Numbers 11:33-34 – Learning Contentment and Spiritual Strength from…

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Numbers 11:33-34

(33) And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague. (34) And he called the name of that place Kibrothhattaavah: because there they buried the people that lusted.
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The first lesson is that human nature is fickle. When it begins to get an upper hand, it points to our lack of faithand understanding. God knew that the Israelites needed privation to prepare them to take over the Promised Land. He knew they needed to go through periods of time when they thought that the pressure was too hot, that God had denied them access to something they really desired. It is an interesting comparison to us to remember that they came out of slavery. How much privation do we who are living, relatively, in the lap of luxury need before entering God’s Kingdom?

In Philippians 4:11-13, Paul says he had learned to be content. Contentment is not something that comes naturally. He says there were times he was abased and times he abounded, but he found that he could count on Christ to supply all his needs.

The second lesson is that in rejecting the manna, the Israelites were rejecting the major source of their strength. They, of course, did not look at it this way: They said their life was dried up. However, we have the New Testament understanding of it. In John 6:33, Jesus says that He is the true manna which came down from heaven. If we connect this to Matthew 4:4, “Man shall live by every word of God,” and John 1:1, 14, that Jesus is the Word, we find that typically, symbolically, they were rejecting the major source of their strength—God’s Word.

Unfortunately some of us are spiritually malnourished. We are really on a starvation diet, spiritually, and yet we need the word of God because it is the primary food from which we get our spiritual strength.

We need to ask ourselves, what are our study habits like? Do we have intense cravings to go back to the world in terms of television or movies or novels? These are things that feed the mind, not the stomach. What is feeding our minds? Is it nothing? If so, our minds are wide open for God’s Word—or for anything else.

Israel’s physical taste buds were perverted. Spiritually, we should be concerned about this because we have come out of a world that has a terrible ability to pervert our spiritual taste buds. There are all kinds of sights, sounds, colors, amusements, and entertainments that are very stimulating. They may not be evil of and by themselves, but like any spice, they need to be controlled, or they will take over the whole dish. Unless our lives are just delicately flavored with those things, we might be in spiritual trouble.

— John W. Ritenbaugh

To learn more, see:
Passover and I Corinthians 10