Transcription
Hello everyone. This is Mike Howard and I am here with Beverly Howard. We're going to do a Bible study. This is our second lesson in the book of Numbers. Today we're going to look at Numbers chapter 11. The title of the lesson is provision.
It's actually two lessons in one. And the question that the lesson begs is this: Is he enough? Is Jesus enough? The second question to the second part of the lesson is, is he able? Is God able to do what he says? So, let's take a quick look.
If you take a look at the quarterly, this is the Lifeway Explore the Bible series. If you take a look at the quarterly lesson for uh this lesson, you'll see that they're going to focus on the second lesson that's listed here. Uh, but I think these lessons are intertwined. Uh, and I think they're intertwined for a reason. So, I'm going to go with both of them. This so you'll get two lessons for the price of one.
The first lesson is the people say that God's provision in the wilderness is not enough. The second part of the lesson is Moses is overloaded with the burden of serving God. Second lesson is going to be how people in Christian ministry can sometimes feel overwhelmed with the task. The first is the burnout. The first is how many Christians often look at the world and they think that the world has something that will satisfy. And those of us who have been around a while know that that's just not going to work out. These are intertwined lessons. And let me take you through it and I think you'll see how they're intertwined.
So we're going to start with verse 4 of chapter 11. And it's uh the the word is going to talk about a group of people who started grumbling. And this group is called in the NIV the rabble. Uh, if you go to the King James version, it calls them the mixed multitude. So let's go. The rabble with them, them being the Israelites began to crave. That means to lust for other food. And again, the Israel starts, Israelites started wailing and said, "If we only had meat to eat."
Now, what they're wailing about is that God is giving them every morning mana. They go out of their tent, they pick up enough mana, they they make breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the mana. Well, after doing that for oh well over a year, there's a group of people who are really not Israelites at all who uh have decided they're they're done. They've had as much mana as they can stand and they're ready for a different kind of food.
So, uh, who are these people? Well, if you go back to Exodus 12:37, as the Israelites are leaving, you remember the uh Passover uh and then Pharaoh said, "Okay, just get out of my sight." Well, the Israelites packed everything and left Egypt. And along with them were some number of other people who were not Israelites who for whatever reason tagged along. Uh, this verse 37 says, "And the children of Israel left Egypt and a mixed multitude uh went up also with them." So in this group of maybe two and a half million people, mostly Israelites, but there are some who got there for some other reason. We don't know if they were also slaves in Egypt. We don't know if they were people who were married to Egyptians. We're not told, but we know that they were called the mixed multitude. And the NIV calls them the rabble. And the rabble is because they really don't know God. They don't know much about God. All they know is that they're sick and tired of eating mana.
So, let me restart the lesson with rabble rousers. They're the rabble rousers. They're they're kind of a a a mob of lawless people. The rabble with the Israelites began to crave other food and again other than uh the mana. And they and uh and again the Israelites started wailing. So they this rabble group uh made the Israelites also discontent with the mana. And sometimes you think of there are you've got friends that are always kind of grumbling and mumbling and if you listen to them they'll get you grumbling and mumbling too. And their big complaint was if only we had meat to eat.
Then they go on to even get even worse. They the good old days. You remember those good old days? And they leave out the part that we were in slave slavery and we were having to get the our own straw for the bricks and and life was really miserable. So we we remember the fish that we ate in Egypt at no cost. And what that means is anytime they wanted to fish, all they would do is take a I don't know if they had fishing poles, but I assume they did. They take a fishing pole, put it in the Nile River, catch a fish, and that would be their fish dinner. You remember when we ate fish in Egypt at no cost. Also, we had cucumbers, melons, leaks, onions, and garlic. In other words, spicy stuff. You think of them as kind of being melancholy at this point in time. That's good. Yeah, I thought that was pretty cute.
So, obviously, when they're looking back at their days in Egypt, they're using selective memory. Uh, and if you take a look at the Passover celebration, they are instructed to eat bitter herbs, showing their pain and suffering as slaves. And then they're to dip their vegetables in salt water. And the salt water is to represent the tears that they shed because of their suffering. So that the whole Passover experience is to remind them of how bad things were in Egypt. And yet this rabbar rousing crowd has got them missing the food that they had in G Egypt. Who knows?
So the people are going to complain. And now they keep going by saying now we've lost our appetite. Now we've had so much mana we just we we're sick of it. We never see anything but this mana. Back in 1980 when Beverly and I were much younger, uh, there was a singer name, a Christian singer named Keith Green and he had a song that was a wonderful song is a wonderful song called So You Want to Go Back to Egypt. And then he talked about mana. How people were sick of mana. He says, "Oh, what? Oh no, mana again. Uh, mana waffles, mana burgers, mana bagels, filt of mana, mana patties, and mana cotti." And then and he finished it up by saying banana bread. So it was a cute song, but basically he was making fun of the fact that the Israelites were sick of eating mana.
Verse seven. Now we're going to have three verses here where Moses takes an aside and explains to those of us who weren't there exactly what this mana was. Uh, so he's Moses says, "Okay, by the way, pause the story here. The mana was like coriander seed and it looked like resin. It was kind of an off-white color. The people went around gathering it and then they ground it into with a handmill or crushed it in a mortar. In other words, it was like once they ground it, it was kind of like cooking flour, what you would make a loaf of bread out of. They cooked it in a pot or made it into loaves and they it tasted like something made with olive oil. When the Jews settled on the camp at night, the mana also came down. They gathered it in the morning. Now, in another place, we find out that it it tasted like it had a honeylike taste. So, what we've got here is a bread that is sweet that's cooked in oil. And those of us who live today think of bread that's sweet that's cooked in oil as crispy cream donuts. Now, you know, I I understand that you could eat a crispy cream doughut. They're delicious. Uh, but after a year and something, you you probably would want a little something different to eat. But remember, this really isn't talking about bread at all. It's talking about something else we'll get to. Okay.
And now they say they they they summarize. Remember, we're we're back to them complaining, but now we've lost our appetite. We never see anything but this mana. That was verse six. Now verse 10, Moses heard the people of every family as they wailed at the entrance to their tents. Now this is 2 and a half million people. That's a lot of tents, like 600,000 tents. And Moses, at least in his mind, he's listening to them standing at the at the at the entrance to their tents with their little bowl of mana wailing that they want something else to eat. That's got to be a lot of pressure for poor Moses.
So Moses is going to have an emotional experience here. Well, God is about to get angry and Moses is about to be troubled. In verse 10, the Lord became exceeding, not just angry, the Lord became exceedingly angry and Moses became troubled. And so that's how the lesson starts to intertwine. So, we're going to deal with God's anger at the the fact that the people are rejecting mana or his provision in the in the wilderness. And also, we're going to deal with how Moses is now troubled as the leader of this uh bunch of disgruntled people.
So, Moses is going to complain. The people have just complained. They've complained about they're sick and tired of nothing but mana in their diet and they want some meat to eat. Well, that's their complaint and God's not happy about the fact that they're not happy with his mana. And then the second part is that Moses is troubled because he feels like he's dealing with a fairly immature group of people. So he Moses asks the Lord, why have you, this is Moses's Moses's complaint, why have you brought this trouble on your servant? So Moses is complaining about the burden of serving God. What have I done now to displease you that you've put me put this burden of all these people on me? And he gets even better. Did I conceive these people? Did I give them birth? Why did you why do you tell me to carry them in my arms like little babies as a nurse carries an infant to the land that you promised on an oath to their ancestors? In other words, you give me these two and a half million people. They're just spiritual babies and then you ask me to carry these babies all the way from Egypt into the promised land. He's, you can tell he's getting into this. And then he goes ahead and he says, "All right, look. This burden is it's just way too difficult for me to handle." He says, "Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me. Give us meat to eat." There's no way that I can carry all these people by myself. The burden is too heavy for me. 80% of the people in full-time Christian ministry say that their jobs have had a detrimental effect on their families. It's a big burden. It's difficult. They kind of echo what Moses is saying here. You've given me all these people, some of whom are not very mature spiritually, and it's wearing me out. It's too much of a burden. And that's kind of the second part of the lesson, the burden of serving God.
But let's get back to these immature babies. So Moses finishes up by say by saying the Elijah line. Really, if this, he's talking to God. He says he's going to summarize. He says, "If this is how you're going to treat me, please just go ahead and kill me. Kill me if I have found favor in your eyes." In other words, if you like me even a little bit, just kill me and take me out of here and don't please don't make me stay here and face my own ruin. Well, that's a pretty big complaint. So, that's the complaint from Moses. He was having a burden from serving God. And now we've heard the complaint about the people who are sick and tired of eating what God has provided for them. No, not I don't think anybody's happy here.
Verse 16. So God is going to answer Moses and he's going to answer him in two parts and it's important to take and understand both parts of this. The Lord said to Moses, look, it's not my intent to give you this responsibility just you. He says, look, bring me 70 of Israel's elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people and have them come to the tent of meeting that they may stand there with you. We're not going to read the verses about what happens, but he says, "Look, I'm going to come down. I'm going to speak with you there, and then I'll take some of the power of the spirit that's on you, and I will also put it on them, and then they will share the burden." So, in other words, Moses, this is really this whole group, that's not just all on you. You need to choose some other people and spread the burden uh among the other people. They will share the burden with you so that you will not have to carry it alone. So that was God's part one answer to Moses. He's going to have a part two answer um in just a second. But he really wants to shift gears here and he wants to answer the people. So let's follow this train of thought. Remember these are intertwined here. Tell the people, "Please conse consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow because tomorrow you're going to eat meat." Well, that had to be good news. They've been wailing for meat for some time now. So God through Moses says, "Hey, prepare yourselves tomorrow. Not only are you going to have mana, you're going to have meat." Sounds like a positive response. The Lord heard you when you wailed. This is Moses saying the h the Lord heard you when you were crying at the entrance to your tent and saying, "If only we had meat to eat, we were better off when we were slaves in Egypt." So Moses says, "So now, because you want it, the Lord will give you meat and you will eat it." You think Egypt was better, you don't like the way the Lord's feeding you, then we'll give you some meat to eat. But understand this, you will not eat it for one day. You will not eat it for two days or for five days or for 20 days. You will eat it for a whole month. You'll eat it until it comes out of your nostrils. You will eat it until you loathe it. The reason is because you have rejected not mana. This is important. It's not that you've rejected mana. You've rejected the Lord who is among you. and you have wailed before him, saying, "Why did we ever leave Egypt?" Remember where it says God was exceedingly angry and Moses was exceedingly troubled. Well, we're going to find out about the Lord's anger here.
And then Moses, so now that God has told Moses to tell them that they're going to be eating meat for a month. so much so that they'll throw it up out their noses and they'll loathe it. And so now Moses has made that commitment to two and a half million people. Now he goes back to the Lord and he says, "So where am I going to find this much meat? Here I am among 600,000 men on foot and you say for me to say to them, I will give them meat to eat for a whole month." So now Moses is questioning God's ability. Remember 600,000 men plus women plus children is greater than or equal to 2.5 million mouths to feed. Not for a day or week, but for a whole month. That's a lot of meat. That's a That's a lot of meat. And Moses goes on to tell God that's not even possible. Said, "Would they have enough if I killed all the flocks and the herds that we've got with us and slaughtered them for the meat? Would they have enough if I had all the fish that were in all of the sea that were caught for them? Would that be enough to t to give them meat to eat for a whole entire month?" So Moses is kind of picturing this problem and the size of it and he's going, "I don't have these resources. I don't have that many cattle. I don't have any fish. We're not close to the sea. How in the world do you expect me to pull this off?"
Of course, God says, "It's really not about you, Moses." So then the Lord answered Moses this way. He says, "Look, is my arm too short?" At this point, my guess is Moses is going, "Whoops. I question the Lord's power and his ability to provide." So he says, "Now, Moses, you're going to see whether or not what I have said is going to come true for you." So the good news is is he he doesn't punish Moses for this outburst of of faithlessness or questioning, but he says to Moses here, stand here and watch what I can do.
So, we're going to scoot ahead uh in the chapter to verse 31 and find out that God is going to provide not just a little meat, but 256 square miles of meat that's three feet deep. I don't know if you know what a square mile is, but that's that's a lot of meat. Now, wind came out of went out from the Lord and it drove quail in from the sea. We assume that it was the Mediterranean. It scattered them up. Could have been the Red Sea. Up to two cubits deep. That's about a yard or three feet. All around the camp. How far? As far as a day's walk in any direction. That's about 16 miles. 16 miles to the east, the west, north, and the south. Three feet deep of quail. Well, Moses, there's your answer. That's enough meat for an entire month.
So verse 32, the Israelites said, "That's a lot of quail." All day, all that day, and all night, and all the next day, that's 36 hours. The people went out and they gathered all the quail. No one gathered less than 10 55gallon drums of quail. That's a lot of quail. Then they spread the quail out all around the camp so that they could be dried in the sun. So that kind of like beef jerky except it's quail jerky. So those are the two lessons. Now by the way uh God when they started eating this quail uh as punishment for their disobedience, lack grumbling, lack of faith, God brought a severe plague and a whole lot of folks uh died. that comes later in the story. But let me stop there uh and summarize these two very important lessons.
So summary, number one, there are two lessons here. Remember uh God's provision uh is the mana and then the other is the burden of serving God. So number one, rejecting God's provision. The wilderness time was a time and a place for God to test his people, for him to grow them up. He they needed to be grown up. They needed to be uh separated from everything that they had learned uh while they were slaves in Egypt, all of the foreign gods, all of the things of the world. And Egypt stands for the world. So the wilderness was a way for God to separate the Israelites, separate their lives from the temptations and from the lusts of the world. And so that's why the provision was mana and not, you know, a 14 course meal of all kinds of food. It was separating them from the temptations of the world. So the wilderness was that time and place of testing. God, however, was faithful to provide everything that they needed for life in a place that was desolate of life. If you think of it this way, God looks when God looks at the world and all the things that are going on in the world, he doesn't see life. He sees death. He sees death because of sin. And so, while these people looked at Egypt and they said, "Wow, that really looks good to us." When God looks at Egypt, he sees nothing but death and desolation. So God sees Egypt as death. And so they see Egypt as life or fun. And so that's because they're looking in fleshly with fleshly eyes. But God wants them to see Egypt with spirit eyes. And when they see Egypt with spirit eyes, they see Egypt as a wilderness. So now he's going to help adjust their vision so that they can see that the world's stuff is passing away and doesn't bring life. It brings death. It is death. But he God brings life and life is through the mana and the water from the rock.
The second thing and that is the burden of serving God. Moses faced problems from a rebellious people and later on it gets worse for poor Moses. And later on uh there's a group that decides that they're there would be better off leading the people. They're going to take him all the way back to Egypt and God has to deal with that. And then Miriam and Aaron decide that they want a piece of the action. So they revolt against Moses' leadership and God has to deal with that. So Moses is not through. This is just the beginning of his problems. So he plays he faces a lot of problems but God removed the burden by spreading the responsibility to others and also throughout this 40-year journey you're going to see the go hand of God providing miracles all along the way to intervene. So he is God's chosen person to lead this particular group of babies from one place to the other.
How do we apply these two lessons? Uh, well, let's take a look first at applying the lesson about rejecting God's provision. And quite frankly, you and I both know this is not about bread. It's not about meat and it's not about bread. It's about the world versus God's kingdom. This is about a yearning for and a listing after the things of this world versus the things of God. God is showing us that this world isn't like Egypt with tasty stuff, but is more like a desert that will starve you to an eternal death. But God says, "I've got good news. I will sustain your eternal life by this bread that I've got from heaven and this water that I have from this rock that's been struck." And we know that both of those are referring to Jesus.
In Deuteronomy 8:3, uh, Moses tells the people, "God humbled you. He caused you to h to hunger and then he fed you with mana to teach you that man does not live simply by bread, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord." Does that sound familiar? If it sounds familiar, it's because Jesus when he was in the wilderness, Satan says, "Turn this rock into a loaf of bread. You're hungry. You've been here for 40 days. You had anything to eat." And Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 where he tells Satan, "Look, man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God." And in John, we find that every word that comes out of the mouth of God is the word made flesh. And that is Jesus. And he's talking about himself. Man does not live by physical bread, but by me. I am the word that comes out of the mouth of God. I am the bread that comes down from heaven. Watch this. Jesus says in John chapter 6, he just finished feeding the 5000, gets in a boat, goes across the Galilean Sea, the Sea of Galilee, and all these people that he fed run and find him because they want more food. And the Jews then say to him, "Our ancestors ate the mana in the wilderness as it is written," God gave them bread from heaven to eat, and you just fed all of us, so please keep feeding us. And Jesus had to refocus him. He said, "Look, the bread of God isn't the mana. It's me. The bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry. And whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. Water from the rock, that's Jesus. Bread from heaven, that's Jesus. That's God's supply. That's what he gives us. He gives us eternal life through Jesus Christ. Is not about bread and meat. It's about Jesus Christ. Philippians 3:9 3:19 says this, "Their destiny is destruction. Their God is their stomach." Interesting. And their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on what? On Egypt, on earthly things.
Quickly, I know it's getting late. The burden of serving God. Well, in Deuteronomy, Moses looks back over, this is later. We'll get to these lessons in a few weeks. He looks back over these 40 years and he praises God for all that God has done. He faced many problems and challenges, but God always makes a way. But it is it was the one time that he trusted himself that kept Moses from entering into the promised land. It's a warning. It's a warning to all the people who are in ministry that God's given other people to grow into from baby Christians into mature Christians. Don't don't count on your own strength. It's not you. You're not the one. It's God in you. It's all about Jesus. 1 Corinthians 2:1, "When I came to you, Paul says, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed the testimony about God. For I resolved, this is Paul who knows a lot of stuff. I resolved what? to know nothing while I was with you except the mana that came from heaven and him crucified."
So let me finish these two lessons that are intertwined this way. Lesson number one is Christ enough? Do you long for the meat of Egypt? I I guess the biggest problem I have as a Sunday school teacher is when I teach, I see people who are hungry for God's word and they they eat up the mana that is Jesus uh when it's presented and then I see others who could care less there it it to them it's not interesting. They want only the things of this world that satisfy for just a moment. So that's my big burden is that people don't have the appetite for this wonderful mana that God has given us whose name is Jesus. And then for those who are in ministry it's Philippians by the way Christ is more than enough is in Colossians whole book whole books about Christ is more than enough. Philippians 4:13 uh when Paul says I can do all things but not on my own strength. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So if you're in ministry and you got a bunch of baby Christians, you you're there for a reason. They're there for a reason, but let God be the strength. Let him do the work. You just give them the mana, which is the bread from heaven.
Pray with me. Father, these are two lessons, but they're so intertwined. You have provided everything that we need for life and for life abundantly through Christ on the cross out of the grave. Help us to be satisfied. Help us to not look back to the world for anything. All of that is passing away. Help us look forward to you. Thank you for the mana who is Christ. Thank you for the water who is your spirit. Thank you for the rock who was struck so that we could know you in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Sorry the lesson was long, but remember you got two for the price of one. See you next week. Love you guys. Bye bye. Bye.