Chapter 11 of the book of Numbers. Chapter 11 of the book of Numbers. While we're turning there, let
me say that the Lord Jesus said, He that
rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth
him, the words that I have spoken unto him shall judge him in the
last day." Now, you're here this morning, and you may feel that
you have an option, either to believe or not to believe, that
that's an option. But my friend, you have no option.
You're commanded to believe. The Scripture says believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ. You're commanded to believe.
This is the commandment we receive from Him that we believe on His
Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance? You say I have an
option. No. The Bible says in Acts 17 verse
31 that God hath commanded all men everywhere to repent. You have
no option. You must do it. You are living
in rebellion against God if you do not believe on His Son, and
if you do not have a repentive heart toward God, if you do not
know who you are and what you are, and have an attitude of
repentance, my friend, you are living in rebellion against God,
and God is going to judge you for it. He'll judge you. You have no option. You say,
well, I'd just rather be neutral. You can't be neutral. There is
no ground, no neutral ground. You're in rebellion against God.
I hope the Lord will use the word today. Ken and I was discussing
a portion of Scripture in Isaiah that says that as the rain comes
down from heaven, the rain and snow comes down and waters the
earth. and give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall
my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall prosper
in the thing whereinto I send it. It will accomplish what I
send it to do. The word is a living word. And Jesus said, the words that
I speak unto you, they're spirit and they're life. There's power
to save in the word. And so we want to look to the
Word of God this morning. I do hope, I do pray that the
Lord has given me a word for you today, and a word for this
church. That the Lord has given me something
that will challenge every one of you as it has challenged my
own heart. Here in the 11th chapter of the
book of Numbers, we see that the people cried unto Moses in
verse 2, that they had been complaining in verse 1. And it displeased
the Lord, and the Lord heard it, of course. The Lord always
hears your complaining. He does indeed. Let that be a
lesson to every whatever you say. I'm bad about this complaining
business. The Lord always hears it. He
knows about your complaining. His anger was kindled, and the
fire of the Lord burnt among them and consumed them that were
in the uttermost parts of the camp. And the people cried unto
Moses, and when Moses prayed unto the Lord, the fire was quenched.
You see, Moses was a type of Christ, the intercessor. The Lord Jesus, you know, is
seated at the right hand of the Father, making intercession for
us. Scripture says in Hebrews 7.25,
He is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by Him,
seeing that He ever liveth to make intercession for us. And
so Moses here is that one that intercedes for the people. And
he prays for them unto the Lord, and the fire was quenched. Now
beloved, you must have an intercessor. And you must have a mediator,
somebody to go to God for you. You see, Moses later said that
the Lord was going to raise up a prophet like unto him, and
that was the Lord Jesus. But you must have an intercessor.
Thanks be unto God we have one. Praise the Lord we have one.
And that is our Redeemer, the Savior, the Lord Jesus. As old
brother Richardson used to say, that you cannot come to God,
God will neither speak nor be spoken to, apart from a mediator. And so you must come and ask
the Lord Jesus to plead your case before the Father, just
like Moses pleaded for these people. Alright, and then in
verse 4, And the mixed multitude that was among them fell a lusting. The mixed multitude. Paul tells
us in Romans that they that are the children of the flesh, these
are not the children of God. And this mixed multitude were
made up of those that had gotten among the camp of Israel, numbered
among the camp of the Israelites, but they were not true Israelites. They were not saved people. They were not born-again people.
They were like tares are in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. They grow up with the wheat.
We are forbidden to tare them out, but nevertheless, the Lord's
going to separate them someday, separate the tares from the wheat.
And this mixed multitude, they have, you know, no spiritual
insight. They have no spiritual perception,
no spiritual understanding. They are not the children of
God. They have not a principle of grace in them, none whatever. They may speak the language of
Canaan. They may talk like the others,
but they have no spiritual life. They're not the children of God.
