Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Good morning. 945.
[00:00:07] Good morning. Good morning. If you have a Bible, would you open it up to the Book of Numbers? We're gonna be in chapter 11 this morning.
[00:00:16] So if you were here last week or you received my email from this following week, you know that we are in a series called Narratives in Numbers. And this series is going to take us all the way right about through to Christmas. There's gonna be six hiatus weeks here and there. But we are asking that as village church, as a church family, as we kind of get ready for 2026. Yes, we're already thinking about that.
[00:00:45] That we would take this series and the rest of this year and we would allow the people of Israel, as shown in the Book of Numbers, to be a mirror to our own hearts. There are three things that we asked every one of you to to do between now and the end of the year. And number one, it would be confession of sin.
[00:01:03] Number two would be repentance. And number three would be making some of the hard decisions that maybe you've postponed, doing the things that, you know the Lord wants you to do. And here's the goal. We wanna go into 2026 with a whole bunch of big decisions in front of us as a church with clean hands and a pure heart. Whatever the Lord has for you and for your family and for our church family, we would love for him to be able to look at us and say, we, well done. We would love for him to look at us and say, you have stewarded this well, and I would love to give you an opportunity to steward something else for the kingdom of Jesus. I wanna remind you as we go into numbers, about a key that unlocks almost all the narratives in the books of numbers and Deuteronomy. And when you understand this key, all of these stories begin to make sense. And here's the key that makes sense of every one of these stories.
[00:01:53] God was just to not allow the wilderness generation into the promised land.
[00:02:03] So story after story after story, it reveals Israel's deep sin, their lack of faith and their unrepentant hearts. And if you don't know the end of the story, I'll just. I'll give it to you. They all die in the wilderness. And the generation after them, their kids generation were the ones to inherit all of the promises. So in that spirit, let's start this message with a little bit of heart introspection. Okay, which of these tendencies do you have? Here's the first one.
[00:02:32] Hoarding. I'm sorry, that's not appropriate.
[00:02:35] Let's, let's rebrand that collecting, right? Is that what, is that what you call it now? Okay, so don't raise your hand, by the way, because for some like, you don't need to confess to the whole world some of the dark parts of your heart right now, okay?
[00:02:48] Credit card debt that you don't pay off monthly.
[00:02:54] Impulse buying where you make frequent, and here's the key word, unplanned purchase decisions.
[00:03:02] It makes you feel, I don't know, really good in the moment.
[00:03:06] Constant upgrading. Number four, always needing the latest phone, clothes, the newest car. It's always got to be new and the best everything, all the time.
[00:03:17] Consistent envy or jealousy.
[00:03:21] Usually this is directed at one person or one family, but just this idea of you look at what they have or their life and you want it and you kind of despise them because they have what you want.
[00:03:35] Number six, a grumbling spirit. Complaining regularly about circumstances or your job or your home or your family or your wife or your kids or your lawn or this or that. Just kind of. People think about you. They think it's just somebody who's always negative. There's always something wrong, wrong. Number seven, chronic restlessness. This is a low grade discontent that makes you fantasize about new cities and new jobs and new relationships. And you're always thinking, if only the future somewhere else is always brighter and better.
[00:04:09] Number eight, avoiding generosity. Because if you give that money to that thing or that place or that person or that church or that nonprofit, what if I'm gonna need it later to buy something I don't know that I need now, but I might need it because I might need to have something.
[00:04:23] Number nine, gambling to get ahead. Like this idea, like you're always behind and maybe if I just go gamble, I'll get ahead. And by the way, who always wins in gambling? The house.
[00:04:33] Buyer's remorse. You have this consistent experience where you're just like. You purchase things and you immediately or soon enough, you just wish you had the money back. Because the thing you purchased never actually did the thing it promised or satisfied that thing deep down in your heart. So for some of you, I mean, you might have like all 10 of these, right?
[00:04:52] The majority of us in this room are going to have one or two or five of these that we struggle with.
[00:04:58] Because every one of these, what they do is they reveal the heart's default setting. And the heart's default setting is discontentment. Let's define this.
