(Through the Bible) Isaiah 36-40 — Chuck Smith

Isaiah 36–39: Historical Background to Isaiah’s Prophecies

Shall we turn to Isaiah chapter 36. Last week as we completed the 35th chapter of the book of Isaiah of course we got into those glorious prophecies of the future kingdom age when Jesus Christ will be reigning over the earth and how God is going to restore the earth to its Edenic glory.

Now we always it seems have sort of curious minds and we wonder often just how God proposes to do the things that he says he is going to do and in reality the why's aren't really our real concern however we so often make them a concern you know well if he did this or if he did that and there are many suggestions as to how the earth might be restored to the Edenic glory and beauty.

Here in the 35th chapter there are references to there being streams in the deserts, pools in the dry places and so forth and and how that the whole earth is going to be more or less restored as far as the deserts will be gone there will blossom as a rose and and the whole earth will become very fertile and productive and with the prophecies of Isaiah there are also those prophecies of the earth being moved out of its place staggering to and fro as a drunken man and things of this nature which has caused some people to theorize that it is quite possible that we will have another polar axis shift and it could very well explain many of the cataclysmic events that are declared to be taking place during the Great Tribulation.

As the earth shakes and as the mountains and the islands disappear and it takes it talks really of a tremendous cataclysmic upheaval of the earth. At the present time the earth is tilted at about as far as the polar axis in its relationship to the sun it's tilted at about 23 and a third degrees which causes our summer and winter seasons because of this tilt on the polar axis and now being in the northern hemisphere the Sun is because of our tilt we are now receiving longer days and will do so up until the 22nd of June when we come into the summer equinox.

There is a suggestion that there will be another polar axis shift at which time it could be that the earth will come in to pretty much a straight alignment with the Sun and the earth revolving on its axis.

Now if this should result what would happen is of course you would have a medium climate all the way around the earth you wouldn't really have your seasons any longer but you'd have pretty much a medium climate around the earth it would heat up the earth sufficient to melt the ice pack at the north and the south pole which would raise the water level around the entire earth.

With a greater warmth that would cause more evaporation of the water on into the atmosphere and would create a much larger moisture barrier within the atmosphere itself. Because of the polar ice packs being melted you would not have your tremendous cold air arctic air moving so all of your winds would become much more mild than they presently are as the air would move much slower than it now does as a result of the polar arctic winds and so forth that bring these you have your warm air rising in the cold air moving in but it would sort of minimize the air movement much milder winds and so forth than what we presently have.

Probably increase rainfall around the earth of course would raise the water level on all of the shorelines and it would give us a little bit more of a water earth ratio rather than two-third one-third and would result probably in the disappearance of all of the desert regions and also all of your extremely hot zones and extremely cold zones so that you'd have a pretty much of a temperate climate all around the world.

We do know that at one time at the North Pole there was tropical vegetation mammoths that have been found encased in ice in Siberia have had tropical vegetation still in their digestive tracts. The mammoths were fast frozen there by some cataclysmic event of the past quite possibly the flood of Noah.

We do know that at one time at the South Pole there were great forests because they have found tremendous deposits of charcoal 200 feet under the ice pack indicating that there were once forests down there and again it could be accountable back to the flood that at that time there was a polar axis shift causing the tremendous movement of the waters the oceans and so forth and creating whole new type of continents and and entirely new kind of a geography around the earth.

So there are hints and indications in the scripture that this indeed might be what will cause these changing effects but none however God works it out as I say we only guess we really don't know but God is going to work it out and the earth is going to be a beautiful place to live and so it really doesn't matter you don't have to put a claim on Hawaii.

I don't even know if Hawaii will still be here because during the great cataclysmic changes it talks about the islands disappearing. It would be a shame I agree if Hawaii would go but you know no matter where you live it'll be beautiful and verdant as God restores the earth.

Isaiah’s Historical Account of Assyria’s Threat Against Jerusalem

So chapter 35 is prophetic as it looks ahead into that glorious Kingdom Age. Now from 36 to 39 Isaiah just takes out of the historic records and you'll find that this particular area parallels 2nd Kings beginning with around chapter 17 or 18 and so he evidently took the historic records in fact chapter 37 of Isaiah is identical to 2nd Kings chapter 19 so he is just more or less copy the historic records of which 2nd Kings is a part of the history of the nations of Israel and Judah and he copied out of the historic accounts these chapters in order to give you the historic background for the prophecies that he is just made of the destruction of the Assyrian forces and so forth having prophesied these things he now gives the historic background that you might see that God's word was accurate and true and what God foretold would come to pass did indeed transpire.