Well, they fell a lusty. And the children of Israel also
wept again and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? Now, I
want you to see that this complaining, murmuring is catching. And now here the Israel, the
children of Israel, who are those that are the Lord's people, they
begin to weep also. and begin to ask, who shall give
us flesh to eat? And verse 5, we remember the
fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely, and the cucumbers, and
the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. We
remember the good menu that we had in Egypt. We forgot about
the burden. We forgot about the awful, awful
taskmasters and all of the burden that was upon our backs in Egypt,
but we remember the menu. And we need, we would like to
have, we would like just to be able to go back and to get this
food that we used to have. We would like to have that food.
But now our soul is dried away Because, now you see now, these
people have been led out of Egypt by the Lord. They had been delivered
by the mighty hand of God. The Lord had rolled up His sleeve,
and with His strong right arm, He had delivered them out of
the land of Egypt and out from under the burden that they bore,
that they might go out into the wilderness and proclaim a feast
unto the Lord, that they might dance about and hold hands and
rejoice in the God of their deliverance. The Lord had delivered them.
Now they're complaining, as we often do, oh, now our soul is
dried away, and there's nothing at all besides this manna. The only thing we got is this
manna, which the Lord provided. All we've got is this manna,
and I'm going to show you some things in a minute. Beloved,
this manna, and let me tell you this right up front, I can't
wait to tell you, this manna was a type of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And they said, all we've got,
all we've got is this manna. We have nothing before our eyes
except this manna. And the manna, he goes on to
say, was as a corander seed, and the color thereof is the
color of Bedellion. And the people went about and
gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar,
baked it in pans, made cakes of it, and the taste of it was
as the taste of oil. And when the dew fell upon the
camp in the night, the manna fell upon it every day. Day by
day the manna fell upon these people from the Lord. And they
said, we loathe this light bread. And Moses heard the people weep
throughout their families. Every man in the door of his
tent, and the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly. Moses also
was displeased. Now as the story goes on here,
we see that God says, okay, I'm going to give you what you want.
You want flesh to eat? I'm going to give you flesh to
eat. And he said, when I give you this flesh, my arm's not
short. If I want to give you flesh,
I can give you flesh. And so, you heard the story as
our brother read it. The quails blew in from off the
sea, and God provided them the flesh that they wanted. And he says, I'll give you the
flesh and you shall eat. And you shall not eat one day,
nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty
days. You're going to get your fill
of it, but even a whole month until it runs out your nostrils
when you're eating. You're going to get your belly
full of flesh. That's what you want? You're
not satisfied with my provision? You're not satisfied with what
I've given you? You're not satisfied with the
bread of life that I've shown you and given you? You're not
satisfied with that which will sustain you? Then I'll give you
flesh to eat. Well, you know how the story
went. And while the flesh was yet between
their teeth, in verse 33. Ere it was chewed, the wrath
of the Lord was kindled against the people, because they had
despised the Lord and the manna which God had provided for them.
