Num 22:31, Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand; and he bowed all the way to the ground. 
This morning, we read the beginning of the section of Numbers which details the interaction of Balak and Balaam. Many people read this account and see only the miracle of Balaam’s donkey speaking. However, there is a greater miracle in place, one which means the difference between eternal life and death. 
In Balaam’s case, he was presented with an eternal vision, which he discarded because he felt that he could deal with the Lord God Jehovah as he did with any of the pagan deities. He had no true humbleness of heart which would turn to God and prostrate himself before God in seeking after eternal forgiveness. Rather, he looked upon the Angel of the Lord as just another vision of a god who would eventually bend to Balaam’s human abilities as a pagan diviner.  
We want to understand what is being relayed in this story and will again use a number of commentarial quotes from Dr. Ronald B. Allen in his writing on the Book of Numbers contained in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary. We will also see what the scripture has to say concerning what happens when God opens the eyes and heart of man to see, to truly see what is before him in the plan and purpose of God.
At the beginning of our text, we have the utter fear of Balak, the king of Moab when he saw the tribes of Israel encamped along his border. The Lord had been spreading the fear of the conquering strength of His people before them, as the means of disheartening the nations of Canaan which were soon to be dispossessed from the Promised Land. This fear was so intense that even the Moabites, who were not the direct targets of the conquering of the Promised Land were paralyzed by the seemingly unstoppable forces of the Children of Israel. Therefore, Balak turned to some other means of defense against the apparently imminent entry of that hostile people into his kingdom.   
    	Quote, Since Balak believed that there was no military means available to withstand the forces of Israel, he sought to battle Israel on the level of pagan divination. He sent for a diviner with an international reputation, Balaam, son of Beor – a drastic move to use the supernatural means of the effective curse. This was predicated on the belief in the ancient world of the power of the spoken word. The diviner with the most remarkable reputation of the day was Balaam.
	Balaam was an internationally known prophet, a diviner expert in examining the entrails of animals and observing natural phenomena to determine the will of the gods. He thought that the Lord God of Israel was like any other deity whom he imagined he might manipulate by mantic acts. But from the early part of the narrative, when he first encounters the true God in visions, and in the humorous narrative of the journey on the donkey, Balaam begins to learn what for him was a strange, bizarre, even incomprehensible lesson: an encounter with the God of reality was fundamentally different than anything he had ever known…. End quote
	There are many varied ideas concerning Balaam and his relationship with God and with the Children of Israel. Because of the translation of the wording used in this passage, as Balaam has discussions with God, many believe that he was a prophet of God living in the outside realm of the nations. However, the actual usage of the verbiage in the Hebrew translation shows that the writer of Numbers knew that Balaam was treating God as just another of the many deities with whom he supposedly interacted. He did not know Him as the God of Heaven, the Lord God Almighty, but was dealing with the Lord as just the God of the Children of Israel.
For Balaam this interaction was to be treated just like any other in the string of his visions and dreams of dealing with gods that would bring him profit in the exploitation of blessings and curses. This will be evident in the later chapters as Balaam helps to devise the perilous entrapment of the Israelites with no true sense of repentance in his heart. Our morning’s passage indicates that Balaam bowed down to God, but only in the sense that he could see the sword in His hand and the terror of death made him acquiesce at that moment until he could figure out how to handle the situation to his own devices and benefit.  
	Quote, Balaam is not a good prophet who went bad or a bad prophet trying to be good. He is altogether outside Israel’s prophetic tradition. He is a pagan, foreign national whose mantic acts center on animal divination, including the dissection of animal livers, the movement of animals, and the flight of birds. He believed that he had a way with the gods, a hold on them. To him, Yahweh was not the Lord of heaven, but just another deity whom he might manipulate. He was in for the surprise of his life. End quote.
	The recounting of the miracle on the journey goes far beyond the fact that the donkey could give voice to her displeasure at the treatment she was receiving from Balaam. It is the fact that God made Himself visible to both man and beast, and the man had less sense in dealing with God than the donkey.
	Quote, The pagan mantic, the donkey, and the angel of the Lord are brought together in this truly tragicomic scene. The internationally known seer is blind before the angel of the Lord, but his proverbially dumb beast is able to see the spiritual reality of the living God on the path. Balaam as a baru prophet was a specialist in animal divination. Here his animal saw what he was blind to observe….
	This section is the ultimate in polemics against paganism. It is well known that the ass has been depicted from the earliest times as a subject of stupidity and contrariness. Yet here the “stupid” ass sees the angel of the Lord and attempts to protect her rider from God’s drawn sword. Three times the hapless Balaam beat his donkey.
