A DONKEY SPEAKS!

    Numbers has been full of repetitive accounts of the Israelites and their disobedience.  They have now made several laps around Mt. Sinai, many of the original people have died off, or been killed for their arrogant and presumptuous actions against the LORD, Moses, and Aaron. The overriding truth of the accounts is the merciful grace of the LORD!

Moses is in his last days of leadership.  The forty years are coming to an end and they are moving toward a second attempt to enter the Promise Land.  They have been victorious in taking land, and they are moving further into the interior of the land of Moab.  The king and the residents of Moab are "filled with dread because of the Israelites.  The king of Moab, Balak, sends messages to Balaam, who is a sorcerer and is able to to place curses or blessings on others.  King Balak wants to know how to defeat "this horde" that is licking up everything around them.  Of course, he is desirous that Balaam curse the Israelites' movements and that they fail in warfare.  

Ole Balaam is known for his ability to acknowledge Jehovah and His power and to have the outward facade of godliness.  His real intent is the profit he will gain in offering blessings and curses. God is certainly ABLE to use any one...Pharaoh, King Nebuchadnezzar, King Cyrus, to do HIS bidding.  He is using Balaam, not to curse the Israelites, but to speak blessings over them.  Certainly not what Balak had expected.  Balaam is asked to take another look-see at the location of the Israelites and their movements, and to be sure he speaks what God gives him to speak, HE allows the donkey that Balaam is riding upon to SPEAK!   How is that for amazing?  

God's usual tools in speaking to us are HIS Word, others, and our circumstances.  In order that we hear HIM, HE is not confined or obligated from use of any object to speak and cause a heart change within us.  I think of the times that God used my sons as children to speak, and then, over the years, there have been times that I just knew someone that I deemed a "jackass" has been used to speak truth to me.  Balaam's words still ring true today, "God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind.  Does He speak and then not act?  Does He promise and not fulfill?  I have received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot change it."   A further truth that he speaks, "I see Him, but not now; I behold Him, but not near.  A star will come out of Jacob; a scepter will rise out of Israel.  He will crush the foreheads of Moab, the skill of all the sons of Sheth.  Edom will be conquered; Seir, His enemy, will be conquered, but Israel will grow strong.  A ruler will come out of Jacob and destroy the survivors of the city." Numbers 23: 19-20 and Numbers 24:17-19.  His words have a ring to the future and of the present time he was speaking.   I hear the child Samuel's words, "Speak, Lord, for Your servant heareth."  Holy Spirit cause us to be receptive to hear and to obey what You speak to us.  Forever learning.  In process.  #IHAVETHREESONS.   

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