Numbers 10–12

presence, to feel that glory. Just get to know you more, Lord. Your power, your majesty, just stand in awe of you. We see some of your majesty outside in the thunder, and we thank you, and we praise you for all this in your heavenly name. Good evening. Man, good job for braving the storm. It is nuts out there. If you would open up in your Bibles to the book of Numbers,

chapter 10. Numbers chapter 10. Well, tonight, we get to take off with the children of Israel, and we get to watch them start going through the desert, start going through the wilderness to try to make their way to the promised land. Really, chapters 10 through about chapter 14, 15 are the first attempt at coming to the promised land. It really takes them from Mount Sinai to Kadesh

Barnea, and then, of course, they kind of fail there. And we'll have to spend a lot more time in the wilderness, but we're not there yet. So, as we come into chapter 10, we get to see them begin this journey. They have been organized. They have been purified, consecrated, prepared, all the things that they need. And so, now, it's time for them to begin the march. And so, we pick up in chapter 10 with leaving Sinai.

It says in chapter 10, verse 1, the Lord spoke further to Moses, saying, Make yourself two trumpets of silver, you shall make them, and you shall use them for summoning the congregation and for having the camps set out. When both are blown, all the congregation shall gather themselves to you at the doorway of the tent of meeting. Yet if only one is blown, then the leaders, the heads of the divisions of Israel, shall assemble before you. But when you blow an alarm, the camps that are pitched on the east side shall set out.

When you blow an alarm the second time, the camps that are pitched on the south side shall set out. An alarm is to be blown for them to set out. When convening the assembly, however, you shall blow without sounding an alarm. The priestly sons of Aaron, moreover, shall blow the trumpets, and this shall be for you a perpetual statute throughout your generations.

When you go to warn your land against the adversary who attacks you, and you sound an alarm with the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the Lord your God and be saved from your enemy. Also, in the days of your gladness and in your appointed feasts, and on the first days, of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings, and they shall be as a reminder of you before your God. I am the Lord your God. Now, as they prepare for this march, the last little thing that they need to know is they need a communication system. You can only imagine with two, maybe three million people, how hard it

would be to get everybody on the same page at the same time. Remember, we're moving basically all of the occupants of the state of Kansas across the country. We're moving all of the occupants of the state of Kansas across the country. We're moving all of the occupants of the state of Kansas across the country. We're moving all of the occupants of the state of Kansas across the

Sinai Peninsula through the wilderness to the promised land. So, they have to be able to know when it's time to do what, and the easiest way for them to do that was through these trumpets. And so, these trumpets would sound the alarm, and of course, there were different cadences for different things. Some were for the gathering together of the people. Some were for the marching of the

people. Some were to sound the alarm for the battle. Some were to sound the alert for the celebration of different feast days. But these trumpets played a very important role in the life of the nation of Israel because they were the communication system. And so, now that they have that out of the way, it's time to leave. Verse 11.

This had to have been an incredibly exciting time. Remember, they've been there now for a little over a year, about a year and two months, maybe just a little bit longer than that. So, they spent a great deal of time in the Sinai Peninsula there outside of Mount Sinai. They have been camped out there for such a long time now, and they were told the way that you're going to know when it's time to move is when the cloud of blessing, we talked about this last time that we were together, when the cloud of blessing moves, that's when you'll know it's time for you to move. So, can you imagine

you get up that morning, the morning that it's time for you to leave, and you realize something. You realize the cloud is moving, and it's time for us to move with it. There had to have been so much excitement. You've got these sweet brand new silver trumpets. You finally get to use them to sound the fact that it's time for everybody to move. Whoever the trumpet blowers were had to have been incredibly

excited because they finally get to do their job. And it's time to move on. And it says they set out on their journeys, and they moved out for the first time. And I love that when they start off, oh, well, because they moved in what? According to the commandments of the Lord. Unfortunately, this will not be how it continues. But for now, we're starting off really, really well.

And they're moving according to the commandment of the Lord. And of course, the standard, verse 14, of the camp of the sons of Judah, according to their armies, set out first with Nashon, the son of Amminadab over its army, Nethanel, the son of Zuar over the tribal army of the sons of Eliab, the son of Helan, over the tribal army of the sons of Zebulun. Then the tabernacle was taken down, and the sons of Gershon, the sons of Merari, who were carrying the tabernacle, set out. Next, the standard of the camp of Reuben, according to their armies, set out with Eleazar, the son of Shadir, over its armies, and Shalumiel, the son of Zerishadai, over the tribal armies of the sons

of Simeon, Eliasaph, the son of Duel, over the tribe, tribal army of the sons of Gad, and then the Kohathites set out, carrying the holy objects, and the tabernacle was set up before their arrival. The next standard of the camp of the sons of Ephraim, according to their armies, was set out with Eli Shammah, the son of Ammihud, over its army, and Gamaliel, the son of Pedazer, over the tribal army of the sons of Manasseh, and Abedan, the son of Gideoni, over the tribal army of the sons of Benjamin, and then the standard of the camp of the sons of Dan, according to their armies, the rear guard for all the camps, set out with Ahiezer, the son of Amishadai, over its army,

and Pagiel, the son of Akrian, over the tribal army of the sons of Asher, and Ahira, son of Enan, over the tribal army of the sons of Naphtali. This was the order of march of the sons of Israel by their armies as they set out. Again, can you imagine? It's the first time that they get to do this. No doubt the leaders of the tribes are going, okay, let's make sure everybody goes at the right

time. Okay, you next. You next. And the excitement, the anticipation that had to have gone into all of this, just all that anticipation of heading to the promised land, they finally get to do it. And so they follow exactly like they're supposed to. They're following God, and it's a beautiful thing. Moses realizes his need for a little bit of help. And so in verse 29, it says,

then Moses said to Hobab, the son of Reuel, the Midianite, Moses' father-in-law, we are setting out to the place of which we are going. Moses said to Hobab, the son of Reuel, the Midianite, Moses' father-in-law, we are setting out to the place of which the Lord said, I will give it to you. Come with us and we will do you good, for the Lord has promised good concerning Israel. But he said to him, I will not come, but will rather go to my own land and relatives.

