The Road To Deliverance

The Actions of Disobedience

The people have four major complaints that they brought against God.

1. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert?

The people were once again coparing the life they had with God and the life they had in Egypt. They wanted to trade Godliness for godlessness.

God Egypt

Life Death

Children Slaves

Freedom Bondage

The people were speaking non-sense. They were more focused on the world around them than the God who created the world. We do the same thing today. We can come up with any excuse to miss church. We get too busy to read our bibles. We negelect the priviledge of praying with God. We make time for everything under the sun except God.

2. There is no bread

There was more than enough food to eat but they just didn’t want to eat it. This almost sounds like a child complaining about what is for dinner. This issue is totally without merit. The people really wanted what they were comfortable with. they wanted what was familar to them.

They wanted what they missed from the world. Are we any different? We want just enough of God to make us happy but not so much that we become uncomfortable with the way we live.

3. There is no water

The fact is that God had supplied the people with water in the past and there was at least a suplly large enough to sustain them. The last time checked we can’t live more than a few days without water. So what was going on here? They wanted more and they wanted it there and then.

4. We detest this miserable food

Just to show the contradictions in what they were complaining about. They first complained about having no bread and now they complain about the food that they do have. Do you see a problem here? Manna came down from heaven to feed the people every day. The people had been supplied by God with food to eat each and every day but the Israelites no longer wanted the the food God supplied. The issue is that they no longer were satisfied with the blessings God had given them.

II. The Israelites were impacted by a declaration

The declaration of God

The response of God was to send venomous snakes into the camp. More than likely these wer either Asps which were native to Northern Africa or they were Carpet Vipers. Even today these snakes still kill people in that region of the world. Either one would have been incredibly deadly.

Why did God do this? To say this seems cruel would be the understatement of the century. The purpose was to remind them of something absolutely vital that the people seemed to have forgotten. The snake was associated with Satan from the Garden of Eden. God was giving the people a not so gentle reminder of how Satan works and the results his work brings.

Satan wants for nothing more than to get the oportunity to sink his fangs into your life and inject you with his vemon. His goal is to destroy you and it doesn’t take much for him to get a foothold. What was it that started the Israelites down this path of destruction? They were impatient with God. Now that doesn’t sound like much but Satan will use any chance he can to poison your life.