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Prophets, Kings, and Wise Donkeys: Unpacking the Strangest Bible Stories · Relish: a Christian podcast

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  Relish pleasing or zestful flavor a quantity
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  just sufficient to flavor to be pleased or
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  gratified by enjoy we are hoping that what we bring to your table today might
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  add some spice to your life welcome to another episode of relish i am rowan
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  miller and i'm here with don patterson as always who is should i say you got
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  40 years of 40 plus years of experience on him.
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  Sorry if I aged him, but you don't have to worry about that.
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  Gravity's doing most of that work anyway.
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  All right. How are you doing today? I'm doing all right. I'm feeling pretty
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  good. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we are bringing the energy today.
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  Yeah. It must be the coffee I had this morning. Yeah. Yeah. DJ coffee, DJ coffee.
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  We'll jump right in. We got some, Some more Old Testament lined up here. Oh, wow.
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  Pretty familiar stories, I would say, but strange. Strange? We get into strange.
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  Yeah, like talking donkeys.
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  Numbers 22, 22. Uh-huh. Oh, I like that story.
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  I think what I thought was interesting was when like God kind of gets, he's a little mad at,
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  well, he gets more than a little mad, but at Balaam and for like kicking his donkey,
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  I'm like, who, who wouldn't kick their donkey in that, in that situation,
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  like he's just walking off the road and then sits down and yeah.
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  Yeah, but we'll let the expert take over here.
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  Well, and what's interesting is, okay, so here this, this is,
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  Balaam is actually God's prophet, but he's been asked to prophesy against God's
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  people and he's getting paid for it.
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  You know, this is no small deal because he's getting paid big bucks for prophesying
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  against God's people, even though he's God's prophet. and at that.
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  I'm not sure why Balaam doesn't get it earlier, that this is not supposed to
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  be going on, and this is not what he's doing.
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  And so he gets to verse 21 of chapter 22, and Balaam got up early in the morning,
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  saddled his donkey, and went with the princes of Moab, and God got very angry when he went.
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  And the angel of the Lord stood in the road to oppose him.
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  Balaam was riding his donkey, and two of his servants were with him. So he's not alone.
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  The donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand.
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  She turned off the road into the field. Balaam beat her to get her back on the road.
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  The angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path between two vineyards.
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  So this is on farther down the road with walls on both sides.
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  And the donkey saw the angel of the Lord press the wall close and crushing Balaam's
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  foot against it. So he beat her again. Yeah.
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  The angel of the Lord moved on ahead and stood in a narrow place where there
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  was no room to turn either to the right or to the left.
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  When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she laid down under Balaam.
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  I bet that made him happy. No, he was angry and beat her with a staff.
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  And the Lord opened the donkey's mouth and said to Balaam, what have you done?
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  What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times.
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  Now, what surprises me is Balaam wasn't upset with the donkey talking to him. His answers.
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  Well, you made a fool of me. It's his pride that has been wounded.
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  Balaam's pride's been wounded because in front of his people and he's going with this other group.
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  If I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now, the donkey said to Balaam, I am not.
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  Am I not your own donkey, which you have ridden to this day?
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  Have I been in the habit of doing this to you? No, Balaam had to say.
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  Then the Lord opened Balaam's eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing
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  in the road with his sword down.
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  So he bowed low and fell face down. And the angel of the Lord said to him,
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  Why have you beaten your donkey these three times.
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  I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me.
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  The donkey saw me, turned away from these three times.
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  If she had not turned away, I would have certainly have killed you by now,
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  but I would have spared her.
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  And Balaam confesses his sin.
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  Oh, that we would have more donkeys in the world.
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  Because the donkey saw what Balaam couldn't. Now, okay, here's a key piece of that story.
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  So, Balaam was a prophet of the Lord.
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  What kept him from seeing the angel?
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  His own sin. His own sin kept him from seeing the angel because he had taken
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  the money in pledge to prophesy against the people of God.
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  It ends up he can't prophesy against God's people.
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  To be a truthful prophet, he couldn't do it.
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  So the donkey was God's last way, I guess, of getting Balaam's attention.
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  So I knew a guy who often talked about Balaam's donkey and that if he wasn't
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  supposed to go this way, then he would hope that something would show up in
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  his path like a Balaam's donkey.
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  And I was trying to rectify that in our minds today. So what do we, we don't have horses.
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  Our Amish do. But you're not riding a horse presently.
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  I've got a couple of horses under the hood. But other than that,
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  would we understand if God got in the way of our plans so that we would not sin?
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  I would kind of say no, but I don't know.
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  I think it's hard to understand that maybe sometimes things don't go exactly
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  like we want them to go or think they should go because one way or another,
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  God is doing a Balaam's donkey on us and saving us from the outcome of our own
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  sin, which is what was happening here.
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  Beautiful story. Love that donkey. Well, I don't love donkeys.
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  But anyway, that donkey actually was a good servant to Balaam.
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  I like the fact that the donkey says, you know, I've been your donkey about how long? Yeah.
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  And I haven't done this talking bit before either.
