24th June 2024

24th June 2024


Pray (ACts)


Read (Exodus 16:1-36 focus v1-12)


Message (Alan Burke) 


Have you ever heard of the term hangry? Some of you no doubt will have while others of you may be scratching your head. Hungry is a term that is used to describe when someone is irritable or angry because they have not ate. Maybe you’re one of the kind of people that can last for hours without food or maybe you’re a grazer either way we know from our own experience that we can all get hangry and there are some people in our lives that we know we need that as meal times approach they need to be fed. Today we pick up and the people have God have left Elim where they had a foretaste of what the Lord had ahead of them and they have now gone a little further and they come to the desert of sin. It’s not that it was aptly named because of the sin of the people for it actually has nothing to do with the English word sin rather the desert of sin is called that because it is in the region of Sinai.


Look what they accuse Moses and Aaron off, why they are grumbling, it comes in verse 3, 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Bitter slavery is what they experienced in Egypt, they cried out to the Lord and they have forgotten that. They long for the pots of meat that they ate, all the food they wanted. Now I can’t imagine that things were that good in Egypt, I doubt their meat pots were filled with all that they could eat, but they are looking back longingly, it would be better in their mind to have died in Egypt. Do we hear just how tragic this is, they are telling Moses and Aaron we’d be better off dead than here or as slaves in Egypt. They were saying that they wished they had never been saved by the Lord.


They had it hard didn’t they? It was so tough for the Israelites in the wilderness, no food, the poor Israelites were starving, it’s not like they left with nothing to eat. Look back to chapter 12:38, do you see what we are told there, not that there was a mixed multitude that went with them but also, do see that, as well as large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds. They had plenty to eat, fried eggs were on the menu, they could make cheese with the milk, they could even have a big BBQ in the wilderness, they could have been filled. 


Their issue was a lack of trust in the Lord. Whenever we grumble as believers, when we complain, we are basically saying God you haven’t done enough for me, what you have given me doesn’t live up to what I expect of you. Our grumbling and complaining can complain about our spouse, our kids, the job that you have, could be any number of things, that show we aren’t content with our lot. Sadly when we are not content, ever grumbling we are showing the condition of our hearts, they are known to the Lord but we are revealing our hearts to others by our attitude. What we need to do is to look to what the Lord has done for us through his Son, the salvation that he has brought us, why are we grumbling when this for us will be the only hell we ever experience and we have something so much better that awaits us where we will dwell with our Lord for all eternity.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q 73. Which is the eighth commandment?
A. The eighth commandment is, Thou shalt not steal.
​