The Green-Eyed Moster

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Hope Today's election win needs a bigger voice Who breaks the power of sin and darkness Whose blood is mighty And so much stronger The King ♪ Who shakes the whole earth with holy thunder ♪ ♪ And leaves us breathless in awe and wonder ♪ ♪ The King of glory, the King above all kings ♪ You sing it! ♪ This is amazing grace ♪ ♪ This is amazing love ♪ ♪ That you would take my place ♪ ♪ That you would repair my wrongs ♪ ♪ That you would lay down your life ♪ ♪ That I would be set free ♪ ♪ Oh, Jesus, I sing for all that you've done for me ♪ ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Who brings our chaos back into order ♪ ♪ Who makes the orphan a son and daughter ♪ ♪ The King of glory, the King of glory ♪ ♪ Who rules the nations with truth and justice ♪ ♪ I'm like the sun in all of its brilliance ♪ ♪ The King of glory, the King of love and peace ♪ ♪ This is amazing grace, this is unfailing love ♪ ♪ That you would take my place, that you would bear my cross ♪ ♪ You laid down your life, that I would be set free ♪ ♪ Oh, Jesus, I sing for all that you've done for me ♪ ♪ Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, worthy is the King of glory ♪

♪ The King who conquered the grave, worthy is the Lamb who was slain ♪ ♪ Worthy is the King who conquered the grave, worthy is the Lamb who was slain ♪ ♪ Worthy is the King who conquered the grave, worthy is the Lamb who was slain ♪ ♪ Worthy is the King who conquered the grave, worthy is the Lamb who was slain ♪ ♪ Worthy, worthy, worthy, yeah, this is amazing grace ♪ ♪ This is unfailing love, that you would take my place ♪ ♪ That you would bear my cross, you laid down your life ♪ ♪ And I'm at peace and free, oh, Jesus I sing for all that you've done for me ♪ ♪ Oh, Jesus I sing for all that you've done for me ♪ ♪ Oh, Jesus, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ We've seen what you can do, oh God wonders ♪ ♪ The power has no end ♪ ♪ The things you've done before in greater measure ♪ ♪ You'll do them again ♪ ♪ Cause there's no prison one can't break through, no ♪ ♪ Mountain you can't move, all things are possible ♪ ♪ But there's no broken body you can't raise, no ♪ ♪ Soul that you can't save, all things are possible ♪ ♪ The darkest night you can light it up, you can light it up ♪ ♪ You can light it up, you can light it up ♪ ♪ God of revival, let hope arise, let hope arise ♪ ♪ Death has overcome you or anyone ♪ ♪ God of revival ♪ ♪ You rose to victory and now you're singing ♪ ♪ Forever on the throne ♪ ♪ So why should my heart fear what you've created? ♪ ♪ I'm not trusting you at all ♪ ♪ Cause there's no prison, a wall you can't break through ♪ ♪ No mountain you can't move on, things are possible ♪ ♪ Cause there's no broken body you can't raise though ♪

♪ So that you can save all, things are possible ♪ ♪ The darkest night, you can light it up ♪ ♪ You can light it up, God of revival ♪ ♪ God of revival, let hope arise, death has overcome ♪ ♪ Cause you or anyone, God of revival, God of revival ♪ ♪ God of revival, God of revival, God of revival ♪ Let's cry this out to the Lord on behalf of our city. ♪ Come awaken your people, come awaken the city ♪ ♪ Oh God of revival, pour it out, pour it out ♪ ♪ Where every struggle will crumble, I hear the trees lift around ♪ ♪ Oh God of revival, pour it out, pour it out ♪ ♪ Come awaken your people, come awaken the city ♪ ♪ Oh God of revival, pour it out, pour it out ♪ ♪ Where every struggle will crumble, I hear the trees lift around ♪ ♪ Oh God of revival, pour it out, pour it out ♪ ♪ Oh the darkest night, you can light it up ♪ ♪ You can light it up, you can light it up ♪ ♪ Oh God of revival, let hope arise, death is overcome ♪ ♪ Cause you already won, oh God of revival ♪ ♪ Oh God of revival, come awaken your people, come awaken the city ♪ ♪ Oh God of revival, pour it out, pour it out ♪ ♪ Where every struggle will crumble, I hear the trees lift around ♪ ♪ Oh God of revival, pour it out, pour it out ♪ ♪ Come awaken your people, come awaken the city ♪ ♪ Oh God of revival, pour it out, pour it out ♪ ♪ Where every struggle will crumble, I hear the trees lift around ♪ ♪ Oh God of revival, pour it out, pour it out ♪ Well, we're starting a brand new series called Unbelieving Believers, Faith Failure and the Faithfulness of God.

