Lessons from Numbers: the danger of rebellion (part 1)

Numbers 11 opens with a sobering verse: 'And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp.' We don't tend to see complaining as a serious sin; certainly not one that would cause fire from God to consume us. But then Ananias and Sapphira didn't see their concealment of the full amount of money they received from selling some land as a terrible sin; yet they were struck dead for lying to the Holy Spirit. (see Acts 5) As the writer of Hebrews reminds us 'Our God is a consuming fire'. (Heb 12:29) If we have lost the sense that God is "dangerous" in that He is unpredictable, holy, awesome and righteous in judgement, then we've lost sight of who God really is.

In this instance, as with many other similar examples in Numbers, Moses intercedes by praying for the people, and the fire dies down. But by verse 4 of the same chapter, the people are complaining again: “Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.” (v4-6) It's almost comical. The minute detail of longing for cucumbers, melons and leeks just shows our human tendency to hanker after the 'good old days' when the reality was far from rosy. Yes, you may have had greater variety in your diet, but in Egypt YOU WERE SLAVES!!! You had to work ridiculous hours in back-breaking manual labour for a cruel Pharaoh who threw your babies into the Nile. It is scary how the grim reality has been forgotten; with a 'grass is greener' mindset, all the people can remember is that the food was better. And so often we can do this too. We can miss what God is doing in our lives now, what amazing plans He has for our future, because we're experiencing hardship and difficulty, and we look back to the past and feel a sense of nostalgia or even a jealous longing to be back there. Perhaps it was an old job or an old relationship. We can kid ourselves that this time was where life was really good, life was really going well, and if we got that old job or old relationship back, then the good times would return too. The problem with this mentality is that it doesn't accept God's right to bring us into times of suffering and difficulty, and the fact that this is good for our soul. If we want to genuinely follow Jesus, we can't go through life seeking good times and avoiding pain at all costs. That isn't the path of the cross.

The Israelites' comment 'there is nothing at all but this manna to look at' makes me feel cold inside. This is just so shockingly insulting to God. They were there in the desert, in the wilderness, and He had miraculously provided food for them through this manna appearing every morning for them to collect. And now in their tone they are dismissing it as just some everyday food-stuff that they're getting pretty fed up with, thank you very much. Can't you vary the menu a bit God?

This makes me feel cold because I know I do it too! My life is just stuffed full of blessings, yet so often I take them for granted and sometimes even reject what God has given me. Perhaps I could rephrase the complaint to 'there is nothing at all but this dirty laundry to look at' for the times when I'm resentful of my domestic duties. Or 'there is nothing at all but this demanding child', or 'this endless workload'... The list goes on. The point is, God has put me where I am right now for a reason, and I need to live each day not longing for a different season, but making the most of this moment and this time.

I'm also really bad at the 'if only' vein of thinking. If only I had made this choice instead of that one, then right now I would be... But would it really be any better? Probably not. It's my mindset that's going to determine whether I am content or not, not my circumstances. (see Philippians 4:12)

In this chapter, God gives the people what they want: meat through the quail that settle above the camp. But He also brings devastating judgment through the plague that hits them as they bite into it. It's a terrifying picture which makes me question, 'how far are you willing to go to get what you want when it's against God's will?' You can see in some people's lives today that they have abandoned God's ways to make choices that are clearly against His Word, and they seem to be enjoying themselves. But the day will come when, if they don't repent, God's judgement will come upon them. Rebellion is always judged; perhaps not always with the immediacy that is often the case in the book of Numbers, but you can know that it is always futile to fight God.