[00:05:09] Discontentment is a restless desire for more.
[00:05:15] It's a restless Desire for more than what God has for you now.
[00:05:21] And the discontent heart regularly needs to ask itself, by the way, that's everybody's heart.
[00:05:27] Can I be truly satisfied with God if I never receive or purchase or get this thing?
[00:05:38] Can I be truly satisfied with God if I don't get this thing? Okay, Contentment, on the other hand, contentment is a deep satisfaction with all that God gives you.
[00:05:55] Now, would like to draw your attention to the word satisfaction because it does not say a deep tolerance, a deep satisfaction with all that God gives you. Now, no one is by nature content. Contentment is the fruit of a mature follower of Jesus.
[00:06:16] Contentment is a fight.
[00:06:18] Contentment is not natural. It is not easy.
[00:06:22] And no matter how mature you are, if you don't keep fighting for contentment, the default setting of your heart, discontentment is ready to creep back in. And then one day you might find yourself, you're like, why do I obsessively need this? This fill in the blank, this thing? Why can't I live without this thing? My life won't make sense until I have this thing. And you go to bed thinking about this thing and you're like, I'm a mature believer. I thought I overcame this discontentment thing. Well, guess what? It creeps back in very quickly. Okay, we've set up your heart for numbers, chapter 11. Now let's set up the context for numbers 11. Israel has been at Mount Sinai for a year. They've been receiving the law, they, they've been receiving the tabernacle details on how to structure their community, where they're supposed to live in numbers, chapter 10.
[00:07:11] The cloud has finally moved. And when the cloud moves, what are the people of God supposed to do? They're supposed to follow the cloud wherever it goes.
[00:07:20] So last week we saw numbers, chapter 11, verses 1 through 3. And there is this group of people that Numbers calls the rabble. And the rabble started grumbling and complaining and creating discontent in the hearts of the people of God and distrust, trust and their confidence in God's heart. And so we find this complaining and this grumbling, it started on the outskirts of camp with the rabble. And it made its way in, all the way to the point where if God had ears, you could hear the complaint at the temple. So God done with their complaining moms and dads, you ever been just over your kids complainings? You get, it sends a fire out and it burns up sections of the outside of the camp. He basically sends fire of judgment through to the origin of the complaints. But he doesn't kill anyone. Now we get to Numbers, chapter 11, verse 4. This is a new day. It's probably a couple days later or a couple weeks later. And do you think that these people have learned their lesson? And the answer is they have not. So numbers, chapter 11, verse 4, it says now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving.
[00:08:28] And the people of Israel also wept again and said, oh, that we had meat to eat.
[00:08:39] Let's pause. A few things I want you to see here. First, who are the rabble?
[00:08:44] I want to remind you the rabble are non Israelites, most likely Egyptians, who live on the outskirts of the people of God. If you were a Jew, you lived in the camp. They lived on the outskirts of the camp.
[00:08:59] Second, what was controlling the rabble? The text says a strong craving. So in the Hebrew, this is sort of the same word twice. And so literally it would be they craved a craving. Or you could also translate this as they lusted a lust. So this wasn't just any craving. This was like a double obsessive craving. This was all they could talk about. This was all they could think about when they laid their head on the pillow at night. This was going and cycling in their brain over and over again. And I want you to catch this. The rabble are so obsessed with their craving that the text says that they were weeping over it.
[00:09:44] All right. Third, what did the rabble obsessively crave?
[00:09:49] Meat.
[00:09:50] I get, I get that. Okay.
[00:09:53] Fourth, notice who's being influenced by the rabble.
