Some of you are very, very religious,
and you can't be too religious and come here, because we tell
the truth here. We really do. I wanted to title
this, but I didn't think you could take it. I wanted to call
this the dumb ass, smart ass, and get off your ass message.
Now, let me tell you. Well, we got past that part.
Nobody left. And we really need to be teaching
our children maybe that hell is not a swear word. It's a real
place. And maybe we ought to tell our kids that ass is really
not a bad word. It's an animal. So, when somebody calls you that,
they're calling me a donkey. Now, all of what I said is all
biblical. Don't any of you go, did he say
what I think he said? I only use Bible words. Those
are Bible words. But I'm not going to use donkey
today. I'm going to use the real thing
here. Let's go to Numbers chapter 22. Numbers chapter 22. In Numbers chapter 22, I find
a wonderful story. It's one of my favorite stories.
It's about a dumbass. And the dumbass talks. This is in your Bible, too, in
case you're still in a case of shock. You can read this in Numbers
22. And I'll just read verse 6. And
this is Balak, king of the Moabites, saying to the preacher, the prophet,
Come now, therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people. In other
words, Balak, king of the Moabites, is asking the preacher to come
and curse the people of God. For they are too mighty for me.
In other words, we can't beat up on them because they're mighty.
Peradventure, I shall prevail. Come and curse them so I can
win this war against them, that we may smite them, that I may
drive them out of the land. For I want that he whom thou
blessed is blessed. He said, what I've noticed, this
is what the king said, what I've noticed, who you bless, preacher,
They're blessed. And whom you curse, they're cursed. So what we'd like to do is to
pay you to come over to our side for a little while and curse
the people of God. Well, there are three characters
in the message today. The first one is an ass. I looked
it up in the dictionary. You can look it up when you go
home. And if there are children in here and you're worried about
them, when you get home, get a dictionary and tell them what
an ass is. The ass is commonly known as the animal that looks
much like a horse, but having long ears, known as a beast of
burden. Also, the ass is known to be
stubborn, abstinent in its nature. Another
characteristic of the ass is that for the most part, they're
stupid. Thus, the term stupid ass. I just wanted to give you a little
background. You won't forget this message, I guarantee you.
This message you will remember forever. But here in our text, we actually
find that the ass that we're going to look at here today in
Scripture is really a smart ass. Thus, the term smart ass. Now, a smart ass is something
unusual. Actually, a smart ass is something
that only God can make, because most of them are dumb, according
to the dictionary. Smartass is one that's found
in Isaiah chapter 1 and verse 3, when God says, The ox knoweth
his owner, and the ass knows his master's crib, but my people
do not consider me. The ass knows his master's crib.
He knows where home is. He knows who feeds him and takes
care of him. My people doth not consider."
The second character is a pathetic, compromising, money-hungry, power-grabbing
preacher named Balaam. That's in verse 40. Balaam. And he's going back and forth,
and this king of the Moabites keeps offering him greater recognition,
starts sending more noble people to him to try to get him to curse
the people of God. And every time that Balak sends
to Balaam these people, he also sends gifts, what we would call
bribes. We'll pay you if you will curse
the people of God. The third character in the story
is the wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the Prince of Peace,
the Everlasting Father. And here in Scripture, he's called
the Angel of the Lord, in verse 22. And throughout the Scripture,
the Old Testament Scripture, you will find the Angel of the
Lord mentioned. For instance, at the burning
bush, the Angel of the Lord was there with Moses. Joshua, the
high priest in the book of Zechariah, was clothed with filthy garments,
the Bible says. And the angel of the Lord said,
take away his filthy garments. He's a bran plucked from the
fire. And the Bible says, the angel of the Lord said, take
his filthy clothes off of him and bring a new robe and put
it on him. Clean him up. He's a bran plucked
from the fire. And then the Bible says that
the angel of the Lord stood by. You know why the angel of the
Lord stood by? Because Joshua, in the book of
Zechariah, had an accuser. Satan accused Joshua, the high
priest. He said, look at his garments. God said, put new garments on
him. But the accuser didn't go away. And so the angel of the
Lord stood by. Aren't you glad you had the angel
of the Lord standing by? Because the devil knows what
you've done, what you've said and where you've been. So Jesus
is standing by because you're going to need him. I hear all
of these religious folks talking about beating up on the devil.