He said, please don't leave us. And as much as you know where we should camp in the wilderness, you will be eyes for us. So it will be if you go with us, that whatever good the Lord does for us, we will do for you. Thus they set out from the mount of the Lord, three days journey, with the ark of the covenant, and the ark of the covenant, and the ark of the covenant, and the ark of the covenant, and the ark of the covenant.

And the ark of the covenant of the Lord journeying in front of them for three days to seek out a resting place for them. Now there's some that criticize Moses at this point in time, because again, his father-in-law has been there with him, because he brought Moses' family to him after they had left the land of Egypt. And there's some that criticize Moses. They say, Moses really should have just trusted in God's direction at this point in time.

There was really no need for him to ask his father-in-law to come along with him. It was really kind of a little bit of a lapse of faith on the part of Moses. And I disagree with that, and I agree with the ones that say Moses actually made a really good move here. Because remember, there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors. And even though Moses knew where they were to be going, it never hurts to have that extra set of eyes keeping them safe along the way.

And so Moses asked his father-in-law to come with him, and he agrees and heads out with him. And so now, verse 34, it says, The cloud of the Lord was over them by day, and they set out from the camp. And it came about when the ark set out. That Moses said, And so chapter 10 closes out with this prayer that Moses prayed every time that they got ready to take off.

When they got ready to leave, his prayer was that God would go before them. That God would go before them and scatter their enemies, be their protection. In other words, Lord, do what you have promised. To do for us. And then, of course, when they would camp, he would ask that God would return to them to dwell among them. And so we've started our journey. And now we move into chapter 11.

In the title of chapter 11, I've just given one word, complaining. Because my old boss in construction always had a saying. And I found this saying to be absolutely true. He said, Everybody gets excited when the circus comes to town. But eventually, elephant poops. Starts to stink. Everybody gets excited when the journey begins. Because, oh my gosh, this is so fun.

Look at what we get to do. We're going to the promised land, right? The VeggieTales song has been going through my head all day long. We're going to the promised land. Right? That's what's been happening in my head all day. They're so excited. This is going to be great. It's going to be a great march. We've got great weather. We've got the cloud. We've got the fire.

We've got God. Everything's going to be awesome. Until it's not. Because you know as well as I do that, everything seems exciting in the beginning. But eventually, something's going to go wrong. And oftentimes, when our expectations are too big, then our God in our mind becomes very small. And when that starts to happen, we begin to complain. And that's what happens in chapter 11.

There's actually three incidences of complaining in chapter 11. Two of them are really kind of the same story. The first one is given to us, though, here in this first three verses. Isn't it? Simply, I've entitled it, Complaining Because of Adversity. Notice what it says in verse 1 of chapter 11. 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 when the name of that place was called, because the fire of the Lord burned among them. You know what sticks out to me most about those first three verses?

There's a handful of things that I think are important to pay attention to, like the fact that they've only gone on a three-day journey so far, right? They haven't made it that far yet. They just got started. They've seen God in so many powerful ways. They've seen what God's judgment can do when you screw with God. And yet, they still found themselves complaining.

So that kind of sticks out to me. But you know what sticks out to me? The absolute most? The complaining was so petty that God didn't even see fit to put it down in ink. Whatever they were complaining about was so insignificant that God did not even tell us what they were complaining about. He was like, Moses, don't even write that down. Moses was like, but the people...

Nah, you don't need to write that. This is so ridiculous that I just want you to write, they were complaining. As a matter of fact, if you were looking at the New King James Version, it just says, they began to complain. It doesn't even say that. It doesn't say anything about adversity. The new American standard adds that to it. But isn't it kind of interesting that that's sort of our bent as human beings, is it not?

Our bent as human beings is to complain about things. As a matter of fact, today's a really good example of this. I bet. I bet many of you two weeks ago were just like me and you were going, man, I just wish we could get some rain. Right? As we hear it pounding down on the roof. I was. Because as a guy who loves green grass, I was struggling to get green grass.

Because it's not raining. And I'm like, man, we can't buy a drop of rain. A little rain cloud would pop up on the radar and it would go around us. And I'm like, we can't even buy rain right now. But you know what started happening on last Thursday? It started raining. And do you know what all of us are saying four inches of rain later? Is it ever going to stop raining?

Oh my gosh. We have had so much rain right now. When's it ever going to stop raining? Don't worry. July is coming. And you know what you'll say in July? Man, we can't even buy a drop of rain right now. It's kind of like the fact that all winter you were probably like, man, I'm tired of it being winter. And then in June, you'll be like, man, I'm tired of it being hot.

Actually, probably Sunday because it's like 90 Sunday. And that's our natural bent. We're complainers by nature because we're just not content with the things that we have. As a matter of fact, I think that lack of contentment began to be ingrained in us when the sin nature took its hold on us there in the garden. Because remember, how much fruit in the garden did they have to eat of?

The entire thing, save the one tree. But what were they like? God's holding something back from us, isn't he? I'm going to complain about the fact that God is keeping something back from me. And ever since then, it's been our natural bent to do so. And whenever this complaining was, this complaining because of adversity, maybe it was really hot while they were walking.

