If you take your Bibles and turn
with me to Numbers chapter 11. Numbers chapter 11. I've got four lessons on murmuring. Four things we can learn concerning
murmuring using the children of Israel as our springboard. They are a type of God's church. And so, we begin our reading
in verse 1 here. It says, And when the people
complained, it displeased the Lord. And the Lord heard it,
and His anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among
them and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the
camp. And the people cried unto Moses,
and Moses prayed unto the Lord, and the fire was quenched. And
he called the name of the place because the fire of the Lord
burned among them. And the mixed multitude that
was among them fell a-lusting. And the children of Israel also
wept again and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember
the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers and
the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic. They're
really embellishing there, aren't they? Really going overboard
with this nostalgia that they had. But now, oh, but now our
soul is dried away, and there is nothing at all besides this
manna before our eyes. And the manna was as coriander
seed, and the color thereof was the color of bedoulin. And the
people went about and gathered it, and ground it in meals, and
beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of
it. And the taste of it was like
the taste of fresh oil. And when the dew fell upon the
camp in the night, the manna fell upon it." Now, here we have
too familiar a scene. This is too familiar as you read
through the history of Egypt, of Israel traveling from Egypt
to the land of Canaan. You read this over and over again,
They complained. They murmured. They were disquieted. They were discontent with their
lot, with their circumstance. They were dissatisfied with the
manna that God had provided them. And what did they want? They
wanted some flesh. They wanted some meat instead
of the manna. Now, you see that their murmuring
was no light thing. This was not a light thing in
the eyes of God. The Scripture says that God was
displeased. And not only was He displeased,
His anger was kindled against them. His anger was kindled against
them so that He sent a fire. He sent a fire out among the
camp, It burned the outermost part of the camp. And then what happened? The people
cried. This is another familiar scene.
After the Lord comes in chastisement, what happens? The people cried.
They said, Save us! And Moses, what did he do? He
prayed. He interceded for them before
the Lord. And God's wrath, God's anger
was stayed. The fire was quenched. Now you
suppose that that would have been enough. The Lord sent a
fire and burned a whole bunch of people on the outside of the
camp because they complained. You suppose that would have silenced
the complaints. The fear of God, the justice
of God would have stopped their mouths. But we notice this right
after this. Look in verse 4. There's a mixed
multitude among them that fell a-lusting, and the children of
Israel also wept again, saying, what? Who shall give us flesh
to eat? This mixed multitude was both
of Israel and those that had joined them along the way, the
Gentiles that had come along with them. It was this group
who longed for the fish and the cucumbers and the garlands the
garlic and the melons of Egypt. He said, hey, we ate freely.
You remember that? These Gentiles, they say, look,
hey, remember back in Egypt? We ate so much. We're out here
and all we got is this little seed that grows up on the ground
and we eat this stuff. It's just not really filling.
I'm just not satisfied. And the people of Israel go,
well, you know what? You're right. You're right. And so they all with one accord
begin to but we know this was a lie. That wasn't true. They
were slaves in Egypt. They're looking back with rose-colored
glasses. It wasn't true. They were in
captivity. And the cause of this complaint,
what caused this complaint, resulted again in the anger of
the Lord being kindled. against them because, listen,
they hated the manna. This was the root cause, is that
the manna was distasteful to them. It was not sufficient to
satisfy the lust of their flesh. They hated the manna. In verse
6 you can read this. They said, but our soul is dried
away and there is nothing beside this manna. These people, they
loathed this light bread that God had sent. And listen, they
didn't work for it. They didn't labor for it. Every
day it came down from heaven and all they had to do was pick
it up off the ground and put it in a bucket and bring it home. And yet this was not enough.
They said, oh, my soul is dried up. I'm just tired of this stuff.