So these next four chapters are just out of the Kings and other historic records that he had available to him that we do not have now and they just covered this period of history over which he has been prophesying the period of history when the Assyrians would be bringing their armies in an invasion of Jerusalem but would be turned back by the hand of God so this is the history of it.

Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib the king of Assyria came up against the defense cities of Judah and took them and the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh. Now Rabshakeh is the title we really don't know what the name of the man was but that is the title of this particular person from Lachish to Jerusalem and to King Hezekiah with a great army and he stood by the conduit of the upper pool then came forth unto him Eliakim Hilkiah's son which was over the house and Shibna the scribe and Joah and Asaph's son the recorder and Rabshakeh said unto them go tell Hezekiah thus saith the great king the king of Assyria.

What is this confidence wherein you trust? I say but they are but vain words I have counsel. He said you're saying actually you have counsel and strength for war. Now on whom are you trusting that you would rebel against me?

Lo you are trusting in the staff of the broken reed of Egypt where on if a man would lean it would go into his hand and pierce it and so is Pharaoh the king of Egypt and all that trust in him. But if you say unto me we trust in Yahweh our God is it not he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and said to Judah and to Jerusalem you shall worship before this altar.

Now Rabbi Bekshak shows his ignorance of the worship of the God of Israel or the God of Judah. For Hezekiah did indeed destroy the altars and the high places and the groves in which the children of Israel were worshiping the gods of the Canaanites.

The worship of Molech and Baal and Mammon was done in these groves and in these high places and so one of the pluses of Hezekiah is that when he came to the throne he tore down the altars to the false gods that the children of Israel had been worshiping.

But as is so often the case those that are looking from the outside in presume to know a lot of what is being taught or said and really they know nothing of the truth. And in this case Rabbi Bekshak was totally wrong in that he is accusing Hezekiah of tearing down the altars or tearing down the high places of Jehovah.

Jehovah actually commanded them not to build the high places and always spoke out against them. And it was established that there was only one place that they should gather to worship Jehovah and to offer sacrifices and that was in Jerusalem at the temple.

And so Rabbi Bekshak shows his total ignorance of Jehovah in his remarks. Now he also is assuming that the children of Judah had gone to Egypt for help. But Hezekiah had been counseled by Isaiah not to go down to Egypt for help but just to trust in the Lord.

Now the natural thing to do in this situation, the wise natural thing would have been to go down to Egypt to seek their help because Egypt was also being threatened by Assyria. And so it would have made good natural sense to go down to get Egypt's help.

But what often is to us good natural sense isn't always good spiritual sense. And where naturally it would have been a smart move from a spiritual standpoint it would have been a bad move and God recommended and counseled them against it.

He said trust in me and not in the arm of Egypt or in the arm of flesh. And so Rabbi Bekshak shows two cases of his ignorance of the situation. One is ignorance of their worship of Yahweh. Secondly his ignorance of the counsel that God had given to them not to trust in Egypt.

So they were not trusting in Egypt. They were trusting completely in the Lord through the encouragement of Isaiah to just trust in the Lord to deliver the Assyrian host into their hand. Now he is belittling them.

He said look give me some money and I'll give you two thousand horses and let's see if you can find enough men to sit upon those horses. You know we'll help you to fight us. Just give us some pledges and we'll give you two thousand horses if you can put men upon them.

If you're able to set riders on them. How then will you turn away the face of just one captain of the least of my master's servants and you put your trust in Egypt for chariots and horsemen. And now I come up out of and do you think that I now come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it.

Yahweh said unto me go up against this land and destroy it. So now he is blaspheming God. He's saying hey God's giving me directions. You know you think I've come out up here without God's instructions.

For Yahweh said to me come on up and besiege this place. Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joash to this Rabbi Shecka speak I pray thee unto thy servants in the Syrian language or in Aramaic for we understand it.

Don't speak to us in the Jews language in the ears of the people that are upon the wall. Now here are all of the men of Israel sitting there on the wall and so these emissaries of Hezekiah figure man this guy must be demoralizing these people.

He's you know saying hey you know we gave you 2 ,000 horses you couldn't put men on them and how are you going to ever defy us and all. And so they they said hey you know don't talk to us in in Hebrew.

Talk to us in the Syrian. We can understand your Syrian tongue or Aramaic. We understand that. Speak to us in Aramaic. But this Rabbi Shecka picked up on what they were noticing and so he said hey wait a minute.

Didn't the King send me to talk to you men on the wall. You know I don't care about your King Hezekiah. And he stood and he cried with a loud voice. Verse 13 in the Jews language and said hear ye the words of the great King the King of Assyria.

Thus saith the King. Don't let Hezekiah deceive you. For he shall not be able to deliver you. Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord or in Yahweh saying Yahweh will surely deliver us. For this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the King of Assyria.

Hearken not to Hezekiah for thus saith the King of Assyria. Just make an agreement with me by a present. Just pay some tribute and come on out and just work in your fields. Eat of your own vines and of your own fig trees.

Drink waters out of your own cistern until I come and repopulate you in another land that is just as nice and pleasant as this one. Now Sennacherib the Assyrian King had the habit or custom of repopulating the peoples from their lands because as they would move them out of their land away from their families and away from their friends.

They had to learn a whole new culture and and work with different people and it kept them from banding together in a rebellion. And so he's offering them here we'll just take you away and we'll give you another land that's just as pleasant and nice as this.

You know just pay tribute and just wait for us to come and repopulate you. And then again he said beware lest Hezekiah persuade you saying Yahweh will deliver us. Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the King of Assyria?

So he's now exalting himself against the God of Jacob. Where are the gods of Hamath, Arphat? Where are the gods of Seraphim and those and they have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? Who are they among all the gods of these lands that have delivered their land out of my hand that Yahweh should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?

But the men on the wall wisely held their peace. They didn't answer a word for the King's commandment was don't answer him. So then came Eliakim the son of Hilkiah that was over the household of Shebna the scribe and Joah and the son of Asaph the recorder to Hezekiah with their clothes rent and they told him the words of Reb Sheka.

Now it was a custom that when you were very upset or when you were in real trouble the thing to do is just tear your clothes. And so these guys have been receiving all of these threats now from this emissary of the king of Assyria and it's been a bad experience so they tear their clothes it's sort of a you know woe is us we've had a kind of a thing and they came into Hezekiah with their clothes torn.

And so it came to pass when King Hezekiah heard it that he tore his clothes. Yeah man it is bad drip you know. And he covered himself with sackcloth. Now sackcloth was something that they put upon themselves to more or less afflict themselves.

It was whenever you were in mourning you would put on sackcloth. Sackcloth as you can well imagine against the skin must be very irritating. And so the king himself put on sackcloth and he went into the house of the Lord or he went into the temple.

And they said unto him let's see and then he sent Eliakim who was over the household and Shibna the scribe and the elders and the priests they were covered with sackcloth and they came to Isaiah the prophet and they said to Isaiah thus saith Hezekiah this day is a day of trouble and of rebuke and of blasphemy.

For the children are come to birth but the mothers do not have enough strength to bring them forth. Actually they were beginning to suffer from the ravages of being closed in by the Assyrian forces and so with the shortage of food the strength of the mothers was ebbing and they didn't have enough strength when it came time for a child to be delivered.

They'd be in labor and yet they didn't have enough strength to bring the children forth. He said it may be that Yahweh thy God will hear the words of Rabshakeh whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to reproach the living God and will reprove the words which the Lord thy God hath heard.

Wherefore lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left. So it's really a request to Isaiah pray. You know this guy's been down here and we're in trouble. Pray. So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah and Isaiah said unto them thus shall ye say to your master thus saith the Lord be not afraid of the words that you have heard wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria hath blasphemed me.

Behold I will send a blast upon him and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. So God's answer to these threats of Sennacherib is that he is going to return to his own land and there fall by the sword.

