2019-03-10 Numbers 11

Numbers 11:16–20 CSB

16 The Lord answered Moses, “Bring me seventy men from Israel known to you as elders and officers of the people. Take them to the tent of meeting and have them stand there with you. 17 Then I will come down and speak with you there. I will take some of the Spirit who is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you bear the burden of the people, so that you do not have to bear it by yourself. 18 “Tell the people: Consecrate yourselves in readiness for tomorrow, and you will eat meat because you wept in the Lord’s hearing, ‘Who will feed us meat? We were better off in Egypt.’ The Lord will give you meat and you will eat. 19 You will eat, not for one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, 20 but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes nauseating to you—because you have rejected the Lord who is among you, and wept before him: ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’ ”

Numbers 11:16–23 CSB

16 The Lord answered Moses, “Bring me seventy men from Israel known to you as elders and officers of the people. Take them to the tent of meeting and have them stand there with you. 17 Then I will come down and speak with you there. I will take some of the Spirit who is on you and put the Spirit on them. They will help you bear the burden of the people, so that you do not have to bear it by yourself. 18 “Tell the people: Consecrate yourselves in readiness for tomorrow, and you will eat meat because you wept in the Lord’s hearing, ‘Who will feed us meat? We were better off in Egypt.’ The Lord will give you meat and you will eat. 19 You will eat, not for one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, 20 but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes nauseating to you—because you have rejected the Lord who is among you, and wept before him: ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’ ” 21 But Moses replied, “I’m in the middle of a people with six hundred thousand foot soldiers, yet you say, ‘I will give them meat, and they will eat for a month.’ 22 If flocks and herds were slaughtered for them, would they have enough? Or if all the fish in the sea were caught for them, would they have enough?” 23 The Lord answered Moses, “Is the Lord’s arm weak? Now you will see whether or not what I have promised will happen to you.”

Numbers 11:31–34 CSB

31 A wind sent by the Lord came up and blew quail in from the sea; it dropped them all around the camp. They were flying three feet off the ground for about a day’s journey in every direction. 32 The people were up all that day and night and all the next day gathering the quail—the one who took the least gathered fifty bushels—and they spread them out all around the camp. 33 While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the Lord’s anger burned against the people, and the Lord struck them with a very severe plague. 34 So they named that place Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved the meat.

Numbers 11:31–34 CSB

31 A wind sent by the Lord came up and blew quail in from the sea; it dropped them all around the camp. They were flying three feet off the ground for about a day’s journey in every direction. 32 The people were up all that day and night and all the next day gathering the quail—the one who took the least gathered fifty bushels—and they spread them out all around the camp. 33 While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the Lord’s anger burned against the people, and the Lord struck them with a very severe plague. 34 So they named that place Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved the meat.

I. God will give you what you ask for.

A. We do not know what is best for us.

Illus:

Romans 7:22–24 CSB

22 For in my inner self I delight in God’s law, 23 but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

B. God’s passive wrath is giving you what you want.

Illus:

Romans 1:21–26 CSB

21 For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. 24 Therefore God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God delivered them over to disgraceful passions. Their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.

II. God is working on another level.

A. Where we care about the temporal, God is working in the eternal.

Illus:

Matthew 16:21–23 CSB

21 From then on Jesus began to point out to his disciples that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day. 22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, “Oh no, Lord! This will never happen to you!” 23 Jesus turned and told Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me because you’re not thinking about God’s concerns but human concerns.”

B. God will expose the emptiness of what you want to lead you to the abundance of who He is.

Illus:

Matthew 13:44–46 CSB

44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure, buried in a field, that a man found and reburied. Then in his joy he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field. 45 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. 46 When he found one priceless pearl, he went and sold everything he had and bought it.

III. Does God’s anger still burn against us?

A. You cannot understand Christ without understanding the burning anger of God.

Illus:

Romans 5:9 CSB

9 How much more then, since we have now been declared righteous by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath.

Romans 5:8–9 CSB

8 But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 How much more then, since we have now been declared righteous by his blood, will we be saved through him from wrath.