I'm tired of getting this manna every day. This bread was not
enough. They wanted flesh. They wanted
meat to eat. And God said this. He said, You
want meat? Well, I'll give you meat. Look
at this in verse 18. Look at this in verse 18. And say thou to the people, Sanctify
yourselves against tomorrow, and you shall eat flesh. For you have wept in the ears
of the Lord, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? For it
was well with us in the land of Egypt. Therefore the Lord
will give you flesh, and you shall eat. And you shall not
eat one day or two days or five days or ten days or twenty days,
but a whole month, until it comes out your nose. And it will be loathsome unto
you, because you have despised the Lord which is among you.
You have wept before Him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt? And the Lord, He sent quails
to them, verse 31. And there went forth a wind from
the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall
on the camp. And it was as a day's journey
on this side, and as it were a day's journey on the other
side, round about the camp, as it was two cubits high upon the
face of the earth. What happened when these things
fell is they consumed them. Now look at this in verse 32.
The people stood up all day and all night and the next day and
they gathered quail and they gathered ten homers and they
spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp. And while
the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere they chewed, the wrath
of the Lord was kindled against them. And the Lord smote the
people with a great plague. Now, listen, this is how greedy
they were for these quail. When you picked up the manna,
God said you were to get one omer, three quarts. That's what was sufficient for
the day. You get the sufficient for the
day. You couldn't store up that manna. You had to actually eat
it that day. And you would get it the next
day. One omer. Now, listen, they had ten homers. One commentator said that was
10 ash loads of quail. They loaded down 10 donkeys full
of quail. And what was the result of their
greed? And I want you to see how many quail there were. It
says a day's journey in each direction. One commentator said
that was 16 to 20 miles in each direction. And these quail were
piled up 2 to 3 foot high. in each direction. Now, God sent
a lot of quail. You figure that, hey, look, there's
enough to go around. Well, they do. They said, oh,
no. And they gathered it all. They loaded all their asses with
this quail. And they couldn't even wait to
get home. They couldn't even wait to cook it. They were so
greedy for this that they ate it raw. And the Lord was angry
at this. They put blood in their mouth.
It was against His law. And God gave in, they gave in
to their greed, and their end to this lust was death, death. Because they despised the manna
and greedily ate the flesh, many died. Now, there are many lessons
that we can learn as children of God from this history. And
I pray God would teach us, and this is the lesson, discontent. discontentment and murmuring
concerning God's manna." God's manna, which we know this, is
Christ. Manna pictures Christ. And it
is displeasing to God. We, like these Israelites, who
are a picture and type of the spiritual Israel of God, I know
this. There was a mixed multitude among
this people. Isn't that right? The Scripture
says there was a mixed multitude. Even so, among the church, listen,
there's a mixed multitude, isn't there? There are believers and
there are those who are false professors of faith in Christ. Our Lord told us this, that there
will be tares among the wheat. Goats among the sheep. And this
will happen until He returns and separates. One thing it's
not for us to decide is who's who. It's not for us to pick
and choose, okay, well, I think, well, Scott, you sure look like
a tare. No, that's not for us. God, you look like we... It doesn't
matter what I think. It's not for us to pick those
out. But we ought to be aware of this because this all started
with who? It started with the unbelievers. It started with that group who
were not part of Israel. And so, to guard against this,
what's the simple thing that we do? We preach the gospel.
It is our purpose always to preach the gospel, which is what? It
is the manna from heaven. We preach Christ. We preach Christ. We preach the gospel of Christ.
I must preach this gospel. I will preach this gospel of
Christ and Him crucified. I'll declare the grace of God
and sovereign free election that the Father chose a people before
the foundation of the world. that the Father in great grace
put them in Christ and purposed that by Him they should be saved.
Now this is the manna. This is the gospel. This is what
God's people feed on. This is what we are nourished
by. It is the gospel of Christ. We set forth the great person
of our Lord Jesus Christ who is God and man. God manifest
in the flesh, born of the virgin's womb. He that dwelt among us
as our representative man. We hold him forth. This is the
manna. As the manna rained down every
day, what we do in this place is we preach Christ. And God
causes that bread to come down and sets that bread before you. You see how He was holy? When
He came into the world, He was holy and righteous and just. He honored the law of God in
every jot and tittle. He was obedient even unto death. Behold how He in the flesh was
crucified. How God imputed our sins to Him. How God poured out His wrath. on Christ, made Him to be sin for us who
knew no sin, that we, sinners, might be made the righteousness
of God in Him." This is the manna. This is the manna we eat. We
eat this manna by faith that justice now is satisfied. This
is that fresh oil. That's what that manna tasted
like, fresh oil, didn't it? It's fresh, it's continually
new, that Christ has satisfied God's justice. And we know His
words are very clear. It is finished. It's finished. God is satisfied. Therefore He in boldness said,
All that the Father hath given me shall come to me. Him that
cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. I will lose nothing,
but raise it up again at the last day." How did he know that?
Because he's successful. This is the manna that comes
down from heaven. This is the gospel message pictured
by the manna. And we preach the triumphant
risen Christ, don't we? We preach Christ crucified, yes. Christ satisfying the justice
of God by His death. Yet we also preach the resurrection
of Christ. We serve a risen Savior, a risen
Savior. He said, all power is given unto
me in heaven and earth. And He's
sitting on the throne right now. And as you see the events of
our day unfold, who's doing that? Sharon and I were talking about
this the other day. We were remembering a message Don preached, all things,
all things. It said, all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them are called according
to His purpose. And he said this, he said, I'm going to tell you
something real deep. Let me tell you what all things mean. He
said it means this. It means all things. All things. How can we know that
all things work together for our good? Because Christ is risen.
Christ is seated on the right hand of the majesty on high.
Expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. He is ruling
right now. We're not waiting for Christ
to rule, are we? We're not waiting for some mythological
thousand years for Christ to come down and rule. He's ruling
right now over all things. For what purpose? to give eternal
life to as many as thou hast given Him. This is the message
that we preach. God has a people and Christ is
going to apply the Spirit of God to those people. He is going
to quicken them. He is going to give them life.
He is going to give them faith. Not only that, He has orchestrated
their whole Life, all of our trials, all of our difficulties,
all of our troubles, all of our joys, all of our triumphs are
orchestrated by Jesus Christ. For what? Our growth, His glory,
the furtherance of the gospel. That's what this is. And why
didn't God just take you home when He saved you? Because there
are more. There are more to come. And what
He does is allows us to be used in this glorious thing of preaching
the gospel. He allows us to support it. He
allows us to attend to it. He allows us to preach it. He
allows us to witness to it. He's going to call His people.
And so how does He do this? Through the preaching of the
gospel. This is the mean. by which the manna is distributed. That's it. Isn't it wonderful? You know, every morning they
just woke up and it was there. You know, the manna just was
there. Like the dew. You know, you really don't see the dew
come down, do you? You don't see it... You stand
out all night and put your hands out like this. You don't feel
it coming down. It just... But you bend down,
you touch the... It's there! That's the way the gospel is,
isn't it? One day you were dead, And all of a sudden, it's there.
You have life. You have faith. You're disquieted. You're troubled. And then you
hear the Gospel. It's like Duke. It's just there. And you're comforted. You're
refreshed. You're encouraged. It's manna for the soul. And
just like the manna, we don't take ten assloads of it. We don't
store it up. We eat what is sufficient for
the day. Faith now is what is important. Not faith yesterday, not faith
tomorrow, faith now. Eating the manna today. Christ
is the bread of life. We eat him today. And by this
we are strengthened, we are encouraged. Christ is this manna. He said
that, didn't he? He told us he was the manna.
So every time you read this in the Old Testament, you are reading
Christ. He said, I am the bread which
came down from heaven. Not that your fathers ate and
they're dead. But He that eats Me will live
forever. How do you do that? You believe. You trust. You receive Him. That's what that word says in
John, as many as received Him. To them gave He the right, the
power, to become the sons of God. That's what that word means.