You know, they really had to walk. They haven't gotten a lot of exercise up to this point in time because they've pretty much just been camped out around a mountain. Maybe they're really tired. Perhaps their feet are getting blisters. Perhaps they just are tired of staring at the back of the head of the person in front of them. Whatever it is, they've decided to start complaining.

And it was petty because the Bible doesn't even tell us what it was. And so what begins to happen? I want you to take note of what it says right here because this is probably what stuck out to me the second most. It says, And when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled. What really got me there is that sometimes I think I forget that when I complain, the very first one to hear all of my complaining is actually God.

Matter of fact, I bet most of us, if we were complaining about someone, would never make that complaint to that person. We would never complain to their face because that would be rude, right? And so we'll complain to other people about that. We'll complain to someone else about how we feel. And we think, well, they've never heard it. But you know who always hears every single complaint that leaves our lips?

God hears it all. And you know what we seem to have indicated to us here is that God does not like that. God does not like our complaining spirit, our complaining heart, or all of the complaints that come out of our mouths. And I don't know about you, but this is a major convictor for me. Amen. What does God begin to do? I'm really glad God doesn't do this to me.

It says, The fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. Can you imagine being amongst the people right now? And there's a lot of complaining and all of a sudden, right? Like spontaneous combustion of some sort begins to happen. People are just catching on fire. Like people are just being burned up on the outskirts of the camp.

Like what happened to him? I think he complained. Shh, don't talk. Right? All get burned up on the outside of the camp. And so the people, of course, cried out to who? Moses. Moses, people are burning alive out here. And so Moses prays. God begins to, the fire dies out. And they called the name of the place Tibera because the fire of the Lord burned among them.

Just for your own little notes in your Bible, the word Tibera means burning. I know that's awfully shocking for you to know that about what that word means. But that's what it means. It means burning. But you know, there's something interesting for us to pay attention to. Did you notice that those who were the farthest from the center of the camp were the ones that were burned up?

Do you remember what was at the center of the camp? At the center of the camp was the tabernacle, if you will. The heart of God was at the center of the camp. So there's really something kind of interesting for us to pay attention to. We find that when we are the farthest from the presence of God, when we are the farthest from the heart of God, complaining seems to come the easiest.

You see, if I'm not spending time in the presence of God, then I get focused on me. And when I get focused on me, I find that nothing seems to make me happy. And when nothing makes me happy, I like to tell everybody else about how unhappy I am about those things. But when I find that I'm spending a good deal of time in the presence of the Lord, you know what it does for my perspective?

It resets my perspective. And when I get my perspective reset, then all of a sudden, all these things that I can complain about out here, all of a sudden, those don't seem nearly as big to me because I realize I'm not the center of my universe. Jesus is. And if Jesus is the center of my universe, and this is what he sees fit to take place in my life right now, well, then I'm just going to surrender to him because he knows a whole lot better than I do.

Well, you would think that once the outskirts of the camp and people began to catch on fire spontaneously in the desert because the fire of the fire was so strong, because the fire of the fire was so strong, because the fire of the fire was so strong, because the fire of the fire was so strong, because the fire of the Lord was burning among them, they would have learned their lesson about complaining. But if the first section was complaining about adversity, the second section I called complaining from craving. Notice what it says in verse 4. The rabble, which by the way is a word that's not used nearly enough in our culture, the rabble who were among them had greedy desires.

And also the sons of Israel wept again and said, Who will go? Who will give us meat to eat? We remember the fish which we used to eat for free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic. But now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna. You know that's how they said it too. It was a breathy moment.

Manna. That's all that there is. This stupid manna. Now the manna was like coriander seed and its appearance like that of bdellium. I love Moses' little like, hey, I'm going to make sure you know what manna is. The people would go about and gather it and grind it between two millstones and beat it into mortar and boil it in a pot and make cakes with it. The taste of it was like the taste of cakes baked with oil.

Sounds good to me. When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall with it. A handful of things to pay attention to here. Number one is the word rabble. If you're reading the New King James, I do prefer the New King James translation of this couple of verses because instead of the word rabble, it uses the word mixed multitude because I think that really gives the idea of what's going on here.

You see, when they left Egypt, it wasn't just Jewish people. It wasn't just the sons of Israel that went with them. There were some others who perhaps saw the miracles of God, saw the plagues and thought, man, I'd kind of like to be with these guys because their God's pretty cool. He does pretty amazing things. There were basically a mix. There was a mixed multitude, a whole lot of other people that came with them

and took the journey that was with them. It's kind of interesting because here with the children of Israel, you see a mixed multitude. We actually just went over parables very similar to that in the book of Matthew, did we not? Remember the parables in the book of Matthew, what was sown amongst the wheat? There were tares that were sown amongst the wheat that looked normal until they began to produce fruit.

All of a sudden, you realize, oh wait, those are tares, not wheat. Same thing was true within the nation. There were these ones who, though maybe put on the appearance of being a true son of Israel, a true child of God, when the going got tough, it began to be revealed. When their fruit began to be revealed, you saw that they actually had no true heart for God.

And so this rabble, this mixed multitude was in amongst them. And you can imagine, if you will, what takes place is they start going, man, I really wish we could have some meat. And here's what's interesting to me when I think about this. How many animals did these people have with them? Right? They're making sacrifices. They had meat to eat. So what are they complaining about?

Exactly. But the second little phrase I would like to point out to you is the phrase greeted desires. Again, I do lean towards the other translation on this because it says intense cravings. That's the idea that's given there is, in other words, they began to have this intense craving for something different. I just, I know what God, God has provided, but I don't want what God has provided.