	Then the donkey spoke. Some have imagined too much here. The donkey did not give a prophetic oracle; she merely said what a mistreated animal might say to an abusive master if given the chance. There was no preaching from the donkey! Others have stumbled at the improbability of an animal speaking, for such is the stuff of fairy tales. What keeps this story from the genre of legend or fairy tale is the clear factor that the animal did not speak of its own accord but as it was given the power to do so by the Lord. Only an exceedingly limited view of God would deny Him the ability to open the mouth of a dumb animal; …
	…It is not that this miracle is the focus of the text; it is not. It is just an amazingly humorous way to humiliate the prophet Balaam. Before the Lord revealed Himself to Balaam, he first “got his attention” in this dramatic fashion. Balaam had to learn from a donkey before he could learn from God. This is one of the most amusing stories in the Bible.
	…Again, all the donkey says is what a donkey might who was being so abused! We err in speaking of this text as though God spoke through the donkey. Here is no oracle, no prophecy, no poem; all she says is that she has been a good donkey. We also laugh as we hear Balaam talking with her, as though nothing was out of the ordinary. His rage must have been so heightened that he does not even stumble at the voice that comes from his donkey.
	The wording “Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes” follows the same structure as in v.28 “Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth.” In some ways the opening of the eyes of the pagan prophet to see the reality of the living God was the greater miracle. The animal was but a brute beast; the prophet was a man bent on trafficking with idolatrous gods. End quote.
	We know that just as the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, so did He close the mouth of Balaam. Balaam could not speak the curse that he wanted to speak. He knew that if he cursed the Children of Israel, he would be showered with all the riches that Balak could bestow. Balak was so set on this that he even hurried out to meet Balaam in order to facilitate the curse that he required. But Balaam was powerless to do so. God ordered his vocalizations to be a blessing on His nation rather than a curse as we will read in the following chapters. 
For now, let us refer to Num 24:2-5, as it also contains the truth that Balaam recognized that something miraculous had happened in the opening of his eyes. Num 24:2-5, And Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel camping tribe by tribe; and the Spirit of God came upon him. And he took up his discourse and said, "The oracle of Balaam the son of Beor, And the oracle of the man whose eye is opened; The oracle of him who hears the words of God, Who sees the vision of the Almighty, Falling down, yet having his eyes uncovered, How fair are your tents, O Jacob, Your dwellings, O Israel! 
    	What we want to note at this point, is that God opened Balaam’s eyes, yet Balaam chose to see God, not as He is, but as Balaam wanted Him to be. Balaam still lumped God into the category of all the other deities of his imagination. While God prevented Balaam from giving voice to the curses desired, Balaam still thought that he could eventually control the Lord, rather than submit to Him. He failed to truly see that He was face to face with the One True Living Lord God Almighty. Accordingly, he went on with his foundational belief that he could manipulate and bend the will of this God of Israel to do Balaam’s own bidding. His eyes had been opened but his heart was shut defiantly against the truth of with Whom he was dealing.
	There are several other examples upon which we will touch this morning of those whose eyes were opened and they did open their hearts to the Lord as a direct result of that miracle. The first is the servant of Elisha as the Lord opened his eyes to the truth of God being the safeguard of His people as recounted in 2 Kings 6:15-17. Here we have a man who did see the reality of the protection of the Lord God Almighty. 
2 Kings 6:15-17, Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, "Alas, my master! What shall we do?" So he answered, "Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Then Elisha prayed and said, "O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see." And the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 
    	The last examples we will consider are the ones that represent the miracle of our eyes being opened by the Lord God as we are enabled to see Him in His Only Begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is what happened to those disciples who were walking on the road after the resurrection of Jesus from the grave. It is recorded in Luke 24:25-31, if you would please open to it. 
	Luke 24:25-31, And He said to them, "O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! "Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?" And beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures. And they approached the village where they were going, and He acted as though He would go farther. And they urged Him, saying, "Stay with us, for it is getting toward evening, and the day is now nearly over." And He went in to stay with them. And it came about that when He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight. 
    	It was as the Lord revealed the truth of Himself to them that they knew Who He was and all that was foretold about Him became evident in their minds and in their hearts. They accepted Him in the reality that Balaam never would.
	Then we have the account of the Apostle Paul as he was testifying before King Agrippa in Acts 26:15-18. Acts 26:15-18, "And I said, 'Who art Thou, Lord?' And the Lord said, 'I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 'But arise, and stand on your feet; for this purpose I have appeared to you, to appoint you a minister and a witness not only to the things which you have seen, but also to the things in which I will appear to you; delivering you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, to whom I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.' 
	This is the recounting of our new birth, our salvation declared by the Lord Jesus Himself in our lives. We now see because He has opened our eyes to the truth just as He opened the eyes of the Apostle Paul and all those who will respond to His Holy Spirit’s call in our hearts. 
As the Word is preached He will miraculously …open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.' So be it!

												
This morning’s benediction is Ps 18:46. The Lord lives, and blessed be my rock; And exalted be the God of my salvation… Amen.