If you're thirsty and you've got a glass of water, you take
that glass and you pour it down your throat, that's exactly what
it means. To receive it. Do you need Christ? Anybody thirsty for Christ? Anybody
hungry for Christ? Do you hunger for righteousness? Receive Him. Believe on Him. Now, when you do that, you get
no glory for it, do you? You get nothing for that. You
didn't actually have the power to do it. "...which were born,
not of the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God."
So we receive Him. He's this manna. And so then
we say to what? Hungry sinners believe on Him,
trust Him. And we who eat of Him, we find
Him to be our life. Not just a sustainer of my physical
life, He is. but he is the sustainer of my
spiritual life. Why is it that I'm still spiritually
alive? I was born again quite a few
years ago. Why am I still alive? Why have
I not died spiritually again? Because he sustains He is the
sustainer of our life. He is all our salvation. He is
all our joy. He is all our peace. He is all
our desire. One have I desired, David said,
and that will I seek after. Scripture says, Jesus said, one
thing is needful. Isn't that right? One thing is
needful. What kind of food did Israel need? What did they need?
They only needed one kind, manna. God provided it. All they do
is pick it up, eat it. No work, no labor. That's what
it is to receive Christ, is no work, no labor. Believe on Him. But I'll tell you what, in the
congregation of the righteous, there's always a mixed group,
a mixed group in the local earthly church. that will never be satisfied
with Christ alone. Just in this group, there was
a group of people in this Israel that was not satisfied with that
manna. And so it will be in the church.
There will always be a group that is not satisfied with this
bread. They said, our soul is dried
up. It's not enough. We must have more. I say, there's got to be something
more than Christ. I remember having a friend that
said that to me. We were supposedly brothers in Christ. And one day
he came to me and said, you know, Fred, there's got to be more
than Christ. I said, no, no, there's not more
than Christ. It's only Christ. Surely we got
sure. Yeah, we've got to have the manna,
but there's got to be something better tasting than this. They've got to hear something
more. They profess to believe the gospel, but they say, we've
got to move on to other things. The church has got to get out
of this. You know, you get people in by
the gospel, but you've got to keep them. You've got to keep
them. You've got to entertain them. You've got to use all kinds of carnal means.
In other words, they desire, like these people, to eat less.
and they loathe the gospel of Christ. You know, as long as
I pastor here, that's my hope and prayer is that I have this
same message every time. No matter where I go in Scripture,
I want you to see Christ. But some people will creep into
the church and they lust after other things. And so they want to allure, they
try to allure God's people. And listen, these people were
successful in alluring Israel, weren't they? The mixed multitude
began to cry, we want flesh! And what? It wasn't long before
Israel was saying, yeah, that sounds pretty good. That sounds
pretty good. They try to allure God's people
into revolting. And they begin a constant and
perpetual discontentment, and they appeal to the fleshly nature
even of the true believers. I tell you, as you know, discontentment
is a very contagious thing. Murmuring is a contagious thing. Why? It appeals to our nature. It appeals to the flesh of our
nature. These mixed multitudes began
to spout out these lies. Oh, remember when? Remember when? We had flesh in Egypt. Remember
that? All the cucumbers and garlics.
That was a lie. That was a lie. Remember, they
were slaves. They were given the leftovers.
Listen, so it is with sin. These men were trying to appeal
to the flesh. Remember how great it was before
you came to Christ? Listen, coming to Christ is not
an easy road, is it? Our road is full of trouble,
difficulty, trials, pain. And I'll tell you this, it's
awful tempting to be nostalgic about our past. Man, I sure had
it better back in the good old days. It appeals to our flesh to try
to remember them as more than they actually were. Sometimes
we look at the world and we say, look how great they have it.
Here we are. We're believers. We're children
of God. And yet we suffer. We're afflicted. We're full of
sorrow and pain and misery. And look at the world. They're
happy. Ever go on Facebook? See that? I scroll through it. I don't
see anybody suffering. Seems like everybody's just having
a great time. Families are all good. Nobody's
having any trouble. No, it's just what they want
you to see. The world looks like it's having a good time. Isn't
that what Asa found? You go to Psalm 73 and you read
that godly man in Psalm 73. He said this. He said, I know
God's good to Israel. But as for me, I don't know.
My foot nigh well slipped. Why? Because he saw the suffering
of the righteous and the prosperity of the wicked. He said there's no bands in their
death. They don't even fear death. They shake their fist in the
face of God and nothing happens. Nothing happens. They only increase
in riches and power and honor This, no doubt, troubles us in
our flesh. It moves the believer, it moves
the believer to murmur. Just like it did these Israelites. They heard what these unbelievers
were saying and they joined in. It appealed to their flesh and
it wasn't long that they were joining in the complaint. They
were joining in the murmuring. But only by the Word of God was
Asaph made ashamed. And I'll tell you, that's the
only way we're going to be made ashamed of murmuring. Are you murmuring?
Have you murmured? Do you complain? The only way
we're going to be made ashamed when we should be ashamed of
murmuring. We should be ashamed seeing what
Christ has accomplished, what God has given us in Christ. We
should all be ashamed when we complain. But I'll tell you this,
we're not going to be until we hear the Word of God. That's
when Asa found out and said, look, see, he saw their end. He was able by the Scriptures
to put things in perspective. He said he saw their end. Listen,
the end of sin is always misery. You got that? The end of sin
is never what it promises. It's misery. and pain and death. So believer, let us pray to keep
our minds and hearts from such lust of the flesh. Let us not
be allured by those who are in the uttermost parts of the church.
Those who pretend to be one of us but are liars. Those who creep
in and allure us in rebellion against our first love. And how are these men manifest? They're seen by their lust and
greed for more than the gospel of Christ. Listen, if a man wants
more than Christ, get away from it. If a man is murmuring and
complaining about this gospel, get away from it. Get away from
it. You see, what this gospel does
is it doesn't amuse and it doesn't entertain. It abases man and
exalts God. always. It exposes sin and gives
the remedy. That's what it does. Every time
the gospel exposes our sin, when I say murmuring, who's not guilty
of that? We're guilty of that, exposes
our sin. We're rather to be abased by
the gospel of Jesus Christ And by this same gospel, God
gives us the commands of Christ that we as his children are to
obey, which is what? Faith and love. Faith. What was the command of Israel?
Eat the manna. It was a simple command, wasn't
it? Believe God. Eat the manna. Instead, they wanted more. Does
your heart want more than Christ? Oh God, help us when it wants
more than Christ. I've got four things. I know
I'm going to have to hurry. Four things about discontentment.
Let's see some of these things. First of all, I want you to see
this. If you're a believer in Christ, discontentment displeases
God. Isn't that reason enough not
to do it? It displeases God. Isn't that what he says in the
first verse there? He says, they complained it displeased the
Lord. It displeased Him. Over in verse
10. And Moses heard the people weep
throughout their families, and every man at the door of his
tent, and the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly. What were
they weeping for? Not because of their sin. They
were weeping because they didn't have what they wanted in the
flesh. They weren't satisfied! Give us more! I want more! And God says His anger was kindled
greatly. In verse 33 it says it again. And while the flesh was between
their teeth, ere that it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord
was kindled against them. Now let us look upon a man who's without home or food. Think
about a man who's homeless. You see him on the street all
the time, a man homeless. He's got nothing. He's a simple
man, unable to provide for his basic needs. Now, what if you
were to take pity on that man? You look at that man and your
heart is overwhelmed with compassion. You say, come home with me. Come home with me. And this man,
you get him in your house, you give him a job, you give him
a car, you give him new clothes, you clean him up, you give him
all that he needs. But by and by, this man starts
to complain. He starts to murmur about his
wages. He curses you. He says, my car's
not good enough. My car's not good as your car.
I want a car like yours. My food doesn't taste as good
as your food. I want your food. And he mocks
you with his friends. He curses your name. He grumbles
against you all the time. How fast would you kick that
man out of your house? Would you not be displeased?