Now in order that we might see, you say, I still can't get the
picture of how, why this was such an awful sin. Well, turn
with me to John chapter 6. John chapter 6, and I'll show
you here why this was such an awful, awful sin. Now beloved,
we have a lot of people who do not understand the person of
Christ, the work of Christ, and the work of Christ, the deliverance
of the Lord Jesus Christ of His people. But here in this 6th
chapter of John, The scripture says in verse 30,
they said therefore unto him, what sign showest thou then that
we may see and believe thee? What dost thou work? Asking the
Lord Jesus Christ, what dost thou work? Our fathers, now in
verse 31, did eat manna in the desert, as it is written, he
gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread
from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
Moses gave you the type of the true bread from heaven, that
type being Christ. For the bread of God is he which
cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. They said unto him, Lord evermore
give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am
the bread of life, and he that cometh to me shall never hunger,
and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. But I said unto
you that you also have seen me, and believe not. Other words,
when they said, Lord evermore give us this bread, they had
no more appetite for the Lord Jesus Christ than those Israelites
had for him in the 11th chapter of the book of Numbers. because
they had no spiritual life. The mixed multitude had no appetite
for the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we look down here in verse
41. The Jews then murmured to him, because he said, I am the
bread which came down from heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus
the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it
then that he saith, I came down from heaven? Jesus therefore
answered and said to them, murmur not among yourselves. No man
can come to me except the Father which has sent me, draw him,
and I will raise him up at the last day. Now in verse 48, Jesus
proclaims this statement. He says it plainly, I am that
bread of life. I am that bread of life. Your
fathers did eat man in the wilderness, they are dead. This is the bread
which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and
not die. I am the living bread which came
down from heaven. If a man eat of this bread, he
shall live forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. And then Jesus goes on to talk
about how that he will give his flesh and his blood, and how
that that is meat indeed and drink indeed. And then in verse 58, this is
that bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers did
eat manna and are dead, he that eateth this bread shall live
forever. But beloved, the lesson that
I want you to get is that you are not ever to think lightly
of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is to have
the preeminence in the heart, the mind, the thoughts of the
Lord's people. And when people get to saying,
I have heard too much, that church makes too much of Jesus Christ.
Those people have gone to seed on Jesus Christ. You are complaining
against God Almighty who sent His Son into the world to be
the bread of life and who is the spiritual strength of our
very lives and souls. You're complaining against God.
And whenever you begin to say, well, I think I want something
else besides Jesus. I want something else. Be careful. Be very, very careful. Because
the multitude, you remember, and the Israelites, the hand
of God came upon them in judgment. And my friend, this is terrible.
But I want you to look with me in the Old Testament again. Turn
back with me, if you will, to Exodus chapter 5. And I think
I can illustrate this a little better here in Exodus 5 using the first
nine verses of this chapter. I want you to highly, highly
value this. The Scripture says, He that honoreth
the Son honoreth the Father. And the Son is to be honored.
He's to be honored. And He's to be preached. He's
to be lifted up. He's to be exalted. And He's
the bread of life, and we're to set Him forth. And we're under
obligation if the world stands a thousand years. Our message
is not one we chose. Our message is one that is set
forth in the book. And we are obligated to preach
the gospel as long as God gives us breath. And we must do so. But here in the fifth chapter
of the book of Exodus, I take you back before the children
of Israel were delivered out of the land of Egypt. And when
Moses and Aaron went in and told Pharaoh, thus saith the Lord
God of Israel, let my people go. Let my people go. Now, beloved, the only freedom
there is, we sung the song, free, free, free. And the only freedom
there is, is in the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, if I make you
free, you're free indeed. If I make you free, you're free
indeed. There is no freedom anywhere
else. It's in Christ. Now when Moses
and Aaron, Moses and Aaron are a type of the gospel preacher. That's what they are. And they
go into Pharaoh and they say, let my people go. Let them go. Let them go. Free my people, God says. And the message of the gospel
preacher is, let my people go. Let them go outside the camp
of bondage. Let them go into freedom. Let them go into peace. Let them
go into rest. Let them be free of their burden.
Let them be free of their guilt. And how can that be? We plead
guilty to preaching an accomplished redemption. We plead guilty to
preaching that the work of redemption is finished. We plead guilty
to preaching that a man, when he's in Christ, that he is at
liberty. And Paul demanded in Galatians
5 on, he said, stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ
has set you free. Let my people go. Now, beloved, Egypt here is a
type of the world's religion. It's a type of the religion of
the world. It's a type of the free will, easy-believe-ism, religion, works religion that
is all around us in the world. This Egypt is a type of that
here. Moses and Aaron are saying, let
my people go. And the religion of the world
says, no, you've got to work and work and work. And there's
so much that you still must do. And Christ is not enough. Christ
is not enough to give you the liberty that God would give you. You must have all of these works,
these various sundry things that they hold people in bondage to. And the king of Egypt said unto
them, Wherefore do you Moses and Aaron let the people from
their works? You mean to tell me what you're
doing here is you're keeping these people from their works.