I want what I want. And so they started having these intense cravings. And again, I'll point you to a New Testament passage there in the book of James. It says, when anyone is tempted, it's because they've been drawn away by their own lusts, by their own cravings. Actually, that word greedy desire or intense craving can also be substituted with the word lust there.

If you will, all they could think about was fulfilling the lust of their flesh. And so they begin to have these intense cravings. They begin to have these intense cravings for meat. And then, did you notice the fact that they complained about what God had provided? They said, all we have is this manna. Now, remember the miraculous moment when the manna showed up?

Remember that there in the book of Exodus? They were like, oh my gosh, what are we going to eat? We have no food to eat. And up to this point, God's not getting upset with their complaining because these are natural complaints that people have. Moses, you brought us out here to die in the wilderness. What the heck, yo? What are we going to eat? What are we going to eat while we're out here?

And Moses thought, well, that's a great idea. God, what are we going to eat while we're out here? And God said, I want you to get up in the morning. There's going to be stuff all over the ground. I want you to pick it up. You'll be able to turn it into food. You'll be able to eat it. So when they woke up, they gathered it. They didn't know what it was, so they called it manna.

What is it? That's what the word means. What is it? And so basically, at this point in time, they're tired of eating manna. Now, before we are too hard on them, let us remember. How long have they been eating manna now? One year and two months. They've been eating the same thing. Now, we wouldn't handle that well in our culture. I bring this up because I don't think we're all that different than the children of Israel.

Right? When I taught this to a group of kids at Ark City Christian Academy, I used to make them do these little chapter summary sheets, and I'd tell them, put a little title at the top of it. And by the time we were done with the book of Numbers, they put at the top of their title, The Children of Israel Complain, dot, dot, dot, again, all caps. And I was like, yep, that's kind of how we feel sometimes.

And when we read this, we're like, dude, who acts this way? We act this way. The Western culture church acts this way. We complain about everything, don't we? We want what we want, and we want it now. I want it the way that I want it, and I want it that way now. We kind of want the church to be Burger King. You can have it your way, right? And so these guys are complaining.

I said, all we have is this manna. They wanted what God did not give, and they were discontented with what God did give. You notice that? They wanted something God wasn't giving them, and they were discontented with something that was right there in front of them. You know what I find is the issue oftentimes when we begin to divert into things like false doctrine

or falling into the lusts of the flesh, or chasing after sinful things, is we're not content with what God has given to us. We're not content with the simple reading and studying of the Word of God. We need something more exciting than that, and so we go off into some sort of false doctrine, or we go off into the movement of, oh, I need to see more miracles. I need to see more gifts of the Spirit.

I need to see those kinds of things. Listen, those are all wonderful things, but let's be content with the fact that God has given us His Word, and that's His greatest revelation to us. And if the things that I experience can't be backed up by the Word of God, well, then I don't want any part of that. And yet, because we want experience more than we want what God has to tell us through His Word, oftentimes we end up going the wrong path.

There are men who find themselves discontented with their wives, and so they end up going, and they end up finding another woman because they say, well, I think I fell in love with somebody else because I didn't like what God gave me, so I'm going to go find somebody else. There are women who are leaving husbands because they're going to go find somebody else. They're going, I didn't like what God gave me, and I think I like somebody else now, and I think that's God's plan for my life because, after all, if what God gave me isn't making me happy, well, then maybe I need to go find something else. See how we can justify those kinds of things, just like the children of Israel did at that point in time?

They weren't content with what God gave them, and they wanted what God did not give them. And the other thing that I took note of is that they had a real selective memory. I appreciate the way that they remembered Egypt. Listen, I'm all about putting a positive spin on things, but this seems like a little bit of a false positive spin, are we not? Verse 5, I don't think that was free.

Your labor was free. That's what happens when you're a slave. Oh, and we used to eat all the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. Oh, things were so much better when... Things were so much better when... Things were so much better when... Things were so much better back then. Things were so much better in the 80s. Things were so much better in the 90s.

Things were so much better in the 60s. Things were so much better any other time. I love it because in Ecclesiastes, you know what it says? It says, don't think that the past times were better because you've forgotten how hard they were. And I think sometimes as the church, we have to remember that because sometimes as the church, we always want to go back to remember how the movement was 20 years ago,

and God's like, that's great. The movement was that way 20 years ago, but let's do something different today. Let's do something fresh today. Don't start wishing for the old days because as great as the old days were, that's exactly what they were, old days. And nothing was perfect about those old days. I remember going to a turf conference one time, and it was a summer that was...

It was the year after a very rainy summer. And it was such a cool, rainy summer, and it was perfect. All of the grass grew amazing. Like as a groundskeeper, it was the perfect summertime. It was perfect. And I remember this guy saying, I keep looking back and thinking, last summer was the best summer of my life. He said, but then I started remembering everything I had to deal with last summer.

And I had to deal with sinkholes, and I had to deal with mildew on the grass, and I had to deal with all these different things. And he goes, just because we think it's good doesn't mean that it was. You see, they have this thing now called selective memory. I meant to write down. There's a term that is used in the... in the psychological world. And basically, you create a memory

because that's how you thought that it was, even though that's not reality. And that's what they're doing right now, is they're doing this. And they said, it was so much better then. And now all we have is this. Man. And so now we see how Moses responds. He responds in the way that any good and godly leader responds, by complaining. Now Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families.

He sees each man at the doorway of his tent, and the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly, and Moses was displeased. So Moses said to the Lord, I love this, Why have you been so hard on your servant? Why have I not found favor in your eyes that you've laid the burden of all this people on me? Was it I who conceived all this people? Was it I who brought them forth that you should say to me,

Carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries an infant to the land which you swore to their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give all this people? For they weep before me, saying, Give us meat that we may eat. I alone am not able to carry all this people because it is too burdensome for me. So if you're going to deal thus with me, please, kill me at once. If I have found favor in your sight,

do not let me see my wretchedness. That's the greatest response I've ever seen a leader give to a bad day. He's like, why do you hate me? Essentially that's what he says. God, why do you hate me? Why have you done this to me? What did I do? What did I ever do? I feel like, sure, I had that 40-year stint. Things didn't go very well. I killed that guy, but I got over that.

I feel like I've done pretty good now. And now look, here we are. Things are not going well. Why do you hate me? You know what? If this is the way it's going to be, end me now. Just take me home. I do not want to deal with it. Don't raise your hand. Who's ever felt that way? If this is the way life's going to be from here on out, Lord, take me home now. Jesus, take the wheel and take it into the room.

Into the ditch. Right? Like, that's kind of how we feel sometimes. And so that's kind of what Moses does. He responds like any godly leader by complaining to God. He's like, God, they're complaining. And I'm going to complain to you about the fact that they're complaining. Now, again, let's not get too hard on Moses. How many times has Moses been accused of genocide up to this point in time?

Moses, you brought us out into this land to kill us all. Why did you do that? Why did you keep us in Egypt? Right? He's been accused of that a whole bunch of times. And it's like, this is the straw that broke the can. First of all, everybody's catching on fire. And he's like, Lord, could you just put that fire out? Okay, fire gone. And now here they are again.

And he's like, why do you hate me? And so he's got to deal with this all on his own. And so look, the Lord responds to him in a great way. Verse 16. The Lord said, therefore, to Moses, gather for me 70 men from the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people. And they're officers and bring them to the tent of meeting and let them take their stand there with you.

And I will come down and speak with you there. And I will take of the spirit. Who is upon you and put him upon them. And they shall bear the burden of the people with you so that you will not bear it all alone. Say to the people, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow or consecrate yourselves for tomorrow. You shall eat meat for you've 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. Now, as Moses is complaining, I want you to take note of the fact that God did not rebuke Moses at this point in time. And I think that that's an important thing to pay attention to because Moses is bearing an incredible burden right now.

You know, God doesn't tell him, why would you question me on this? He's bearing this great burden. Instead, what does God do? God tells him, you need to go and find 70 men. 70 men that you trust, that are already those that people look up to. And I want you to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. And I will put of that same spirit that's on you. I will put that on them so that you all can bear the burden together.

Now, there's a couple of interesting points I think that should be made about this. The first point is this. Leaders were never meant to bear anything on their own. That's why it's. It's important that they are surrounded by godly individuals who can help hold them up. We've talked about this multiple times. We've seen multiple times where Moses has needed the support of other people

to hold up his arms, to take care of the physical burden that he was bearing, and now to bear that same spiritual burden that he is bearing. It's the way that God has intended it because no man can bear it all alone. That brings me to a second point. You cannot bear the spiritual burdens of your life on your own. You were never created to be an island. You were never created to be isolated.

You were created to be surrounded by brothers and sisters that can hold you up, that can help you bear up under the burden of the things that you do in your life. And I think that one of the things that's happened to us over these past couple of years is that we've become very isolated. And as we've become very isolated, we've begun to carry the idea that we have to bear a burden all by ourselves. I don't know about you, but for me, I have found that even that short stint of isolation that we had here created a little bit of a feeling of isolation inside of me.

And it can kind of keep me from spending the time with people that I normally would spend with people. And I'm a people people, right? Like, I like to be around people. I actually kind of thrive off of that. And yet, that isolation kind of messed with me just a little bit. And I think it did a lot of people. I was actually just talking to someone yesterday,

and he said, I don't even think you fully grasp how many people, you're probably going to be working with over the next couple of years because of what the last two years have done to them. Because that's what isolation does. Isolation causes us to feel like we're all by ourselves, and we can't bear those burdens alone. And so if you're carrying burdens, you need to surround yourself.

Ladies, you need to surround yourself with ladies. Listen, if you don't surround yourself with ladies and you start surrounding yourself with men, here's what'll happen is you'll think, I think God just showed me that I'm not supposed to be with my husband, but I'm supposed to be with this man that's supporting me. The only man, ladies, that should come by and support you is your husband. Fellas, you got to go find men to surround yourself with.

Men that you can depend on that will uphold you don't go find a lady. You got to find other men that can help uphold you because the same thing will happen if you don't. The only lady that should be supporting you is your wife. And so we need that with each other. We need that building up of the body, that supporting of each other. And so this is what God tells us to do.

He says, find these men, let them surround you. Let them uphold this burden with you. And then this is what I want you to tell the people. He says, tell the people, go and consecrate yourself because tomorrow you are going to eat meat. Notice what it says in verse 19. I love this. Like God's like the best parent ever, right? He's like, you shall eat not one day

nor two days, nor five days, nor 10 days, nor 20 days, but a whole month. Greatest line ever. Until it comes out of 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 you ever leave Egypt? God says, after you found those men that can help support you, this is what I want you to tell the people.

Oh, you get yourselves ready to eat some meat because meat's coming and it's coming for a month until it starts blowing out your nose, until you hate it. Sometimes the worst thing that can ever happen to us is when God gives us what we want. But if we refuse to accept what we need and continue to demand what we want, sometimes in his judgment, God will do just that. He will give us everything that we want, but he will do it until we become sick of everything that we want.

That's why when we see a brother or sister walking in sin and we've continued to commit sin, we've continued to confront them on it, we have to say, if that's the life you're going to lead, you have to go do it somewhere else. Get as much of that as you want, but you can't have it here. You can't have it with me. You can't have it in this church. But when you have become sick of it,

come back and we'll welcome you with open arms and we'll walk you out of the pit that you just found yourself in because that's exactly what God does with them. Matter of fact, it tells us in Psalm 106, it says that, God gave them meat, but he also sent them leanness of soul. Because you see, sometimes when God gives us what we want, it's, let me rephrase that, all the time when God gives us what we want and not what we need, it is at the sacrifice of our relationship with him. It's at the sacrifice of our depth of knowledge of him.

And so that's what God tells Moses to tell the people. But of course, Moses is in a little bit of a bad mental state. We can tell he's in a bad mental. We can tell he's in a bad mental state because he stopped forgetting how miraculous God is. Notice what it says in verse 21. Moses said, the people among whom I am are 600,000 on foot. Yet you have said, I will give them meat

so that they may eat for a whole month. Should flocks and herds be slaughtered for them to be sufficient for them? Or should all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them to be sufficient for them? And the Lord said to Moses, is the Lord's power limited? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not. You can tell Moses is in a bad headspace right now

because I want you to think about the miracles that God has wrought through Moses. Remember where all the frogs came from? Yeah, me neither, because God just made them show up. Remember where all of the flies, all of the gnats, the river turning to blood, all of those things that God did, how impossible they were, and yet God did them. And Moses was right there to see all of them.

I've tried all of them. I've tried a whole lot of times to part water. I've never been able to do it. And yet Moses, through the power of God, was able to part the Red Sea. And now here he is in this place because he's in a bad headspace. He can't see God clearly because all he can see is those complaining people right in front of him. And he says, how on earth are you ever going to provide enough meat?

I can't catch enough fish. There's not enough animals. I can't do it. And God goes, oh, don't you worry about that. My power hasn't stopped up to this point in time. And so Moses goes, verse 24, went out and told the people the words of the Lord. Also he gathered 70 men of the elders of the people and stationed them around the tent. The Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him,

and he took of the spirit who was upon him, and he placed him upon the 70 elders. And when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, but they did not do it again. But two men who had remained in the camp, the name of one was Eldad and the other Medad, the spirit rested upon them. They were among those who, who had been registered but had not gone out of the tent.

They prophesied in the camp. So a young man ran and told Moses and said, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. Then Joshua, the son of Nun, the attendant of Moses, from his youth said, Moses, my Lord, restrain them. And Moses said, are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them.

Then Moses returned to the camp, both he and the elders of Israel. So again, God does exactly what he says. Moses tells the people, gather together, get yourselves ready because meat is coming. The 70 elders begin prophesying. And there's even a couple of guys within the camp that are prophesying. But then there's this scene where Joshua, this young man comes to Moses and says,

hey, there's two guys in the camp prophesying. You want me to tell them to stop? And Moses goes, no, I wish everybody was doing this. I wish all God's people were doing this. You don't need to be jealous for my sake, which I think shows that Moses's mentality was corrected at this point in time. You see, there is something about being surrounded by those people that are supporting you

that helps get your head straight, that helps reset your perspective because the pressures that have been on you maybe aren't on them and they can help get your perspective back together. That's what these men did for Moses. And so as these men brought Moses's perspective back and some of them are prophesying, he goes, listen, you don't need to worry about whether or not somebody's going to offend me by this. I'd rather all of God's people be prophesying.

So now we come to this scene of the quail, the quail and the plague. Notice what it says. 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 about a day's journey on the other side all around the camp and about two cubits 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 the least gathered 10 homers and they spread them out for themselves. All around the camp. Now this is an incredible amount of quail that show up at this point in time. Apparently not at all uncommon for there to be a great deal of quail in this area at this time, but that's a lot of quail. A day's journey, each direction of the camp and two cubits deep.

If I remember correctly, a cubit, like a foot and a half or something like that. So you're talking, I mean, that's really, really deep. So it's pretty crazy amount of quail. Not to mention the fact that he who gathered the least gathered 10 homers. I loved what John Corson said. He gave the exact measurements. He said, let me put it to you this way. It would be like 200 buckets of KFC chicken.

I was like, now that I understand, right? That's a whole lot that one individual gathers, right? That's a whole lot of the colonel's recipe. And so they've gathered an incredible amount of meat. God did exactly what he said. Man, he gave them more than they could ever imagine. And they're probably just going, yay. Look at all of this meat. Look at what complaining does for us.

But while the meat was still between their teeth, verse 33, So the name of that place was called Kibroth Hathava because there they buried the people who had been greedy. From Kibroth Hathava, the people set out for Hazaroth and remained at Hazaroth. Boy, what an amazing scene. You can picture it, right? They're cooking up the colonel's recipe, eating while they're still chewing their meat.

Some sort of a plague comes upon them. I wish I knew what kind of plague it was. The Bible doesn't say. And this is one of those questions. I know that when I get to heaven, I'm going to forget to ask because it's not going to matter to me anymore. But I want to know what happened. I want to know, was this like a food poisoning sort of a thing? What exactly was it?

Some sort of a plague gripped them. And people started dying. So many that they had to have graves for them. As a matter of fact, that name, I'm going to screw the name up if I don't say it. Kibroth, or if I don't read it, Kibroth Hathava literally means graves of greediness or graves of craving. That's a terrible name for a graveyard. Oh, what's that over there?

That's the graves of craving. Ooh, okay. Because that's what happens when those cravings take over our lives, when we live our lives according to the lusts of the Father. Well, one last story as we get towards the end of our section for tonight, chapter 12. Then Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married. For he had married a Cushite woman.

Thanks, Mo. And they said, Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us as well? And the Lord heard it. Now, the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who is on the face of the earth. There are so many great things we're going to cover here in the next couple of minutes in this first few verses. So first of all, Miriam and Aaron.

Remember, this is Moses' brother and sister, who at times had been capable of the highest of highs. And for Aaron, the lowest of lows. Remember, he's the guy that made the golden calf. It was a bad day for Aaron. He's pretty well redeemed himself of that. He's pretty well done things the way that he's supposed to. Miriam, if you remember, was a prophetess. And when they crossed the Red Sea,

she gave this great prophecy. And sung this beautiful song to the Lord. And so both of these two are incredibly spiritually gifted individuals. Capable of some of the highest of highs. But unfortunately, what we see here is some of the lowest of lows. And they complain against Moses. Or they murmur against Moses. And the first thing that they bring, which is not really what they were upset about,

but it's the way that they could find a way in to bring some sort of a complaint, had to do with Moses' wife. They said, They spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married. And I appreciate that Moses included the addendum of for he had married a Cushite woman. Which makes sense. Feels like that was the extra bonus information that we needed to really clear things up.

So basically, if you will, to get to Moses, the first thing that they do is they criticize his wife. And isn't it kind of interesting that that's how the enemy oftentimes tries to get to us. If he can't get to us individually, he begins to try to get to us. He tries to get to us through our families. It happens with us as individuals and it happens to those who are in leadership.

He tries to get at us through our families. And so that's what they do. They start complaining about his wife. You can imagine how it happens, right? You know, Moses' wife isn't really one of us. Maybe she's a part of that mixed multitude. You know, I think she's kind of a part of the rabble. You can imagine how that little bit of murmuring was going on and they start telling us

that she's a part of the rabble. And so they're telling a few little rumors and telling a few little stories and gathering some people to themselves. But finally, after they realize they've got a little bit of a following on this, they come to the real issue. And so they come to Moses and instead of just complaining about his wife, they begin to complain because of envy.

Notice what it says. And they said, verse two, has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us? Has he not spoken through us as well? Don't I have that same spirit at work in me? Haven't I been used by God in a mighty way? Essentially, what they're saying is, why is Moses the one in charge when I could do as good of a job as him?

Listen, if anybody ever looked at Moses and was like, man, I'd really like to have his job, we should examine everything about that human being because something is not right with that person. Because once you see everything that Moses goes through, you think to yourself, who, apart from God's calling, would ever want Moses' job? But you see, they were kind of envious of him. Envious because oftentimes envy blinds us to the reality and all we can see is what we want to see, that Moses was in the position of power.

Now, it seems as though Miriam is the one who actually was the instigator of this because that word complaining is actually in the feminine, which means that she was the one who had kind of instigated it. And we'll see, also as the punishment gets handed out, that she bears the greater punishment. However, before we get to what happens, I think it's important to address verse three. Verse three has always been kind of an interesting verse to me because these guys are complaining because of envy.

They find themselves envious of Moses in the position that he is in. But the thing that sticks out to me is the humility of Moses. Notice what it says. Now, Moses was very humble more than any man who was on the face of the earth. You know who wrote the book of Numbers? Moses. Now, I'm just going to be honest. Every time I've read this in the past, I thought, who writes that about themselves?

Who includes that addendum of, hey, also BT dubs, I'm the most humble guy anyone's ever seen. But I actually read some really interesting perspectives on this as I was studying. One of the perspectives that I read is that perhaps at this point in time, Joshua, who potentially could have added some things to like Deuteronomy since Moses dies in the writing of Deuteronomy, perhaps he came back and added this later as sort of a little tribute to the man that meant so much to him. But I think what really got me the most was what John Corson had to say because he pointed out something interesting.

He said, in Peter we're told that, or excuse me, in Timothy we're told all scripture is given by inspiration of God. Therefore, who's actually saying this about Moses? I think God's actually saying this about Moses. And while it seems like a funny thing to us that Moses would have written this about himself, knowing what we know about Moses and knowing what God had brought him through in the wilderness, I actually think that was a hard one for him to write because I don't think Moses liked to bring a great deal of praise to himself.

After all, look at all of the mistakes that Moses was willing to write about himself. Even the fact that in the previous chapter, he said that when the people were complaining, I was complaining about the people complaining. I actually think that there's a great deal of reality that's involved in this because Moses is just simply giving commentary on the situation that's going on. Matter of fact, I think if it had been his choice, he would have said, fine, take it.

I'm tired of being the leader of these people. This has been a hard year and a half of my life. Well, so we go on from there, but there was one other thing that stuck out to me out of verse two, perhaps you caught it as well because it sounded a lot like what we saw in chapter 11. In the verse two, it says, and the Lord heard it. There it is again. God heard the murmuring and complaining,

the speaking against of Moses. And so notice what happens, verse four. Suddenly the Lord said to Moses and Aaron and to Miriam, you three come out to the tent of meeting. So the three of them came out once again, and God's a really good father. He's like, you three out here now. I wonder how loud, boisterous, bassy the voice was that came out that said, you three to the tent of meeting.

And they're like, man, he did it. It was him, she did. Anyway, so they all come out to the tent of meeting because God had heard it all. And you know, Moses the whole time was like, I didn't do a thing, right? This is not on me. I can take the blame for a lot. This one, not me. So the Lord came down in a pillar, a pillar of cloud and stood at the doorway of the tent of meeting, verse five.

And he called Aaron and Miriam. And when they had both come forward, he said, hear now my words. If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, shall make myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream. Not so with my servant, Moses. He is faithful in all my household. With him, I speak mouth to mouth. Even openly and not in dark sayings.

