Is God’s Provision Enough for You?
Minister Cedric A. Portis
10/20/02
Numbers 11:1 And when the people complained, it displeased the LORD: and the LORD heard it; and his anger was kindled; and the fire of the LORD burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp.
Numbers 11:2 And the people cried unto Moses; and when Moses prayed unto the LORD, the fire was quenched.
Numbers 11:3 And he called the name of the place Taberah: because the fire of the LORD burnt among them.
Numbers 11:4 And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?
Numbers 11:5 We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic:
Numbers 11:6 But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.
Numbers 11:7 And the manna was as coriander seed, and the colour thereof as the colour of bdellium.
Numbers 11:8 And the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it: and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil.
Numbers 11:9 And when the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it.
Numbers 11:10 Then Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent: and the anger of the LORD was kindled greatly; Moses also was displeased.
Numbers 11:18 And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and ye shall eat.
Numbers 11:19 Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days;
Numbers 11:20 But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the LORD which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?
Numbers 11:31 And there went forth a wind from the LORD, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day’s journey on this side, and as it were a day’s journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth.
Numbers 11:32 And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp.
Numbers 11:33 And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague.
Numbers 11:34 And he called the name of that place Kibrothhattaavah: because there they buried the people that lusted.
Numbers 11:35 And the people journeyed from Kibrothhattaavah unto Hazeroth; and abode at Hazeroth.
The Children of Israel are on their way to the Promised Land and it has just been 3 days since they had left Mt Sinai. They have Moses as their leader and God as their Provider and Guide. In spite of all the things going right for the Children of Israel they still found something to complain about. And that is just how it is sometime, it does not matter how much God blesses someone they still find fault. Why is that?
Because the vast majority of us don’t want God in all of his sufficiency, we want God and something else. And what you are really saying is God; You are not enough for me. The question today is will we be grateful, satisfied with him or will you continue to complain and want more and better and different.
The American dream is seeking and acquiring earthly treasures; and the more, the better and we think these things are the source of happiness. One always has to have a better car than their neighbor, a bigger house a more important position at work etc.
An attitude of discontentment with God’s provision is an attitude that God just will not tolerate from His children.
Instead of living the life of a sold-out, born again, washed in the Blood of Jesus Christian who is on their way to heaven, we often see some of our brothers and sisters down in the mouth, disheartened, distressed and discouraged.
I know that we don’t always feel like we are on the mountain top but there are two many of us are living in the depths of the valley because they are constantly murmuring/complaining about what they don’t have, and the life they are living as if God has forgotten them.
Numbers 11:4 And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?
The mixed multitudes are Israelites that had married Egyptians.
They yielded to this intense craving, this mixed multitude of people who sort of loved God, and sort of didn’t, came to the place in their lives where they were looking for something else besides God to make them happy.
The Bible says that in the life of a child of God, there is an old nature and a new nature, the old nature is controlled by the flesh and it wants what it wants, and it wants self, and it wants sin and it wants satisfaction, but there is a new nature that wants God and righteousness and that battle is going on inside every child of God.
How many people feel that battle? And the battle is not sin in an of itself. So then when does it become sin? When does God get angry? When we give up and yield to the fleshly desires.
Romans 8:5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
Romans 8:6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Listen, when we dwell on the desire, yielding in to sin only becomes a matter of time.
Who shall give us flesh to eat?
Numbers 11:5 We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic:
Israel was in the wilderness and God was providing them with manna and water daily. And what happened, they started remembering the fish, the fruit and vegetables they had in Egypt.
God was providing for Israel, they did not have to work for their food; they just walked around and picked up the manna as it fell overnight. They didn’t have to plow, plant, water nor work the ground. God just dropped the blessing into their camp and all they had to do was pick it up on a daily basis.
Now this manna was good food, it was pleasant to the eye, every grain looked like a pearl; it was wholesome food and nourishing and they prepared it several different ways. The 16th chapter of Exodus tells us that the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.
And most importantly it was a gracious gift from God. It had all of the vitamins and nutrients not for just survival but a healthy existence.
Numbers 11:6 But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes.
What Israel was saying is that their soul is vexed, and they are empty inside if they do not get what they want. All they see is THIS MANNA (sarcastically). All they see is God’s provision and it is not good enough for them.
Even today, God supplies our need and we complain about what He gives. He gives us air to breath and we complain about it being too hot or too cold. He gives us food to eat and we complain because it doesn’t satisfy our taste buds. He gives us a shelter and transportation, but it’s not as good as where “they live or as nice a car as they have!!” God gave us His only Son, Jesus Christ as Savior and we complain because we don’t like the way of salvation that Jesus has provided.
What is God’s provision not sufficient for you? Then you may just have to walk for a while in a dry and thirsty land, if the job he blessed you with isn’t as glamorous as you thought it should be, you just may have to go back to the unemployment line for a while, if the transportation God has provided was so bad, you may have to spend a little time just walking where you need to go, If the abundance of clothes that God has provided you with aren’t high quality enough for you; you may have to spend a little time washing what you wore on Monday and Tuesday so you will have something to wear on Thursday and Friday until you learn to appreciate His provision you will have to spend a little time with a little less of His provision.
With a heart of discontentment, it doesn’t take very long until Satan begins to bring to our remembrance the “good times” of our life of sin. Satan has the ability to make the things of this world look brilliant and so desirable if we are not focused on Jesus.
But at the same time we must be assured that God will bring us through the trials of life to build our faith.
The combination of seeing the world through rose colored glasses and having Satan on your shoulder is often persuasive enough to cause a Christian to murmur to complain.
You have allowed Satan to trick you into being discontent with God’s provision. And this where the children of Israel were fantasying about the good food they had in Egypt, the fish and the fruit and the vegetables.
And if they would just slap themselves for a minute, they would realize that they were slaves in Egypt. And their food was slave quality and slave quantity at best.
If they saw a mellon it wasn’t very often, if they saw a cucumber it wasn’t very wonderful. There is nothing in the book of Exodus that would indicate that the Children of Israel had anything other than a slave’s diet. But dwelling on it causes them to loose perspective on their realty.
They have failed to remember the slave drivers whips across their backs and the animal like labor they put in at the mud pits and the unremorseful killings of their brothers and sister at the hands of the Egyptians?
Don’t fall into this trap of Satan.
If you are going to sit there unsatisfied with the place God has brought you to, and remember your past and how much fun you use to have before you became a child of God, try remembering everything and don’t leave anything out; remember the “always on the run from the law days”, remember the “I have to watch my back because of what I have done to someone” days, remember the “If my job finds out about this I’m fired” days.
We need to remember the addictions, afflictions days of worry, no joy, no peace, remember the nights you just cried yourself to sleep without the comfort of the Holy Spirit, remember the days of no hope, no assurance, no purpose so you can see the full picture; that God has blessed you, kept you, never left you and has brought you from a mighty long way.
When we have a heart of discontent in inflates the pleasure we once thought we had. It not only inflates it but is skews the reality.
The people were getting so worked up with what God was not providing them that they were at the door of their tents weeping.
Have you got like that so focused and wrapped up with what God is not giving you that you cry about it?
God had provided in essence everything Israel actually needed but what they were saying with their complaining was, it’s not good enough, God nice try but not good enough for me.
And the question is will we be grateful and satisfied with God and His provision.
The problem is that we don’t want God in all of His sufficiency we may say we do but the vast majority of us want God and, We want God and the perfect spouse, and the perfect career that I really want, and a big house, perfect children, we want God and good health, God and finest foods and clothes. And at the root of all this wanting in addition to God’s provision is a rejection of God Himself.
What you are really saying is God you are not enough for me. God You are fine where you fit, but my life better be about a lot more than just you. And I need this and that. And I need more and I need better and I need different, and my life better not be boring and I need to have lots of fun and its fine if worship is one of them, but God I need a lot more than that.
So what happens to people who have this discontentment, this rejection of God’s provision? A gift from God you don’t want. Verse 18-21
Numbers 11:18 And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and ye shall eat.
Numbers 11:19 Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days;
Numbers 11:20 But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the LORD which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?
God says, you want meat, you think it’s better than my provision, and Me; You think that is going to meet your needs? Is this what you have to have? That’s what you have been crying and begging for? then you are going to get it.
And I wonder what that thing is in your life? Let’s let this situation represent something in your life and you are begging God and crying over. And finally after all of the begging God says you think it this thing is so
great and you have to have it. “You have this now!” and you see if it is such a great thing.
We have to understand that God knows what is best for us and sometimes He can only make His point when He gives us what we have been asking for and we then see it is not what we needed.
Psalms 106:13 They soon forgot his works; they waited not for his counsel:
Psalms 106:14 But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert.
Psalms 106:15 And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul.
If you think that this is so fantastic and you think that this thing you are crying for is better than me. If you think I’m not enough, if you think that I am such an inefficient God that does not understand nor know your needs. Then you will have this thing.
What are you chasing God for that it may not be wrong to have but you have elevated it in importance above God. Beware of begging God for non-essentials. Because in time, we may hate what we had to have.
So what did God give them? Meat for a month until their throat was full and it comes out their nose. God says you will choke on that thing you thought you had to have. That thing that you thought was more important than Me.
This is present in some of the single adults who just have to get married, they have to find sombody. And they pray for God to send them someone; and they think they know what is best and they don’t have the patience to wait on the Lord and they strike out on their own.
And they hear God saying this is not the person you have been praying for, and they are so blinded by the desire to be with someone or be married that they ignore God and settle for second best and I say it’s second best because the choice was not made by God nor using His criteria.
And a year later they are miserable and they admit that they have made the biggest mistake of their lives and they ask themselves how could I have been this foolish and they are miserable all because they have rejected God and his provision.
God is saying to the single adults murmuring; you think you are ready for a spouse and to give them the love that is required to sustain a happy marriage when you don’t even love Me, you don’t even love yourself you are not ready to give this kind of love.
Listen, in the Garden of Eden, it was always God’s plan to create Eve, but before He created Eve, He established perfect fellowship with Adam.