And gospel preachers are accused of saying that good works are
not necessary. We don't say any such thing as
that. You never heard me say that. But I will tell you this,
that no good work is going to get you into heaven. There is
no such thing as a man being justified by the deeds of the
law. There's no such thing as a man doing so much good that
God's going to usher him into glory when he dies. There's no
such thing as that. And so they said, you let the
people from their works. And people say, well, that preacher,
he, he, well, I had a woman one time, attended this church for
a while, She came to me and she said, well, why don't you just
give us something to do? And I said, lady, the doing's
been done. All the doing's been done. All
the doing and dying has been done. The Lord Jesus Christ has
done the doing and he's done the dying. You're hindering,
you're letting the people from their works. These people need
to be doing something. spiritually doing something that
will... Now, I know there's a gospel
to preach, and I know there's a testimony to give, and I know
there's brethren and sisters in the Lord needs encouragement,
and they need help, and I know that there's many, many things
that the people of God do spontaneously as the Lord's people. I know
they're an active people. I know they are. But when it
comes to this works of religion, My friend, we're against that. We're against it. Let my people
go. Let them go. Let them be free. Let them rest in the Lord. They're accepted in the Beloved.
Accepted in Christ. They're complete in the Lord
Jesus Christ. Leave them be. Let them alone. Why do you keep dragging them
back, trying to drag them back into bondage? Oh, I want to be
somewhere where I can do something. Well, Most of the people that
wants to do something are the kind of people that never done
anything anyway. But I want to show you something
here. And Pharaoh commanded the same
day the taskmasters of the people and their officers saying, you
shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as he had
before let them go and gather straw for themselves. And the
tale of the bricks which they did make hithertofore ye shall
lay upon them, ye shall not diminish aught thereof, for they be idle."
Moses and Aaron have made the people idle. And that's what
people say, you are not doing nothing. I've been accused of
that, saying you're just not doing enough. You've got to do
more. People say that about this church.
The church is idle. Ha! The church is idle. No. You see, this church here believes
that what we could best do is study the rest of our life how
the Lord Jesus Christ set us free. And we're not in bondage
to any man. And we're not in bondage to any
system that's going to keep us shackled that we're going to
be able to be free in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we're going
to rejoice in Him that He's given. We're going to worship the Lord. Now, the chair of Israel wanted
to go, he said, let my people go that they may hold a feast
unto me in the wilderness. Let my people go that they will
go out into the wilderness, and they'll be able, and this word
feast here means a time of festivity. A time of joy. A time of where
they will go out and worship the Lord. Worship Him. Do you know the word worship? Very interesting word. And the
best way I know to illustrate the word worship is that picture,
if you will, an old hound dog. And you're barefooted in the
summertime, as I used to be. as a boy and the old hound would
come up and howl down and just gradually get up close to me
and lick my feet with his tongue. Now that's the best picture of
worship that you can find. The word worship is kiss. Kiss
the son lest he become angry with thee and thou perish from
the way. What we do here, now I hope this don't offend anybody,
but what we're doing here every time we come together, we come
together here to lick the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. We
come to kiss his feet. That's what we do. That's what
we do. You're making too much of Jesus.
No, huh-uh, honey. No, huh-uh. Can't make too much
of Jesus. We worship Him. He's the Son
of God. He's the Son of the Living God.
And we worship. We bow before Him. And we worship
the Son of God. Our deliverance is by Him. By Him. And our soul has been
saved by the grace of God. And we rejoice in the victories
we have in the Redeemer, the Son of God. We rejoice in Him.
But they said, you made the people idle. But these people, what
they wanted to do was to be free to worship. And one fellow said that these
feasts, that they would form a circle, join hands, and dance,
and rejoice in joy in the Lord. Great joy in the camp. because
they were worshiping, having festivities, making mirth unto
the Lord. You got anything against that?
