Lessons From Israel's Failures

Thursday night began our annual outline of walking through the plan of salvation that God has for us. And we have a lot of meaning as we get now the Days of Unleavened Bread that we should focus on. But mainly, this is a season of optimism, of hope, of encouragement, of comfort, of joy, of rejoicing.

Let's turn back to Exodus 12 and look at some of the instructions given at that Passover in Egypt. Exodus 12. And let's just read three verses here, beginning in verse 15. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leavened from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day there shall be a holy convocation. And on the seventh day there shall be a holy convocation for you. No matter of work shall be done on them, but that which everyone must eat, that only may be prepared by you.

So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day I will have brought your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance. Let's also look at chapter 13 and read verses 6 and 7. So Exodus 13 verse 6, Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord. Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days, and no leavened bread shall be seen among you, nor shall leaven be seen among you in all your quarters. So God commands seven days, put the leaven out.

And with this group of people, we have quite a bit that is recorded. In the book of Exodus, we also can go to the book of Numbers and we can check and see, well, how did it go for them the second year when the Passover rolled back around again. But we know so much of the story. Even though it was to be a time of freedom, of following God, of rejoicing, they fell on their faces many, many times.

They made many mistakes. And, of course, the New Testament tells us that their story is written so that we can learn from them. I want to spend some time with you looking at some of the failures of ancient Israel.

Not to speak ill of them. It's an insight into human nature. It's an insight into ourselves. Because, like with anything, the dates change circumstances, and too many times the same old story can be written only it's got our name in there. So casting stones is not a good practice to partake of. But ancient Israel, the story, the events leading up to this point, and then as they actually are leaving, it's Deuteronomy 16, verse 1, that says they left by night with a high hand. And they actually began leaving.

The day portion of the 14th, they plundered the Egyptians, and then that night they began moving. And one miracle after another took place. But one miracle after another had already taken place. They had seen God pour out plague after plague upon the major world power of that day. And at the end of 10 plagues, as it was completed, you had Egypt laid waste. They had just destroyed. And you finally had the Egyptians and Pharaoh for a little while saying, Go! Get out of here! And so the Egyptians gave them all this wealth.

So here the Israelites at this time, along with the mixed multitude that went with them, they were welcome. They were free. They were suddenly wealthy. But they also were moving fast with everything they could carry or drive or pull. They were going. Probably didn't know where they were going. They were just going out. Probably happy to have no more taskmaster. No more Pharaoh who was in a position of saying, Well, same quota, but you've got to go get your own straw for yourself. Or same quota of bricks. Only we're not going to give you any straw.

No one who would serve as a harsh taskmaster doing whatever was done to them if they weren't moving fast enough. But as we look at their lives and their story, they leave, they're moving, and time after time they failed. And it's written so we can learn. So I simply call this sermon, Lessons from Israel's Failures. Lessons from Israel's Failures. Because these chapters from which we have read, events lead us to Sinai, the entering of the covenant, and then in Numbers we get to the story where it's the second year and it comes of the Passover again, and with the events of what happened then it led to a 30, a 40-year downward spiral because of the sin of unbelief.

And they were right there across from the Promised Land, and they fell on their faces once again. Again, let us beware lest the same story is written of us somewhere down the line. Chapter 14. We'll just notice a few, quite a few places, first of all, to get the story flow refreshed in our minds, and then we'll go to some of the lessons. Move a little more quickly then. Exodus 14, verse 10, and the children of Israel cried out to the Eternal. They said to Moses, because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness?

Why have you so dealt with us to bring us up out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we were told, or we told you in Egypt, saying, Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness. Well, then those beautiful words of Moses, as God inspired him to say, Do not be afraid. Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today.

For the Egyptians, whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever, for the Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace. Well, we know immediately here Pharaoh changed his mind, rallied the army and the chariots, and took off after the Israelites that were leaving. And we look at the fabric of Israel, and there are cracks in the facade.

There are some major ruts in the road they're about to stumble over. And they don't get far, and we see they've got some attitudes. They're free, but they're very quick to murmur against God. They murmur against Moses, but in reality, God told Moses, they're not murmuring against you. It's me. It's my rule. They don't like. Chapter 15, this is after crossing the Red Sea and the overthrowing of the army of Egypt. Chapter 15, we have the Song of Moses, but then late in the chapter, verse 22, they have gone, it says here, into the wilderness of Shewir, three days into the wilderness, and found no water. Now, when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter.

Therefore, the name of it was called Marah, the Hebrew word meaning bitter. Remember in the book of Ruth, when Naomi came back to Bethlehem, and she told people, don't call me Naomi, because that word means pleasant. The Lord has dealt unpleasantly with me, call me Marah, which means bitter. God has dealt bitterly with me. But here, then, the story unfolds where God has Moses cut down a tree, cast it in the waters, and it became sweet. So they hadn't gone far. There was no water, and you can understand complaining about that.

But then they came, there was water, but it didn't taste good. But then God fixed that. In chapter 16, verse 2, the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. Verse 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 the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

And so here they complained. They wanted meat. They wanted bread. They wanted food like they had had back in Egypt. And of course, this complaint led to the fact that God said, You want bread? I'm going to reign manna on you, and you're going to learn to love it. And this is the chapter where He really re-instrucks them in the weekly cycle. Six days you're going to find this little white stuff out there. You go gather in the morning before it leaves like dew. You gather what you need that day. Don't try to keep it over.

The next day it'll breed worms and stink. On day six you gather twice as much because you're preparing for the seventh day, the Sabbath. And on day seven there won't be any manna. And as you know the story, somebody has to go out and show me. And God said, How long do you refuse to keep my commandments? So we have that story. Chapter 17, verse 2. They're at Rephidim. There was no water.

Then the people contended with Moses and said, Give us water that we may drink. So Moses said to them, Why do you contend with me? Why do you tempt the Lord? The people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses and said, Why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?

We don't need to read all of these stories, but when they didn't have everything they thought they needed, when life wasn't as easy as they expected, they murmured, they complained. This time again, no water. They stiffened their necks. They dug in their heels. And they had to focus their complaints on somebody, so they looked at Moses and said, You're the reason.

The chapters that follow find Israel being brought to the area of Sinai. And there at the mountain is where they saw the visible presence of God up on the top. And they heard the thundering boom of his voice, and it scared them, so that it didn't take long when they said, Well, Moses, why don't you go talk to him and then come and tell us what he said? And that led to the giving of the commandments, the tablets of stone. Of course, Moses was up on the mountain for a long time. You've got various chapters where you have judgments, you have then a bit later, you have the blueprint for the tabernacle and how to build this and how to build that and what you make it from or what you weave it from. And finally, we're not even going to go there yet because I want to look at some other things. In fact, let's go on to chapter 32. We should have noticed that. Chapter 32, and I'm skipping a lot of the story, but Moses was up on the mountain a long time. And in verse 32, Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said, Come make us gods that shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And the most unbelievable story takes place after that. Aaron caves him to pressure. It's interesting, later when Moses comes back down, Moses and Joshua, who had waited part way up, and they hear Joshua thought it was the sound of warfare. Moses said, No, it's the sound of dancing, revelry. Came down, found the golden calf, destroyed it, broke it into, just pulverized it. Moses said to Aaron, What did the people do to you that you'd get caught up in this? It just strikes my funny bone there. I imagine, did they hang you up by your toenails? What did they do to you? Aaron says, We just took this gold and threw it in the fire, and out came this golden calf. But you see, Israel, it's all they'd ever known. All they had ever known was what they had done in Egypt. And they were going back to their comfort zone, even though God had called them and led them to leave all of that behind, never to go back. They had entered a covenant with God by this point. It was a marriage type covenant between national Israel and the God of the Old Testament. They had agreed to all the precepts, the laws of that agreement. But they wanted to see something that would envision what they had in their mind as God. And that led to the golden calf. And so we see that these weeks later, they're still as puffed up as a Krispy Kreme donut, yes, even if it's made out of foam rubber, as puffed up as a loaf of Roman meal. And they supposedly had left all that behind. But when times didn't go their way, they murmured and they grumbled. Let's go to Numbers 9, because this picks up the story about a year later. Verse 1 says it's the first month of the second year after they had come out of the land of Egypt.

So Numbers 9, verse 2, let the children of Israel keep the Passover at its appointed time on the fourteenth day of this month at twilight. You shall keep it at its appointed time. According to all its rites and ceremonies, you shall keep it. So Moses told the children of Israel that they should keep the Passover. Well, we don't need to keep reading on, but we have now a year later. We actually in this chapter have some who couldn't partake, so there was the allowance made for the fourteenth of the second month ER that they could take the Passover if they missed it the first month. But we can just kind of wonder, were they doing any better yet as they've been out? And the answer is, sadly, no, they weren't. Same old story. Second verse, same as the first. Same old story. Over and over. It's kind of like you probably remember the famous quote of George Santiana. Something real close to this, that the nation that does not learn the lesson of history has faded to repeat it. And so Israel is going to go through some of the same old mistakes. Numbers 11, here we go again. We're going to complain about, we don't have any meat. We just want some meat. We're tired of this manna. Well, they've got 39 more years of manna waiting for them. Numbers 11, verse 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? We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.

Now, I don't want to sound cynical, but as students of human nature, somehow, somehow, a few years earlier, back in Egypt, I can imagine them complaining about what?

Fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.

But then, you know how human nature is, we minimize the negative. We think back to the good old days. We forget about all the hard times. Well, they were tired of manna. They wanted some meat to eat. And, of course, verse 6, but now our whole being is dried up. Well, maybe the head. Maybe the head lost some weight. Who knows what all that includes? There is nothing at all except this manna before our eyes. And it describes the manna. It's like coriander seed.

It's color like the color of the badellium. The people went about and gathered it, ground it on millstones, or beat it in the mortar, cooked it in pans, made cakes of it. And its taste was like the taste of pastry prepared with oil. So they complained. They complained. And it led to plague. And a lot of people lost their lives. Chapter 12, we have a story where Miriam and Aaron got caught up in a movement. And they began pointing their finger at little brother Moses.

Sometimes we forget that. They are the older siblings. And yet God chose Moses. Moses is the one called the man of God, or the servant of God. And they got caught up. It's interesting. It would be nice to know for sure. But Josephus said that his marriage to the Ethiopian woman was, I forget how many decades earlier. Why didn't they make an issue of it back then? But no, now it's an issue. And God didn't say one thing about the fact that Moses was married to an Ethiopian woman. He was concerned about the attitude. It was a spirit of rebellion that came from Aaron and Miriam.

And to their credit, they repented because God used them in a powerful way. And they were spoken of this very highly. It was Aaron and his sons through whom the priesthood was formed within the tribe of Levi. Which chapter 13? We have a story where there are 12 men chosen.

12 spies, one from each tribe, and they are sent to go scout out the land of Canaan. That was the Promised Land. Go and see what it's like, what is there, and come report back to us. And of course, they went and they found, verse 27, Numbers 13, verse 27. They told him and said, We went to the land where you sent us.

It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. And up above it had described bringing the clusters of grapes on a pole, and it had described the figs, the pomegranates. And so here's some of the food. But then they kept going, and they said, But we can't do it!

The people who live there are too big. We don't want to fight them. And they wanted to give up. Ten of them did. Ten of them said, Let's not go! But Caleb, as you go on, verse 30, quieted the people. And as we follow the story, Caleb and Joshua, seemed like Caleb was kind of the dominant one, maybe a little older. Joshua became the dominant one as the way God worked.

He, Caleb, had to decrease. Joshua had to increase later, as God chose to work. But these two are the ones who said, The land's there. It's waiting. Let's go. God's with us. Let's take it. And the people believed the evil report. And since they had been in the land scouting for 40 days, that led to one day equal to a year, and for 40 years they were going to wander out in the wilderness. 40 years till all of those of the age of accountability, 20 and up, till every one of them died. Well, almost every one of them died in the wilderness. Moses didn't go into the Promised Land. He was allowed to see it, but then he died.

Aaron died before they got there. Miriam died before they got there. All of the adult generation died. But, you know, 40 years later, you've got a different Israel. The Joshua generation, I like to call them. A different people. And it got down to the fact that of the older generation, you can count them on one hand, you don't even need three of those.

You've got Joshua and Caleb, and those are the only names you can come up with, who left Egypt and then crossed the Jordan 40, 41 years later. Chapter 14. Once again, rebellion is brewing. Verse 4, so they said to one another, let us select a leader and return to Egypt. You know, these things happen over and over. Human nature is still the same. It's the same old story that plays out. I appreciate a lot of the comments shared in the sermonette. Do you really ever know of anybody in a position of leadership in your years in the body of Christ, someone who has been disciplined, who just has a seat and is happy, is happy two years later, starts showing up early to start up and clean up?

Sadly, it just seems like we don't see that. But in time, as ego, as pride builds and brews and people stew over something, somewhere down the line, Satan has almost 100% success in getting into their thinking. And they begin to then justify that there's no other answer that I have to leave, and they don't focus on the fact that, well, I have to commit the sin of division and lead a people of the body away.

Same old story. Chapter 16, Korah, Dathan, Abiram, they contended with Moses. It was not just those three. There was a whole host of them. Verse 1, Korah, son of Ishar, son of Kohath, son of Levi. Oh, Korah was of the line of Levi, the tribe of Levi. And maybe you can see why he got his feathers a bit ruffled somewhere down the line, that God had set aside Levi for a particular service, but he's working through this other line within the clan.

Well, Dathan, Abiram, let's see, here's Ahn, actually was of the tribe of Reuben. Took men, they rose up before Moses with some of the children of Israel, 250 leaders of the congregation, representatives of the congregation, men of renown. How many times has that happened? You have a movement within the body, and you can have some great names get caught up in it. And it sounds so good.

It always does. Satan is the great seducer, and he's the great deceiver. And you have people caught up in a movement thinking, oh, I've got to go with them and help break the body apart. They gathered together against Moses and Aaron and said to them, you take too much on yourselves, for all the congregation is holy.

This idea of the priesthood of all believers, it just gets recycled from time to time. But by translation to me, what they were saying is, Moses and Aaron move over, make room for us. We want some of the power. We want the power.

Numbers 25. Numbers 25, verse 1, Now Israel remained in Acacia Grove, and the people began to commit harlotry with the women of Moab. They invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. So Israel was joined, the veil of Peor, and the anger of the Eternal was aroused against them.

The Lord said to Moses, Take all the leaders of the people and hang the offenders before the Lord out in the sun, at the fierce anger of the Lord, may turn away from Israel. That chapter includes a story where we start hearing a lot more about this Phineas. He went and took a javelin and ran two of them through in the tent. Apparently in the very act, stopped the plague. But how many thousands was it who lost their lives? Some? 24,000, I think it says later in the chapter. 24,000! So now we look at the second year as they came to pass over, Unleavened Bread, and we ask, well, did they get the picture yet? Were they ready to become successes? Sadly, the answer is no. They're still going down the tube. They're still going the wrong direction. They're making one mistake after another. And at the end of 40 years of punishment and wandering and 40 years of eating flat bread and manna and all of that and complaining, two people, Joshua and Caleb. You know, we've estimated two to three million people. So they really were one in a million, each of them. And they're the only ones that crossed the Red Sea and then crossed the Jordan Valley.

Why? Well, let me go on to the first point, the first lesson. Why such a terrible disaster? Why such a debacle? Number one, Israel came out of slavery, but they did not come out of bondage. And then let me explain. They came out of slavery, but they never came out of bondage. They were still slaves just to someone else, something else. They threw off the shackles of Egyptian task masters. They left Egypt behind. They left the slavery behind. They left the making of bricks behind. But when Israel left, she retained her own attitudes. She had her own problems. She had her own past. And she was still mentally, spiritually bound just as much as she had been, if not more, than when they were making bricks. We skipped over the part there in Exodus 14, but when they were being led and they came, you had the mountains of Piahirath, you had the Red Sea, you had Pharaoh's army coming quickly to get them. And it says, they lifted up their eyes. You see, Israel wanted to see. We see that repeatedly through their story. They wanted to see the escape. They wanted to see the God, even if it was a golden calf. They wanted to see with their eyes. Yet Paul told the church in Corinth, and he tells us that we must walk by faith, not by sight. God has called us to be among those who walk by faith. Everything we did Thursday night was perceived by faith. We perceive that God is. We believe that He is. That He devised a plan before the foundation of the world, and that plan included foreseeing human sin and the fact that God, that the Lamb, would have to be slain for the sins of the human family. And Thursday night involved faith in an act of service to a fellow brother or sister in the body, of serving them. And by doing that, washing their feet, telling them by your actions, that I need you. I love you. I am so happy God called you, that we can be brethren together. And it was an act of faith to take that little bit of unleavened bread that we asked God to bless for its sacred purpose, to represent the broken body of Christ, and to take that little super symbol of wine, and through faith, perceive that that represents the body of Jesus Christ. And we ingested both of those, stating by faith that we want to renew Christ living His life in us, and in spite of us. All of that was perceived by faith. But Israel came out, and all they could see was Egypt, Egypt's way of doing things, Pharaoh, Pharaoh's decisions, the Egyptian government. And Yo, God called us. And when He called us, all we could see is our own country, the way things are done. You know, it's easy to get overly tied up in the politics of this world, or of this country. I don't know about you, but I am beyond being sick and tired of a presidential campaign. The saddest thing is, somebody has to win. And I'm reasonably sure that the name Jesus Christ is not going to be on that ballot this year, or this time. Hopefully, one day it will be, but it won't even be on a ballot. It'll be another way.

But you see, our society rubs off on us. As Americans, we're proud of all these rights that we think we have. Well, then we find out we may not have as many rights as we used to have, or thought we had. But we pride ourselves that we can run off our mouth and say anything we want to, any time, about anybody. And unless we cross that line, it becomes libelous, slanderous. That we can come and do as we good and well please, because we're a free country.

Well, this society rubs off on us. We have a representative republic. It's a democratic form, but it's a representative republic. And fewer and fewer people seem like know-how the government's supposed to work. Fewer and fewer people in a high office seem to care less. We have judges who legislate. We have congressmen who are supposed to hold people's feet to the fire, and you abide by the law. We're supposed to have the rule of law. We have those in executive positions, whether it's federal government, state governments. And sometimes they write executive orders and do as they please, and we've had presidents for several terms who've done a lot of that. Well, that rubs off on us. There was a time when in the church we cried aloud, we spared not a lot about how all human government is wrong. How all religion is wrong. And we don't tend to come across that same way so much anymore. But there surely is a lesson here for us. We're products of this society and this human system of doing things, and we have to reject that. And we have to move toward following the lead of God.

The truth of unloving bread taught ancient Israel, you shall not covet it yet, except one time after another we find they lusted a lust. They wanted meat, they wanted water, they wanted water that wasn't bitter, they wanted cucumbers and garlic and leeks and melons and fish. And you know, we're the same way too. God's called us to come out of that.

Let's look at Romans 6. It's an interesting, fascinating statement made here by Paul regarding slavery. And you know the truth is, we're going to be somebody's slaves.

We are going to be someone's slaves. And it gets down to the fact that, like ancient Israel, we're going to be enslaved, we're going to be in bondage to doing things the way it was done in Egypt. Or doing what we think and reason in our own minds is best. Or we're going to willingly give ourselves as living sacrifices to God to be His servants, to be His slaves, to follow where He leads us, and to believe in the way that He works. Romans 6, verse 16.

From sin you became slaves of righteousness.

Israel came out of slavery, but they were still bound to the way they had always seen it done.

And there was a time when God called us, and He called us to come out of the past. Come out of her, my people, we read. He called us to forsake the way we'd always seen things, and to willingly take steps toward the kingdom of God. That past overnight, Jesus said, I am the way, and we agreed to follow wherever He leads. Even when we don't exactly know where that path is taking us. I like back here on the above the information table. There's somebody put up a little chart, and I think it was the guy on a bicycle. And we want to go that straight line. Easy going. But then the bottom half of it, the reality is you've got all these ups and downs, and across the body water, up and down. And we covenanted to follow wherever that may be. Lord, I'll follow you wherever you lead. And let us not make the mistake of Israel. Let us lead behind the shackles of a lifetime and follow wherever Christ takes us. Number two, another failure of Israel is, number two, Israel believed in God, but not in the way that He worked.

Israel believed in God, but not in the way that He worked. Now think about what they had seen. They had seen one plague after another. In fact, some of those plagues were on Israel until God drew that line. They saw Egypt left as a disaster. The great world power of the day was destroyed from within by the Almighty. They saw a pillar of fire leading them, a pillar of cloud leading them. They saw waters that had parted, and they walked through a sea's bed on dry ground. They had seen a tree taken and cast into some awful-tasting water, and suddenly it was the best water they had ever had.

They saw one miracle after another. They felt the booming reverberation, the mountains there around Sinai. They believed in God. They knew there was some power they didn't understand. They believed in God, but God led them in ways they didn't believe in the way that God was working with them. They just didn't get it. They didn't believe the way He chose to lead them. They didn't believe the direction He led them. We live in a society. The world around us claims to believe in God. It wasn't that many years back I saw some research had been done, something like 83% of the people in this country professed they believe in God. A number of years back, but last year I saw one and it was just dropping below 70%. That's in just a number of years.

We've lost the battle here in this country. It's going down. It's going down because the time will come when those who believe there is a God and believe this as the inspired instruction book of the Creator for His created will be the minority. The time will come when there will be 49% believe in God. And then it will go on from there. They believed in God, but not the way that He worked in their lives. And it's possible for us to be guilty of the same thing. One of the most basic precepts of a converted mind, one of the great signs of a converted mind, is that we can fully relate to what Jesus prayed that night. When He cried to His Father, if there's any other way, let this cup pass from me. But then how did He summarize it? Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.

And I should count it up 40-whatever years since I was baptized.

There have been times, well, when I was first baptized, first few years, I didn't know. I didn't know enough to know what was going to happen to me in life. In the early years of our marriage, we didn't have clues what was going to happen.

Then we started having kids.

Some of you can relate to that. And you start having trials and tests.

And then within the body of Christ that had been our home, still is our home. But we'd have the most ungodly things take place that separates brethren and just breaks your heart. We had no earthly idea where we were going to go. But once upon a time, we all said, Lord, I will follow You wherever You go. And the disciples that night, they were proudly saying, we're with You all the way. And Christ told them, you don't know what manner of death I'm about to die. And all but John, John died of old age, but the rest of them died of horrible death. And we don't know where the calling of God is going to take us. And for any of us, I know it's certainly been true in my life many times.

Phone rings and I pick it up and just... And I've been given assignments once in a while, and I remember not that long back, praying over a situation, and something just told me, go over there and reread what Mary's reaction was when she was told, you're going to bear the Christ child. What does she say? Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be to me according to your will. And that just fell on me like a ton of bricks. And I thought, I've been sitting here telling God why I don't want to do this.

And He told me, yes, but you took a vow. You said you'd follow wherever. And we all have those times. We know there's a God, but we have to believe in the way He chooses to work in our lives. And sometimes we have a lot of unanswered questions that we have to leave in God's hands in faith, and trust that He knows what is best, that He won't make a mistake.

You could make note of Isaiah 55 verses 6-8, and that's where it talks about it. Isaiah 55, 6-8, God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts. And you can read back through some of those.

We come to believe in far more than the existence of God. We come to believe in the way God chooses to work in our lives. He never makes mistakes, but He allows lots of trials and lots of affliction. And like Jesus, we learn in obedience by the things that we suffer. In verse 33, Israel could not handle freedom. Israel could not handle freedom. They were not ready for it. They were not prepared for it. Let's look at Proverbs 30.

Proverbs 30 verses 21 and 22. Proverbs 30 verse 21, for three things the earth is perturbed, yes, for four it cannot bear up. Verse 22, for a servant when he reigns. That's really as far as we need to read. A servant, a slave, when he reigns. He has come out of a life where he has been a piece of property to someone else. And suddenly he has great power. And he is wholly and completely unprepared for that power, because with power comes responsibility.

And generally there's an arrogance, an influence that comes whenever a person is given great power like that. And Israel came out of abject slavery and suddenly they had all of this wealth and they had all of this freedom. And they became very quickly drunken on the freedom. They couldn't handle it. Because the right heart, the servant's heart, the attitude, the outgoing focus on the needs of others was lacking. They couldn't handle it. It was a disaster. They proved time after time they were ungovernable, which made them unable to govern. And that's something to file away. If we cannot be governed, God cannot use us to govern others. If we don't know that to govern others is by service, God can't afford to give us the power. He's tried that not just with human beings so many times, but he's tried that with spirit beings.

The original sin, after all, went back to the fact that man decided to take for himself the determination of what is right and wrong. And so, freedom. Can we handle freedom? Can we learn to work out our own salvation directly with God? And remember that human beings are going to let us down. It seems like they always do. Hopefully, if they do, they come back and they ask forgiveness and for prayers that they can do better. I think it's interesting that Paul says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. And that salvation is a relationship directly with God.

Some tend to thrive under a tight-fisted heavy control. God wants to know what will we do when we don't have somebody like an Egyptian taskmaster breathing down our neck all the time.

Well, let me just quickly go to number four. A fourth mistake, a fourth failure, number four. Israel yielded to the devil. Now, you might think, how can you say that? We didn't read the name Satan, devil, adversary one time. And you're right. We didn't, at least what we surveyed, we didn't even read about witches and wizards. But, you know, Satan works through disobedience. Let's go to Ephesians 2.

Satan works through disobedience, and if you want to be a child of the devil, all you have to do is disobey. Now, we read a one story after another where Israel just simply disobeyed what God had instructed them to do.

Ephesians 2, verse 1. And you, he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sin, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath just as others. But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, and it goes on as far as what he has made possible. Satan works through disobedience. He works through human lust.

So many times Israel wanted water the way they wanted it, water where they wanted it. They wanted meat. They wanted cucumbers and melons and garlics and all of that. They wanted it their way.

And a lot of times we do too.

But in the story of Israel, Satan was in control as long as there was a mind within Israel to mumble, to grumble, to criticize, to point fingers at leaders and say, you take too much because any time they do that or anything we do that today, we are being a child of the devil. We are not being of the children of light. And that's why there's a statement. It's Deuteronomy 5, verse 29, where in Moses' last book, he was inspired to write God's thoughts. Oh, that there were such a heart in them that they would have obeyed. But they didn't have that heart.

They didn't have that attitude. And they chose time after time to follow Satan. You don't need to charm snakes to be a child of the devil. You don't need to go to a séance. I hope you don't. You don't need to play with Ouija boards. I hope you don't do that either. You don't fill in the blank. All you have to do is disobey.

He works in the children of disobedience. It leaves the door wide open for Satan to walk to influence. It happened to Judas. His mind was opened. And Satan entered two times that we read of. Israel never changed. It didn't get the message. It didn't bear the fruit God wanted. He wanted them to be this example nation where he could bring in through Israel.

Others could come and learn to go back home and do likewise. And that's going to have to wait for the millennium, apparently. The story of Israel is a colossal failure in many regards. Unleavened bread did not bear fruit in the vast majority within Israel. It did with Moses, Aaron, Miriam, Caleb, Joshua. It did in many, but not in the vast majority. Let's close over in 1 Corinthians 10. 1 Corinthians 10. In verse 1, he says, Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

These were types of baptism, placing them into what is called the church in the wilderness. All ate the same spiritual food. Yes, after their sin of disbelief, they got the opportunity to eat manna for 40 years. They had a lot of flatbread. All drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. More than once, water came from a rock. The rock was identified with Christ.

Water not only gave life physically, but it's one of the beautiful emblems for the Holy Spirit. But with most of them, God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now, these things became our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted, and do not become idolaters, as were some of them, as it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose to play.

Nor let us commit special immorality, as some of them did, and in one day 23,000 fell. Nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents. Nor complaining, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the complainer. Now, all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed, lest he fall. Israel failed in so many ways. They were in bondage until the end of their lives. They resisted God, even though they believed in Him, they did not believe in the way that He chose Him.

They did not believe in the ways to operate in their lives. They couldn't handle freedom, can we? And Israel yielded to the influence of Satan. The Feast of Unleavened Bread for that first group of people was a disaster for most. And God has called us to be different. In the Spirit-filled, Spirit-led New Testament Church of God, He has called us to live a way where unleavened bread, we can live the way of sincerity and truth.

And if we put out the spiritual leaven, which is what is most important, yes, we put the baking soda and the yeast and the bread and things like that out of our homes. But if we more importantly put out the spiritual leaven, then unleavened bread can and will have a rich, full meaning for us. And as we submit to God's lead, it can end as an overwhelming success. So have a wonderful Feast of Unleavened Bread.