When that relationship was strong enough, then God created Eve. Single people listen to me, you need to establish that relationship with God first and let Him send you someone, and if not, let the provision of the relationship you have with God be enough, trust that God knows best for you.
It’s no different in the corporate arena, and people think they have to be at the top and they climb the ladder and make lots of money and they eventually get there and sitting on their pile of money, they look back on the landscape of their life and they see the wreckage of a failed marriage and kids that don’t know them and the bad choices that they have made while they are sitting on their big sack of money they just had to have. For what?
And now they come to the point in their life that they hate what they had to have, and on their death bed, they utter “I wish I had been a better spouse, a better parent.” Remember your family needs your presence more than they need your paycheck. The greatest gift you can give your family is love, leadership and guidance, which cannot be bought with money and cannot be given if you are never there.
I have seen it in people who think they have to have children; they think a child will make me whole instead of letting Jesus making them whole. Having children is a wonderful thing in life but it is not life.
And it is painful to see those who finally conceive a child and I feel sorry for the child that grows up in a home where children are more important than God. That is a dangerous home to be born into. God does not want anything in your life to be more important than Him.
Which brings us to the consequences of God not being enough. God brings them the meat that they had to have.
Numbers 11:31 And there went forth a wind from the LORD, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day’s journey on this side, and as it were a day’s journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth.
Numbers 11:32 And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp.
Look at what the people did. They spent all day and half of the next day gathering quail, and they gathered so much that they least of them gathered 10 homers. That’s 60 bushels of birds, which is just under 500 gallons = 3800 pounds of birds and Some had way more than that.
One of the results of rejecting God and His provision is it destroys the capacity to discern sufficiency. If God’s Provision is not enough then enough will never be enough.
Let’s think about the mentality here, they reject God’s daily fresh food and settle for quail that was only as fresh as the first day, what about the second week, or a month later, can you taste the un-refrigerated, month old quail. And they are continuously gorging themselves with quail.
Numbers 11:33 And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague.
Numbers 11:34 And he called the name of that place Kibrothhattaavah: because there they buried the people that lusted.
Kibrothhattaavah actually means graves of lusters.
Many died as a result of the rejection of God’s provision. And looking at the second part verse 34, leads me to the conclusion that everyone did not reject God, and some may have realized the error of their ways before it was too late.
So the question today is, if this is you will you realize the error of your ways before it is too late? Before you end up in a lusting grave.
If you are living your life with an attitude of God’s provision is not enough, you will always be living for that next thing, more, better, different, that relationship, a possession a position, when desires for something are controlling you, the concept of enough is foreign to you. And enough is never enough.
When God’s provision is not enough, the more you have, the more you want and the more you have the less satisfied you are.
And you might say I’m going do be different, I’m going to be the one person money is going to make me happy, no it isn’t. “But, no, no, I’m going to be that one unique person”, “you are lying to yourself.”
There are those among us who are listening to this sermon and are giving me the mental “Yeah whatever, I’m going to just live for what ever I want to live for.” It’s your choice, but life in the wilderness is where you are headed. To your own modern day kibrothhattaavah, your own grave of lust.
Galatians 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap
If you are sowing seeds into earthly treasures and pleasures of the flesh that have no reward to offer, then that is what you will receive no reward.
Jesus died that we may be freed from the slavery of sin, that our labor will not be in vain. Seeking earthly treasures is slavery. God helps us to put our desire for things in order in
Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
God knows your needs, if we trust in Him to provide what we need; we will always be satisfied with His provision.
Question to ask yourselves
Am I a covetous person, just ask yourself honestly before the Lord, do I spend more time thinking about people to impact or possessions to acquire.
Do I spend my time thinking saying to myself I would be happy if I could just get this house, or this car, or get this position, then and only I will be happy and satisfied?
Do you base the success of your future on more things; or a closer relationship with Christ and doing a greater work for Him?
As people get older, many of then wish that they had converted to being content with the sufficiency of the Lord earlier in their life. Maybe today can be a turning point for you.
What is your attitude toward the things you possess? Do they define you, or does Christ define you. Is your talk about what you have and have acquired, or do you say by the grace of God, all I have and all I am is because of Jesus Christ.
Or maybe coming to church, and singing and listen to sermons are very tedious to you, very boring and you just wish they would get on with it. Then you are in a wilderness existence, because God’s portion is not good enough for you. And if this is you and you are willing to repent, I want to pray for and with you right now.
Every head bowed and every eye closed:
Yes Lord, I have been living for things and relationships and things other than You. Lord, I need my mind changed about this, and I know that my attitude toward you has not been pleasing to you, and I want to Get my priorities in order, and I don’t want to continue in this wilderness existence I have come to.
I want to know the joy of being satisfied that You and You only can provide. Forgive me Lord for not being content with Your provision in my life. Forgive me Lord for wanting, desiring and acquiring things so that man would give me glory. Lord I no longer need prosperity or position, I don’t need promotion or popularity. Lord I don’t need to be first, at the top or always recognized.
Lord, right now I give my life to You and I only want You to receive the glory. To God be the Glory in my life, and forever amen.
