Chapter 11

It’s probably several weeks between chapter 10 and chapter 11.

At least I HOPE it’s several weeks. Because if it’s right afterwards, then the people of Israel look even worse than they do right now!

Verse 1 – “The people fell to grumbling about their hard life. God heard.”

God demonstrated that He was not to be trifled with, and fire burned around the outside of the Camp. Moses intervened for them, and God’s fire died down.

But this was only the beginning of the problems.

Now, let’s get a bit of context here: The people of Israel are fresh out of chains. With the exception of Moses, a few of his family and the occasional Egyptian who traveled with them (of which there actually were a number), they’d been slaves all their lives.

Freedom is good, but it’s scary if you’ve never been free before. And once the people knew that they received both the good side of freedom (being allowed to go where you want and do what you want) and the BAD side of freedom (nobody takes responsibility for you), they started to moan.

As often happens, the issue that actually started the real trouble was a minor issue, and sometimes people wonder if God was just being petty. He wasn’t.

The problems started with a couple of malcontents who were sick of being miraculously fed with Manna every day (think about that for a bit) and wanted some meat. Ever since I saw the second “Lord of the Rings” movie, I’ve had THIS image in my head . . .

*ahem* ANYWAY. . .

Note that the issue wasn’t meat. It was that people wanted to raise trouble. If they’d been given three course meals every evening, they’d have complained about something else (or even found something to gripe about in the food!). And God knew this, and the issue had to be dealt with, or else there would have been fractures amongst God’s people.

God’s method is interesting:

1) He deals with the ostensible problem miraculously. “You want meat? Fine. Have meat. Have so much meat that you’ll have it coming out of your ears”(v18).

2) He recognizes the REAL problem, the malcontents – and deals with them via a plague (v34).

3) He recognizes the REAL problem behind the REAL problem – that Moses is an overworked control freak, and once again needs to be made to delegate his authority to others (v16).

In other words, God doesn’t just go for a band-aid solution. He provides REAL CHANGE in the community to help prevent future outbreaks of grumbling (note that I say “HELP prevent” – plenty more grumbling is going to happen over the ensuing forty years!).

A nice little coda to all this – Joshua notes that two of the leaders God selected hadn’t turned up at the meeting, then notes that the power of the Holy Spirit comes on them also, and they start to prophesy. He gets indignant, and at the heart of his indignance is a tendency to think “Law” instead of “Grace”.

Joshua, mate, I come from a conservative church background. I hear you. I get it.

It’s interesting to look at what has happened to the Israelites. In the last few months they have:

• Been miraculously delivered from Egypt via SEVEN PLAGUES (each one targeting a particular feature of the local religion!).
  
• Walked through the Red Sea on dry land.
  
• Received God’s own laws, carved into stone!
  
• Had God Himself, in the form of a pillar of cloud or fire, lead them personally through the desert.
  Heard the promise of a rich and pleasant destination.
  
• Eaten food provided by God Himself!

And yet, after all this, they grumble. They’re not happy. They want more. They have the HIDE, the EFFRONTERY, to demand that God give them a variation to the diet!

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably condemning them in your mind right about now – “If I had God leading me personally through the desert, I wouldn’t grumble!”

Sadly, though, we do the same thing. Think about it – if you’re reading this, you must have a computer – so you’re in the top 1% of the world’s wealthy, right away! God has richly, and I mean RICHLY blessed us. Odds are that we’ll never wonder where the next meal is coming from, and that we’ll never be cold in winter because we couldn’t afford clothes. Most of us, for our entire lives, will sleep indoors (unless you have the regrettable habit of enjoying camping). We will walk into shops for the rest of our lives, and find them stocked from floor to ceiling with whatever foodstuffs our hearts could desire. We’ll generally be able to open the wallet, take out cash or cards and buy pretty much whatever we want.

How much blessing is that? And yet we wonder if God is listening, wish He’d show Himself to us, want Him to help more.

Want more? He died for us! How much more can He give?

And yet when we pray, audacious though it may be to ask Him for more, He delights in answering our prayers.It’s time we realized just how close to these people we really are. Face it, it could have been any of us grumbling about how we didn’t get the menu we wanted.