Opening illustration: Play the video: “Big But”
Introduction: A chapter of complaining's. First, at Taberah, vague murmurings are heard throughout the camp. Then at Kibroth-hattaavah, a stage further on, the vague murmurings take shape in bitter complaint because of the fare to which the congregation was now confined. Manna, I get nothing but manna! While the people were harping on this grievance Moses also lifted up his voice in complaint. "Why has the Lord dealt so hardly with him as to lay on him the burden of so great a company? Better kill him out of hand, and not let him see his wretchedness!" Consider this scene at Kibroth-hattaavah. It is not pleasant to look at, especially when one becomes aware that it is a glass in which are to be seen passages in one's own history which one would gladly forget. Scenes not pleasant may nevertheless be profitable.
What enslaves us to strongholds?
1. Having a Complaining Spirit against God and His Anointed (vs. 1-4)
Whenever we give way to a spirit of complaint about our circumstances, we deny God's providence over us. For the children of Israel to grumble about their adversity in this circumstance was effectively to say, ‘We don't think God is a good, reliable, provider.’ Their complaint about their circumstance reflected their belief about God.
Remember, your actions always show you your theology. All of us can talk a great game in our theology. We can read and be up there with the best of them. We can talk about Calvin's doctrine of providence, Hodge and Rutherford's brilliant insights into the sovereign over-ruling providence of God, but when we hit our trials we will show what we really believe about God's providence. And when push came to shove, Israel did not believe in God's providence, and they showed it by the way they complained.
When we complain we tend to spread a spirit of complaint amongst the people of God. Our complaining spirit is never merely a personal issue. It can have a devastating effect on the people of God. Grumbling also amounts to a denial of God’s providence.
Can you imagine the children of these adults in Canaan sitting around in their homes, in their villages at the great festivals, saying to one another, “Do you remember the days when the God of our salvation fed us bread from His own hand so that we wouldn't starve in the wilderness?” But here they are in the wilderness with the heavenly Father feeding them from His own hand, and what are they doing? They’re wishing that there was something else. They’re wishing that He would give them something else. They’re undervaluing this enormous provision which in ages in the future the people of God would look back in wonder at how God provided for two million people or more in the wilderness. How in the world could that be done! He did it from His own hand, and yet here they are undervaluing the provision of God. How quick we are to do that in our dissatisfaction with what we have and what we don't have.
Illustration: Isn’t it amazing that the mixed multitude grumbled because they could not eat the very things that the doctor tells some folks to avoid – things that make you burp! I must confess that I’m a bit of an expert on grumbling about food. When I was a student in college, one of the items the cafeteria served for breakfast was “oatmeal.” As I recall, that “oatmeal” tasted about like I think manna did. Well, anyway, one day as I was waiting in line, I wrote in a “g” in front of the “oatmeal” sign: = “goat-meal.”
Breaking away from the stronghold of complaining:
Do not complain because of the hardships, God designs them to train us for maturity. In 1 Cor. 10:10 Paul says “… nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer.”
Before we even know it, we are bound by the spirit of complaining. How can it be demolished?
2. Having a Spirit of Living in the Past (vs. 5-10)
Apparently, the Israelites’ memory of Egyptian generosity is flawed. While they were in Egypt, a new Pharaoh became alarmed at Israel’s growing population, so he prescribed increasingly oppressive tasks to wear down the Israelites. The Egyptians “made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and in brick, and in all kinds of service in the field, all their service, in which they ruthlessly made them serve” (Exodus 1:14). When that failed to keep the Israelites in check, the Egyptians tried to have all male Israelite infants killed (Exodus 1-2). Egyptians also beat Israelites (Exodus 2:11). Life in Egypt was hardly the cornucopia of blessings that the Israelites now remember.
Moses underlines that God’s people are to be content with God’s provision. Discontent reveals a lack of faith in God. He knows what we need and will meet that need in His perfect time (not our wants on our timeline). Faith is willing to wait for that time and rest in His present provision. The ground of faith is not the sufficiency of the visible means for the performance of the promise, but the all-sufficiency of the invisible God, who will most surely do as he has said.