You bet. We would laugh. That guy wouldn't
last five seconds in my home. Murmuring and complaining like
that. How much worse is it is man? Man has no value whatsoever.
He can provide nothing for himself. He can't breathe on his own.
He can't provide his own food. He can't provide his own shelter.
God supplies everything. Yet man rebelled and squandered
his inheritance. And yet God still provides, isn't
that right? In Adam we all squandered our
inheritance, and yet look, God reigns on the just as well as
the unjust. God sustains his life and daily gives him what
he needs, and yet what does he do? He constantly defies God's
rule. He says this, I will not have
this man to rule over me. How foolish it is for a man to
quarrel against God, isn't that right? Isn't that the most foolish
thing in the world, to quarrel with God? But that's what murmuring
is. Make no mistake about it. It
is fighting against God. You are discontent with what
God has given you. Discontent with it. You're warring
against God. Now, it's bad enough for a lost
man to do that. Matter of fact, we'd expect that,
right? Because that's his nature. How much worse is it then for
a child of God to do it? How much worse is it for a child
of God? One has been quickened to life and faith in Christ,
a believer in Christ. One has received of the hand
of God eternal life, chosen of God, loved of God. Has not God
sent us His Son to die in our stead? Has He not put us in union with
Christ? Behold the love of God who sent
His Son to redeem us. Don't you know this? You've been
bought with a price. Alright, believer, are you your
own? Do you belong to yourself? No. We belong to Him. We are His
servants. We are His children. And behold,
the love of our Savior to lay down His life and bear our sins
in His own body on the tree? He said this. Is there any sorrow
like unto my sorrow? You've got sorrow? What about
His sorrow? He said, I restored that which
I took not away. Behold, that we have sinned. We have rebelled against our
God. We were lost and undone without
God and without His Son. But in grace, what? He reached
way down to me. He saved me. I had no value. I was like the
man on the street. I could not provide for myself.
Any life? any faith, any love, and He brought
me in and gave me everything. He dwells in us. So we who believe
on Christ, we only believe because He gave us faith. We only love
Him because He first loved us. But now by divine providence,
we may be in some trouble. We may be in some difficulty.
By divine providence, we are led to some point in time, some
sorrow and suffering. The way may be hard, the hill
may be steep, the desert may be dry and barren, yet the Word
of God declares to us, God's purpose is not to destroy us. His purpose is only for our good. Isn't that what the Word of God
declares to us? He said, I'll make an everlasting covenant
with them and not turn away from them to do them good. So what is He doing for you right
now? What is He doing for me right now? Good. Good. He's doing good. And He said this, I'll put my
fear in their hearts. What is that? He said, I'm going
to put love, honor, and reverence for me in their hearts. And they
shall not depart from Me. They won't leave the faith. Yea,
I will rejoice over them to do them good. Always, in all things,
I will rejoice. I will be happy to do them good. Always. In Jeremiah 29, in verse
11, He said, I know My thoughts for you, thoughts of peace and
not of evil, to give you an expected end. An expected end. So then let us see to murmur,
to be discontent with God's providence is nothing
short of treason. Is it not? What has He given you? And yet we would want more than
he deems good. We murmur. If we are discontent
and murmur against God, I want you to know this, you need to
be ready for chastisement. Let me get that in just a second.
Believer, if we are found lusting after the flesh of this world, God will surely chasten his children. Has the light bread of the gospel,
the simplicity of the gospel, lost its flavor? You know why? Because we have lusted after
the flesh. We've longed for something more
than Christ. Secondly, discontentment will
never satisfy. You know, one thing about discontentment,
it breeds discontentment. They that have silver will never
be satisfied with silver, is what Solomon said. He said, you
give them silver? They said, hey, I want more silver.
Give them more silver, guess what? They're not satisfied.
I got to have gold. It's not going to be enough.
It's never enough. Now Israel lusted for this meat.
They loathed the manna. So God gave them what they wanted. God gave them what they lusted
for. I'm going to tell you about this.