It's from the book of Numbers. When I told Chris I was gonna be preaching a series on Numbers, well, he's familiar enough with Numbers to know Numbers has a lot of numbers. It's got a lot of people's names in there. It reads like a Jewish telephone book. And how do you preach through numbers? I said, well, it's not gonna be verse by verse. But Numbers has some great stories in there of what happened during the wilderness wanderings. What happened with the children of Israel. Now the Apostle Paul picked up on this in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. And he was talking about those who came. came out of Egypt with Moses. And he says this. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not well pleased, for they were laid low in the wilderness. They died in the wilderness. Now, these things happened as examples for us so that we would not crave evil things as they also crave. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play.

That's Exodus 32 when they worship the golden calf. Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and twenty three thousand fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now, these things happen to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. We can learn a lot from God's Old Testament people, from their faith, from their failure, and from the faithfulness of God, how God dealt with them. Often they would provoke him to anger, but God was still faithful to them. Now, to kick this series off, we want to ask the question, are you grateful for your situation in life or are you grumbling?

Are you griping? Are you whining? Are you complaining? One of the themes of the book of Numbers is the fact that God's Old Testament people were so prone to grumbling. You read that over and over and you're going to see it. It's like a broken record. When things get tough, they start grumbling. And so we need to learn from their failures. Numbers chapter 11, just to bring you up to speed. So God's people, they're led out of Egypt with God's mighty hand, the 10 plagues on Egypt and on Pharaoh. And you're very familiar. They come to the Red Sea and they don't know what to do. Pharaoh's behind them. He had a change of heart. He's now going to destroy them. It's about two to two and a half million people that Moses is leading, huge group of people. And so what do they do

when they come to the Red Sea? They got the Red Sea in front of them. They got Pharaoh's army behind them. There's nowhere to go. They're hemmed in. And so they grumble and gripe and complain, oh, we're going to die out here in the wilderness. And so Moses cries out to the Lord and the Lord tells him, stretch forth your staff. And he does. And and I'm going to part the waters. And God does. And it's the greatest Old Testament miracle, the parting of the Red Sea. And God's people pass through on dry land. And when Pharaoh comes to get him and his army, they are swallowed up in the Red Sea and they drown. And Exodus 15 is the song of Moses and Aaron and Miriam. They're praising the Lord, the song of Israel, the horse and the rider thrown into the sea. And they're so excited and they're so full of joy

and they're dancing. And three days later, just three days later, after the greatest Old Testament miracle, they're grumbling because there's no water. And that is just like a broken record. So God takes them. He takes them from across the Red Sea down to Mount Sinai. And they're at Mount Sinai for about a year. And what happens at Mount Sinai? They get the Ten Commandments from the Lord. And Moses is there. They see God come down on that mountain, Mount Horeb, Mount Sinai, same place. And they see the mighty power of God and the glory of God. And they say, all that the Lord has commanded, we will do and we will be obedient. And they said to Moses, hey, Moses, you speak to us yourself and we will listen, but let not God speak to us lest we die. Because God was bringing all his power, not all his power, but a significant amount of power