You can't beat up on the devil. If you ever meet up with the
devil, you better have heavenly aid because you're not bigger
than the devil. You can't even keep yourself
off the cigarettes and the crack house and the booze and the this
and the that. Amen. You need somebody to keep
you. So the angel of the Lord stood
by. When Samson was born, you remember the angel of the Lord
appeared to his mother. Yeah, you're going to have a
baby, all right. When the father got home, she said, I'm going
to die, and you are too, because I've seen God today. And he said,
well, tell me about Manoah, was his name, Mr. Manoah, Samson's
father. He said, well, tell me what happened. He said, the angel of the Lord
appeared to me today. The angel of the Lord. The angel
of the Lord was an uncreated angel. All other angels are created
except this one. This is the Son of God, the angel
of the Lord in the Old Testament. So when you're reading the Old
Testament, you come across the angel of the Lord, just know
that's Jesus. That was Him, the uncreated angel. So, three characters. Let's note
first the preacher. Sorry, son of a gun. King Balak,
king of the Moabites. Send messages. You can read this
in verses five through eight and tries to bribe the preacher.
So the preacher is giving it some consideration. But if you
look at verse nine, it says, and God came under Balaam and
said, what are you doing? We need some God called preachers.
You know that now Mama called, not daddy called. We need some
God called preachers. Anyway, God came unto Balaam
and said, What men are these with thee? And by the way, God
never asked questions so he can get information from you. When
God said, Adam, where art thou? It wasn't that God didn't know
where Adam was. He's smarter than you. What are
you doing, Balaam? And Balaam tells the little story
about The king sending all of these people. And look at verse
12. Balaam says to God, they want
me to come down there and curse the people of Israel. And God
said, Thou shalt not curse the people. They're blessed. You
can't write cursed where God has written blessed. Things like
this. God says things like this. Blessed
are the dead which die in the Lord. We try to pretty death
up, don't we? Get those nice $12,000 caskets. And all you got is a piece of
metal you're going to put. Hey, scrappers. Anyway, you're
going to take that $12,000 casket and put it in a cemetery somewhere.
It's going to rust. The worms are going to have a
carnival sooner or later with that body. Here's what will take
away the sting of death. Blessed are the dead which die
in the Lord. Isn't that right? Listen, don't be buying me some
fancy casket when I exit here. Put it on the zoo walk. Or clutch
cargo. No, no. Clutch cargo comes before
I die. So anyway, God comes to the preacher
in verse 9, and God said, no, you can't curse him. So Balaam
says no in verse 13. He says to Balak, no, can't do
it. So Balak says to his people,
try him again. You know, maybe he'll waffle.
And he does a bit in verse 19. God comes again to Balaam and
says, don't do it, in verses 20 through 21. Now, there's some
things that happen in between, which I never read it except
I laugh. I love this part of the Scripture,
beginning with verse 22. And God's anger was kindled because
Balaam went. And the angel of the Lord stood
in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his
ass, and his two servants were with him. And the ass saw the
angel of the Lord standing in the way, which means Balaam didn't. And his sword was drawn, the
angel of the Lord. And the ass turned aside, out
of the way, and went into the field. And Balaam smote the ass."
And he probably said something like, dumbass. Look at verse 24. But the angel
of the Lord stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on
this side and a wall on that side. So now they got Balaam
hemmed up. Wall on either side. And he's
riding the ass. And the ass saw the angel of
the Lord, verse 25, she thrust herself under the wall and crushed
Balaam's foot against the wall. And he smote her again. And the
angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place.
And there was no way to turn either to the right or to the
left. And verse 27, And when the ass saw the angel of the
Lord, she fell down under Balaam, and Balaam's anger was kindled,
and he smote the ass with a staff. Verse 28, And the Lord opened
the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I
done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times? Now, the miracle to me is not
that the ass talks. It's that the preacher answers
the ass. And Balaam sat under the ass. You know, doesn't it look like
if he was really a spiritual man, he would have at least thought,
this is a miracle, this ass is talking. I mean, wouldn't you
think something if an ass just started talking to you? You'd probably say something
like, I'm losing my mind, or did I hear what I think I heard?
Balaam said, I hit you because you mock me. You embarrass me. And if there was a sword in my
hand, I would kill you. And the ass said to Balaam, Am not I thine ass? This is good
King James, right? I'm your ass. I'm the ass you've been riding
all your life. Now watch this. Then the Lord
opened the eyes of Balaam. He was blind as a bat. And we have blind preachers in
the pulpit, too. Dumber than an ass. Blind to
the things of God. And what happened when the Lord
opened Balaam's eyes? He fell to the ground. He fell
to the ground. My friend, if you've ever seen
the Lord, you're not going to be haughty. Isaiah said, in the
year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up. Well, what did you do, Isaiah?