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  And then says, okay, am I accustomed to doing this to you?
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  So open your eyes. And when he opened his eyes, there's the angel. Yeah.
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  Interesting stuff. This is one of those stories you kind of wish you saw the
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  reactions or like what took place between the dialogue.
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  Because, I mean, right here, you just have back-to-back lines.
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  The donkey talks and he answers. Right. Like as if it's normal. Yeah.
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  It might have been more normal than it is today, but it isn't.
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  You feel like there'd be something between there, but.
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  Yeah. If you could have seen the look on Balaam's face when his donkey turned
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  around and talked to him. Yeah.
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  Yeah. Yeah, you're right. That would have been interesting. I like that.
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  The angel also gives him three chances.
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  Yeah. I mean, he could have just stood in the way the first time and made the
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  donkey sit down. But you know, that is often the way it happens.
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  There's three chances to redeem things.
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  And it's as if God knows that we're sort of hard-headed.
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  And sometimes it takes three times to get through to us. Sometimes even three doesn't work Yeah,
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  sometimes even three doesn't work But it's sort of nice when it does Yeah But
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  when people start recognizing it the third time Yeah It seems like it takes
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  three times to get us to recognize it Yeah The next one is in Isaiah,
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  God has Isaiah essentially preaching, walking around preaching naked for three
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  years I don't know if he actually was 100% naked but it just,
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  it's like why did he have to be naked I don't know it just seems a little strange well,
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  nakedness could you give me the passage is that 30,
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  I feel like it was it's not 40.
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  It's like I'm 20 1 through 4 yeah that makes sense,
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  What's interesting is God usually, we don't know it because we don't have prophets
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  around in the same order as, I mean, we still do have prophets around,
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  but they're not doing the things the prophets of the Old Testament did.
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  Their role is a little bit different than the school of the prophets of the Old Testament.
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  But God had this way of getting his message across through the prophet,
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  not only by the words spoken, but by the actions done.
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  And so for Isaiah to be naked, you say 22? 20, 21 through 4.
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  Yeah. Okay. At that time, the Lord spoke to Isaiah and said,
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  take off the sackcloth from your body and the sandals from your feet.
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  And he did so going around stripped and barefoot.
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  And the Lord said, just as my servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot
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  these three years as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush,
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  so the king of Assyria will lead away stripped barefoot the Egyptian captives
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  and Cushites exiles, young and old,
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  with buttocks buried, to the Egypt's shame.
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  And that was part of it, was exposing shame. Yeah.
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  So, yeah. But ox-bared. Okay.
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  The visual is overtaking. This is not against the Lord's people.
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  This is against Egypt and Cush.
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  And the prophecy is for their shame.
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  They'll be shamed. And it was often the case of a conquering people to strip
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  bare the conquered. because I don't know whether you feel or,
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  more vulnerable. I know if I, I move from winter to spring and by taking my
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  coat off, I feel more vulnerable in the elements. Yeah.
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  Just by not wearing a coat. I mean, I'm still wearing long sleeves and it's
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  May just because when I work outside or I work among things in the shop with
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  bare arms, I feel more vulnerable.
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  I could get my arms scraped up with the rose bushes and things.
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  So in that same way, can you imagine how vulnerable you would be?
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  What a mental shift it makes to the conquered to have absolutely nothing between
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  them and the conquerors and the elements.
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  Yeah. And so that was, it's actually to create a mentality for the conquered.
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  Yeah. All right. Hard stuff. When I think of, I mean, when I hear nakedness
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  in the Bible, I just think of in Eden with Adam and Eve right away,
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  but kind of like the no need for clothes then.
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  But I know that that theme kind of changes throughout the Bible.
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  And it's the sin that exposes to shame. Yeah.
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  And that still plays out today.
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  In a way, the exposed would have to say, well, what could I have done to avoid
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  this situation where I'm exposed so vulnerable to what's going on in my life?
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  And my parallel in my head goes, can we as Christians start saying,
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  how could I keep myself from being so naked, my shame being so exposed?
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  In the world today. And we can do it by looking more like Jesus,
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  taking on more of the nature of Jesus.
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  That being said, at the point of the cross, they would try to shame Jesus.
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  I mean, he was naked on the cross. Yeah.
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  Scorning the shame. Wow. Hebrews 12, 1 and 2. And then he would scorn that shame,
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  for the joy set before him.
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  He would scorn that shame. yeah yeah good
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  question wow answer you dug
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  pretty deep for those yeah oh not
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  that deep not that deep okay that's one i hadn't uh delved into for yeah yeah
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  long time long time we'll see
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  how much you how much time you spend with ehod and egg long the fat king,
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  you know that one.
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  Well if it's the one I'm thinking of you're in Judges 2,
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  The Fat King oh yes,
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  Yeah. I mean, there's kind of a series of questions, but I think they might
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  get answered just as you explain it.
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  It's like, you would answer this in backstory or whatever, but why did Ehud kill the king?
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  Was he called by God? If so, why did God strengthen Eglon against the Israelites,
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  then what can we learn from this story?
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  Well, in 15, the Israelites cried out for a deliverer.
