Sermon Tone Analysis

Title: When Gifts Become Gods.

Scripture: Numbers 11:33-34

Introduction:

Once upon a time, I was vegan.

I know its hard to believe, but I was just trying to give my arteries a break, cause I love meat so much!

I’m a carnivore!

Now I love meat in general, but I really love buffalo chicken wings.

I love any chicken wings, but particularly the spicy ones.

I can eat a lot of them.

Full disclosure is when I see people eat wings and they leave so much meat on them and move right on to the next one!

Finish him!

So I had to quit, cold turkey, no more meat.

No more wings.

But they called to me.

Shaaaane.

I’m here for you.

I have what you need.

Come to me.

Come to B Dubbs, come to The Hangar!

I made it a whole 5 months before I had had enough.

For five months I made it without eating meat or dairy.

I did cheat a little and had some cream in my coffee.

But, I have to be careful, that my soul is not lifted up and demanding.

Can I be content without it?

If a shortage came, if my finances dwindled, would I be able to be content with what the Lord gives me?

Or would I complain?

The children of Israel had been miraculously taken out of hard slavery in Egypt and through the Red Sea and into a season of testing.

God miraculously delivered them and provided for them.

When they got hungry and complained and grumbled against God and Moses, the Lord was gracious and fed them bread from heaven and quail too.

But today we are going to look at how Israel grumbled and complained against God and Moses and it wasn’t just because they were starving.

It was something gravely serious.

Let’s pray.

Setting the Stage

It is no sin to crave.

It is no sin to want something.

However, if our lack of that thing, our want of that desire, exceeds our reverence for God, our desire for God, our fear of the Lord, we are breaking the first commandment and we bring death to ourselves.

Indeed, all of the pleasures that the Lord has intended are good, but they are also easily worshipped.

We derive pleasure from them.

We don’t want that to stop and they can quickly become objects of worship.

We love them, and if we don’t get them, we get cranky.

We get angry.

We get angry at God!

In Numbers chapter 11 we begin to see that.

Here, the Israelites begin to grumble.

I can hear the sound of that orc in the Lord of the Rings saying, “Yeah, why can’t we have some meats?”

The fountain of living waters:

When we first come to God, we find Him to be so satisfying.

We see Him as our source of life.

Unfortunately, too many times, His blessings become idols that we look to as sources of life.

We feel that we simply could not get along without them.

When we do this, we are abandoning the fountain of living waters and looking to broken water containers that can’t even hold water.

Commentaries

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Chapter 11)

On a former occasion their murmurings for flesh were raised (Ex 16:1–8) because they were in want of food.

Here they proceeded, not from necessity, but wanton, lustful desire; and their sin, in the righteous judgment of God, was made to carry its own punishment.-JFB

Faithlife Study Bible (Chapter 11)

11:20 Why did we ever leave Egypt?

The anger Yahweh feels toward Israel is not because of their longing for meat, but because, in their craving, they long for Egypt and thus reject the goodness, provision, and power of Yahweh.-Faithlife

Study Bible

A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Numbers (Exegetical and Critical)

Not only will the people not go forward, but they will return home to the flesh pots.

The God-forgetting yearning after pleasure, after the fancied, idealized pleasure of the world, that has become a sympathetic power of seduction, has, by the spirit of faith, been justly taken as an allegorical type of all kindred outbreaks of base despondency in the church of God.-Lange’s Commentary

Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible: Complete and Unabridged in One Volume (Numbers 11:31–35)

David longed for the water of the well of Bethlehem, but would not drink it when he had it, because it was obtained by venturing; much more reason these Israelites had to refuse this flesh, which was obtained by murmuring, and which, they might easily perceive, by what Moses said, was given them in anger; but those that are under the power of a carnal mind will have their lusts fulfilled, though it be to the certain damage and ruin of their precious souls.

Scripture References:

Ps 78:26-42 is full of imagery about the rebellion of Israel.

10 chapters later we see them complaining and rebelling against God and Moses and god brought snakes in that bit them and people were dying.

They realize that they were sinning and rebelling and ask Moses to pray for them.

Then God offers healing through looking at a bronze snake that Moses would hold up.

The crazy thing is that years later, they worshipped it!

Nehustan, the snake that Moses lifted in the desert, became an idol.

This is another picture of worshipping something that the Lord created for good.

Signs that you’ve got an idolatry problem

Some of the signs that we have made something a god, an idol in our life is found in

In this passage, we see idolatry leads to the inability to speak.

They have mouths, but cannot speak.

Do you have little to say to others because all you can talk about is your idol.

Do you find yourself talking only about one thing?

They have eyes, but they don’t see.

Is your idol all that you can see?

Have been unable to see God in your life?

Do you seem to see no evidence of His workings in your life?

It may be because a gift has become a terrible god.

They have hands, but do not feel.

Have you lost your ability to feel compassion?

To feel empathy?

To feel love?

To feel God?

Maybe a gift has become a god in your life.

They have hands, but do not walk.

Does your gift from God or your idol keep you from going anywhere?

Is it holding you captive?

Jesus says in John 3:14-15

To worship Jesus is not the same as worshipping that snake.

Jesus is God.

The apostle John has already explained that in great detail in the first chapter of this Gospel.

He states that Jesus is the creator of all things.

Later, Jesus says that we must honor and worship Him as we do the Father.

If we want eternal life.

If we want to walk in the newness of life, that abundant life, life to the full that Jesus talks about in John 10, we must look up.