So Rabshakeh returned and he found the king of Assyria warring against Libna for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish and he heard saying concerning Tirhaka the king of Ethiopia that he has come forth to make war with thee and when he heard it he sent messengers to Hezekiah saying thus shall you speak to Hezekiah the king of Judah saying let not thy God in whom you trust deceive you saying Jerusalem shall not be given to the hand of the king of Assyria.

Behold you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all of the lands by destroying them utterly and you think you're going to be delivered. Have the gods of the nations delivered them which their fathers have which my fathers have destroyed as Gozan and Haran and Rezif and the children of Eden which were in Tileser.

Where is the king of Hammah and the king of Arphed and the king of the city of Sepharvain and Hena and Iva and Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and he read it and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord and he spread it out before the Lord.

Hezekiah Brings the Threatening Letter Before God

I like this. He gets a threatening letter. It is a disturbing letter. And what does he do with it? He goes into the house of the Lord and he just spreads it out before the Lord. He said look Lord what they're saying about you now.

Take care of them God. And so he spreads this thing out before the Lord. Oh if we would only learn to take our problems and our trouble to the Lord. You know just spread it out before the Lord. Lord look what's going on.

What a wise thing to do. Just take your problems and spread them out before the Lord. And he prayed unto the Lord saying oh Lord of hosts God of Israel that dwells between the cherubim thou art the God even thou alone of all of the kingdoms of the earth thou hast made the heaven and the earth.

God is above all gods. There are many gods. For a God is the master passion of a person's life. The Bible speaks that the gods of the heathen are vain. There is only one true and living God. Francis Schaeffer said the time has come when we as Christians must really just we can't just talk about God anymore because God is so many things to so many people.

You talk about God and to some person it's a essence of love and it's so many things. So he said the time has come when we need to more or less qualify the term God and not just use the term God but qualify it by saying the eternal living God who created the heavens and the earth.

Then we know what God we're talking about. For there is only one eternal living God who has created the heavens and the earth. Though there are many gods that people bow down to worship yet there's only one true eternal living God creator of heaven and earth.

So here of all of the kingdoms of the earth and the gods of all of the kingdoms you're the only one who is really the creator of heaven and earth. Incline your ear O Lord and hear. Open your eyes O Lord and see and hear the words of Sennacherib which hath sent which he has sent actually to reproach the living God.

So here he addresses him as the living God who has made heaven and earth. The Lord of hosts, the God of Israel who dwells between the cherubim. Now he acknowledges a certain truthfulness to this threatening letter.

Of a truth Lord the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their countries surrounding territories and they have cast their gods into the fire because they were not true gods but the work of men's hands.

They were gods of wood and stone therefore they were able to destroy them. Now therefore O Lord our God save us from his hand that all of the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord and you only.

Marvelous prayer. A prayer in the recognizing of the greatness of God who he is. A prayer in which he lays out the facts as he understands them and then ask God's help in the situation. Then Isaiah sent to Hezekiah saying thus saith the Lord God of Israel.

Inasmuch as you have prayed to me against Sennacherib the king of Assyria. This is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning him. The virgin the daughter of Zion hath despised thee. Talking about Sennacherib now this powerful Assyrian king.

Hey our little girls despise thee and they've laughed thee to scorn. The daughters of Jerusalem just shake their heads at thee. Which is a sort of a reproachful kind of a thing. Who have you reproached and blasphemed?

And against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high even against the Holy One of Israel. And by your servants you've reproached the Lord the Adonai and hath said by the multitude of my chariots am I come into the height of the mountains and to the sides of Lebanon and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof and the choice fir trees and I will enter into the height of his border and to the forest of his Carmel.

I have digged and drunk water and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all of the rivers of the besieged places. Hath thou not heard long ago how I have done it and of ancient times that I have formed it.

Now have I brought it to pass that you should be laid waste or that you should be to that thou should. Now have I brought it to pass that thou should be to lay waste defense cities into ruinous heaps.

Therefore their inhabitants were of small power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were as the grass of the field and as the green herb and as the grass on the housetops and as the corn that is blasted before it has grown up.

But I know thy abode and thy going out and thy coming in and thy rage against the Lord. Against me and because I rage against me in the tumult is come up into my ears. Therefore, will I put my book in your nose and my bridle in thy lips and I will turn the back by the way which you came and this shall be assigned unto you.

You shall eat and this is under the children of Hezekiah. You shall eat this year. In other words, God is declared. I'm going to turn you back and by the way you came is where you go. This is the end of the message to Sennacherib now to Hezekiah.

This will be the sign that God is going to fulfill this. This year you will eat that which just grows of itself out of the ground and the second year. The same thing that which springs from the same and in the third year you're going to sow the land and reap and you'll plant the vineyards and you'll eat the fruit thereof.

God is going to restore and and remove the enemy entirely out of the land and the remnant that is escaped at the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant and they did escape out of Mount Zion for the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Therefore, thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, he shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it. By the way that he came, the same he will return and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord.

For I will defend the city to save it for my own sake and for my servant David's sake. Now this is the word of the Lord through Isaiah to King Hezekiah. Now, if you were king and the prophet of God gave you this message, how would you react to it here?

You're facing the strongest army in the world and you are admittedly weak. The guy is said, Hey, we gave you two thousand horses. You don't have enough men to put on them. They've wiped out all of the enemy, all of the other lands, which were many of them stronger and more powerful than you are.

And now the word of the Lord comes from the prophet Isaiah saying, Don't worry about it. They'll never step inside of this city. They won't shoot an arrow in. By the way they came, they're going to turn back.

Well, really, what can you do? You're really sort of defenseless. Anyhow, you might as well just hope that the prophets right? Because you can't do much else. Fortunately, in this case, the prophet is right.

For we read, then the angel of the Lord went forth and smote in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty five thousand. And when they, that is the children of Judah, awoke early in the morning, behold, the Assyrian army were all dead corpses.

So Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, departed and he went and returned and dwelt at Nineveh, which is the capital of Assyria. He returned to Nineveh in defeat, his armies destroyed by an angel of the Lord, and it came to pass.

Remember, he said he's going to go back to his land and there he would fall by the sword. It came to pass as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch, his God. That Adramelech and Shurizer, his sons, smote him with the sword and they escaped into the land of Armenia and Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his stead.

Hezekiah’s Illness, Prayer, and Fifteen Added Years

So God's word was fulfilled. Now in those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And Isaiah, the prophet, the son of Amos, came unto him and said unto him, Thus saith the Lord, set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.

Now these are pretty heavy tidings. You get sick and a prophet of God comes and says, hey, set your house in order, man, this is it. You're going to die and not live. There are things that we must take care of before we die.

Important things to take care of. The most important thing that I take care of before I die is my relationship with God. And that's really what the prophet was referring to. Set your house in order. You're going to die and not live.

So Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall and he prayed unto the Lord. And he said, Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before you in truth and with a complete heart. And I have done that which is good in your sight.

And Hezekiah wept. And then came the word of the Lord to Isaiah, saying, Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus saith the Lord, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer. I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to you.

And I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria. And I will defend this city. And this shall be the sign unto thee from the Lord that the Lord will do this thing that he has spoken.

Behold, I will bring again the shadow of the degrees which has gone down in the sundial of Ahaz ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees by which degrees it was gone down. Interesting thing.

Just to prove a point that what God said is true. Hey, all right, I'll give you fifteen years, you know, don't cry. And to prove it, I'll bring the shadow on the sundial back ten degrees. So here is actually a long day.

Ten degrees backward, and by the time it started again, would give you about a forty-five minute lapse time here as God took. Now, how did God pull that one off? I don't know. There are those who scoff at the miracles in the Bible and try to either rationalize them completely or just say that they didn't exist.

We have the case in Joshua's time where the sun stood still for the space of almost a day. In order that Joshua was able to completely wipe out the enemies. Now, if the sun stood still in the evening time and the moon there in the valley of Ahajalon, then it would mean that over here on this side of the earth they would have had a long night, which, of course, the Aztec and Inca records do record.

And Velikovsky in his book, Worlds in Collision, traces this long day of Joshua around the world. Now, there are the scoffers who say, well, wait a minute. The sun doesn't revolve around the earth anyhow.

We have that kind of an illusion only because the earth is spinning on its axis. So rather than the sun standing still, it must be that the earth came to a halt. But the earth is spinning at a thousand miles an hour.

And if the earth would suddenly stop, everybody would be thrown off. And so they tried to deny the reality of that miracle through this idea that, you know, anything stopped spinning at a thousand miles an hour, everything would be thrown off of it.

Well, who said God put on the brakes that hard? Say God took 15 minutes to slow the earth to a stop. Oh, my, that's easing down because from a thousand miles in 15 minutes, you would hardly even notice the brakes being applied at that speed.

So if God, say, slowed it down in five minutes, it would be like applying your brakes at 60 miles an hour to stop at a signal that is a half a mile away. So there's no problem. God didn't just slam on a brake, yank, you know, and everybody goes flying off.

He just applied the brakes, stopped the thing. The miracle to me is how did he get it going again? Now, here is a little bit better. He actually reversed the thing a little bit. Let it go back 10 degrees before he fired it up.

So, you know, the only reason why people have difficulty with these passages of Scripture is because their concept of God is so small. And the reason why their concept of God is small is because they've created their own ideas of God.

Now, if you believe in the God that is revealed in the Bible, then these things present absolutely no problem at all. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's a pretty big God. And if he created the heavens and the earth, he has no problem in guiding and directing and then stopping, if he wants, the rotation of this earth upon its axis for a moment, starting it up again.

It's an interesting thing. Velikovsky, in his book, believes that when God started it up again, he started in the opposite direction, that actually the earth used to rotate from west to east. He believes and seeks to prove it in his book.

But interesting, God just to prove to the king, hey, I mean it, show you a little proof, just to encourage you. Now, when Hezekiah was sick, this is what he wrote. You talk about a negative confession.

I mean, this guy had a classic negative confession. So, this is what Hezekiah wrote when he was sick. Boy, what a negative confession. Now, if what you say is what you get, then Hezekiah really would have been done in.

But in spite of all of his negative confessions, God answered his prayer and gave him 15 years. But that brings up a problem. Should he really have died at that time? It would appear that God's primary will for Hezekiah was that he should die at that time.

There's a theological debate on to whether or not prayer really changes things. Can I, by prayer, really change the mind of God? God declares, behold, I am God, I change not. Should I, by prayer, seek to change the mind of God?

What would be the purpose of changing the mind of God? The only purpose I can see of seeking to change the mind of God is that I've got a smarter thought than God does. Now, God, I want you to see it my way.

It is interesting how that so often in our prayers, they are really real hype jobs in trying to, in a sense, change the mind of God. At least the way we pray it, it is as though we're trying to make God see it our way and to convince God that our way is right.

To sell God on my program here. But is that really the real thrust of prayer and the purpose of prayer? To change the mind of God? Does prayer really change God? Now, it would appear that there is a direct will of God for our lives, but then there is this area that we might title the permissive will of God for us.

And quite often, God's direct will is expressed first. This is what is best. But I get in there and I begin to push and shove and insist. And God says, well, all right, you know. If that's what you really want, have at it.

Balaam, Permissive Will, and the Consequences of Insisting on Our Way

It would appear that this did happen when Barak the king sent to Balaam to curse the people that were coming through the land. And Balaam prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Balaam, do not go down to the king.

Do not curse these people because they are my people. So Balaam sent back a message to Barak and said, I'm sorry, king. I can't come down. The Lord won't let me. Neither can I curse these people for the same reason.

So King Barak sent other messengers with great rewards, a lot of loot, and said, just come on down and counsel me concerning these people that are coming through the land. So Balaam was a greedy fellow.

And when he saw all the loot that the king was offering for counseling fees, he thought, wow, could I ever use that? Get me a new donkey and a new house. And greed really filled his heart. So he prayed again.

Now God had already said, don't go down. But I can hear Balaam this time. Oh, Lord, just please let me go. Lord, just, you know, I'll be good, Lord. But ah, just let me go down, Lord. You know, after all, what can it hurt me going down, Lord?

You know, please God, you know. God finally said, all right, go ahead. But you just be careful. You don't say any more than what I tell you. But the anger of the Lord was kindled against Balaam. Evidently, you see, though Balaam insisted, and God more or less gave him a tentative, sure, do it.

Yet it wasn't God's direct will for this guy's life because an angel of the Lord stood in the path with a drawn sword. And that wise little donkey saw the angel, though Balaam didn't. And he turned off the path.