When you are discontent and God gives you what you want, it's
not a blessing. When you murmur and God gives
you what you want, it is not a blessing. This is exactly what happened
to these people. They lusted for meat, and what
did God do? He gave them meat. He gave them. It was not a gift. It was rather for their pain,
their sorrow. There was a professing believer
that was discontent with his job, he was discontent with his
wife, discontent with his family. This man, he professed to love
the gospel and all of a sudden the gospel became cold and dead
in his ear. His heart that once seemed to
burn in love for Christ became dark and dormant and lifeless.
And he said like these people, my soul is dried up. My soul
is dried up. And there's nothing but this
gospel. And so he desired more. He desired more success at work.
He desired more than just his wife. He desired more than just
his family. He desired more! And you know
what God gave him? God gave him what he wanted.
God gave him what he wanted. He gave him the world. And you
know what God gives the world? What does a man do? He leaves
the gospel. He leaves the gospel. That's
exactly what this man did. It was not a blessing. It was
rather a curse. Now we know this surely happens
to false professors, but what about true believers? I'll tell
you this. We too lust. We too murmur. And God at times gives us what
we want. There's a king in 1 Kings chapter
15 named Asa. Now Asa was a man that loved
God. He was a believer in Jesus Christ.
The Scripture says this in 1 Kings 15, 14. He said, But the high
places were not removed. Nevertheless, Asa's heart was
perfect with the Lord in his days. Now, Asa was a man whose
heart was perfect with the Lord. But what happened? He did not
remove the idols. And yet, once more, he coveted the stores and trees
of this land in Ramah. There was a land of Ramah, and
Asa looked over there and he said, you know what? I want that.
And what he did is he made league with God's enemies. He made league
with God's enemies to take it. And you know what? God sent that
prophet. God sent a prophet to rebuke him. God sent a prophet
to rebuke Asa. And, you know, that man, he did
not repent. God then sent chastisement upon
him. Matter of fact, the Scripture
says that if he would have prayed, God would have delivered him
from the gout. And yet he died. He died. So I'll tell you this,
God's people, when we murmur, we too can be like anyone else. We can sin like them. But listen,
one thing about God's people is this. God will always, this
is the third thing, God may give you as a believer what you want,
and it's going to turn ill for you, but I know this. If you're
a true believer, God will always chasten you. He will always chasten
His children. The child of God is prone to
all sin except blasphemy of the Holy Ghost. We're prone to murmur. We're prone to complain. But
I tell you, there's a fine line between apostate and a murmuring
child of God. There's a fine line. It's so
fine that we cannot tell the difference. Isn't that right?
At times, you cannot tell the difference between an apostate
and a child of God. By looking, by our discernment,
we cannot tell. Therefore, we see those that
were burned in this chapter in our text, those that were burned
without the camp, those that were smote by the wrath of God
when they ate this flesh. They were mixed. Some of them
were believers. Some of them weren't. Some of
them weren't. And see then, if God gives us
the desires of our flesh, you can bet this, He will also
give His people leanness of soul. He will cause His people to be
chastened. Chastened. In Psalm 106, verse
13, it says, They forget the works of God. They waited not
for His counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted
God in the desert. And listen, He gave them their
requests. But concerning His people, He
gave them leanness of souls. What is the worst thing for a
child of God? It is when God hides His face.
When I can't tell whether I'm a believer or an apostate. Isn't
that the worst thing? Remember the apostles when Jesus
said, One of you shall betray Me. What was the heart of those
eleven? His faith. a murmuring child of God or am
I an apostate? Sometimes God hides His face
and we can't tell. We can't tell. What then is the
difference? The difference is simply this,
God will chasten His children. He will chasten His children.
Go to Hebrews chapter 12, read this with me. And then I'm going
to give you after this, I'm going to give you the remedy for it.
Hebrews chapter 12, in verse 3. The Scripture recommends,
the Scripture exhorts us who are believers, who believe in
Christ. Listen. He said, Consider Him
that endures such contradiction of sinners against themselves,
lest you be wearied and faint in your mind. What does he say?