and splendor and majesty and glory to that mountain. And there was smoke and there was the sound of a trumpet and there was lightning flashes and there was fire. It was scary. And Moses said to the people, don't be afraid. God has shown you this so that the fear of him may remain in you. Exodus 20, verse 20. You need to fear the Lord. Don't be afraid of the Lord, but you need to have reverence and awe of who God is. And so they said, all that the Lord has commanded, we will do and we will be obedient. And 40 days later, they're worshiping a golden calf. I mean, that's the way these people are. Well, fast forward. Now they've been at Sinai for a year. It's been 13. months since they left Egypt, I have a map that kind of shows you. So they start out up top on the left side and they go down, down, down to Mount Sinai, the very bottom, and then they're going to go up to Kadesh Barnea. And that was the place where they were going to spy out the land. And the plan was you get the the law of God and then you go up into the promised land and you take the promised land.

But they didn't do it. And as we're going to see next week, it's because of unbelief. So they ended up wandering around in the wilderness for nearly 40 years because of their unbelief. But now Numbers chapter 11, they've broken camp at Sinai. They've traveled three days and this is what it says. Now, the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord. And when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. The people, therefore, cried out to Moses and Moses prayed to the Lord and the fire died out. So the name of that place was called Terabba because the fire of the Lord burned among them. I want to share with you three warnings, warnings to our hearts as we look at what the children of Israel did and we look at our own lives and we say, just like that song, prone to wander. Lord, I feel it prone to leave the God I love, prone to grumble and prone to gripe. That is your default, my default, their default. So we need to learn from their mistakes. Three warnings. Warning number one, there is a tendency to complain when facing adversity. I went on a mission trip with my friend Alberto Lopez and he was from South America. He was our missions pastor when I was at Champion Forest and he and I took a group to Venezuela. And this was years ago when I was on staff at Champion Forest. And I remember one of the things that Alberto told our group, he said, listen, when we come to Venezuela and you're working with the locals, the missionaries and the locals here. He said, make sure that you don't complain. He said, Americans have a bad reputation of being complainers. You don't like the food. You don't like the accommodations. It's too hot. You don't like this. You don't like that. You don't like the other. He said, that is a terrible witness. These people are looking to us as the more mature believers. And when they see those who should be more mature believers whining and griping and grumbling and complaining, it is a terrible, terrible witness.

The Bible says in Philippians chapter two, verses 14 and 15, do all things without grumbling or disputing, without grumbling or arguing so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you appear as lights in the world. We talk about shine and share. One of the great ways to shine is to quit belly aching, quit grumbling, quit griping about adversity. Well, three days isn't it interesting? It just took them three days. They broke camp and three days they're already complaining. Just like it was in Exodus 15, when after the parting of the Red Sea and the destruction of Pharaoh's army, it just took three days till they started grumbling because there was no water. A tendency to complain when facing adversity. The word for adversity literally means distress, misery, trouble, unpleasant circumstances. Now, when you read about them wandering in the wilderness, I remember as a young Christian, I would hear the Old Testament being taught. I didn't know a lot about the Bible in general, didn't really know hardly anything about the Old Testament. And in my mind, wilderness, I'm thinking of Robin Hood in the forest, you know, Sherwood Forest. The wilderness is not Sherwood Forest. The wilderness is the desert. It is rocks and sand. It is hot. It is difficult out in the wilderness. And you're Moses and you got two to two and a half million people that you are leading. You say, where do you get that number? Well, it says in chapter 11 that he has 600,000 foot soldiers. So people that do the math say, well, if you have 600,000 soldiers, men who are able-bodied soldiers, that means you probably have women and children. You have about, and the elderly, you have two. to two and a half million people, a huge amount of people. And it's hot and it's difficult. And they begin to complain. Now, why does that happen? How does that happen? What leads us to start complaining about the adverse conditions that we face?

Well, we can quickly forget our blessings. And that's what they did. They so quickly forgot their blessings. What had God done for them? Remember, this is 13 months after Egypt. What has God done for them? Well, he delivered them from Egypt. They were slaves there. That was a pretty big time. He is present with them. They can see God's presence. The cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, that's how God led them. So they knew that God is present here with us. He gave them the law. He fed them, as we're going to see, with manna from heaven. I mean, all these blessings, and they were forgetting what they had and what the Lord had done. The Bible says in Psalm 103, a Psalm of David, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of his benefits. Forget none. We tend to forget a lot. We sing that song, count your blessings, name them one by one. Well, we forget to do that. We count the things that we don't like. We're very good at remembering the things we don't like, and we're not so good at remembering the things that

are good. I love the testimony of Fanny Crosby. Fanny Crosby, the hymn writer and poetess who was blinded from just early in life because a doctor gave the wrong treatment for her, and it ended up burning out her eyes. And she said this, oh, what a happy soul I am, although I cannot see. I am resolved that in this world contented I will be. How many blessings I enjoy that other people don't. To weep and sigh because I'm blind I cannot, nor I won't. You know, I read this quote, we can complain that the rose bushes have thorns, or we can rejoice that the thorn bushes have roses. It's all how you see things. Well, they were just seeing the glass is half empty. It's got a crack in it. Things are terrible. They were forgetting the blessings of God, and they were quickly grumbling and griping and complaining. We can do the same thing. And then we can fail to see the bigger picture. This so often happens. We just see what's right in front of us. We just see how much we don't like the current circumstances because it's difficult, it's hard, it's unpleasant, it's hot perhaps. And, you know, when physically, when you don't feel well physically, that just makes everything so much harder.

As Johnny Erickson Tata has said, you know, she said, every day I have to fight for joy because I'm in pain most all the time. Well, that's difficult. And it's easy when you're in pain to be very irritable and things aren't quite right, and you're just quick to pop off. Well, we have to see the bigger picture. God is at work. The Bible says in James 1, consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. Consider it all joy. It doesn't mean it is all joy. It means you're going to consider it all joy. I mean, difficulties come into your life, whether it's physical, whether it's financial, whether it's relational. And what do you do with that? Well, you can get mad at God. You can gripe to anybody who will listen to you. And guess what? People don't really like listening to your complaints because they have their own complaints. And sometimes complainers like to get together and kind of, well, who's got it worse? Poor, poor, pitiful me. I have it worse than you. You can do that, but you're missing the big picture.

Why has this come into your life? God's allowed it to come in to test you and to grow you and to build your faith. So if you'll take that uncomfortable, unpleasant thing that's in your life, that heartbreaking thing that's in your life, and you say, okay, this is a terrible thing, but I'm going to take it from the debit column and I'm going to put it in the credit column. I'm going to take it from the. lost to that asset and I'm going to say okay this is a good thing I'm going to consider this all joy even though I don't like it. Because God is at work through it. Now God was at work through the difficulties they faced. God was teaching them to trust Him. God was showing them that He was able and yet they missed it because they failed to see the big picture. And then when we quickly forget our blessings and our benefits and when we fail to see the bigger picture guess what we start grumbling and griping and complaining and the Lord hears that. And we can provoke the Lord to anger and that's what they did. Now when it says the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord one commentator said that's because their complaints were loud. They weren't just complaining in their heart you know you cannot like something and you keep it to yourself and sometimes it's like well how do you watch it you know Debbie gets on me all the time she goes your face speaks volumes even though you're not saying anything you know so body language can be huge but but you can keep your displeasure to yourself they weren't doing that. They were complaining loudly before the Lord in the hearing of the Lord. Now the eyes of the Lord are in every place watching the evil and the good and the Lord hears everything we say. Jesus said every idle word which men shall speak they will give an account of it in the day of judgment. He hears all of that and when you're complaining about things God hears and when the complaining comes to heaven because of the loudness of it you can provoke God to anger and they did. His anger was kindled verse one and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. We don't know how this came

it might have come with lightning strikes but it was obviously coming from the Lord and the people cried out what what are we going to do they cried out to Moses and Moses prayed and the Lord heard Moses and the fire died out but it was enough for them to name that place Terribah which means burning the place of burning because the fire of the Lord burned among them. Now that should be enough to say hey you know what I don't think God really likes it when we moan and groan and gripe and complain. He's made it very clear don't do that but they're slow learners. So there's a tendency warning number one to complain when facing adversity. Second warning there's a tendency to sour on the provision of God. A tendency to sour on the provision of God. Verse four the rabble who were among them. The mixed multitude. It wasn't just the 12 tribes that came out of Egypt. There were some other people that came with them. They're called the rabble. They're called the mixed multitude. They're called the riffraff. It was people from they're not associated with the 12 tribes but they came with the Jews. It says the rabble who were among them had greedy desires and also the sons of Israel wept again and said who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt. Weren't you slaves in Egypt? Oh yeah you ate free in Egypt because you're a slave. That way they provided you that but you were a slave. We ate that free in Egypt the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic but now our appetite is gone. There's nothing at all to look at except this manna. Yuck I'm so sick of manna. They'd been eating manna now for 12 months. Manna came at about the third or fourth week into the journey after they left Egypt. Men did eat the bread of angels the bible says and when manna came they didn't know what it was. They called it manna because manna means what is it? They don't know what it is. It looked like a frost on the ground and this is what the scripture says. See the manna was the daily miracle that God gave to his people and he gave it to them all during the wilderness wanderings. They ate manna for almost 40 years. Now it says in verse 7 the manna was like coriander seed and its appearance like that of bdellium and the People would go about and gather it and grind it between two millstones or beat it in the mortar and boil it in the pot and make cakes with it. And its taste was as the taste of cakes or pastries baked with oil.

When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall with it. It's a daily miracle that God gave them. And so the dew would fall. They'd come in the morning. There's this fine frost stuff. They didn't manna, what is it? And they would scoop it up and they would prepare it and they could prepare it different ways or you could just eat it straight. But you know, they're trying to, how else can we do this stuff? These, this, this frosted flakes that we got here. You know, it's, it's the Bible says it tasted like honey wafers, wafers with honey. It was sweet and it was like pastries with oil. And so that they would eat that and it would sustain them. And there was enough. And every morning they would get it, but you had to get it early. If you didn't get it early, the sun would come out and then it would melt and then you'd miss out. And it came every day except Friday, you got a double portion because Saturday was the Sabbath and you didn't gather on the Sabbath, you rested on the Sabbath. And you could not store it except for Fridays. Fridays would store for Saturday,

but the rest of the week it wouldn't store. You had to get it every morning. The manna was a daily miracle and it was a sign of God's faithfulness. I like what it says in the book of Exodus. Exodus 16 is when we first read about the manna. It said the house of Israel named it manna and it was like coriander seed white and it's tastes like wafers with honey. Then Moses said, this is what the Lord has commanded. Let an omer full of it be kept throughout your generations that they may see the bread that I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt. Moses said to Aaron, take a jar and put an omer full of manna in it and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations. As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony, that's the 10 commandments to be kept. The sons of Israel ate the manna 40 years until they came to an inhabited land. They ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. Now an omer is a 10th of an ephah. In case you were wondering, how much is an omer? It's a 10th of an ephah. You should know that. In case you're wondering, what is a 10th of an ephah?

It's an omer and those things go together. It's about two to two and a half quarts. And so they kept it in the Ark of the Covenant next to the testimony, next to the 10 commandments and next to Aaron's rod that will bud. Those three things were in the Ark of the Covenant. It was to show that God was faithful to his people. Now they were acting like, we don't want this. We're sick of this manna. Well, if I'd been God and I'm providing you the bread of angels, wafers filled with honey, this bread that tastes so great and is so sustaining and you don't want it, I'd say, well, okay. How about I give you a big plate of jack squat? You can have nothing. You ingrates. God didn't do that, he was faithful. See, this series is on faith, failure and the faithfulness of God. God is still faithful. And they were to keep that around because it reminded them for all generations that God is faithful, you can trust him. And the manna was a miracle with a message. There was a message to God's manna. It says in Deuteronomy chapter eight, as Moses is talking to the people before they go into the promised land. This is 40 years later, roughly. It said, he humbled you and let you be hungry

and fed you with the manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. God, what's the message in the manna? You need God. We sing that song, we've talked, sang today about needing the Lord. I need thee every hour. I need God every second of every hour. We can't do anything without God. Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord. Psalm 150 verse six. If you have breath in your lungs today, you have the means to praise the Lord. It's a gift from God. And so the message is that man does not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, we need God. for everything because He is our source. He is our provider. He is a good, good Father, and we can trust Him. Hey, they soured on the manna. They took it for granted. They said, we're sick of it, and they whined and griped and complained, and they wept. Oh, I wish we had meat to eat. All we had to look at day after day after day is this manna.

You ever done that? Soured on God's provision? Maybe you sour on the one that God gave you as your life partner, your spouse. You know, a woman came to a pastor one day and told how terrible her husband is. He does this, he does that. He's just a terrible person. He said, well, why didn't you marry him? Well, he wasn't like that when I married him. He said, well, then you made him that way. She didn't want to look at it like that. We lose sight of God's faithfulness, and we lose sight of our gratitude for His provision for us. It was a number of years ago, my preaching professor, Wayne McDill, and his wife, Sharon, came to visit, and things weren't going very well at the church at that time for me. And my biggest job was to keep the 50% of the people that didn't like me away from the 50% that weren't sure. And so it was one of those deals, you know? It felt like the whole world was against me. I knew that wasn't right. There was some of the neutral countries were in there. They're still neutral. You know, but you can feel that way as a pastor. And I remember I was whining and griping to Wayne and Sharon, just telling them how bad things were.

And she looked at me, Wayne's wife. Now, Wayne's a no-nonsense guy, and his wife picked up on that. I think she got to be a little no-nonsense. I love her. But she said something to me I've never forgotten, and it was so helpful. She spoke the truth in love, and she said, Jeff, there are lots of pastors right now who would trade with you just like that. And it just kind of stopped me in my tracks. It's like, I just wanted you to commiserate with me. Weep with those who weep. I'm hurting here, but she hit me with truth. And it was, yeah, you're right. And I need to get my eyes back on the Lord. I need to quit whining and griping and complaining about how things are and quit looking at the circumstances and look at the God who is over all the circumstances. There's a strong tendency in your heart and in my heart to sour on the provision of God and take those things for granted. And then warning number three, there's a tendency to forget that our actions have consequences. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. Galatians chapter six, verse seven. Says in verse 10 of numbers 11,

now Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families. Each man at the doorway of his tent and the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly and Moses was displeased. Things were bad. Everybody is crying. They're wanting meat. Oh, they have their eyes, this man is terrible. Where is the meat? Oh, wish we could go back to Egypt. Now they don't say that, but that's in their heart and God is going to say that to him. And it was all started, if you read it in verse four, by the rabble, the riffraff. That mixed multitude who were among them. They had greedy desires. They started to influence the people and say, this is no good. I don't like this. You shouldn't like this either. Aren't you sick of all this manna? Do you not remember the meat that we had to eat? Oh, remember how good it was in Egypt? How good it was in Egypt? We were slaves in Egypt. Yeah, forget that part. Just remember the meat, the pots of meat and the leeks and the onions and the garlic and how wonderful, all that spicy food.

The manna wasn't very spicy. And so, and the manna was kind of melt in your mouth stuff. So chewing something, you just feel like chewing. And you know, it's like if you're on the Atkins diet or whatever they call it now, or no carbs. You know, as soon as I go on, I say, I'm going to go on the Atkins diet. I just long for pizza. I mean, it's just like immediate or something carb oriented. You know, it's like, I can only eat so many. Eggs and cheese and meat. And some people just do that. Well, you just long for that which you can't have. So these people are longing for that. And they're forgetting that their actions have consequences and they're influenced by the riffraff, by the rabble, by the mixed multitude. There's a lesson in that for us. You know, this got so bad that Moses, when he prays in verse 15, he asked God to kill him. That's pretty bad. Now, I've had difficulties in my 23 years as pastor. I may ask God to kill you, but I've never asked him to kill me. But Moses was saying, Lord, if this is the way it's gonna be, just kill me. If you're gonna deal thus with me, where he says in verse 15, please kill me at once. If I have found favor in your sight

and do not let me see my wretchedness. Listen, these rabble, they were a catalyst for the devil. God forbid that we should be a catalyst for the devil to breed discord in the fellowship of the church and the fellowship of God's people. To get God's people to start longing for things that they have no business longing for. To get God's people to come in on this discussion about how we can't stand Moses and how he's not doing a good job. And let's berate the leader and make it hard for him. There was a guy that wrote a book called Pastor Abusers. And it was for people in church that the church has become just a place where they just ripped through pastors, one after the other, after the other, after the other. Well, that is not a good thing. Quit hiring a bad guy if you think he's a bad guy. But if you're a church where the apostle Paul couldn't be your pastor because he wouldn't be doing it right. Moses couldn't be your pastor because he wouldn't be doing it right. You have to look in the mirror. We don't wanna be the people that are a catalyst for the devil. When we have our membership class, we always talk about, we talk about bitterness and we talk about gossip. And we say that kills the church.

So in a church, the church is a big family. In a big family, guess what? You can have situations where you get mad at somebody in the family. I come from a family of three, there were three boys and three girls. So I have siblings, five siblings. And I mean, there was stuff happening all the time. And you have to learn how to forgive. And you can't just live, I hate you and I'm gonna hate you forever. You're siblings. And so you just learn how to get along. You have those dustups and then you forgive and forget and you go on down the road. That's the way it needs to be in the church. And if you have a problem with somebody, the Bible's way to do it is you go talk to them. And you say, hey, you did this and it really hurt my feelings and it made me mad. I felt like you took advantage of me or whatever. But you confront that person one-on-one. You don't tell 10 people about what this guy did to you and try and build a posse and hey, will you hate this person with me? Because it'd be so much more fun if I had 10 other people to hate this guy. That happens in church a lot and that destroys the church. And so we tell the people that are joining, hey, we don't want that at all here.

And so if you get mad at me, if you say, well, you know, I walked down the hall and Pastor Jeff didn't say hi to me, that dirty dog. It's like, well, I didn't wake up saying, you know, I bet I'm gonna see so-and-so today. I'm not gonna talk to her. Maybe I didn't see you. Maybe I was focused on something and I didn't. You give the person the benefit of the doubt. But God forbid that we should be a catalyst for the devil to piggyback on that to create dissension. Well, that's what the rabble did. Their actions had consequences. And God forbid that we should reject the Lord in his goodness. So God is not gonna kill Moses. Moses said, I need help. And God said, all right, I'm gonna give you 70 men, elders from Israel. They're gonna help you. I'm gonna put my spirit on them and they're gonna help you lead this great multitude. And then this is what I'm gonna do. Verse 16 or verse 18. Say to the people, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow and you shall eat meat. For you have wept in the ears of the Lord saying, oh, that someone would give us meat to eat. For we were well off in Egypt. Therefore, the Lord will give you meat and you shall eat.

You shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, nor 10 days, nor 20 days, but a whole month until it comes out your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him saying, why did we ever leave Egypt? That's what they were saying to the Lord, not in so many words, but God looks at the heart. God knows what their actions were speaking to him. And it was such a slap in his face. Why did we ever leave Egypt? We liked it better as slaves to Pharaoh than the Lord's people out here in the wilderness, getting ready to go into the promised land, the land flowing with milk and honey. You would choose slavery in Egypt to being my chosen people. It was horrible, such a grave, terrible sin. And it was all fueled by their appetites. We just want to eat meat. We remember the meat. It was so good. So God said, okay, you want meat? I'll give you meat. Not one day, not two days. I'm gonna give it to you for 30 days till it comes out your nostrils. You're gonna be sick to death of the meat. I remember my counselor when I was in high school,

Donna Shrake, she talked about her son wanting to dip. And he thought he was a big guy. You know, he's just a little kid, but he was, you know, I think he was sixth or seventh, eighth grade, something like that. He wanted to dip and he was sneaking dips. And she said, oh no, you don't have to sneak it. And she got him some skull. And she said, here, you're gonna do the whole can. And she made him dip the whole can until he was puking his guts out. He didn't want it anymore, right? That's what God said. I'm gonna give you so much quail, you're gonna hate it. And it's gonna come out your nostrils. Why? Because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him saying, why did we ever leave Egypt? And so what happened? Moses doesn't understand. He's like, well, how am I gonna provide meat for all these people? And God said, is the power of the Lord shortened that I can't provide meat? And so God caused quail to come and came out there in the desert. And the quail, they were sufficient. Now they weren't just lying dead on the ground. They were flying low where they had to catch them,

but they could catch them very easily. And it says, beginning in verse 31, now there went forth a wind from the Lord 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, all around the camp. And about two cubits deep, three feet deep on the surface of the ground, the people spent all day and all night and all the next day and gathered the quail. He who gathered least gathered 10 homers. Now that's about 11 bushels, one homer. So they had a lot and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people and the Lord struck the people with a very severe plague. So the name of that place was called Kibroth Hatava because they buried the people who had been greedy, the graves of craving or the graves of greediness. God put an exclamation point on that. Hey, be careful for craving that desire that you have to satisfy the physical. You know, the Bible says in Philippians chapter three about people whose God is their appetite. They just let that govern them, their appetites, their physical appetites, their fleshly appetites, their sexual appetites.

Those things just become God to them. That's what these people were doing. They were influenced by the rabble and they went hook, line, and sinker and so many of them died as a result of that. We have a tendency to forget that our actions have consequences. And we need to make sure as children of God that we're not doing something and saying something through our actions and through the deep longings of our heart to say, God, I don't want you. I don't want your ways. I reject you. I want what I want that has serious consequences. ramifications. I was thinking, just in closing, I was thinking about my friend Ed Hindson. Ed Hindson has been at our church, prophecy expert, he's been with the Lord now for several years, and when his daughter Linda told me, she said, when my dad, right before he died, God gave him a vision of heaven. He was in a coma, and they took him off the drugs, and they took the tube out of his mouth, and he was lucid for a little while, and all he could say was, unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable. They said, what's unbelievable? He said, heaven. Heaven is so unbelievable, and then he told his family,

he said, stay true, stay faithful, heaven is real, and hell is real, and it's worth it. It's worth it to stay true to the Lord. Listen, I don't know where you are, but I wanna ask you this. If you would be willing to pray with David, search me, oh God, and know my heart. Try me and know my anxious thought, and see if there's any grumbling, and griping, and complaining in me. Lord, I don't wanna be a griper, I don't wanna be a grumbler, I wanna be grateful for what you've done for me. As Fanny Crosby said, to weep and sigh because I'm blind, I cannot, nor I won't. David said, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord, the humble shall hear it and rejoice. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. Our God is a good God, and he's worthy of all our praise. Even in the midst of suffering, he's got a plan. Trust him, keep your eyes on him, and continue to praise him for his goodness and his grace. Now we come to the most important question of all. Have you turned from sin and selfishness and given your heart and life to Jesus? Listen, if not, today is the day for you. Just pray this simple prayer from your heart.

Lord Jesus, I need you. I know that I'm a sinner and I can't save myself, but I believe, Jesus, that you are God in the flesh. I believe you died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead. And right now, I ask you to forgive me and save me, come into my life, change me, make me the person you want me to be. I surrender my life to you, and I promise to follow you all the days I have left. Now, if you pray that kind of prayer and mean it, the Lord will come in and your life will never be the same. Listen, I would love to hear from you, so please contact me and share with me what's going on so we can pray for you. And if you are ever in the Texarkana area, we would love for you to visit us live and in person at FBC Texarkana. Listen, you really are important to God, and you're important to us, and we're here for you.