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  Ehud, the left-handed man, the son of Gerat the Benjamite, the Israelites sent
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  him with tribute to Eglon the king.
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  So in this passage, Ehud is seen as the liberator of Israel.
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  So he made a double-edged sword, about a foot and a half long,
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  and strapped it to the right thigh of his inner clothing.
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  In other words, it was to be hidden so nobody could see it.
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  So that as he went to take this tribute to the king of Moab,
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  it would not be seen. He could get in close.
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  And so he takes that to the tribute to Ehud.
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  No Ehud takes the tribute to Egglog,
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  in the summer palace the upper room by
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  themselves yeah they were by themselves now the
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  back story to this is this upper room may have been actually his lavatory okay
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  and so it would have been a spot the king would have had yeah it could have
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  been his bathroom he could have been on the commode,
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  And that was one of the way, you know, because he was relieving,
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  let's see, where does it say here?
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  He was relieving himself. Yeah, I remember reading that part.
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  But anyway, he rose from his seat, reached, and Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword.
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  They would not, here's the thing, because he was left-handed,
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  they would not have expected the sword.
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  How much? 90% of the population's right-handed? Yeah. Hey, are you left-handed?
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  Are you? Well, I'm right-handed, but I was swinging a golf club and a baseball bat left-handed.
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  I noticed that the other day. Yeah, I'm a little strange like that, but.
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  Embextrous, huh? Something like that. Okay. I can't write with my left hand, though, so.
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  So anyway, this guy is so fat that the fat closed over the wound so that when
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  the servants come up, they think, well, he must be relieving himself in the
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  upper room, inner room of the house.
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  And they waited to the point of embarrassment.
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  Yeah. In other words, a long time.
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  And so Elud was able to get away. Yeah.
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  Because even though he had killed the king. So, yeah, one of those little stories,
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  spicy little stories in the Old Testament that I don't get.
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  So, basically, Elud was the liberator. Okay.
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  That they had been praying for. Okay. So that in earlier in 12,
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  the Israelites again did what was evil in the Lord's sight.
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  He gave King Eglon of Moab power over Israel because they had done what was
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  evil in the Lord's sight. Yeah.
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  And so basically God was using the enemy country as a mode of chastisement because
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  God's people weren't doing what they were supposed to do.
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  And that theme is all throughout the Old Testament.
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  Yeah. That when God's people didn't do what God wanted them to do,
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  which came around fairly often, he would use other countries.
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  That really gets pronounced after 2 Kings when the two countries are actually taken prisoner.
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  The two final kingdoms are taken prisoner and taken away.
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  You see that in Ezekiel, you see that in Jeremiah, how much that it was really,
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  they were being chastised by God through another nation.
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  And then those nations get chastised as well by God, get judged.
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  Yeah. So, it's God working his purpose out, hoping.
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  I really think God, beyond hope, believes he will gather people to himself that
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  will actually get the message and live out the message. Yeah.
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  Yeah. So, it's not a religion. It's a relationship.
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  We need to listen to the Lord so we don't end up having to be chastised.
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  Yeah. No donkeys talking back to us.
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  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
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  All right. Kind of reading these disobedient stories and then them suffering greatly from it. Why?
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  Like, how does he, like, where's the line in killing them and letting them live?
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  Like, why, for example, why wasn't Jonah killed?
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  Yeah. Or, like, how did he get away with, yeah, how did he get away with just
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  living in a big fish for a couple of days? But I think the key to it is the
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  sign of a penitent heart.
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  It's almost as if God can see a penitent heart before penitence comes.
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  In other words, there are some people who are open to saying, I'm sorry.
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  It's a very small part of the population that will not, will not, will not say, I'm sorry.
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  And there's a clinical aspect to that even they they don't they avoid shame to any extent,
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  and won't have anything to do with it and there are people like that who will
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  not yeah will not approach and and embrace their own shame in such a way that
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  they will repent and come back around,
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  But most of us, if we really have a heart for somebody, we'll ask for forgiveness.
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  If we really want to reflect our Lord, we'll ask for His forgiveness.
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  Those of us who have been impacted by the cross of Jesus Christ will ask for
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  forgiveness because we know that's who we are.
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  We're always asking for God's forgiveness.
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  And there's times that we need to ask for each other's forgiveness.
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  It's what Jesus wrote about in the Gospels.
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  Specifically, I'd point to the Sermon on the Mount, chapter five.
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  Forgiveness is a big part of that. Yep.
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  Yeah. All right, well, I think that does it.
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  So thank you for grinding out those Old Testament stories.
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  I already bought that on those.
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  I think that was the last one. Okay. Oh, yes.
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  Thank you, Jesus. Might get back to some New Testament stuff for you now. Okay, good deal.
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  Yeah. Well, thank you guys as always for listening. Feel free to share this video with somebody.
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  And yeah, we'll see you next time.
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  Thank you for joining us for this podcast. Feel free to become part of this
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  ministry by sharing it with others.
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  Our goal is to help each other grow deeper in our understanding of who God is
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  and is calling to us in our daily lives.
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  Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.