Over the many years in the church I have heard a number of sermons comparing our tests and trials to those of Ancient Israel. Although they lived so many centuries before Jesus Christ gave His Sermon on the Mount, we can see much of God’s plan in the pages of the Old Testament. In part one of “Ten Times Too Many”, we saw our connection to the exodus in that God used their journey out of Egypt to compare it to coming out of sin and overcoming this world. We saw that even though they did not live under the New Covenant, God is Eternal and that what He taught then has value for us today.

We read numbers 14:22-23 where it says. Numbers 14:22-23 22 "because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice, 23 "they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it. We looked at the fact that they crossed a line with God that disqualified them from entering the Promised Land. We looked at some of the many examples in the bible where the Exodus was used to teach lesson after lesson to future generations. If they crossed a line with these 10 times that they tested God, are there lessons we can learn from to prevent an even greater disqualification in our own lives?

We don’t want history to repeat itself as it so often does and so we began this process of evaluating the sins of Israel and look to the spiritual lessons we can glean from them. Now the obvious point we want to understand here is that there is a difference between the Old Covenant and the New. Turn to Deuteronomy 29. Now this book is a summary of the lessons they have learned and was given to the children of Israel at the end of the 40 years wandering. Moses was summing up where they have been and telling them where they are going to. In Chapter 28 we have a very long chapter where God starts off telling them in great detail how He will bless them. But then the tone changed. Then came the warning and the description of what would happen to them if they turned away from God. This went into even greater detail of every curse they would endure. It went on and on and on.

The level of detail was hard to read, even talking about how they would resort to cannibalism between a mother and her children. Then you get to Chapter 29 and it all makes sense. Deuteronomy 29:1-4 NKJ These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He made with them in Horeb. 2 Now Moses called all Israel and said to them: "You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land -- 3 "the great trials which your eyes have seen, the signs, and those great wonders. 4 "Yet the LORD has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear, to this very day.

Let’s continue on to chapter 30. Last time we read verses 1-3 where they were told if they strayed from God but then repent, then afterward, He would gather them back to Him again and restore them as a people. What comes next again tells us that they are missing a vital element for success. It’s a prophecy for their people when they will one day have the Holy Spirit and will be able to truly understand what God has called them to be. Deuteronomy 30:5-6 5 "Then the LORD your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. 6 "And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. Here is a prophecy of the New Covenant.

We often read Jerimiah 31:31 where he prophecies about a new covenant. Here we see, hundreds of years before the time of Jerimiah, before they even enter the promised land, that God is telling them that the requirement of circumcision to designate His people will be applied in the spiritual sense of circumcision of the heart. Hold your places here and turn to Col. 2. Here Paul is talking to the church there about the spiritual warfare they are undergoing with so many in and out of the faith about what they need to be complete in this life. Colossians 2:9-12 9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. 11 In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

This is what was God was talking about when Moses recorded His words in Deuteronomy 30. This would have to happen if mankind was to have any chance at being reconciled with God. The Old covenant was to show how difficult it is to live sin free in this lifetime. Christ succeeded yes, but who else? In fact, if you read the next chapter of Deuteronomy you will see the warning was turned into a prophecy. Turn back to Deuteronomy and turn to chapter 31. Here God tells Moses to call Joshua and inaugurate him a leader over Israel. God told Moses it was time for him to die and Joshua to take over. Then he tells them both in verses 15-17 of Chapter 31: Deuteronomy 31:15-19 15 Now the LORD appeared at the tabernacle in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood above the door of the tabernacle. 16 And the LORD said to Moses: "Behold, you will rest with your fathers; and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them. 17 "Then My anger shall be aroused against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide My face from them, and they shall be devoured. And many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, 'Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?'

So let’s keep this in mind as we continue on with the failings of Ancient Israel. We can’t judge them too harshly but rather we should look to them with great interest because we can learn the lessons they failed. Last time we covered the first 3 of ten sins that kept Israel out of the Promised Land. The first was they blamed Moses for taking them out of Egypt. They said they would rather stay in Egypt than risk their future in the wilderness. It would be like us telling God that we were better off before He called us. The second and third sins involved water. We talked about how God made us to need water for daily survival. He built lessons into the fact that without water we would die. He likens eternal life to having a fountain of water within us so that we would never thirst again. We need God and without him we will shrivel up and wither away. He is the One who heals us from our sicknesses and sustains our lives.

Our thirst is to remind us how much we need Him. Turn to Exodus. Last time we left of in chapter 17. Today we will go back to chapter 16 and pickup out 4th and 5th sins. 4Th Sin – Complaint about how God took care of them They did not trust that God would look after them. Every time they were in need, instead of turning their hearts to God for deliverance they turned to Moses and Aaron and blamed them for their problems. God uses food and water as daily reminders that he delivers them. Last time I stated how appropriate it was to call the area the wilderness of sin. But afterward someone suggested that the proper way to pronounce this world is similar to the way Sinai is and so it would be the wilderness of “SINE”. And so I looked it up and sure enough, both had the same pronunciation except I learned I don’t say the name of the mountain correctly. The proper way to pronounce this is “SeeNi”, and the wilderness they were in was the wilderness of “Seen” So let’s read chapter 16 and starting in verse 1.

Exodus 16:1 NKJ And they journeyed from (ay-leem') Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the Wilderness of (SEEN) Sin, which is between (Eleem) Elim and (Seeni) Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. So they are just one month out of Egypt and just a week or so since God taught them the lesson of the bitter water when He told them that the waters being made sweet was to remind them that God is the one who heals them. Now just a few days later they are hungry and their memory seems to laps. Continuing to verse 2 Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 And the children of Israel said to them, "Oh, that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."

So again they blame Moses and Aaron about not having enough to eat rather than ask them if there is something they have done wrong. That’s a human tendency to find someone to blame for hardship. Adam tells God it was the woman that God gave him that caused him to sin. Aaron said that he threw the gold in the pot and the golden calf just jumped out. We try to avoid blame every chance we get. It was God who brought them to a place with no food because He was going to teach them another very valuable lesson. We need food/shelter/clothing and God knows that better than anyone.

Jesus Taught in Luke 12: Luke 12:22-31 22 Then He said to His disciples, "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; nor about the body, what you will put on. 23 "Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. 24 "Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap, which have neither storehouse nor barn; and God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds? 25 "And which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 26 "If you then are not able to do the least, why are you anxious for the rest? 27 "Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 "If then God so clothes the grass, which today is in the field and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith? 29 "And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. 30 "For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. 31 "But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you.

So we need to learn this lesson and be thoughtful of all the blessings that God gives us every day. It is easy to focus on what we don’t have; most of the time people look for what they want and not what they have. If you ever watch one of those shows where a guy goes off in the wilderness and try to survive you notice that the host always focuses his attention on what resources he has. He doesn’t spend time worrying about what he doesn’t have. Trying to be thankful for what we have and remembering that God meets our needs is quite a bit harder. Remember when they complained to Moses and Aaron they said they lacked two things. They said in Exodus 16:3 “when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full!” So down the page a little we see that God addresses both of these. Exodus 16:12 12 "I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel.

Speak to them, saying, 'At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. And you shall know that I am the LORD your God.' " 13 So it was that quails came up at evening and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay all around the camp. 14 And when the layer of dew lifted, there, on the surface of the wilderness, was a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 5th Sin – Profaning the Sabbath So God gives them the meat and bread that wanted but upon giving them this bread God chooses this as the perfect time to teach them about the Sabbath. He begins by telling them the quail will come into the camp that night but then the next day will start a ritual that they will rehearse day after day for 40 years. Exodus 16:4-6 4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not.

God tells them to gather only as much as what they could eat that day and if they try to save any to the next day it would spoil. He wanted them to gather every day what they needed that day. 5 "And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily." 6 Then Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, "At evening you shall know that the LORD has brought you out of the land of Egypt. 7 "And in the morning you shall see the glory of the LORD; for He hears your complaints against the LORD. But what are we, that you complain against us?" 8 Also Moses said, "This shall be seen when the LORD gives you meat to eat in the evening, and in the morning bread to the full; for the LORD hears your complaints which you make against Him. And what are we? Your complaints are not against us but against the LORD." 9 Then Moses spoke to Aaron, "Say to all the congregation of the children of Israel, 'Come near before the LORD, for He has heard your complaints.' " So Moses is still trying to teach them that it is God that is leading them and not him. He then sent quail that evening and they had meat to eat and then bread the next morning. It was a tremendous miracle.

If you search your bible for the word Sabbath you will first see in right here in Chapter 16 of Exodus. Remember that the 10 Commandments that have the Sabbath as number 4 will not be given until Chapter 20 when Moses goes up the mountain. This is before the covenant that God’s makes with them. The Sabbath existed long before they ever left Egypt and God is now teaching them how to observe it. It’s also important to remember that all the time that they were in Egypt and the weeks since then that God did not teach them about the Sabbath. He did not punish them for breaking what they did not yet understand.

Exodus 16:21-26 21 So they gathered it every morning, every man according to his need. And when the sun became hot, it melted. 22 And so it was, on the sixth day, that they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. 23 Then he said to them, "This is what the LORD has said: 'Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil; and lay up for yourselves all that remains, to be kept until morning.' " 24 So they laid it up till morning, as Moses commanded; and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. 25 Then Moses said, "Eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. 26 "Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, there will be none." The purpose for these regulations was to teach them what the Sabbath was and what it was not. This was a perfect vehicle to teach them and they learned by doing.

But some also profaned the very Sabbath that God had just taught them about. Exodus 16:27-28 27 Now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found none. 28 And the LORD said to Moses, "How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws? The Sabbath was a commandment and a law before the Seeni Covenant. If you ever get a chance to talk to someone about your beliefs and the subject of the Sabbath comes up there is generally a misunderstanding about the meaning and purpose for this very special holy day. When you ask someone from one of the world’s Christian churches what the Sabbath means you will get different answers depending on the level of biblical understanding they have. Christians today are happy with going to church on Sunday and would argue, “What difference does it make what day you worship on?”

This question results from a basic ignorance on the purpose of the Sabbath. What is the Sabbath? We might list a day of rest, a day of worship and a day to learn about God. And if this is the whole purpose of the Sabbath then you could reasonably make the argument that it really doesn’t matter what day you do these things. The real purpose of the Sabbath is lost among the people of the world’s churches. While most people know that God rested from the creation week on the 7th day, they don’t know much about it other than that. Some scholars will tell you that the Sabbath as we read it in the Old Testament was simply a relic of the Old Covenant that no longer has a place in the life of a modern Christian. If you had to teach someone what the Sabbath was where would you start?

Exodus 16:26 26 "Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, there will be none." Notice what it does not say. It does not say tomorrow you will go to church. This is the first mention of how to keep the Sabbath and what God chose to emphasize is the concept of Rest. He ties it to food because it is a daily way to reinforce the concept of resting from your labor. We see too that they had to learn this lesson the hard way. 27 Now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found none. 28 And the LORD said to Moses, "How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My laws? 29 "See! For the LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore He gives you on the sixth day bread for two days. Let every man remain in his place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day." Now worshiping God is a wonderfully appropriate way to spend a Sabbath but we have to remember the Sabbath has a purpose. Remember that Jesus said that the Sabbath was created for man and not man for the Sabbath.

Therefore the purpose of the Sabbath is to help man. When I was growing up I used to look at these 24 hours as the time that I could not do this and could not do that. What I was missing is what the Sabbath’s purpose was. The Sabbath is for Rest, the Sabbath is for focus, the Sabbath is for celebration. What I didn’t understand growing up was that the Sabbath is a Feast Day. God wants us to celebrate. He wants His family to come together and rest from a weary world. For Israel, coming out of Egypt meant a lot of relearning what life is really all about. They had to start basic and then build upon that. At this point they learned the theme of the Sabbath and that is rest.

Turn to Hebrews 4: When you read the 4th chapter you see that Ancient Israel is the context. We will also see that Hebrews 4 ties three things together that we don’t want to miss. Hebrews 4:3-9 3 For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: "So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest,' " although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all His works"; 5 and again in this place: "They shall not enter My rest." 6 Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, So we link the 7th day rest of God to the rest that was denied the Children of the Exodus because of disobedience.

Then we see that rest was the plan from the foundations of the Earth. God created the earth and all of mankind so He could give them rest. At what is this rest? 7 again He designates a certain day, saying in David, "Today," after such a long time, as it has been said: "Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts." 8 For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day. 9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. So a certain day was ordained by God for a special purpose. The reason it is at the end of the week and not the first day of the next week is because the Sabbath represents the end of our physical toil on this earth; a rest from this weary world that comes at the end. The Sabbath day was set apart to teach His creation about another day that is coming to give them rest from this physical life. The last word for rest in verse 9 is Sabbatismos and only appears this one time in the whole bible.

The Sabbath is a gift from God. If it is a burden then you are doing it wrong. Rest, by its very definition is not a burden but a break from burden. Israel did not enter this rest and died in the flesh. We have been called to enter that rest and the Sabbath is a weekly reminder of this precious gift. The world does not understand this gift but we don’t want to forget it, lose focus, and miss the point of this day. 6th Sin – Rejecting the Bread of life Now the people have had time to learn that God takes care of them. The Quail they got that one time but the bread was the main staple of life and they got that every day. It was what kept them alive every day. It was truly the bread of their very lives. But instead of being grateful they were bitter.

Numbers 11:1-6 NKJ Now when the people complained, it displeased the LORD; for the LORD heard it, and His anger was aroused. So the fire of the LORD burned among them, and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp. 2 Then the people cried out to Moses, and when Moses prayed to the LORD, the fire was quenched. 3 So he called the name of the place Taberah, because the fire of the LORD had burned among them. 4 Now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving; so the children of Israel also wept again and said: "Who will give us meat to eat? 5 "We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; 6 "but now our whole being is dried up; there is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes!" The bread they ate was not just food. It was special. Like nothing they ever ate before.

Psalm 78:23-25 23 Yet He had commanded the clouds above, And opened the doors of heaven, 24 Had rained down manna on them to eat, And given them of the bread of heaven. 25 Men ate angels' food; He sent them food to the full. The 6th Sin was rejecting the “Bread of Life”. I gave it this title because of its great symbolism in God’s plan. As we approach Passover we know we will read the words of our Lord where he says in: Luke 22:19 19 And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me." Later in John Jesus compared this bread to the manna they ate John 6:32-40 32 Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 "For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." 34 Then they said to Him, "Lord, give us this bread always." 35 And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. When they rejected the Manna from heaven they rejected God. Here we see this linked during the Passover service concerning the bread and the needs we have for hunger and thirst. The Children of the Exodus always had their hunger and thirst. It never left them.

Even when God gave them bread to the full they hungered for something else. God gave them quail to eat like he did before, but because they rejected the Bread of Life, they were given a great plague. Numbers 11:33-34 33 But while the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was aroused against the people, and the LORD struck the people with a very great plague. 34 So he called the name of that place Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had yielded to craving. Brethren, we need to beware that we don’t hunger for what God has not given us. He gives us what we need and for that He deserves our gratitude and faith that He will always give us our needs. We need to have confidence that Israel was not able to have. In part three we will conclude the 10 sins that disqualified so many from entering the Promised Land.