And he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses? So the anger of the Lord burned against them and he departed. God speaks in such a clear, amazing way to Aaron and Miriam. And what he speaks to them has to do with his distinct, unique relationship that he has with Moses. He speaks to them in such a clear, amazing way to Aaron and Miriam.

And what he speaks to them has to do with his distinct, unique relationship that he has with Moses. He said, listen, usually if I'm going to speak in a word of prophecy, it's going to be through a dream or a vision. It's not the way it is with Moses. Him, I just talk to like a friend. And you know, I think Moses' greatest accomplishment that he had in his entire life was

that he knew God face to face. Of all of the things that Moses had accomplished, of all of the things that we could look back on that we oftentimes would view and say, Moses was great. He was great because of this. I think if Moses were to tell you the greatest thing about his entire life was the face to face relationship that he had with his Creator. Because when it comes right down to it,

it's the greatest thing any of us can ever have, is that face to face relationship with our Creator. And God says, because of that, how dare you speak about my servant that way? From this, I think we learn a really important lesson. The absolute best thing that we can do when facing the criticism of others is allow God to fight our battle, is to allow God to be the one that deals with it.

Because I'm here to tell you right now, when God fights our battles, we don't have to lift a finger. There's always going to be someone that talks about you. You're going to be the villain in someone's story, always. But the fact of the matter is, we're told in Psalm 37, that God is able to bring forth your righteousness like the noonday sun. I think if I had any word for a politician that would call themselves godly,

it would be, let your life show who you are, and let God be your defender. Because that's what God's able to do. You know, so many people throughout history who had been falsely accused of things that were godly individuals, the truth has always come out. Because God is always faithful to his servants. And he will always make it to where people find themselves saying,

why did I ever speak against that person? And so God fights Moses' battle for him. And the anger of the Lord burned against them, meaning Miriam and Aaron. And notice what happens in verse 10. But when the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. And as Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was leprous. And then Aaron said to Moses,

O my Lord, I beg you, do not account this sin to us, in which we have acted foolishly, in which we have sinned. O do not let her be like one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother's womb. And so Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, O God, heal her, I pray. I want you to take note of how Moses is able to respond right now. And I'm telling you,

Moses is able to respond this way because he's being supported by friends. He's being supported by his leaders, and his perspective is right. Because at this point in time, when Miriam is covered in leprosy, and Aaron, who joined in with this little conspiracy against Moses, comes to him and says, You've got to pray for Miriam. You've got to seek God for her, because we can't let this happen to her.

Listen, if it's me and my flesh, I'm like, Dude, she gets what she deserves. If that's the way you're going to act, you've got to be willing to pay the consequences. But Moses doesn't do that. Why? Because his perspective is right. His perspective is on God, not on everything else. Because he's surrounded by men who are keeping his perspective focused on the Lord.

And because of that, notice what he does. Moses cries out to the Lord on her behalf. He says, O God, heal her, I pray. Notice how God responds. But the Lord said to Moses, If her father had spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut up for seven days outside the camp, and afterward she may be received again. So Miriam was shut up outside the camp for seven days,

and the people did not move on until Miriam was received again. And afterward the people moved out from Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran. You know, ultimately the issue that they dealt with, again, was the issue of envy. And envy is oftentimes the innocent sin that we don't think too much about. And yet envy is one of the deadliest sins that we deal with.

We're reminded oftentimes in Scripture of how envy can absolutely destroy us. As a matter of fact, we're told in the Proverbs that envy rots the bones. And so as we think about this, I feel like in God's judgment towards Miriam, we're given kind of three little reminders about envy. Number one, and I don't even know how to put it up there. Number one, it consumes us.

It consumes us. What was the response of God after she had kind of made this accusation, towards Moses and was envious really of his position? God covered her in leprosy. Why? Because God gave a physical picture of what was going on in her heart because that envy was consuming her. And we have to remember that if we start being envious of what other people have,

it will consume us. And brothers and sisters, we live in a world right now that thrives on envy. All of the social media, all of the advertising, it all thrives on the sin of envy. And eventually it will consume us. Number two, envy isolates us. Envy isolates us. Because if I'm envious of everything that you have, I find myself kind of irritated with you so I'm not around you all the time

because I get tired of the fact that you have what I want and I can't really rejoice with you because of that, even though the Bible says to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. Notice how she had to be set outside the camp for seven days. Why? Because envy isolates us. But then number three, envy affects those around us. Did you notice that they could not move on?

The entire camp. Two and a half million people could not move on because one person was dealing with the sin of envy. See, whether we like it or not, it always ends up affecting the people that are around us because our sin always has an effect. It has an effect on the people that are around us. I'm reminded of what we're told in the book of 1 Corinthians 10

that these things were written for our instruction. All of these things that we see in the book of Numbers are so important to us because they are meant to instruct us, to show us the pitfalls that we face in the wilderness that we call planet Earth, in the wilderness that we dwell in as believers in Jesus Christ on our way to the promised land. And so may these things that we see the children of Israel go through be warnings, admonitions, and a learning point for us as believers in Jesus Christ. Amen?

Let's all pray. Father, we come before you and I thank you for what your word has to say. Lord, I thank you that you gave us the good, the bad, and the ugly. Lord, that you didn't withhold anything even about some of your greatest servants, Lord. And Father, I know I can so relate to having the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. And so Lord, move in the hearts of each of us tonight.

And Lord, if there is that spirit of complaining, if there is that spirit of envy, Lord, if there is that need to surround ourselves with those who will strengthen us, then may we surrender in those areas to you so that we can become those men and women that you've created for us to be, setting aside sin and pursuing our Creator. Father, we thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed.