The Forgotten Savior

(1. And in verse 28, “They joined themselves also to Baal of Peor, and ate sacrifices made to the dead.”

6. In verses 24 and 25 the Psalmist tells us that the Hebrews despised their freedom when he writes, “Then they despised the pleasant land; they did not believe His word, but complained in their tents, and did not heed the voice of the LORD.”

7. Does it sound a little too familiar? It ought too. It appears that we are worshipping the created ie in the fanatic Christmas shopping.

(1. It seems that we despise not only the land that we live in but the One who has given it to us.

8. What am I saying? Exactly what the Psalmist said applies to us.

(1. How? After the election did you know that the number of people inquiring about citizenship in Canada from our country rose from 10,000 per day to hundreds of thousand per day?

9. 22% of the people said that moral values was the number one thing that influenced the way that they voted.

(1. Apparently it wasn’t what influenced hundreds of thousands of people whose causes did not win in the past election

(2. And who now so despise this land that God has given them as to want to become a citizen of another country.

Page 7

III. Let’s look again at the story of the Hebrews to find wisdom for our lives today.

1. When the Hebrews asked for meat and tested God in the wilderness, God gave them what they asked for - but He gave them something else as well.

(1. Actually it was a consequence of turning away from God.

2. What was this consequence? What was it that God gave to the Hebrews in addition to what they wanted?

3. Look at verse 15, “And He gave them their request,

but sent leanness into their soul.”

(1. He “sent leanness into their soul.”

4. What does that mean? I think it means what we think it means - it’s a bad thing.

5. In our current Christian terminology we speak of growing as a Christian or child of God. The opposite of growing is shrinking, or dying, or the old term was “backsliding”.

6. That’s what “leanness” of the soul means. When we focus, concentrate, desire what the world, the flesh and the devil wants we may acquire/gain it.

(1. At the same time something else is happening. When we gain the world we are losing God.

(2. The quantity of God in our lives is growing leaner with every bit of worldliness we add. It is in direct proportion.

7. We sin and we become leaner in our relationship to God. We give up service to God, coming to church, fellowship with other Christians so that we can have more of something the world has to offer -

Page 8

(1. And what happens? We grow leaner. The God quantity in our soul shrinks and shrivels.

IV. Leanness of the soul is bad enough but something else happens as well - something we don’t like to talk about or even thing about.

1. When the servant of God, Moses, was envied or you could say that they tried to minimize him the Psalmist tells us what happened in verses 16, 17, and 18, “When they envied Moses in the camp, And Aaron the saint of the LORD, the earth opened up and swallowed Dathan, and covered the faction of Abiram. A fire was kindled in their company; the flame burned up the wicked.”