I said, woe is me. Woe! Woe! If you ever see the Lord and
know yourself, and if you ever see the Lord, you'll know yourself,
and know you're in big trouble. You're in the presence of a holy
and a righteous God. And he fell on his face. Verse 32, And the angel of the
Lord said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these
three times? Behold, I went out to withstand
thee, because thy way is perverse before me." I was going to stop
you. And the ass saw me and turned
from me these three times. Unless she had turned from me,
surely now also I had slain thee and saved her alive. Preacher,
the ass saved your life. I'd have killed you and saved
her. You know, those of you who are
haughty, there may be that God sends an ass to talk to you.
I mean, in your sight, a person may be old-fashioned, even not
well-versed, maybe, not well-educated. But God can use an ass to talk
to you. Don't be haughty about who comes
to you. I've heard this all my life about the cross and hell
and heaven. The ass sent to you may be God's
ass sent to you to tell you, you're going to die and go to
hell. You better listen. Is that true? The Lord opened
Balaam's eyes. Listen, if you have an attitude
of, you know, the world was made, you say, in 6,000, 7,000 years,
you know, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Come on, we're smarter than that. Really? You may have a degree. You may have your doctorate.
I don't know what you have. But it'll burn up in hell, too. You're not very smart. I'm not
very smart. You know all truth is revealed
truth. Listen, if you're here and you know God in Christ Jesus,
it's because it's been revealed to you. You're not going to believe
that a virgin conceived outside of a miracle done in your heart.
You're not going to believe in the doctrine of substitution,
that God came down here and died in your stead, room and place.
suffered your hell, went down into the grave, made it a place
to wait for the resurrection, got up on the third day, ascended
back into heaven. They're making intercession for
you." The Lord opened the eyes of Balaam. I'm so glad my eyes have been
opened. This will be it, but I want you
to see something here. In verse 12, Good theology from
the story of a dumbass. In Numbers 22 and verse 12, And
God said unto Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them, thou shalt
not curse the people, for they are blessed. Blessed. Are you blessed? I'm blessed. I think of those verses in Romans.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Yeah, but Wanda did it. Yeah,
but I'm not going to impute it to her because Christ paid for
it. Blessed is the person that God
says, I will not charge them with that sin because my son
paid the debt. I mean, you Christians out there,
you still do sin, don't you? I'm glad you're not lying. I'm
glad you're not lying. You still sin. You didn't get
born again and somehow become some glorious, you know, Mr. White. You still have spots and
thoughts kind of run across your mind. Everybody in here has already
felt enough to go to hell while I've been preaching. Blessed. But we're blessed. And
God doesn't charge us with sin. There's no condemnation ever,
ever, ever to those that are in Christ Jesus. You'll never
come into judgment. You're saved and saved eternally
by the blood of Christ. Boy, those old Methodists. They knew the gospel. Those Wesley
boys wrote some great hymns. And can it be that I should gain
an interest in the Savior's love? Died He for me who caused His
pain? You know, that's what we've lost
in the church, the amazement of it all, the wonder of it all.
Oh, what a wonder that Jesus found me. Don't we all have a
testimony? Now, I wouldn't say this. You
probably shouldn't go after church and call the person up that witnessed
to you and say, hey, dumbass, thank you for telling me the
gospel. But God might have sent a dumbass to you. I mean, you
may be sharper than the person who came to you to tell you the
gospel. You may be more educated. You
know, God can send a message with a rooster. God made a rooster
crow right at the right time. Somebody said, well, I don't
believe a whale could swallow a man. First of all, the Bible
doesn't say it was a whale. But I'll tell you this, I believe
if God is in it, Jonah could have swallowed the whale. There's nothing ridiculous to
me. I've seen God do wonders. I mean,
all you have to do is stay around here just a little bit and you'll
find out that the most amazing things happen. Isn't it great
to know the Lord? I mean, to really get real. Don't
you want to see the power of God? I do. That's why I stay
around here. You know, I was thinking this
morning. I got my old Bible out. This is my old special Bible.
Yeah, this is all marked up, ripped up. I'm reading certain
passages in here and I'm thinking, wow. You see, this is the story
of the ass. You see all that black lettering?
I did that with a little repediograph pen 40 years ago. So when I really
think, Lord, they're not going to accept this this morning,
I get out my old Bible. I'm going to need some help today.
As soon as I announce my subject, half of them are going to leave.
But you didn't. Everybody has just been really,
really good. I know what you're going to do,
though. You're going to call people when you get home. You're
going to say you're not going to believe what Clark preached
about this morning. And probably they're going to
say, oh, yeah, we do. Whatever. A voice. A voice. Wouldn't it be something if Donald
Trump did support Grace Center, though? We'll all get to meet him. Fletch Cargo, here we come!