Breaking away from living in the past:
In John 6:32 it says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who gives you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.” What's Jesus saying? He's saying just as the manna in the wilderness was designed to teach the people of God that you don't live by bread alone, you are utterly dependent upon God for everything you have and are, so also Jesus’ giving of the food to the five thousand is to teach us that He is the One in whom our trust must be placed, for everything that we are and have, depends on Him. Are we ready to trust Him for the present and the future? He is the bread of heaven. He's showing us where our trust is to be placed: in Him, and in Him alone.
We are bound by the spirit of living in the past. How can it be demolished?
3. Having a Spirit of Desiring the Flesh (vs. 4, 18-21, 31-33)
I must confess that I can sympathize with the Israelites. While Yahweh has provided for them time after time in ways that should have cemented their faith, eating manna morning noon, and night, would get monotonous. Manna tasted like “wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31). I have on occasion eaten too many sweets. When that happens, I start wanting something not sweet—and wanting it desperately. At that point, nothing gets my attention like the smell of sauteed onions or roasting meat. Pie and cake hold absolutely no interest for me then, but the thought of roasted meat with carbs becomes compelling.
Their memory is selective. Suddenly they are talking about these seven-course meals that they had when they were slaves in Egypt! I think somebody's memory is selective. We need to have a reality check here. I think we've forgotten where we've been for the last 400 years. Notice especially this language that is used: “We remember the fish we used to eat free in Egypt …” You were slaves! You didn't eat anything free … free at the cost of your own sweat and blood … free at the cost of your liberty and lives … free at the cost of the future of your children! There's nothing free in Egypt. But memory is selective.
And then, diet is preoccupying. ‘That manna is the same old, same old. Manna, manna, manna, manna! No meat. No onions. No leeks, garlic. We want something different. Our appetite's even gone.’ They’d made gods of their stomachs, hadn't they?
The message of the manna was ‘What you need to live, you need from Me. You don't get it from Pharaoh, you don't get it by your own might or your intelligence, you get it from My hand. You don't live by bread alone. You live on what proceeds from the mouth of God.’ And when they compare that manna in their complaint unfavorably to the food that they had in Egypt–even if the food in Egypt had greater variety, they are showing that they have missed the whole point of the manna in the wilderness, and their self-centeredness and their self-concern has led them to be more concerned about their self-gratification of their fleshly desires for variety in food.
But Moses just gives it a name, and the name that he gives it is greed. They were greedy. You understand what's going on here. Self-concern for self-gratification leads to putting their immediate fleshly desires over God's desires for them. It manifests itself in greed, idolatry, and pride, and then it leads to judgment.
God wanted them to trust Him. He puts them into certain circumstances where they have an option. They can either trust in themselves or they can trust in Him. And the event that we're looking at today is one of those tests, and as you know, they fail that test miserably here. They called the place Kib-ROTH Hat-tah-av-AW, which means, "graves of lust." Those who lusted with greed were buried in that place.
Just as the Israelites, we are bound by the spirit of desiring the flesh. How can it be demolished?
Breaking away from the stronghold of fleshly desire:
What does I Corinthians 10:6 sound like? “Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.” What the Apostle Paul is saying is that your desires can kill you. Paul is saying, ‘Dear Christian, understand this. Your desires can kill you. Be very careful about what you desire. That's a huge lesson, friends. That is a battle especially for those of us who are blessed with so much. It is so easy for our hearts to be pulled away, wooed away from God by the bounty that's all around us, and Paul is saying be very careful about your desires.
Application: For what do you crave? What do you want more than anything else in the world? Let’s think now not of things like food and ice cream, for the issue goes deeper than manna or meat. The issue is nothing less than our fulfillment — our happiness and satisfaction as human beings. And the point is that as long as we look for this in anything other than what God provides, what we get will never mean what we think it will. The danger of getting what we want is that, like the Israelites, we will become disillusioned, bitter, depressed — perhaps even sick. This leads to being enslaved by our strongholds.
Sooner or later we will discover that seeking and achieving even the worthiest human goal or desire is never enough. Only the Lord can save us from the “graves of craving” into which we’re bound to fall when we seek our happiness apart from the Lord and what He provides. Breaking away from the enslavement to complaining, reminiscing the past and desiring the flesh will surely set us free.
