This Worthless Food

“From Mount Hor [Israel] set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.’” [1]

Incredible! That’s about all you can say as you read the biblical account of actions that were recorded concerning the people of Israel as they were trekking through the desert and toward the land which God promised to give them. Despite whatever astonishment you may feel, you’re forced to admit that they acted just about like we act when God blesses us.

Nothing much has changed about human nature in the centuries since God delivered Israel from Egyptian slavery. God blesses us so richly, and we take what He gives only to grouse about His generosity. Our attitude fairly appears to shout at God, “What has the Lord done for me lately?” Our memories are faulty and our gratitude gene appears to be defective. God is gracious, and we are yet prone to complain, to grouse because God hasn’t done things according to our desires.

Like a child who didn’t get quite what she wanted at Christmas, even we who profess to know the Lord God complain about what we do receive. The child receives a Galaxy S22 Ultra, but she complains that she didn’t receive an iPhone 13 Pro Max. It is of no importance to the child that this was a gift; the child wants what the child wants. So it is that many of the professed people of God are blessed so richly and still complain that unlike Burger King, they can’t have it their way! We can be positively infantile in our response to God’s goodness.

My intent in bringing this message is to caution God’s people against expressing such pettiness against God and against His goodness. I’m reminding all who hear me to recall Jesus’ words that teach us, “[God] makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” [MATTHEW 5:45b]. I urge the people of God, and all who now hear what I am saying, that God has done good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness [see ACTS 14:17].

GOD’S GRACIOUS PROVISION FOR HIS NEEDY PEOPLE — God delivered the people whom He had chosen so that they would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians. He led them away from Egypt toward a land He promised to give them. The path led through a desert, which meant that God would need to provide for them if they were to survive. Sure enough, when the people began to think about how they were to survive now that they were no longer slaves, they complained. We read, “The whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” [EXODUS 16:2-3].

The LORD heard their complaint, and He answered in marvellous fashion. God sent quail into the camp. Thus, we read, “In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp” [EXODUS 16:13]. What a blessing! However, the blessing would turn to disaster, as we read elsewhere in the Word of God. In the Book of Numbers, the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey was wont to say, is given. “A wind from the LORD sprang up, and it brought quail from the sea and let them fall beside the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, around the camp, and about two cubits above the ground. And the people rose all that day and all night and all the next day, and gathered the quail. Those who gathered least gathered ten homers. And they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD struck down the people with a very great plague. Therefore the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had the craving” [NUMBERS 11:31-34].

This event made such an impression on Israel that it was spoken of centuries later. The Psalmist Asaph recalled God’s judgement on the cravings of the people, writing.