Marcus Mecum - Crave Grave
Numbers 11, numbers 11:1 mentions how the people began to complain and God heard their complaints, and his response in verse 4 is, "The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, 'if only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt. We had cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic". Thank you Jesus. "But now we have lost our appetite: we never see anything but this manna"!
Let's drop down to verse 18. God said, "Tell all the people to 'consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The Lord heard you when you wailed, he heard when you said, 'if only we had meat to eat'! He heard when you said that, 'you'd be better off in Egypt'! And now the Lord will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month-until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it".
Now, drop down with me to verse 31, I'll fill in the gaps in a minute. "And now a wind went out from the Lord and drove quail," this is the meat that God gave them, "In from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits deep all around the camp," listen to this, "As far as a day's walk in any direction". That's 3 feet deep. "As far as a day's walk is in any direction. All the day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp. But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the Lord burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food".
Kibroth Hattaavah is translated graves of craving. And that's what I wanna talk to you about. I wanna talk to you about, "The crave grave", specifically fasting for freedom. Numbers covers 38 years of Israel's freedom journey. You geographically, would see it that Moses comes down from mount Sinai, an entire generation will die during this journey. A new generation will stand at the River Jordan, they'll have a second chance, a brand new opportunity to enter into Canaan, the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey. And so, what we begin reading about is two years into this journey, and so, they're already exhausted. Israel's already tired, and they're realizing how daunting this freedom thing that they set out for is going to be.
Yes, being enslaved was difficult, but freedom is that much more difficult, it's gut wrenching in many ways. And so, I don't know, maybe they thought that freedom would be easy. It doesn't tell us exactly what's going on, but we know that God delivered them from Egypt, he set them free from 400 years of back-breaking bondage, the suffering of enslavement is over, and he exchanges that for a freedom journey. Sounds like a good thing until you recognize that this is 40 long years in a hot desert, they have to follow an unpredictable cloud, there's never any time where they know, where we're going to be from one day to the next. They live in tents, they sleep in the sand. They have a lack of food, a lack of water, the food that they are given is call manna, or, "What is it"? Is how that's translated.
And so, most of them, at this point, realize they've got a long ways in front of them. It's way more than they initially thought it would be. It's costing them more, it's requiring more from each of them, and so most of them are wanting to go back to Egypt. Most of them are saying, "We're done with this, we're finished, we wanna go back". And included in this freedom journey, with all of these difficulties is a 40 year fast, not a 40 day fast, a 40 year fast. Is anybody glad that they're in a church that calls a 21 day fast? A 40 year fast, this is the point, freedom necessitated a diet change.
Fasting is one of God's freedom keys. Fasting is a key to where God wants to take you. A lot of people forget that God has to deliver you from your past before you can really move into the future that he has prepared for you. TI's not just enough to experience some type of external freedom, there is an internal freedom that God wants to provide so you can not just, on the outside, move into the things of God, but internally, you can also be free. And fasting is a key to that freedom. Israel's freedom journey, because it has such a robust focus on fasting, teaches us so much. Again, fasting is abstaining for a spiritual purpose. It is a lesser no for a greater yes. I say no to the lesser, maybe a meal, maybe food, maybe you go at the fast, like social media. That's your lesser...
It's been a part of your life, it maybe isn't even a significant part of your life, and you're saying no to that because you have a greater yes. You have something you want more. For the children of Israel, they were saying no to the lesser, the Egyptian food that they had, the enslavement that they had because they were trying to say yes to the freedom that God was wanting to bring them into. And so, fasting revealed in the desert that many of the Egyptian cravings that they had picked up over 400 years had not been dealt with. And so, God says to them that they cannot move into their future having an appetite for their past. And it works the same way with each of us, not one person in this room can move fully into the purpose and future that God has for you, if you're still consumed with appetites and cravings for what God's brought you out of.
And so, it brings us to the story where they've had two years of nothing but manna. They're bored with this freedom food, and they're craving the slave food, they're craving the food that they got while they were enslaved. Fish, melons, onions, leeks, and garlic. And they're complaining that it would've been better for us to have never left Egypt. They wanna go back. And so, God hears their complaints and God says, "I'm going to send you enough meat for 30 days". One month of gluttony, over three feet of quail are sent by a wind, and its stacked up, the Bible says, "For a day's walk in any direction".
Ten thousand feet, five miles, in any direction you would go, you can't take a step because its three feet deep of quail. This is a sea of meat, and they ate so much its coming out of their nostrils. They did not eat until they were full, or eat until they were sick, they were eating until they started dying. And the Bible says God called that place Kibroth Hattaavah, which is a crave grave. And I want us to take this story and I want you to imagine with me for just a minute these graves that are all over the desert and the wilderness. I want you to picture by the thousands, these fresh graves that have been dug. Really, people dug their own graves with their cravings, and their all over the desert.
I want you to imagine that because what I want you to realize is that if you don't bury your cravings, your cravings will bury you. For the children of Israel, they're teaching us that there are some cravings that if you don't get a grip on, they will cost you more than you could ever imagine. These cravings just don't give up, they don't just go away, they don't just pull back, they don't just one day say, "I'm good. I'm satisfied". These cravings, if you allow them to, will cause you to not just destroy your life, but if you allow those cravings to, they'll cause you to live a life where you experience no freedom many times no joy, many times you're completely obsessed and controlled and overwhelmed.
Listen to what the Bible says, they hadn't even gotten a chance to pick the meat out of their teeth yet, and all of the sudden, they're finding themselves that those cravings have destroyed their life. And so, there's three things that this text teaches us about fasting, and about freedom that I want us to look at. Number one, fasting is a divine detox. Verse 1 says, they complained, verse 4, God called their complaints rabble. Rabble means the lowest in class, it means trash or junk, they begin to fast, during the fast their complaining comes out, God says, "That's rabble. That's low-class, that's trash, that's junk".
So, fasting brings out the worst in you before it brings out the best in you, because that's how a detox works. When you fast, the Bible says, it brings the rabble, the low-class. So, the higher our complaining, when God sees it, he says to lower our class. We don't think of class in the way that God does. We think of classy or high-class when someone has an ivy league education, or maybe they have significant net worth. But God sees classy differently. When God looks down and he sees somebody that rises above the moment and the tendency to just see the negative, when someone can rise above that in some way or another, and not complain, God looks down and says, "That's classy".
Fasting involves the mouth is what we're seeing. It involves the tongue. It's not just about what goes in, but it's about what comes out. In this text, we're learning that it's not just controlling intake, but it's also influence over outtake. What does it matter if you have discipline over what goes in, if you have no influence over what comes out. And so, the Bible says how God will use fasting is it'll bring the rabble out of you. And every person in this room has some rabble in them. You say, "I don't have any rabble in me".
Well, then fast for 21 days and if after a few days you don't see some rabble then increase the intensity of the fast. At some pint that rabble will come out of you. The physical side effects alone are very known that you will become irritable, there will be headaches, bad breath, sleeplessness, because your body doesn't have food for fuel so it goes and it begins to burn the toxins in your body for fuel. This is called a detox. But not only does it detox you physically when you fast, but it is a divine detox. It is the only spiritual discipline that fully involves your body, your soul, and your spirit.
Many times we get too spiritual with things and we need to be reminded that this body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that we can give our body as a living sacrifice, which is holy and acceptable to God. And the Bible says, "It is our reasonable", it's not unreasonable to do this, "It is our reasonable service to do this". Why? Because when you give him your body, your soul, and your spirit, and again, nothing embodies that more than fasting, it is a divine detox. It gets the rabble out, the toxic, trashy, low-class junk, the negativity, the complaining. It gets all that out of us. When Jesus was in the wilderness, the Bible says, "He's led there by the spirit for 40 days, and 40 nights".
And as he's fasting, the devil comes out, satan comes out and begins to attack and tempt Jesus. We would know that the enemy was always near, wanting to attack, but the fasting is what brought the enemy's tactics into the open so the enemy could be dealt with. And so, the enemy could be targeted and defeated. And so, fasting, in the same way with us, God leads us by his spirit into seasons of fasting, for the purpose of bringing the rabble out. There's some things the Bible says, "Only come out through prayer and fasting". This is the divine detox. It's God's saying, "I need to get the trash out. I need to reveal the pockets where the enemy has maybe gotten a stronghold in your life and maybe he's gotten a way in".
Maybe you've left a crack in your life and he's found his way into your life and there's some negativity or some low-class things, and fasting is what brings those things out of you so God can deal with them. The Bible says in John 7:38 that, "Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water". Heard that verse my whole life, but I've never thought about it in light of fasting, until this week. Think about, "Out of your belly," your belly is where you take stuff in, "Shall flow," that's what goes out, "Rivers of living water".
So, fasting is something that can uniquely deal with not only your belly, but your flow. What's coming out of you, your conversations, your words, your confessions. When you fast, you give God your belly, but you also say, "God, I'm gonna give you my flow". What good would it do you to fast and deal with your belly if you never get to the point where God deals with your flow, your conversations, your confessions, the things that you're talking about, the things that you're speaking over your life are also part of that which God is wanting to work on in your life. And so, we need to ask God during this fast to help us with our flow. Help us with our flow. Out of our belly shall flow rivers of living water.
