Balam gets up the next morning excited going, Guys, God said I can do this, let's go. And then he learns that when you walk in disobedience, you walk in opposition, in rebellion to God, God loves you enough that eventually he will stop being your advocate and he will eventually become your obstacle.
He will be the one that you are now waging war with. And this verse is one of the scarier verses to me in the Bible where it says, God sent the angel of the Lord to obstruct his path because God loves you enough to not let you make a mess of your life. He loves you so much that he will frustrate your path and he will begin to put some obstacles in there. And this is the reality that we need to heed. What happens when we walk in disobedience is sure, you might not get struck with lightning right away but you are now in opposition to the God Almighty.
You are now in opposition to the one who can actually crush your life at some point if he wants to. But because he loves you,
he's still pursuing you. And the reason this story is so important because it shows us so much about the character and nature of God. He doesn't just give up on Balaam though I probably would have. He doesn't just find a different messenger. He goes to a harder degree to try to get his attention.
He's been trying to speak to him the whole time but Balaam doesn't like the answer. He's trying to get God to change his mind and God's saying, I've already made up my mind on this. Your job is to get your will to align to mine, not the other way around. But Balaam's frustrated.
He decides to go out on his own and now he's in opposition to God. And this is where the story starts to get good for you and I. Look at the very next verse. It says, As Balaam and two servants were riding along,
Balaam'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 Balaam beat it and turned it back onto the road. Then the angel of the Lord stood at a place where the road narrowed between two vineyard walls. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it tried to squeeze by and it crushed Balaam's foot against the wall. So Balaam beat the donkey again. Then the angel of 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 Balaam. In a fit of rage, Balaam beat the animal again with his staff.
Look at what's happening to Balaam. Balaam is so set on walking in opposition to God, doing what he knows God has not permitted him to do that he starts to have these divine interruptions in his path. His donkey can see the angel of the Lord that he cannot.
And what does Balaam do? He does the same thing you and I do when we are walking in rebellion to God as well. He just starts to get really angry at the people around him. He starts to lash out at the people around him because there's a turmoil that's happening inside of him that nobody else sees, but he knows is there.
And what God will often do when we're walking in opposition to his best for our life is he will begin to really frustrate our path. He will begin to put some divine interruptions in there. And he's doing it because he's trying to get your attention.
But oftentimes what we do instead is we are so hell bent, we are so stubborn and we refuse to acknowledge that we've made a mistake. Instead what we do is we just start lashing out at the people around us. See, this is the lie of sin. The sin will tell you that this will only affect you.
It says that your compromise, it's just your compromise. It's not gonna affect the people in your life but it's a lie from the pit of hell. Because the problem is that turmoil
in you, it's going to come out of you at certain points. You can't be at war with yourself and not have it bleed out on the people around you. Because what happens is oftentimes
we just have these things that seem like they come out of nowhere. These fits of rage where we just start to lash out at the people around us. And sometimes we can wonder, man, why am I so irritable? Why does it feel like I'm so short-tempered?
What I'm trying to convince you of that I think this story tells us is that sometimes one of the loudest ways that God shouts to get our attention is by simply frustrating our life. If you're taking notes, write it down this way. Friends, frustration is often God's whisper. See, God loves you enough.
He loves me enough to frustrate the heck out of my life Because God knows that it's usually when only we get to the end of ourselves, that when we get sick and tired of being sick and tired, that we look up and consider maybe there's another way. Maybe the truth is, is I can raise my hand and say that this isn't working.
No matter how hard I strive, no matter how much I attempt to figure this out on my own, it seems like all I hit is roadblock after roadblock after roadblock. And this picture is a picture of what you and I look like when we are walking in open rebellion. We can't see how obvious God is being in our life.
The donkey can see the angel of the Lord. An animal that is known for how stubborn and ignorant that they are. This animal can see it but a person walking in sin is just blind to it all. I had a phone call from a friend yesterday morning.
He's telling me about all the things at work and just how you could just tell in his voice, I'm just at the end of myself. No matter what I do, work's falling apart. No matter how hard I strive, work bleeds over to my home life. And no matter what happens, it seems like nothing is working.
I said, it sounds to me like God is in desperate pursuit of you and God is running after you and God loves you enough to get you to the end of yourself. And that sometimes the most loving thing that God can do is get us to a point where we're so tired that we wave the white flag of surrender.
And the problem is, is for those of us who are prideful, especially those of us who are men in this room, the moment that we usually change, it's only when we realize the pain of changing is less than the pain of staying the same. That's when we really begin to entertain, okay, maybe I'll try a different path.
Maybe I'll try something else. And what God is allowing Balaam to feel is supernatural frustration. And what I'm trying to say to you is that maybe some of the tension and frustration you're feeling in your life, it's more than just a coincidence. It's God's gentle whisper trying to get you to wake up,
to remember who you are, to remember the calling that's on your life. And if you don't, potentially your life will just continue down a path of deeper and deeper frustration and more and more hurt. And eventually the people in your life, they won't stand around and take the beatings anymore.
They won't stand around and just let the outburst happen. They will pick a different option and you have to make a decision. Are you gonna face the turmoil in your hearts? Or are you just gonna let the people around you have to deal with these blowups that happen all the time?
What happens to Balaam is an act of grace. This next part of the story is God supernaturally doing something to get his attention. Look at verse 28,
it says, Then the Lord gave the donkey the ability to speak. This is again the weirdest part of the story. The donkey says, What have I done to you to deserve your beating me three times? You've made me look like a fool, Balaam shouted. If I had a sword with me, I would kill you.
But I'm the same donkey you've ridden all your life, the donkey answered. Have I ever done anything like this to you before? No, Balaam admitted. Again, bizarre story on the side of the road, the prophet of God is having a full on conversation with a donkey and doesn't even realize how crazy this has become.
This reminds me of my grandma, she got older. She was like, I thought the marker of knowing you were losing it is when you started to hear voices in your head. She's like, that's not actually the moment. The moment is when you start to have a conversation with the voices in your head. That's when you know you're losing it. I'm like, makes sense.
Here's the point of this story. Okay, don't get lost in the details of whether a donkey can talk or not. This is what the story proves to me about who God is in your life. That God is right now doing everything He can to get your attention.
That God will go to no He will stop at no length trying to get ahold of your heart. That I promise you right now through your children, through your coworkers, through your spouse, through your family, through your neighbors, God has been speaking to you. God has been trying to get you to wake up.
The question is whether or not you will listen. See here's what I'm convinced. I believe that God is always speaking. The question is, is are you always listening? I don't think we're living in a time where God is speaking less. I just think we're in a time where we haven't learned to listen.
And here's what my prayer is for all of you sitting here this morning. If any of this resonates with you at all, here's what my prayer is for you. Exactly what's about to happen to Balaam is what I'm praying will happen for you as well. The next part of this story is the supernatural part that God has to do that we can't do on our own.
See, God is going to open Balaam's eyes. He's going to get him to see something differently and then Balaam has a choice. Here's how the story wraps up that I think begins to show you and I how to get back on the right path again. Verse 31,
then the Lord opened Balaam's eyes. And he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the roadway with the drawn sword in his hand. Balaam bowed to his head or bowed his head and fell face down on the ground before him. Why did you beat your donkey three times? The angel of the Lord demanded.
Look, I've come to block your way because you are stubbornly resisting me. Three times the donkey saw me and shied away. I love this next verse. Otherwise I would have certainly killed you by now and spared the donkey. God's like, the donkey? Dude, we're cool. Like you, not so much, but I would have spared the donkey.
Then Balaam confessed to the angel of the Lord, I have sinned. I didn't realize that 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 Balaam, go with these men but only say what I tell you to say. So Balaam went on with Balak's officials.
See Balaam's story will take some three chapters to fully play out. And in this moment,
Balaam goes on to be a voice piece for God. He shows up to the people of God that he's supposed to curse and instead of cursing them, he blesses them. He's obedient to what God tells him to do. But here's what happens at the very end of the story that I'm praying will happen for you. God eventually through frustration
gets Balaam's attention and God opens up his eyes. He gets him to see God again. He reestablishes his heavenly connection. That's my prayer for you. If you sit here today and you find yourself walking through life that just seems frustrating, you have to ask God, God open my eyes again.
And now you have a decision to make. What Balaam does on the other side of God opening his eyes, this is what we can control. This is where we have a say. We have a partnership with God in our restoration. See, God opens his eyes, but Balaam now has a choice. Balaam has to humble himself before God.
He has to be willing to actually bow his head and lay on the ground in front of the Lord of the angel. Something that required incredible humility. This is what requires
us. This is what is required of us to be made right back in the image of God, to be restored back to God. Here's the path of how you and I can hear God's voice again. It starts by humbling yourself. It starts by you acknowledging that what you're doing is not working, that you can't figure this out.
And you might be incredibly talented in a lot of areas but when it comes to fixing your life, satisfying the soul, you can't do that on your own. And it requires humility. And the reason that I think God starts with humility is humility is required to do what Balaam does next.
Balaam then has to go to the people that he's hurt and ask for forgiveness. See what we have to do to really be reconciled to God is we have to find reconciliation with people. We have to go to the people that we've hurt and begin to ask for forgiveness. And it's amazing to me as we ask for forgiveness, how much we are set
free. Balaam goes to the donkey that he's been beating and says, I'm sorry. I took things out on you that had nothing to do with you. This was turmoil that was inside of me that I was wrestling through. And I'm sorry that I exploded on you.
This is what requires you and I to have incredible humility, To go to the people that we've hurt and to ask for forgiveness. And then we have to do what Balaam does next. Balaam tells God, if you want me to go home, I'll go home. I will turn around. The church word we use for turning around is repentance, to repent.
He says, I know I'm walking this way and I've committed to going this way, but God, because I see that you have a plan for my life that's different than my plan, I trust you,
you've opened my eyes, I will repent, which means I'll turn around and go a different way. See, it's not enough to sit in church and have emotional experiences and to intellectually
go through the motions of thinking about how bad we feel. And then even telling the people in our life, I feel bad. See, we shouldn't even ask for forgiveness if we know we're not gonna actually change. If we have no intention of turning around and doing something different, and we're just gonna do the same thing again next week, why apologize about it today?
You have to make a decision. Do you actually wanna change? And Balaam committed to God and said, I'll go another way. I'll go home if you don't want me to go. Now again, repentance for Balaam didn't look like God changing his destination, but it did change his motivation.
God told him, No, go. I'm gonna restore this. I'm gonna use this. You're gonna go and be my spokesperson, but you're gonna do it with a completely different heart. But the end result for him is the same end result for you and I. Friends, we must be people of repentance.
The reason that sometimes it's so hard to hear the voice of God is because we're living in open rebellion to God. And the fastest path backwards is to repent of our sin. To turn around, try something different, ask for forgiveness, humble ourselves and what begins to be reestablished is our ability to hear his voice again.
Here's why I think you and I should care at all about whether or not we hear God's voice. See, Balaam's story doesn't end here. Hearing God's voice wasn't the ultimate end place for him. God wanted to make sure he heard his voice because he was going to require him to go and speak a blessing over all of God's people.
And here's what God knew that we now know through modern medicine. There is a deep connection to what you speak, to what you hear.
See, what he didn't realize is that you and I actually, we can't speak things that we can't hear. I wanna kind of rest my case this morning by showing you a picture of a guy that you've never heard of before. This guy's man is Alfred Tomatas. Some say Tomatas, some say Tomatas, it's up to you, all right?
Alfred Tomatas is a doctor that has spent his entire life dedicated to understanding human hearing. He's got a fancy title that I can't pronounce, but he spent his whole life understanding how humans hear.
In the late fifties, he had a really peculiar case of an opera singer that had spent the last thirty years building his opera career. And in his early 60s, he was hitting what should have been the pinnacle of his career. But for some reason, at the height of his career, this opera singer, all of a sudden out of nowhere
stopped being able to sing certain notes. Notes that he'd been able to sing his entire life.
And so he started to do the logical thing. He went to throat doctors, he went to vocal coaches. He started to see, is something wrong with my throat? Is something wrong with my vocal cords? Is something wrong with my mouth? But to his surprise, everything was okay physically.
Through a random series of events, he ended up in this man's office and he put him through a hearing test. And here's what Alfred Tomatas discovered, that an opera singer, when they're singing at full octave,
when they're fully going after it, they're producing enough decibels inside of their own head that it's essentially the equivalent of being 10 feet away from a jet engine that's taking off. And for thirty years, this man's been reverberating this incredible
frequency inside of his head that over time had made him deaf to certain tones. Here's what is now referred to as the Tomatis effect. A singer cannot sing notes that they can't hear. You have an inability to produce a sound out of your voice, even if your voice works, if you can't hear it any longer.
Here's where all of this comes full circle for me. I think my fear as a pastor in 2024 is we have a lot of people saying things for God, but my fear is people are saying things with zero power and zero authority because they've lost the ability to hear God's voice.
God's ability to speak through you has nothing to do with how articulate and eloquent of a speaker you are. I believe that God's ability to speak through you to your coworkers, to your family, to your kids, to the people in your circle of influence, God wants to use you to speak a blessing over his people.
But I promise you, you will not be able to speak something that you can't hear. I believe that as the people of God commit ourselves to again learning how to hear God's voice, to know his voice for him to know us and for us to know him. I believe that's how we can literally change the world.
But it starts with us being able to humble ourselves, to ask for forgiveness, to repent, to commit ourselves to knowing his word, understanding that that's the primary way that he's going to speak to us, understanding that maybe just maybe hearing God's voice,
it's much more practical than it is mystical and God is always speaking. The question is friends is are we always listening? Can I pray for you father? God, I thank you so much for every single person that's here this morning.
And Lord, I know that there's people that are in this room right now that if they're honest, there's been a lot of turmoil and tension inside of their hearts for a while. And God, I think right now you're speaking to people that if they're truthful, they're kind of sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And God, today is the moment, the catalyst where you will get them to the end of themselves so that they can choose a different path. And God, I'm thankful that all we have to do in that moment is humble ourselves before you, acknowledge you as king and you can begin to write our paths again.
You can begin to restore us. You can begin to forgive us and give us the power to ask for forgiveness from the people in our life. And so God, pray right now with a room full of people with eyes closed and heads bowed that there's people that are in this room right now,
that this moment is a divine moment where you want to actually restore them back to you right now. The Bible says if we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that you are Lord, that in that moment we are saved and that is us humbling ourselves before you.
And if that's you this morning and you know right now there's a tension inside of your soul that you've been wrestling with, I wanna give you a moment to be set free from that. I wanna give you a moment right now with eyes closed and heads bowed. This is just a moment between you and God.
When I count to three in a second, if that's you, want you to just respond physically by throwing your hand in the air. And I believe that God is speaking right now to your soul. Don't dismiss it. This is your moment. So when I get to three, one, this is you.
Two, respond to what God is doing. Three, if that's you, just throw your hand up right where you are. That father, there's hands going up all over this room, which our hearts responding to you, acknowledging the tension that's inside of our heart that we don't want to live in anymore. The divine frustration, God, we see what you're doing.
If that's you, you can put your hands down and pray a prayer like this right now with me in the quietness of your heart. Say Jesus, right now I humble myself before you. I acknowledge who you are. I believe that you are the son of God and you came to live a life that I couldn't live. You died the death that I deserve.
And father right now with the faith that I have, with the understanding that I have, I invite you into my heart. I make you Lord. I make you savior. I make you king. God come into my heart and set me free.
In the mighty name of Jesus, all God's people said, amen and amen. Hey, can we just give it up for all the people in this room that just said yes to Jesus right now?
Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.