I got nothing against worship and about rejoicing in the Lord
and being glad in the Lord. But you made the people idle.
They be idle. Ha! Well, my friend, therefore
they're crying for liberty. because they're idle. You made
them idle. Let us go and sacrifice to your
God, to our God. Let there be more work be laid
upon the men, that they may labor therein, and let not them regard
vain words. In other words, win them, wet
them, and work them. Give them more to do, so that
they won't notice that they're not really hearing the message
of full deliverance in the Lord Jesus Christ. That they're not
hearing about an accomplished redemption, a finished work,
keeping busy, getting more to do. Let them not regard vain
words, empty words. In other words, what Moses was
saying about going out into the wilderness to have a feast unto
the Lord, That's vain words to old Pharaoh. And it's a vain
word to the world's religion. A vain word. Oh, these people
are going to worship? Oh no, we worship. We've got
the buildings and the money, and we keep the people busy.
We just keep them busy. They never know. They never know
anything about the true message of the gospel. And the message
of the gospel is regarded by the religions of this world as
being a vain word. Vain words. Mark it down. Vain words. Why that message
of God's sovereign grace, we know that's vain words. Vain
words. Deliverance in Christ fully,
completely, absolutely free from the low happy condition. Jesus
is bled near his redemption. Vain words. Vain words. Put them back under the law as
quick as you can get them under there. Leave them under there.
They need to be in bondage. They need to be restricted. You've
got to hold them. Something's got to be done. You
can't keep them unless you feed them and take care of them and
give them something to do. You've got to be able to keep
them happy and satisfied. Vain words, brother. Vain words,
they say. But you know the message of the
gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Scripture says it's
the power of God unto salvation. That's the message. And the words
that I speak unto you, they're spirit. And they're life. They're
alive. The message is alive. Paul was
in prison. He said, I'm bound but the word
of God is not bound. The message is a living message.
And we need to keep on preaching it spreading the story of the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and what He did on that cross.
The redeeming work of Christ and His completeness, thoroughness.
And if there's ever any deliverance, it'll come through your believing
that Jesus Christ died in your room instead of in place on the
cross. And it'll not be because you
got mixed up in religion and got something to do. that somebody
give you a little bit of a job that you could perform or that
you could do. Now when I read these things and meditated
upon them and been thinking about them for a while and I just wonder
if we've not reached a place where there's some of our number
that's been with us for a number of years, where that they have
come to the place where that they begin to complain about
the Lord Jesus Christ and about the message they're hearing,
about what they're hearing. Now brethren, I've been around
a long time, and I'll tell you what you hear here in this place
in not vain words. you're hearing the message of
the grace of God in truth and I think that there are some
that have gotten tired and weary listening to the message
and they got an appetite for something else they don't have
an appetite for the sheep's food now brethren in order for you
to be fed in this church One thing, or two, three maybe, is
necessary. Number one, you've got to be
here. And there's some people that's
complained about not being fed here one Sunday out of ten. Now,
I'm the pastor of this church, and I won't always be with you.
But while I'm with you, I'll tell you the truth. I'm not going
to lie to you. You can't expect to be fed if you're here one
Sunday out of ten. And then if you're here two or
three Sundays out of ten, you're not going to get near as much
as you could otherwise. And there was a day when this
church here was planning on building up the highway. Twenty miles up the highway.
And we heard the clamor from in town here people saying, oh
that's too far, it's too far, it's too far away. Well, in the
providence of God, arrangements was made for us to buy this building,
and I believe the Lord was in it. But we have people living
right here in this town, right here in this town, that will
not come to a prayer meeting. Won't come to a prayer meeting,
won't come once in a while, won't come once a month. And they say,
well, we're not being fed. Now, that one thing is then,
let's mark it down, if you're going to be fed by a church,
you've got to be there. You've got to come. You've got
to be in the fellowship of the brethren. There's brethren that
meet here every week. I haven't been able to attend
like I wanted to all this last winter because of illness. But
when I can, I'll be here. I'll be here in the fellowship
as long as God allows me to live. As long as I'm able, I'll be
here. Because that's where you get your food, your spiritual
food. And Christ will be endeared more to you. And I know if you
live out of town and you work in town and you have to go home,
I realize all that. And I know if you live a long
ways away, which some of you do, some of us do, and it's very
difficult to get back in, especially in the winter months. And it's
just difficult to do. But nevertheless, I don't think
what I'm trying to say is away with the complaining, away with
the murmuring about what people are hearing. They're hearing
the gospel here. The Word of the Lord is being
set forth. And I make absolutely no apologies,
and this church doesn't make any apology, whatever, for the
messages that have been brought here They have been outstanding. People are gospel hardened. If
you were to go around the country and listen to what some people
listen to every week, my friend, you'd be saying, well, hey, we've
got another Spurgeon on our hands in Aaron Dixon. We've got somebody
who is one of the true and precious servants of the Lord coming up
right in our midst. God has blessed this church and
yet we have murmuring in the camp, complaining in the camp. All we got is just this preaching
about divine sovereignty and election and redemption, and
that's all we got. We haven't been told what we
can do, and we want to do more, and all this. That's a bunch
of foolishness. You don't want to do anything
more than you're doing. If you did, you would. Get up
and do it. I've heard people complain, didn't
have anything for the young people, but then they wasn't doing anything
for the young people either. Why didn't they do something
for the young people? Why didn't they start something? Why didn't
they begin to work with the young people? Ah, my friend, you can
sit back and complain all you want to, but the truth will come
out one of these days. And the truth is, people just
don't like the true bread that came down from heaven. They don't
like to hear about it. These are vain words to them.
They're empty words as far as they're concerned. I believe there's a new day coming
for this church. I believe that through the years,
if the gospel is continued to be preached here, and it will
be, I believe that with all my heart. I'm convinced it will
be. I believe there's a new day coming.
I believe that God will raise up, continue to raise up His
sheep and His people to hear the Word. And God's going to
save some more souls around here. And we got people complaining,
we had people who had complained about the message that saved
their own children. God saved their own children
under the sound of that message in this church and then they
complain now about the message. My, my, my. How far down have
we went? Well, we've gone a long ways
down. And may God revive the hearts of this people. And we're not going anywhere,
are we? Amen? Amen. We're going to continue
by the grace of God and preach the gospel. Preach His word and
say, let my people go. Always let them go. Let them go. Our message is to
God's people, stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ set
you free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Freedom is in Christ. That's where it is. And that's
the only message that's going to be believed and heard that's
going to do anything, affect anybody, save anybody. That's
the only message. Don't, please don't, I'm an old
man and don't have a falling out with me over what I said
this morning. I am an old father and I have a word to leave with
you and I leave it with you. Don't be found in that bunch
that's complaining about the manna from heaven. Say, oh, no,
no, we're not complaining about that. Well, now they could have
talked till they were blue in the face telling Moses that that
wasn't what they... Oh, we didn't know the significance.
No, you may not know the significance of a lot of things, but you better
hold fast and worship Christ. Ask yourself, have I kissed these
feet lately? Have I kissed his feet? Do I
love him? Do I love him enough to worship? That's what all this is about.
Are we worshiping? Are we worshiping? Father, we
ask that you be pleased to take these few stammered remarks and
that you will use them for your glory this morning. And there
might be some precious soul here that's got a breath of life saying,
well, there must be freedom in Christ. And so, Father, may they
look to him for it. I pray that they will. And Lord,
we do pray that you'll encourage all the sheep, that you'll bless
them, and give this church strength, every member, the strength, Lord,
to do what they need to do, what they must do, what they ought
to do. And we just pray that each one
of us will be better fitted to worship at your feet. Forgive
our shortcomings, our frailties, Forgive us, Lord, of our weaknesses
and of any failings of our hearts and lives. Forgive us, we pray
in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen.