Listen Here

If you enjoy this episode, please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and don’t forget to rate and review on Apple or Spotify. When you rate and review the show, you help Jaime reach more people.

About The Episode:

Full Transcript

This transcript is auto-generated and not perfect. We hope it blesses you.

0:00:01 – Jaime Luce

And what? How was Jesus crucified? I thought about this. How was Jesus crucified? He was crucified by the Pharisees, who incited the mob. They gave them the mob mentality and what they? They went from being a group of people saying Hosanna, hosanna, to crucify him, crucify him. It only took a few to completely change the whole thought process and viewpoint of those who loved God and wanted what he was doing. It amazes me. That’s in Luke 23. If you want to look it up, welcome to the Jamie Luce podcast. Thank you for joining me today.

I counted a privilege that you’re spending some time with me today and I want to talk to you out of numbers 11. There’s a couple of themes running through here. One that we’re going to discuss today is how to avoid the mob mentality, and the second is be careful, what you ask for. And they may sound like two different, completely different topics, but they’re not, and I’ll show you how those tie together and how important they are for our lives. So I was thinking about this and I thought, boy, this would be funny. I’ll go ahead and tell you this now, before we read the passage of scripture. But there was a song that you it’s old now, but Garth Brooks wrote a song. Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers and by the time we finish this little passage, I’m sure that the children of Israel during that time would have loved to have sung that song. So, anyways, get your Bibles out with me and let’s go to the word. There’s nothing more powerful than God’s word. So I trust that today, what we have found and uncovered through God’s word will have impacted you, given you some tools for life and and how to navigate through even some of the things we’re dealing with as a society.

So let’s get our Bibles out, and I’ll begin reading in chapter 11, verse one and the people complained right off the bat. And the people complained Don’t you love that? 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. Then the people cried out to Moses and Moses prayed to the Lord and the fire died down. So the name of that place was called Tibera I don’t know if I’m saying that right Because the fire of the Lord burned among them.

Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving and the people of Israel also wept again and said, 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 Now. The manna was like coriander seed and its appearance like that of bedilium. The people went about and gathered it and grounded in handmills or beat it in mortars and boiled it in pots and made cakes out of it, and the taste of it was the taste of cakes baked with oil. When the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell with it.

Moses heard the people weeping throughout their clans, everyone at the door of his tent, and the anger of the Lord blazed hotly and Moses was displeased. Moses said to the Lord why have you dealt ill with your servant Meaning himself, and why have I not found favor in your sight that you lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth that you should say to me Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child To the land that you swore to give their fathers. Where am I to get meat to give all this people? For they weep before me and say Give us meat that we may eat. I am not able to carry all this people alone. The burden is too heavy for me. If you will treat me like this, kill me at once. If I have found favor in your sight that I may not see my wretchedness, so many interesting things in here, we’ll get there.

Then the Lord said to Moses Gather for me 70 men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people, and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of me and let them take their stand there with you and I will come down and talk with you there and I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone and say to the people Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow and you shall eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord saying who will give us meat to eat? For it was better for us in Egypt. Therefore, the Lord will give you meat and you shall eat. You shall not eat just one day or two days or five days or 10 days or 20 days, but a whole month, until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you Because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him saying why did we come out of Egypt? But Moses said the people among whom I am numbered, 600,000 on foot. Boy guys, I keep getting distracted, my phone is going off when I’ve got silent on, which makes no sense, but anyway we’ll pick back up. But Moses said the people among whom I am number, 600,000 on foot. And you have said I will give them meat that they may eat a whole month. Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them and be enough for them, or shall all the fish of the sea be slaughtered for them and the fish of the sea be gathered together for them and be enough for them? And the Lord said to Moses Is the Lord’s hand shortened? Now you shall see whether my word will come true or not.

So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord and he gathered 70 men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent. Then the Lord came down in a cloud and spoke to him and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the 70 elders and as soon as the spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it. Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out of the tent and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said my Lord, moses, stop them. But Moses said to him Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit on them. And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp. Then a wind from the Lord sprang up and it brought quail from the sea and let them fall beside the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and a day’s journey on the other side, around the camp and about two cubits above the ground. And the people rose all that day and all night and all the next day and gathered the quail. Those who gathered least gathered ten omars and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp while the meat was yet between their teeth Before it was consumed. The anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord struck down the people with a very great plague. Therefore, the name of that place was called Kibiroth Hatavah, because there they buried the people who had the craving. From Kibiroth Hatavah, the people journeyed to Haziroth and they remained at Haziroth.

Okay, so that’s a lot of scripture, and I know it was, and thanks for sticking with me, but I wanted you to have the entire context. I didn’t want to leave something out. There’s a couple of parts in there that we aren’t going to discuss today, maybe another day. However, the main story I want to stick with is this story of the children of Israel weeping, complaining you know we would want to say whining. They were crying in his ears, they were whining, making a fuss, a huge fuss about this manna, and so I want us to dissect this scripture a little bit, because this is going to be very important to your life. I know it can seem like a very strong passage, because we see that God was angry three times in this chapter and he punished the children of Israel three times in this chapter. But when you understand why he was angry, if you can understand the full context which I’m going to bring out to you and the understanding behind some of the language here, it will help you understand God, it will help you understand you and it will help you understand our society a little bit about what’s going on right now.

So the first thing I want to look at is the word rabble. If you look at verse 4, it says now, the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. This is a really important verse. I looked up rabble. I looked it up in a couple different dictionaries. I looked it up, of course, in the biblical sense, through the strong’s concordance and that and I want to give this to you because this is really very interesting Rabble is a disorderly crowd, a mob, a foreigner, a foreign group.

So we’re thinking the children of Israel, and this is a foreign group, and I’ll give you another scripture to back this up. A foreign group, a collection this is what this word means A collection of grumblers with the focus being on their complaints. So you have a foreign group of people among the children of Israel who are disorderly. They’re a mob of people. It’s a good-sized group, a mob of people. They aren’t actually children of Israel, and I’ll give you that in a second and their focus is complaint. Whatever is their complaint? This disorderly group? They are a people not of Jacob’s descent.

So the other scripture that I want to give you is Exodus 1238. Exodus 1238. I’m going to look that up for you so you have it. Exodus 1238. I’m reading from the ESV, in case you’re wondering, and it says a mixed multitude also went up with them and very much livestock, both flocks and herds. So this was the group who came and journeyed out during the Exodus. Maybe I’ll give you just so you can see it. I’ll back up a couple verses. I’ll start at verse 33.

The Egyptians were urgent with the people to send them out of the land in haste, for they said we shall all be dead. This is right after the last plague has taken place and the firstborn are dying. So the people took their dough before it was leavened their kneading bowls being bound up in their cloaks on their shoulders. The people of Israel had also done as Moses told them, for they had asked the Egyptians for silver and gold jewelry and for clothing, and the Lord had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plunder the Egyptians Among the people of Israel journeyed from Ramses to Sokoth about 600,000 men on foot. Besides women and children, a mixed multitude also went up with them and very much livestock, both flocks and herds, so we can see that there is another group who’s with them.

There might be in that mix some Egyptians who saw the plagues and believed that, because those plagues that took place did not come on the children of Israel the way they did on the Egyptians, and they may have been in their homes. They could have been people that were so generous, staying with them, passing through, and whatever this group of people is, this is a. According to numbers, this is a rabble, this is a. This is not an obedient crowd. Okay, this is a disorderly crowd, and one of the other definitions was and I thought this was hilarious their riffraff and they are contemptuous. They have contempt. That’s an important word.

This group of people was a mix among the children of Israel, living amongst them, hearing the words of Moses, going through the same processes. They are hearing all of these things and understanding where the children of Israel have come from. It would make sense that this other group of people who were never delivered out of Egypt for the sake of being Israelites they’re just a mixed group. If they were Egyptians, they were never enslaved, so they don’t understand the deliverance from slavery. Same thing if it’s just people sojourning through, the sojourners would not have been under the same bondage that the children of Israel were. So we need to understand this. It matters who you allow to be connected to you.

We saw this play out when Abraham left his family and kindred and land, was supposed to leave his kin, but he took his nephew lot with him and there ended up being a contentious argument between the herdsmen where they had to separate. And we have the same thing happening here. We’ve got this group of people who live amongst the children of Israel, but they don’t have the same belief system. They don’t understand the same process they’ve gone through. They know nothing about who this God of Abraham, isaac and Jacob is, other than whoever this God is. He does mighty acts and it seems to be safe if we hook our trains up to these guys, and that’s what they’ve done but this same group of people because they don’t know this God, because they have not experienced nor have the same history as this group of people and don’t have. They’re not of the same family, don’t have the same upbringing, don’t have the same things. Because of this, they don’t have the same regard, they don’t have the same care, they don’t have the same needs and in that, they have mixed with them.

Now, this is think about this very carefully for just a minute. This rabble and riffraff, who didn’t know slavery, wanted to influence the minds of those who were to, who did understand slavery, and what did they want them? What did they want to influence them with or for what? What was their desire? Let’s look at that. Read first four again. Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving, and the people of Israel also wept again and said, oh, that we had meat to eat. And then, of course, they remembered the fish. They remember cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlics. And here’s the contemptuous part. But now our strength is dried up and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at. So they have a contempt in their complaint.

This is not just regular complaining, and God is getting angry for several reasons. First of all the children of Israel had already been dealt with about their complaining before and they continued in this same way. But the complaining you would think. Well gosh, sometimes things are just hard and we just kind of say things and we just kind of complain. Folks, that’s not what we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with something that is deeper than that and we even need to examine our own selves when we begin complaining and murmuring, when we begin saying I don’t like this, I don’t like that. Our discontent is coming out of our mouths, which means that, scientifically, nothing comes out of your mouth until you have thought on it. Get this for 63 days in order for something to come and be birthed out of your mouth. You have meditated on that and had thoughts that have fed that for at least 63 days. It’s why the scripture can tell us that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, because there’s an abundance of stuff going on up here that we eventually bring it out.

We are to be a contented people. But why should they have been content? Because they were delivered out of slavery. Their backs were being beaten, they were mistreated, they were being told to build everything and they were not being given even the tools to do it. These people were horribly treated and this went on for 400 years. They were in Egypt. The taskmasters would make things harder for them. According to what we read about what Pharaoh said, life was not easy. They’re forgetting in their complaint how difficult it actually was and that all they’re doing is glorifying.

What A craving. They’re glorifying a craving. And this mix rabble, a disobedient dis. What was the word? A disorderly mob, a group of people, discontented people who are contemptuous, are wanting to take a craving. Now, what does that also sound like to us as Christians? We understand where do the cravings come from? From our flesh, from this flesh that always wants to be coddled, and we just wanna always take care of the flesh. And we know we are to not live according to the flesh. We are to live according to the spirit, that we are not to be those who all we live for is to satisfy the hunger and the appetites of the flesh. We know better than that, and here this group of people is being influenced and, with contempt, to want to crave what they have left behind. They’ve also glorified what they’ve left behind when they desperately needed freedom and God loved them so much that he sent a deliverer to them to get them out and to spare their lives, even when they were pursued, to put a red sea between them and what was behind them, so that they wouldn’t go back.

The hard part of this as we read over and over again if you go through these scriptures is that God said it. Moses agreed with it. The people mourned because they recognized it in themselves. They were a stiff-necked people. So because of their stubbornness, because of their desires, they allowed a group that was not actually of them to be their influencers. What do we have in the world today? We’ve got influencers all over social media. We have influencers all over what should be our news, but this is now being used to influence all people.

They are contemptuous. They are rebel-rousers, riff-raff, disobedient people. These are people who want to satisfy their flesh. What are the when you see the mobs all over the news, when you see pop-up mobs wherever they’re at all of these riots that take place, breaking into buildings and taking stuff? Or what are they demanding, not we. What are they trying to demand from the government?

Give me, give me, give me. Give me what you owe me. Give me what’s mine. I deserve that. Give that to me. I don’t have to work for it. I don’t appreciate anything. I don’t deserve any of this. This wasn’t actually me that something was taken from, but I’m gonna take it from you. I’m gonna these businesses. It doesn’t matter that those people have spent their life, their hours, their health, their finances to invest and build businesses. It doesn’t matter that they destroy their businesses, that they actually worked for, that they earned. But you owe me. I mean, this is all over our society, not just in the United States. This is happening all over. Mobs are all over Right now if you’re watching this when this actually first airs, right now there is a war going on between Israel and Hamas and the Palestinian people are involved, and this is we’re seeing all over the world, at embassies, all over the world, in the streets. We’re watching mobs, we’re watching people get together with this mentality.

So I’m gonna break some stuff down for you to help you understand this, even on a deeper level. Because what is this disorderly group? What does that mean? Involving that word disorderly rabble who are disorderly in fact, they’re a disorderly crowd means involving or contributing to a breakdown of peaceful and law-abiding behavior. Disorder causes contempt. To not remain content to allow yourself to become a grumbler and a complainer, someone who muses constantly on all the things that just upset them all the time, if we aren’t vigilant and careful about our attitudes toward the Lord’s expectations of us. Because what were they contemptuous about? They were. Listen to these things. This is really important. They okay gosh, what do I wanna give you? First, let me back up, cause I don’t wanna miss this. If we aren’t vigilant and careful about our attitudes towards the Lord’s expectations of us, we will easily fall prey to mob mentality. To mob mentality. So I just Googled mob mentality. You could do this yourself. You could find some of this stuff yourself.

The inclination that some humans have to be part of a large group, often neglecting their individual feelings in the process and adopting the behaviors and actions of the people around them. This is exactly what was happening in the children of Israel. So you had this group. This group is contemptuous. They’re disorderly. They don’t have regard for this God. They don’t have the same experiences as this God, but they are influencing all of these children of Israel who had some complaints. Maybe they were small, maybe they started off. They knew they shouldn’t. They’ve actually been talked to about this, but now they’re joining this group and what the influence is having on them is this very thing that they adopt the behaviors and actions of the people around them. Its negative effects are that a small population within the mob makes the decisions that other people conform to. I don’t even need to go there. But if you even look at how our government is trying to change that and take the narrative of a few people and make that be what the mass needs to conform to, that’s exactly what’s taking place. What someone may never consider doing alone, they may do if in a group of people. That’s scary. That’s really scary. It can happen to anybody.

Even if you think about what took place the whole January 6th thing in the United States. That was a peaceful gathering to hear a speech and people were waiting and they listened and they listened. This is what’s so sad. They had a couple people, just a couple people out of that entire mass crowd who said come on, come on, follow me, come in here and began a process of something that people are now going to jail for, who are innocent, who were not a part of any kind of insurrection, were part of something peaceful, but because there were rabble involved, there were disobedient people involved. There were disgruntled people, people who are those who love to bring that antagonistic view with them to get everybody riled up. We saw what happened An innocent woman was shot. So much there. So much there to see what happens with mob mentality. And it’s nothing new folks. It’s been going on since the beginning of time. What’s?

According to Dr Wendy James, if a group’s behavior is violent, the larger the group, the more magnified the violence. We had a group, a children of Israel group of what did he say? 600,000,. Let me double check. He says that he’s a part of this group. Who is? I can find it. It would help if I read the right passage. Give me one second. Sorry, I wanna make sure I read it right.

Hi, my name is Jamie Luce. I wanted to share with you some information about a brand new book entitled you Don’t Need Money, you Just Need God. It’s a playbook for miraculous provision and I want to share it with you because it solves the problem we are all facing right now. The economy is going crazy, gas prices are soaring, there’s wars and rumors of wars. We’ve got everything hitting us all at once, with interest rates rising. You need to know what to do, and so many times we think we need the money, but you don’t need money. I’m telling you, the answer is you need God, and that’s exactly what we want to teach you through this book. We’ll give you practical ways to know what to do and how to do it, so that you get answers. Now you can find my book on Amazon. You can also go to JamieLuce.com. You can also find this book at YouDon’tNeedMoneyYouJustNeedGodcom. This book is available today.

Yes, 600,000. I was right, I should have just went with it. So he’s of a group of at least 600,000 people. Well, you’ve got to think about the size and the power of that kind of group coming and complaining to Moses. So you can understand Moses, as the leader is not only frustrated with the people, but he’s frustrated with the weight of trying to deal with understanding. I have a mob on my hands and they are crying to me. What’s gonna happen to me? God, I’m the one trying to stand for what’s right, telling them what you’re saying and how they need to be living according to these standards that you have set for them, not to box them in, but to protect them, to love them, to provide for them Everything that the Lord was expecting of them. The expectations he put on them was really that they would simply honor his word, these things that would keep them in peace with one another. I mean, he gave them the law he told them how to deal with one another he was creating for them. I mean, I’ve said this a long time ago, but it bears repeating.

If you think about, get out the Ten Commandments, read those and don’t think of them in the silly influencer mindset of all the thou shalt nots. Instead, I challenge you to think of a world, what it would look like if everybody did those things, if everybody loved the Lord with all their heart. They were not idol worshipers, they were obedient, loved their parents and honoring to their families. They didn’t lie, they didn’t cheat, they didn’t steal. I mean, when you think about kept beautiful feasts that the Lord of rest making sure to rest. If we actually lived by that standard, the standard that only in recent history have our courts completely tried to remove and do away with. But it was how we built an actual justice system to bring justice. It would be a utopia, heaven on earth.

The commandments were not to be hard, they were not to be cumbersome. They were not. What did David say? He said your laws and keeping your commandments, your laws, your statutes, your you know that’s not hard, that’s not a burden to me. I love them because they’re good for us. They provide blessing, they provide security, they provide comfort, they provide provision. Gosh, we’ve got to get this folks. They were contempt for all.

It’s understandable why Moses was upset and it is definitely understandable why God was upset. I’ve rescued you, I provide for you, I’m your provider. Oh, my goodness, I just want you to think about that for a minute. I’m going to give you, according to Dr Wendy James, I’m going to give you what psychology. They have three theories when it comes to mob mentality, mob rule, and I’m going to give these to you and I want you to listen to this because you will see that this is, this is true, these are true isms and we need to have our eyes wide open. We need to be those who are oh, what’s the word I want to use? We need to be those who stand back and look and reflect and are take our a critical eye to make sure that we are acting in a right way according to God’s laws, that our behaviors line up with loving the Lord and loving His ways. Or are we standing in opposition with contempt to His ways? This is really important to think about.

So psychology says three theories of mobs and crowd behavior. The first is called contagion theory. It proposes that crowds exert a hypnotic on the members, so a hypnotic kind of energy, I guess, over them I’m trying to come up with the right word influence, a hypnotic influence on their members that results in irrational and emotionally charged behavior, often referred to as a crowd frenzy. We have seen that, isn’t that true? We have seen that. The second is called convergence theory, which proposes the behavior of that.

A crowd is not an emergent property, something that just emerges of the crowd, but it is a result of like-minded individuals coming together. If it becomes violent, it is not because the crowd encouraged violence, yet rather people wanted it to be violent and so they came together in a crowd. Do you hear the difference? It’s important. It wasn’t that the group came together, they were like-minded. They came together and were like-minded, and it’s not because it became violent, because they were together. It instead was because they were violent. They came together. You know how they say birds of a feather flock together. You kind of if there’s a gossip, they find, all the other gossips. They find the people who are willing to tell them what’s going on and they join themselves to them. They just find one another, they just do, they just know.

The third is emergent norm the oh, I’m sorry emergent norm theory, which combines the first and the second together, arguing that a combination of like-minded individuals, anonymity haven’t we seen this? Where they mask up, you can’t tell who they are, where the individual’s identity is unknown in a crowd and shared emotions leads to crowd behavior. So they come and they know I can go, do these acts and I can let out what I want to let out and I can be a part of something with this people and I won’t be seen and known and I can get away with it. That’s a part of the mentality, of the mob mentality. Can you not only see the danger of being connected to these kind of people and letting them influence your personal life, but also we can see what has manifested so pervasively in our countries over the last several years. So this is so important that you care who you allow into your company, who do you allow yourself to listen to, who do you allow to influence you, who is among you but is not actually one of you. We need to be thinking about this, we need to be paying attention to this. We need to see this as we should see it. It is dangerous and God sees and God hears, so he’s watching, he knows Israel.

On their own, they were already a bit of complainers. You add the rabble, the like-minded cravers, those who crave to feed the lust of the flesh. You add those to the mix of rabble rabblers and their influence. And then what happens? Because they take that influence that they have and use it to control the complaint. They want to control the complaint and they want to feed their craving. So if you get a part of this group, they’re gonna try to control you. You allow them close enough. They hear one complaint of yours. Have you ever known somebody that and this could be somebody who was a friend of yours at some point that the minute you kind of say a little complaint, you kind of allow yourself to say a little something, and they jump all over it. Yeah, they get rough on you better be careful. You better be so careful if you’ve got people, because we tend to allow in human nature to allow people like that around, because they make you feel like what you were thinking is right. They make you think that your complaint is justified, and they’re doing that so that they can control your complaint and Use it to benefit their cravings.

Oh, come on, people, we’ve got to get free of this.

We’ve got to be smarter than this. We’ve got to pay attention to this. We’ve got to focus and get our eyes on the truth. What are we letting influence us? What are you watching every day on your social media for hours? Check your phone? Go, get your phone and actually look and see how many hours a day you actually spend. Your phone will tell you how much time you Spend on it and it’ll break down for you how much time you spend doing everything. It’s eye-opening to see the amount of time that people waste. We’ve got to be more diligent than that, and We’ll. We are. Whether we choose, whether we choose to believe it or not, we are being influenced from those things we’re seeing. How much time do we watch movies that are filled with Garbage? Garbage things that you know stand completely contrary to the word of God and you know it and you allow yourself to take it in? Are we being diligent? Are we protecting ourselves so that we do not have to enter into any wrath that the Lord must bring in judgment.

All right, let’s move on. What did verse 4 say? Let’s read it one more time Now. The rabble that was among them had a strong craving, and the people of Israel also Wept again and said, oh, that we had meat to eat. So they had quit their complaining and started again. 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’s nothing at all but this manna to look at.

The Enemy will use your complaints To stir up wrong appetites and wrong cravings in you. Not they’ll. They’ll use them for their benefit, to satisfy their craving, because they need you to accomplish it. But what are they stirring up in you? What cravings that shouldn’t be? Your cravings are being stirred up by what you watch, by what you listen to, the music you hear, the podcast you listen to. What are you stirring up? What are you feeding? If you feed it, it grows. If you feed it, it grows. It only dies if you starve it. That’s the only way it dies. You’ve got to starve it. This is what they wanted to do. They wanted them to crave what they had in slavery.

Imagined that, because this is what the enemy of your soul is doing. He wants you to crave things that you once were held to in bondage, the old nature, and to despise God’s commands, god’s word, to despise God’s word. Can’t you hear them? It’s too hard. It’s been this way for so long. How long do I have to wait? God isn’t listening or doing anything. Maybe this faith thing works for you, but it doesn’t work for me. I mean, you can. I’m sure you’ve heard all kinds of statements like this. Maybe we’ve said them ourselves. Ouch, joseph Would have been an easy, easy prey for this kind of tactic had he not be as strong and loved the Lord as much as he did he was.

He was constantly in a situation where he could have taken on a mentality of whining excuse me and complaining and Not being satisfied and it taking too long to see God do what he promised him to do. He had all the right Formulation on the outside, but Joseph didn’t, didn’t fall to that. And what? How was Jesus crucified? I thought about this how was Jesus crucified? He was crucified by the Pharisees who incited the mob. They gave them the mob mentality and what they? They went from being a group of people saying Hosanna, hosanna, to crucify him, crucify him. It only took a few to completely change the whole Thought process and viewpoint of those who loved God and wanted what he was doing. It amazes me. That’s in Luke 23, if you want to look it up. In John Eight verses, one through eleven, we have the story of the woman who was caught in adultery in the very act. And what did the mob want to do? Violence, everybody pick up a rock. I, everybody, stoner, not Jesus, not Jesus.

We must step back and examine our thoughts. Our thoughts, then, are also and also, I should say, our attitudes about God’s word, about his expectations on how we should live, about our thoughts and attitudes of God’s provision for our life. Are you not satisfied with what God has provided you? And if you’re not satisfied, are you actually doing what he’s commanded you to do so that you can be provided for? Are you doing the self-examination?

What about your thoughts and your attitudes about God’s saving power over your life? What I mean by that is the children of Israel had a mighty saving through the Red Sea, mighty displays of God’s power through the plagues, and salvation Now in a mighty form, that he was there every day. God was manifest every day, in the cloud or in the fire. Every day they saw it. They knew when he was talking to Moses. It was evident because Moses had to wear a veil, because his face would shine, because he had been in God’s presence. They had mighty things to look at and their deliverance from slavery. I mean not just the fact that they were slay. Slavery was put on them. Their children were murdered, killed. They were forced to kill the male children and when they wouldn’t do it, people came in to take them to kill their boys. We’re in a society right now that’s killing all the men, killing the boys, making them all feminine, taking away their maleness. Why? For the same reason, because that makes them strong, that makes them independent, able to fight, able to protect.

Ah, what are your attitudes about your salvation? Did God deliver you from things? Were you delivered from cravings? Have you been delivered from addictions? Were you delivered from a life of depression and misery? What has God delivered you from and what is your thought about that? Have you thought on it lately? Have you remembered how great God has been to you? What are your attitudes about that? That your heart remains in a place that doesn’t forget all that God has done for you and that you’re grateful. Or are we complaining? Yeah, well, what have you done for me lately? I mean, we really need to think about this, guys. We really need to think about this.

If you haven’t stopped and thought about how powerful and complete our salvation really is, you need to. I want you to think about the purchase that Jesus made, what it cost him to give it to us. He has been faithful to us more than we have even been able to comprehend, folks, his faithfulness. The sun rose this morning and it will set tonight. We have every season still happening in our world, around us, which God himself has proclaimed to us through his word, which is a picture of his faithfulness to us. That is faithful as those things are. That is a picture of the faithfulness of God.

We need to be careful what we ask for. Be careful what you’re craving. I mentioned the Garth Brooks song. Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers. We may need to sit and reevaluate what we’re asking the Lord for. Are we asking to satisfy fleshly desires? Are we asking? There’s a scripture that says that we don’t receive what we ask for because we ask amiss. We’re not asking for the right things. We’re asking to satisfy the lust of the flesh. We’re not asking for things that bring glory to God, that bring sanctification to our life, that cause us to be holy, because he is holy and that’s what he requires of us.

We have to take our walk with the Lord seriously. We have to decide that we love his word, that we love it, that it’s our food, it’s our bread. We eat it daily. We choose to be in his presence. We choose his way, his commands, that, like David, we love God’s commands. They are not burdensome to us. They’re not something we have to carry. If we will walk by them, they actually carry us.

It’s time for an attitude adjustment. It’s time for us to think about what we’re thinking about. It’s time to really make sure that what we’re wanting in this life is what God wants for us. What is the model prayer? Your kingdom come, your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Are those the kind of prayers you’re praying? Are you asking for God’s will to be done or are you wanting your flesh? Are you wanting to satisfy the flesh? It’s time to take it really seriously. Folks, we don’t know how much time we have. We do know that Jesus is returning, and boy do I want to be ready. I’m sure you do too. I know this was a little bit of a strong, heavy message, but I promise you it will change life for the better.

What do you get when you exchange complaint? What is the exchange that we make when we turn over complaints and discontent? I think the answer to that is that we get contentment, peace, satisfaction and peace, satisfaction, joy. We get the gift of the spirit, peace, joy and love. Right. We get all those things in the Holy Ghost. We get all of those by the precious power of Jesus Christ and what he has purchased for us. There’s so much to gain by leaving mumbling and complaining behind. What did the end of the story tell us that? Those in fact. I should read that to you. That’s how we’ll close. I want to finish that for you.

While the meat was yet between their teeth before it was consumed this is verse 33,. The anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord struck down the people with a very great plague. Therefore, the name of that place was Kibroth Hattavah, because they buried the people who had the craving. Life isn’t found in satisfying the cravings of the flesh. It’s found in loving the provision of our God, the one who said I have the perfect food for you, one that will satisfy you, one that will keep you well, one that will keep you walking in line with my statutes. Why do I want you to follow me? The Lord, I’m sure in His. Why does he want us to follow Him? Because he’s leading us to a promised land. He’s leading us to the promise, he’s leading us to the inheritance, he’s leading us to the good things that he has for us. But it’s up to us to choose that in our hearts, in our thoughts and in our decisions, in our choices.

Be careful what you ask for. Don’t take on and be influenced by the mob mentality surrounding you. Be careful who you allow to be in your circle. Be careful who ties themselves to you. It doesn’t go unseen, it’s not unheard. Conversations are heard. God sees, god hears and God, out of love, will deal with us. He will deal with us. I pray that you will take that to heart and know that it’s because he loves you. He has a promise for you. He wants to give you every good gift that he has. He’s not a burden. He is your ultimate blessing.

Let me pray for you, father. We thank you. We thank you for being so good to us. We thank you for loving us, for being patient with us, for teaching us the ways that lead to life and not death, that your ways lead us out of slavery, not back into slavery. Thank you for the power of your word. Thank you for the right influencers. Thank you for the right feeding things for us to feed on. Thank you, father, for bringing around us the right people to influence us in right ways. Godly ways. Help us to choose your will so that we can walk in to the promise. We thank you for all that you’re doing, all that you’ve done, all that you’re going to do, and we thank you in Jesus’ name. Amen. Thank you for joining me today. Do me a favor. Give me a like, a share, give us a little, maybe a mail. I’d love to hear from you. Give me some mail, send an email to me.