Consider Christ. Consider Christ. What is he saying? Eat the manna. Don't lust after
the flesh. Don't murmur and complain. Eat
the manna. Consider Him. Set your eyes on
Christ. Fix your eyes on Him. Embrace
Him. Why? You're going to faint if
you don't. You'll faint in the way. And so he says, consider that
we in trials, Paul said, you have not yet resisted unto blood,
striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation
which speaketh unto you as children. My son, despise thou not the
chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.
Listen, have you fallen into murmuring? Have you lusted? Despising
the manna? Have you been consumed by your
sin? If God is not chastening you, You need to worry. You should worry. Why? Look at
this next part. For whom the Lord loveth, what
happens? Chastened. And scourgeth every
son whom he receiveth. The sting and sorrow of sin is
great. And God often brings dire consequences
because of our sin. Because of our murmuring. 23,000 people were killed that day when
they ate this flesh. Over 23,000 people were killed,
mixed multitude. Some of them were believers. Remember the consequences of
David's sin? He lost his kingdom, he lost
three of his sons, and much more. Though the consequences of our
sin and chastisement are great, yet, listen to this, God does
it because He loves you. God chastens whom He loves. What was the difference between
Peter and Judas? They both betrayed the Lord,
didn't they? They both denied Him. They both left the faith. Peter went back fishing. What's
the difference? Judas repented to men. Christ came to Peter and rebuked
him with love. Isn't that what it was? Isn't
that what turned Peter's heart? Lovest thou me more than these Lord, you know, I love you. No,
no, no, listen Lovest thou me more than thee Lord, you you
know that I love you. No, Peter, listen. Lovest thou
me more than these And Peter's heart was broken
When God chastens His people, listen, their hearts are broken
and they repent. They repent. And lastly, I want
to ask you this. What do you suppose the remedy
for murmuring is? What's the remedy? Here it is.
Contentment. Isn't that the remedy? Murmuring,
you need what? Contentment. Contentment. Godliness with what? Contentment
is great gain. Paul said, I have learned in
whatsoever state I am to be what? Content. If you are content,
you are not what? Murmuring. If you are murmuring, you are
not content. You can't have it both ways.
What is the source of contentment? The manna. It's Christ. Christ. Go to Numbers chapter
21 real quickly. Numbers chapter 21. I'll close
with this. Listen to what happened in Numbers 21. Because they still
didn't learn the lesson. How many times does God teach
us this lesson and we still murmur? Numbers chapter 21. And look
at verse 4. And they journeyed and went by
Hore, by the way of the Red Sea, to encompass the land of Edom,
and the souls of the people were discouraged because of the way.
And the people spake against Moses, saying, Wherefore you
have brought us out of the land of Egypt to die in this wilderness?
Listen, for there is no bread, neither is there any water, and
our soul loatheth what? Manna. You know what God did? God sent those serpents. God
sent those fiery serpents to bite them. And look at verse
7. Therefore the people came to
Moses and said... What? We have sinned. Remedy for murmuring. Here it
is. We have sinned. Come to Christ and confess. We
have sinned. And we have spoken against the
Lord and against thee. Pray the Lord that He take away
the serpents from us. We need Christ to intercede.
And you know what he did? He took that brazen serpent and
he put it on a pole and he sat it up and what? Look and live. Friends, the remedy for murmuring
is simple. It's Christ. It's the thing you despised when
you lusted. When you lusted, when you murmured,
You despised Christ, you wanted more. The remedy is, get rid
of the more, return to Christ. That's a remedy. The simplicity of the gospel,
the singleness of the gospel, Christ. We need Christ. And I'll tell you this, then
we can have joy. Then we can have contentment.
Then we can have peace. If we have Christ, have Christ,
no murmuring. Are you content with Him? Or do you want more? God help us be content with Him. Our gracious Father dismiss us
with your blessing. Keep our lips from murmuring.
I do pray this in Christ's name.