[00:09:58] It says the people of Israel also wept. And here's what we saw. We saw that the people of God then and now, by the way, are remarkably susceptible to the complaints and the discontent of the rabble. Would you like some proof? Let me give it to you. The rabble are the ones trying to get you to buy the junk you, you don't need. And then you have it in your head, I have to buy this thing, I have to get this thing. And your brain cycles and it's like your brain won't stop until it gets the thing that is the rabble at play. And we all, you, me, every one of us, are remarkably susceptible to modern day rabble. I want you to notice. Fifth, in this verse, the word again, the people of Israel also wept again. So this is the sixth recorded time that Israel has levied a complaint against God. The first two times God heard it, he empathized, he responded. The third time, God began to test them. Maybe something's wrong with these people. The Fourth time, Moses rebukes them. The fifth time was last week. Verses one through three, God is done. He sends a fire of judgment, burns up a whole bunch of people's tents and places where the, where the actual complaining began. And now this is the sixth time the people of God have levied a complaint against God and God is over it. So listen to these weeping ingrates. In verse five, we remember, I don't know what tone, I just. All I have is condescending tone for them. We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt that cost nothing.
[00:11:34] The cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, the garlic. This is my wife's nightmare. She's allergic to garlic and onions.
[00:11:40] But now our strength is dried up. Oh, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at. All right, let's come back to the definition of discontentment.
[00:11:52] A restless desire.
[00:11:54] Could we call this a craving for more than what God has for you now?
[00:12:02] So physiologically, craving isn't just a strong want.
[00:12:10] When your discontentment turns into craving, this is so striking. Craving actually hijacks your biology. And I want to show you this.
[00:12:19] When you move from discontentment and you're in this obsessive craving mode, a few things happen in your brain. Here's the first thing that happens. The limbic system lights up intensely during craving. And the limbic system is the emotional and reward center.
[00:12:36] So what happens when you go from discontentment to craving? Your brain sends a signal and it goes like, need this now.
[00:12:46] Then the brain surges with dopamine and this creates a sense of urgency and the brain shifts from you need this thing now to you need this thing to survive.
[00:12:58] Then when you give into craving, this is amazing to me. Activity in the prefrontal cortex right here in your brain is suppressed. It goes largely dark and offline. The prefrontal cortex, it's called the CEO of your brain. It is where logic, planning, discernment, thinking about the future, dealing with and processing actually ramifications of your decisions. Like, if I do this, then that's what's going to happen. This is also the place where trusting God and, and memory of God's faithfulness lives. When we go into crave mode, your prefrontal cortex goes dark. The brain scans are just striking on this and we have far less impulse control.
[00:13:41] We make short sighted decisions, we're reactive instead of reflective. We make irrational decisions and we forget reality in general.
[00:13:50] In short, cravings turn otherwise wise adults into reactive children.
[00:13:57] Craving is like giving the keys of your brain to A toddler and hoping they're going to drive responsibly. And so the Israelites are in this state of craving, and it's leading to irrational and exaggerated statements. We had fish and cucumbers and melons and leeks and garlic.
[00:14:14] Strength is dried up and the manna is all we have.
[00:14:19] I'm going to show this to you. I want to make the point, but I want to show this to you, the people. The Israelites weren't starving.
[00:14:26] They were given over to the repeated sin of discontentment.
[00:14:31] Okay, why is discontentment so dangerous?
[00:14:35] Because when we give discontentment control, we turn into intellectual and emotional children.
[00:14:43] The people of Israel acted like babies.
[00:14:48] This is not who God has made them or you to be like. Just reflect for a moment on your own life. Maybe the Holy Spirit is bringing something to your brain. Why? Really? Why did you buy that thing?
[00:15:01] Why did you do that thing that deep down in your gut you knew would not please Jesus?
[00:15:10] Why did you mess around with that guy? Why did you mess around with that girl?
[00:15:15] Why is that thing, whatever it is, the only thing you seem to be able to think about?
[00:15:22] Why can't you live without that thing until you get it? Why did you go into debt to get that thing, that craving?
[00:15:32] Why is discontentment so dangerous?
[00:15:34] Because when cravings are in control, our ability to think rationally and to remember God's goodness and faithfulness withers away. Here's the catch. When craving is under control, your prefrontal cortex goes dark.
[00:15:50] When you're in those moments, you are still 100% fully responsible for everything you do.
[00:15:59] Because even when your prefrontal cortex goes dark, it's not 100% dark. And God has given every single one of us this thing called the will.
[00:16:09] It is the ability to make decisions that go against our emotions and our feelings.
[00:16:15] Every one of us, no matter how badly we want something, no matter how dumb we are acting, still have this will where we can look at all of our impulses and all of our desires and say, no, I am going to overcome the impulse of my body because I'm going to use my will. Therefore, here's the hard part. We are fully responsible for when we give ourselves over to a craving mindset. So here's what's striking about the prefrontal cortex.
[00:16:42] When the craving is satisfied, when you get the thing that you want, it goes back online. This is actually called the cooling down period. And when your prefrontal cortex goes back online after you've satiated it, this is where most people experience feelings of regret, shame, and mental clarity.
[00:17:02] Then what happens is very common. You'll get a light headache in the front of your brain when you. Right after you do something ridiculous like a stress headache. But it's right here.
[00:17:16] Why is discontentment so dangerous? Discontentment distorts the past.
[00:17:21] It's like an addict. Like they have this deep craving, and then they run back to the substance that has destroyed their life.
[00:17:30] Why? Well, the prefrontal cortex is shutting down now. Are they still fully responsible? You better believe it. Can they pull themselves out? Yes, they can. Or people who experience extreme loneliness. Do you know how many people we watch run back to exes that abused them and treated them like absolute dirt and they forgot how ugly it was. And in their desperation, you need someone to be with you, need someone to love you, you need someone to affirm you. They run back because they forget how actually terrible it was. And. And they subject themselves to the same cycle over and over again. Look again at verse five.
[00:18:02] He says, we remember the fish that we ate in Egypt, and here's the phrase that cost nothing.
[00:18:11] Israel has a memory of Egypt that is not accurate.
[00:18:17] Did they eat fish in Egypt? Yes.
[00:18:21] Was fish a staple in the Egyptian diet?
[00:18:25] Yes. We actually don't know what the slaves would have eaten as their staple diet. It's probable they didn't have as much access to the fish as the Egyptians did.
[00:18:33] Did the vegetables that they listed out in numbers 11, did they eat these vegetables? They definitely did. That's actually a historically accurate account of the kinds of vegetables that Egyptians would eat. Was this the staple diet of the Israelites? It probably was to a degree. Now, here's the catch.
[00:18:51] Were these foods free?
[00:18:55] Did it cost them, as the text says, nothing?
[00:19:00] Of course not.
[00:19:02] It cost them their freedom, the absolute best years of their lives, in the most accurate sense of the term, in the most understandable to the American ear. They were slaves.
[00:19:17] Beaten, abused, treated like dirt.
[00:19:22] This was their life they were treating terribly. Them and their children and their children's children. Their money was taken from them, their future was taken from them. Their hope was taken from them. Their communal identity was regularly attempted to be stripped. And so, like these people look back at Egypt and they say, we had all of this stuff and it cost us nothing. It costs you everything because it costs you your freedom. Would you give up your freedom for fish, meat and vegetables? Maybe, if it was bacon? I'm kidding. No, you wouldn't. No, you wouldn't. All right, let's go deeper.
[00:19:57] Your temptation when reading about Israel only having manna to eat. The temptation of everybody in America is that we sort of take our understanding of food as Americans and we transfer it and we think to ourselves, if God did this, to me, this would actually be a punishment. So the American food experience is striking. We have access to the greatest cuisine, the rarest spices, the best culinary expertise from every culture, from every country, from the most trained chefs with the highest standards. In fact, your moms, for many of you, are better cooks than, than what the kings of old had when they were the 1% of the 1% of the 1%.
[00:20:46] Like, what we have access to is unbelievable and incredible. If any one of you say, I would like food from a certain region, you can literally find probably within 30 minute drive, excellent food from anywhere in the world that you want to find right here, right now, where we live in Chicago. Now, over the last hundred years, the way the west, perhaps particularly Americans, navigate food, we have everything we want everywhere at our fingertips. But before 100 years ago, this is not the way the world functioned. In fact, almost every single culture in every single country in every single millennium or century on average, would eat two to four kinds of food in their diet every day, every week, every month, their whole life. With the exception they might have nicer meat or meat at all. If it was a festival or a celebration or a holiday.
[00:21:36] The kinds of people who had access to the kind of food we do right would be the 1% of the 1%.
[00:21:42] Everyone else, by and large, ate two to four kinds of food their entire life, from the day they were born until the day they were dead. Now, God was not by giving the Israelites manna, subjecting them to torture. And I want to show you this. I want to go Back to numbers 11, 6. We left off with this complaint. I want you to look at this phrase.
[00:22:06] They say, now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this mana to look at. And the author of Numbers is going to call them out for their lie.
[00:22:19] Actually, the very next verse, he's actually going to describe for us what mana is like and why. Mana was not torture, but it was a kind, merciful gift to the people of God in the wilderness. So first, lest you think manna was boring and white and bland, in verse seven, he says this.
[00:22:38] Now, the manna was like coriander seed in its appearance, like that of bdellium. In other words, it was actually striking.
[00:22:47] It was beautiful to look at. It wasn't boring at all. In fact, the Psalms call manna the bread of angels. Second, manna was extremely versatile. Verse 8. The people went about and gathered it and ground it in hand mills, or beat it in mortars and boiled it in pots and they made cakes of it. Manna could be ground into flour, beaten to change the texture, boiled like porridge or dumplings, baked into cakes and more.
[00:23:18] Third, manna actually tasted really great. Verse eight continues. The taste of it was like the taste of cakes baked with oil. And so the Hebrew is suggesting here that this was luxurious, not over the top, but this was something that only the wealthy had access to, this kind of flavor. It wasn't bitter, it wasn't bland, it wasn't boring. And however you made it, it would make that thing that shape or that kind of way. They made it taste really, actually delightful.
[00:23:46] Fourth, manna was fresh every single day in verse nine. When the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell with it. So they never had to worry, are we going to run out? Are we going to get sick? Is it going to be rotten or spoiled Every day They had everything that they needed. And they learned it's sort of like eggs, you can make them a thousand different ways. They learned that there's all these different ways to bring out different flavor and nuance, et cetera. And so the author of Numbers once you, you the reader to know that the Israelites are a bunch of crybabies who are not remembering the past. And they're actually not even looking at the awesome gift they have in front of them, which is not torture. It's actually just as good, if not better than the kind of food or versatility that they would have anywhere they would go, anywhere in the world.
[00:24:31] So now that you know that God wasn't being stingy or giving them bland food to torture them, let's go back to the story. In verse 10, Moses heard the people weeping throughout their clans.
[00:24:43] Listen, the way this is described, everyone at the door of his tent.
[00:24:50] Have you ever seen a mom at Target and her kid is there on a hissy fit?
[00:24:56] I've seen that a bunch and I've never looked at the mother and saw this face in her. I'm so proud of you.
[00:25:04] Just never been more proud of my son throwing a hissy fit right now. Let's be clear. Every mom has to deal with it. And every one of us were those hissy fit their own kids at one time. Cause it's a part of human nature to be discontent, to demand your way and act like a baby. Okay, this is what happens. God willing, you grow out of it. You get emotional regulation. Your mom and dad teach you? No, we don't give you everything you want. We don't feed every whim of our emotion. Like this is ideally the way it's supposed to go. So the Lord's response and Moses response is understandable when it says, while they're all weeping like babies at their tents, the anger of the Lord blazed hotly.
[00:25:37] If all of your kids did this, would your anger blaze hotly at them? Yep.
[00:25:42] And Moses I love this, was displeased.
[00:25:46] And here's, here's what you learn.
[00:25:48] There are just some people in the world who are rotten to the bone. They are perpetual infants. Emotionally they have no control. They are given over to every single impulse. You think you can change them, but you can't.
[00:26:01] And hopefully they're becoming rarer and rare. But this is just kind of a reality in the world that we live in. And here's the problem. When you give somebody who is perpetually given over to craving, when you give them what they want, do you think that that is going to actually satisfy them? It satisfies them for five minutes and then they move to the next thing, demand, demand, demand, demand, demand. And as parents, we learn with our children, we don't raise our kids like this. But you need to be clear headed, there are a bunch of people in the world whose parents give them everything they want, whenever they want, however they want, and they bend the knee to this. And these grow up into rotten human beings that you and I have to navigate on a semi regular basis. As you read through narrative and numbers though, I want you to understand all that same thing that you're watching in rotten people, that same impulse is in you.
[00:26:44] The difference is you probably had a mom and dad who disciplined it out of you or you got into enough trouble where you realize giving myself over to all my emotional whimsical is not gonna go well for me in life at all. Some people never ever learn the lesson. And here's kind of the point God is showing you in these stories why he was just to not let them go into the promised land because they're entitled emotionally infant brats who chance after chance after chance, they refuse to repent of their sin.
[00:27:17] So the rest of this chapter, what it does is it documents how Moses and God respond. So what I wanted to kind of do is just. I'm going to read through the rest of this chapter with you and make a few commentaries here and there. But I want you to kind of watch how this chapter unfolds. So first in verse 11, let's listen to Moses response. Remember, he's displeased.
[00:27:38] Moses said to the Lord, why have you. This is actually very funny. Why have you dealt. Dealt ill with your servant?
[00:27:46] And why have I not found favor in your sight? I thought we were friends.
[00:27:50] That you lay the burden of all this people on me. I didn't ask for this.
[00:27:56] Did I conceive this people? Did I give them birth? They're not my kids. I didn't choose this. And you give me all these little babies and you want me to raise them.
[00:28:07] Did I give them birth? That you should say to me, carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing child to the land? That, by the way, God, you swore to give to their fathers. In other words, why would you give me a bunch of ungrateful babies to raise? This is terrible. This is torture. Do you hate me or something? Verse 13.
[00:28:23] Where am I to get meat to give to all this people, for they weep before me. Moses, give us me that we may eat. I am not able to carry all this people alone, and the burden is too heavy for me. Verse 15, I think, is a striking insight into leadership. He says, if you will treat me like this, kill me at once if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness. And here's what Moses is identifying in leadership. When you lead babies over and over again, they bring the worst out in you. And do you know what the worst in Moses is? We've already seen it. He killed an Egyptian. And essentially he's saying, I know what I'm capable of, and if you don't kill me, I'm going to kill them.
[00:29:16] Verse 16.
[00:29:18] Then the Lord said to Moses, Gather for me 70 men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them and bring them to the tent of meeting and. And let them take their stand by me. In verse 17, he says, I will come down and talk with you there, and I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them. And they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone.
[00:29:46] If you go to the New Testament, there's a group of leaders in Israel called the Sanhedrin. It's called the 70, and its origin is in this story.
[00:29:55] And what I so appreciate about Moses is that Moses doesn't say, you're terrible, you're evil, whatever. He brings his honest heart disposition before him, asks him to resolve the issue, and The Lord responds to saying, you know what? We're gonna resolve this issue. We're gonna build an entire system where you're still gonna be the point leader, but you're always gonna have help and accountability.
[00:30:15] Verse 18, we see how God responds to the people's obsessive and childish cravings.
[00:30:22] Verse 18 say to the people, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord saying, who will give us meat to eat? For it was better for us in Egypt. And I do appreciate that the Lord takes their words and puts them right back to them. Therefore, the lord in verse 18, he will give you meat, and you shall eat.
[00:30:44] You shall not eat just one day or two days or five days or 10 days or 20 days, but a whole month until it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you. Now we get to the diagnosis, even behind the discontent, because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him, saying, why did we come out of Egypt?
[00:31:09] Verse 21. They're complaining their lack of faith. It's even getting to Moses says, but Moses said, the people among whom I am number 600,000 on foot. That's just the military age meant. So there's like well over a million, maybe 2 million.
[00:31:25] And if said, you've said, I will give them meat, that they may eat a whole month, which is an obscene amount of food. Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them and be enough for them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them and be enough for them? Like God, how are you going to do this? And he's forgetting, Moses, I just parted the Red Sea. Can I not do this? This is easy. The Lord said to Moses, is the Lord's hand shortened? In other words, am I disabled? Like, do you think there's a problem with me? Like, is this a challenge? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not. Go down to verse 31.
[00:31:59] Then 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, a day's journey other side, around the camp. Interesting. The quail didn't fall in the camp, and about two cubits. This is three feet off the ground of quail. And I want to be clear, the quail are alive but exhausted. And so during quail migrations, this is actually common winds would come in, they would blow the quail in, and they would get so exhausted, they would land in huge droves and areas and they couldn't fly. And then people would go in and eat all the quail. This appears to be like 100 times greater than any quail migration redirection from the wind in history.
[00:32:37] But can the Lord do it? Yes, he can. Verse 32.
[00:32:42] And the people now gotta pause here. You're gonna see this phrase, the people come up. It's not all of Israel.
[00:32:49] The people now are going to be the people that are rebelling and grumbling and are gonna be judged.
[00:32:56] The people rose all that day and all night and all the next day. Can you say obsession?
[00:33:04] And gathered the quail.
[00:33:06] Those who gathered least gathered 10 homers. That's a lot.
[00:33:10] And they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. Oh, my precious.
[00:33:18] Verse 33. While the meat was yet between their teeth before it was consumed, as they look at all their collection, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people. And the Lord struck down the people with a very great plague.
[00:33:36] Therefore, the verse 34. The name of that place was called Kibroth Hatavah. It's literally graves of craving is the name of the place. Because there they buried the people who had the craving. Here's. Here's what's striking these dummies.
[00:33:50] God even told them, you're going to hate this. There's going to be so much of it.
[00:33:56] And even though he gave them what they asked for, and he warned them, if you go try to run after this, it's going to consume you. A portion of Israel ran out and said, forget you. We want meat. And they were up for like 24 plus hours gathering meat, laying it out. And the Lord was like, we're done.
[00:34:15] You do not love me.
[00:34:18] You do not want to follow me. You will only love me if I give you what you want.
[00:34:23] You are a rotten to the core group of people.
[00:34:26] You are a danger to everyone else. And so the Lord takes the life of every single rotten to the core person who ran out and gathered all the quail for themselves.
[00:34:38] By gathering the quail, what they were saying was, what you have provided is not enough for me. I want more. God's like, well, then you and me, we're not going to do this any longer.
[00:34:49] Share with you two. So what's number one? There is a reason God withholds that thing from each one of us.
[00:35:02] Sometimes God withholds that thing because we have not asked for it.
[00:35:09] James says, you do not have because you do not ask.
[00:35:13] I'm a fan Personally of asking God for whatever you want. As long as you're willing to accept the. No.
[00:35:19] Never. Not yet. Maybe. Let's talk about it. Let me talk to your mother. Right. Like, as long as you're willing to accept whatever the answer is. I'm a fan. Bring all of your desires before the Lord. He would love to hear what's on your heart. Sometimes you don't have because you don't ask. But typically it's. There are other reasons why we don't get the thing that we want so badly. Sometimes God withholds the thing, the very thing we desire, because he knows that when we get it, it will destroy us.
[00:35:51] We all overestimate our capabilities. You're like, oh, yeah, give me a billion dollars. I wouldn't let it crowd to me. I'd be really, really good with it. Sure.
[00:35:58] The Lord knows that the thing you want the most will likely destroy you. And as a good dad is more than happy to say no, you can't see it because you're not God. You don't know the future. You don't even. You barely understand the depths of your own heart. God knows that if you get the thing, it will destroy you.
[00:36:21] Sometimes God withholds from us because when we had that thing previously, we stewarded it and squandered it so poorly. And now we're like, God, I want the thing that I used to have. And he's like, no, because I already showed you what was going to happen when you got it the first time.
[00:36:41] And I'm not going to give it to you again because all you're going to do is squander it.
[00:36:47] Oh, but it'll be different this time. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. Just like the Israelites.
[00:36:51] And so sometimes God, in His mercy and his grace, does not give us all the things that our heart desires because he knows what we don't know, we do not have the ability to. To handle it. Sometimes when God withholds from you, it is because he loves you enough to protect your soul from the things that threaten it the most.
[00:37:16] Sometimes, and this is what we see with Israel, when you beg and you beg and you beg.
[00:37:23] Sometimes God does give you the thing, but the giving of the thing is an act of judgment against you to show you that it will never, ever satisfy your soul. And the thing is a vivid, consistent reminder of the emptiness of everything in this world when you are not satisfied with what God gives you.
[00:37:41] So at number two, where is God calling you to repent in your personal life, in your Family and. Or in your church, family. So last week he said, every single one of these sermons in narrative and numbers. We're going to have a. So what?
[00:37:55] That is kind of in this vein.
[00:37:58] Are you perpetually discontent in this life?
[00:38:04] Are you discontent with God?
[00:38:06] Are you discontent with how much you have?
[00:38:09] One of the things I love about the Lord is that he is so profoundly generous.
[00:38:14] He gives us more than we need. All of us, by the way, no matter how much we don't have, we all have so much more than we need.
[00:38:22] And he gives us so much. He is so unbelievably generous. And then we look at what someone else has and we think to ourselves, why can't I have that?
[00:38:33] Maybe because that thing would destroy you. Maybe. Maybe that's just not his will for your life.
[00:38:39] Maybe God is trying to teach you contentment right now. Maybe the answer is, I'm not going to give you that thing because you haven't learned yet how to be content here today.
[00:38:48] And so the question for you is, is there a place in your family, in your own heart, maybe in your church family, where discontentment has crept in? Maybe. Maybe you're aware of this, like in the list we read at the beginning. You look through that and you're like, yeah, there's like one or two of those things that are just like, that was my heart.
[00:39:05] Maybe for some of you. I mean, I guarantee there's a handful of you in this room who every single one of them on that list represented your heart, your life, your personal finances, and your disposition to things. And I have really good news for you. You can repent. And let me give you some pastoral wisdom. You need help.
[00:39:23] You need a lot of help, and that's okay. But you have a church community that would love to actually come alongside of you and help you figure out not just how to tell God you're sorry, but maybe how to even rethink and reprocess some of the things in your life. When you think about repentance. My encouragement to you is to be specific and to be bold.
[00:39:45] I want to come back to this definition of contentment.
[00:39:49] Contentment is a deep satisfaction, a deep satisfaction with all that God gives you. Now, I want to read to you a verse from Philippians, chapter four, verse three to close. But this is a statement on contentment from a mature believer who had to regularly fight for contentment. The Apostle Paul writes this.
[00:40:13] For I have learned. Contentment is learned, by the way.
[00:40:17] I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
[00:40:22] I know how to be brought low. I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. And here's the verse we, we know so well. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. This does not mean that you can run your race really fast across country.
[00:40:47] What this means is that by the power of the Holy Spirit in you, you will have the strength to be content and to live within whatever means God provides for you here today with a heart that is thankful and brings him glory. You can, by the power of the Holy Spirit, do all these things through Christ who gives you strength. Amen. Village church Amen. Let's pray together. Father, may we not be a people at village church who have deep discontent which at the end of the day is discontent with you and your will for our lives.
[00:41:27] Lord, we want to be a people who are content. We want to have a deep satisfaction. But we know, we know God, that this is learned, this is fought for, this is not the default disposition. So God, I want to thank you for the blood of Christ that covers us, the Holy Spirit that helps us, the word of God that exposes us, the people of God who come alongside to help us. God, we are just so grateful that we have all of these resources. But God, I also know that we have to start with confession and repentance.
[00:41:55] Lord, what good is all the help if we won't own it and we won't seek to change?
[00:42:00] And so God, would you build in each one of us line of sight to see some areas of our heart that are broken, but also the courage not just to tell you we're sorry, but to do the things we need to change.
[00:42:12] God, thank you for all the ways that you help us and love us. We pray that not just this sermon, but we pray as we go throughout the narratives and numbers that you would help us week by week to submit these areas of sin in our life that honestly we probably haven't looked at in some time so that we can be more and more like Jesus. We love you and we thank you and we pray all of this in Jesus name, Amen.