Water weighs 1,264 pounds per cubic yard. That water, as weighty as it is, if it's boxed in and it doesn't flow, the force and the weight and the power that it has is never realized. It has a lot of weight, it has a lot of force, but when its dammed up, it doesn't matter. But if you break open what's holding the water in, that water has such force that it can go around and through, and find its way over almost anything that would stand in front it.
And so, you and I have rabble, trash, junk, builds itself up in our life. Begins to dam things up, and even though there's a flow in you, there's waters of living water that are in you, that if the flow would come, would help you find a way through any obstacle, anything that would wanna try to stop you with, you have what you need to get through it, you have what you need to overcome, you have it, you just need to allow that rabble, that trash to get out of your life so the flow can actually begin to work its way out of your life.
God can give you a fresh flow, God can give you a flow of living waters. Does anyone in here say, "God, I want to do more than fast, I want you to help me with my speech, my language, my conversations, my commitments, I want you to help give me a fresh flow. I want my life to flow with that life, I want my life to flow with wisdom, I want that water of health to flow into the world around me. I want that love flowing. I want that strength flowing". I want God to use me, and not just allow something to be dammed up that's full of potential and power because I'm unwilling to deal with the junk in my life. Number one, divine detox. Number two, fasting brings freedom from our slave craves.
Verses 4-6 says that, "They started wailing and saying, 'if we only had meat to eat. Remember the fish that we had in Egypt'". They're wailing, if we only had the food that we had in Egypt. Interestingly enough, the word wailing in Hebrew means to tear at your hair, and beat on your chest. Get the image of that because this is how our flesh acts when we start fasting. At some point in 21 days, if you're really doing this thing, sincerely, you will feel that exact way. You'll feel like pulling at your hair and pounding on your chest, and saying, "I hate that church, I need a new church. I need a new pastor". Because fasting reveals your slave crave.
Deuteronomy 6:11-12 says, "Be careful that when you eat and are satisfied, you don't forget the Lord". Notice the connection between eating and forgetting God. Not speaking of food, necessarily, though it can include that. Just feeding on the things of this world. You can get so full of it, and the Bible says, there's a connection to that and forgetting God. What fasting does, is it's unique in its way of emptying your life, emptying yourself out and saying, "God, I hunger for more of you than I hunger for the things of this world". But in that, you'll notice these slave craves kick in. You'll notice that you'll start to desire some things that may be a stronger desires than your heart for God because you've just gotten full.
Full of this world. Your mind's full, your life's full, you're stomach's full and the intake the Bible says, can cause you to forget God. Forget the call, forget the dream, forget that which is vitally important for our walk with the Lord. And so, when you have an empty belly, it reveals the strength of your slave craves, maybe more importantly, it reveals how weak your longings, your cravings for spiritual things have become. Jesus is ministering to a woman in Samaria, and the disciples come and the Bible says that they had gone into the city to get something to eat. And when they see Jesus there, they urged him, "Master, you need to eat something". And Jesus says to them, "I have food that you know not of".
And the disciples begin to discuss amongst themselves like, "We didn't see him get something to eat. We were in the drive-thru at McDonald's. I wonder did he go through the drive-thru at Taco Bell? How did this happen? How did he get something to eat"? And Jesus said, "No, no, no, my food is to do the will of my father and to finish the work that he's given me to do". This is code for Jesus saying, "I'm fasting". And what he's saying is, fasting is food. Fasting feeds your spirit. Fasting feeds the will of God. Fasting feeds the work of God in your life.
And there's nothing that can help you come in sync with God like fasting. This is my 21st year of fasting for 21 days, and can I just say, every time I fast, I draw closer to God. There's never a time I don't get some slave craves out, and get back that hunger for God I so desperately need, in what I do. And so desperately, you need it as well, in what you do. John 6:41, Jesus said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven". So, look at Israel, slave crave, they're pulling at their hair, they're pounding on their chest, they're kicking and they're screaming.
And what are they saying? "I don't want that manna". And Jesus is saying, "I was that manna. That was me. I was what came down". What were they saying? They were saying, "You're not enough God. You're not enough to satisfy me, you're not enough to complete me in my life". And so, the Bible says, "They lost their appetite for that manna". What's manna? What is it? Well, we know it's food from heaven, we know it's food that God gives, supernaturally to us. But we know you can't just go buy it at Kroger, you can't just go get it out there. It's spiritual food, it's freedom food.
And so, if you've lost your appetite for that food, that manna, that heavenly food, that's his word, that's worship, that's filling your life with other things, preaching, and teaching, and godly things. Just saying, "God, I need to fill my life with some things that are going to feed my spirit". And if you've lost your appetite for those things, can I just challenge you, it's possible that the slave craves are strong in your life.