I really appreciate that. If you have your Bibles this morning, hopefully you do, but why don't you take your Bible and go to two passages, all right? I need you to, if you haven't got it already, I need you to go to Exodus 15 and hold your place there, because we're coming back to Exodus 15. We're gonna look at Exodus 15, 16, and 17. Not all the chapter, but we're gonna be looking at specific verses in all three chapters. And then once you have Exodus 15, which is your starting point in that book, then I'll need you to go back over and find Psalm 106, okay? Psalm 106. And we, last Sunday, introduced ourselves to this thought as we are dealing with dying in the wilderness. Why so many, as we looked at, why are there so many people dying in the wilderness when, listen, let's just be honest, people look insane. They say, hey, preacher, I thought the Bible teaches us that God wants his people to be blessed and to flourish and to be prosperous. Well, yeah, it does. but be careful with the whole prosperity gospel. You know, name it and claim it, blab it and grab it, you know, all that kind of stuff. Be careful with all that because what is often taught is you have a whole bunch of it, it's my favorite word to use, maybe because I came up with it myself, I don't know, but religiosity, okay? It's very, it's got a lot of religiosity to it. It sounds real spiritual. to be able to have enough knowledge that God is going to bless and wants to bless his people. And so what they do is, if you're not careful, you listen to people who teach the idea that God wants you, as his child, to believe that you can prosper. And God wants you, as his child, to have the mindset of prosperity in Christ. And then God wants you to just, by faith, reach out and claim that prosperity. Amen. Okay, that's going down, yeah. They get all worked up. I could follow the same process. I could stir up a whole bunch of emotions if I use the right words, the right phrases, with the right attitude and the right way, with the right excitement. Trust me, we could leave out of here skipping out the doors and have gotten absolutely nothing other than an emotional high. and a sense that I can go to God and I can tell God, I believe and I claim. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I forgot. You gotta use the magic words. In the name of Jesus, I claim. By the way, I believe that is as much blaspheming the name of Christ as anything, to be using the name that is above all names as a way to claim prosperity regardless of how I'm living. See, here's what happens. People wanted their ears tickled. Oh, by the way, preachers want their ears tickled too. You know that whole thing of having teachers with itching ears? There's two ways to look at that verse. It doesn't define specifically who it's talking about, but there are actually two individuals mentioned in a generation that seeks to themselves teachers having itching ears. There is the generation who has itching ears. They want things that please the ear. You know, itch that scratch for me, please. And then you have teachers who want to hear things about their teachings that have itching ears. I wanna be popular. I wanna be liked. I want people to go out the door saying, wow, what a man of God. And so they preach for the sole purpose of getting accolades. Which is why you can't preach hard things because people are not, they'll say something, but they're not gonna say what you wanna hear. You preach hard things, you preach heavy things, you preach convicting things, and people stop wanting to show up. but you tickle the ears and you make people feel good and you preach half of the word of God and not the entirety of scripture and people will love you for it. For example, you can claim the riches of Christ in your life just by claiming through the name of Jesus and having enough faith and God will give you those riches and those blessings but they never actually teach about how God in every area that he talks about the blessings and he talks about that which he wants to do and provide and give come coupled with the understanding that we must not hinder that which he wants to be able to do. How do we hinder that? Disobedience. God cannot bless a disobedient child. Now we can experience blessings by the nature of mercy and grace. but to experience the true hand of blessing and prosperity as God would desire in the life of every child of God. It does not come by name it, claim it, blab it, grab it. It comes through obedience first, which opens the door for God to pour out the blessing that there be not room to contain. Now listen, every time God talks about that which he desires to do for his people, it is always coupled with the warning, obedience is required. If obedience is not there, you say, what do you mean obedience? I have to obey people? No, you have to obey God. You have to follow scripture. You have to be obedient to the commands we have been given. This is not in my notes, but I'm giving it to you anyways because it's needed. You and I cannot go to a holy God and expect him to bless me while in my life on a regular basis, I'm doing everything that would be the equivalent of spitting in his face. Now God is merciful and God is gracious, but he does not enable his children to stay in sin. And he does not give them the ability to feel great about their life and look at their life and say, hey, look how great I'm doing. God must be okay with my life and living. when it's not pleasing according to the word of God. God is not going to enable that mentality. He is gonna bring conviction because conviction is the only thing that draws us to a point where we realize there's something wrong and change must take place in order for me to be in the perfect will of God. Without conviction, there's not a single one of us in here that would even attempt to express that we're not doing right. If we had no conviction, we'd do whatever we wanted to all the time and feel nothing about it. We'd be psychotic. Conviction is what keeps us in check. Conviction is not brought by man. True conviction is brought by only God himself. Now, man attempts to bring conviction on people, and that's called manipulation, but that is not of God. God can bring conviction without a single man saying a word. Open up this book and start reading, and all of a sudden, I knew I shouldn't have gone to that chapter. I knew it was gonna be a problem. God can either give the peace of God and the joy of salvation, or he can bring the conviction that there's something missing. because of my life. Now, we all want prosperity. We all want the blessings of God. We all want to thrive. And by the way, as we mentioned, the Canaan land, okay, the promised land is a picture of the victorious, the potential victorious Christian life in this life. It is, as I said the other Sunday, it is the picture of the potential because it has the potential to be a victorious Christian life, but that will all be reliant upon my obedience to follow God's direction. Everything in this life hinges on whether I am living according to that which I claim to believe. Now, with that in mind, we look at the children of Israel, and God desires to bless his people. That's undeniable. He brought them out of Egypt because he wanted to bless them. He saved them from their enemies, the armies of Egypt, because he wanted to bless them. He did it through miraculous events because he not only wanted to bless them, he wanted them to see and know that he is God, and there is none other. And so you have the judgments that took place in Egypt. You have the Red Sea. You have the evidence of the cloud and the presence of God through the cloud. You also have the evidence of the presence of God through the pillar of fire by night. There are things that are unexplainable except for it must be of God. And it's there because God not only wants to bless his people, he wants to prove himself to his people. By the way, don't forget, God does that for you and me on a regular basis as well. The only way that we miss God proving himself is when we willfully close our eyes to what only God can do, or we willfully allow ourselves to be distracted, eyes wide open, but I'm looking over here while God's working over here. And then when I pass through, I'm still focused over here and I'm all excited about what God did, but I'm not paying attention to who actually did what I needed. See, the children of Israel had this problem constantly. And if we're not careful, we do as well. Now we've gone through, we've seen them delivered. And Psalm 106 and verse 9 through 12 talked about the wonders of how he delivered them. And we're looking now at Psalm 106, verse number 13. And we've seen the deliverance, but now comes the forgetfulness. And this morning, we're going to look at some of these elements of forgetfulness. And tonight, I want to look at one other. We're going to skip a little bit to get there, but we'll come back to some things later. But we're going to skip a little bit to get to Mount Sinai and or Sinai, however you want to say it. or when we get there, another big element of forgetfulness takes place. But it starts somewhere. We often think of what happened at the mountain when Moses was receiving the law. By the way, there's gonna see some very interesting things that took place prior to him getting the law. I'll just put it this way. Y'all come back tonight, but they were without excuse. I'll show you tonight. But, Moses is gone. We think about at the Mount there, and the children of Israel rose up to play. They rose up to have a party. We think about the golden calf. We think about all those things. We'll look at some of that tonight. But as a whole, that was not the first time they had begun forgetting. Forgotten. Begun to forget. Whatever. I'm like my daughter. My daughter this morning was making up words that were not supposed to be used in certain grammatical sentences and I guess it rubbed off. But they didn't start forgetting at Mount Sinai. They started a lot sooner than that. That's what we're gonna see this morning. And then tonight, not only will I show you there at the Mount, but I'll show you and we'll look at what was causing their forgetfulness. What was their mindset that was causing them to act this way? But here in verse number 13, Psalm 106, it says, they soon forget. So here's the thing, verse number 12 says, they believed. Then believe they his words, they sang his praises. We'll see that in just a moment. Boy, they rejoice, they sing, they have a holy party of praising God and having a rejoicing time in fellowship one with another in the blessings of God. And then verse 13. They soon forget his works. They waited not for his counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted God in the desert. And he gave them their request and sent them leanness, but sent them leanness under their souls. He gave them what they wanted, but it didn't satisfy. By the way, if God gave you everything you wanted, you would still want. If he gave you right now everything you hope for and everything you want, if he gave you everything you think he ought to give you, you would come right back the next day and say, oh, I forgot this and forgot this and forgot, oh, now I need this and now I need this and now I need this. It would never end because stuff never satisfies. Things, money, even people don't satisfy. By the way, standard relationships don't satisfy. There's only one relationship that has any satisfaction in its entirety, and that is your relationship with Christ. But they forget his works. They waited not for his counsel. They lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, tempted God in the desert. He gave them their requests. and sent Linus into their soul. Verse number 16, they envied Moses also in the camp and Aaron and the saint of the Lord. And it goes on to talk about how the earth swallowed up Dathan and covered the company of Abiram. We'll look at that later. It says, and a fire was kindled in their company. The flame burned up the wicked. They made a calf in Horeb and worshiped the molten image. Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass. Verse number 21, they forgot God their Savior. which had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red Sea. They forgot. but it didn't take very long to start the forgetting. By the way, that is, you say, why are we looking at this? Because it is written for us as an example or the example that is set to look back to to see what happened to them and when you watch and see what happens to them and how they come to certain areas and points in their life and what took place and what got them there, we can pretty much look at our lives and we can see a resemblance of what happens to us if we follow the same patterns. because it might be different generations of humans that are in existence today than it was thousands of years ago, but the problems of human beings have not changed. Mankind's problem is still the same, and it's called sin. So let's pray and we're gonna jump in here and give you three areas this morning, three areas where forgetfulness took place and how this started a history of doing these same things. Bad habits are hard to kill. which is why it's better not to start them in the first place. But we're gonna see some seriously bad habits here. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this morning. I pray that you'd help us as we look at this. Would you open up your word to show us, Lord, what we need to see, what we need to be reminded of as we walk with our Savior. Lord, help us to see how not to make the same mistakes as the children of Israel as they walked with God. Would you help us, Lord, to Be aware, be sensitive, and let the conviction of the Holy Spirit do what needs to be done this morning in our individual lives. We ask it all in Christ's name, amen. And amen. If you would go with me back to Exodus 15, and let's jump in. Exodus 15, I will tell you this, once they cross the Red Sea, The people of Israel immediately reflect, and you think about it, you think about all that they've been through, you think about all that they've seen, you think about all that's happened, and number one, you'd be in a little bit of a state of shock, as well as I. You would be overwhelmed with the unbelievable nature of what's taken place. I mean, think about it. You just left Egypt, a place where you've been for hundreds of years, generation after generation, started off really good, then you got put into slavery because your people group got so big that the Pharaoh that knew not Joseph decided these people that are not natural born citizens of Egypt are going to outgrow us. We better put them in submission now so that we don't lose our country. It's amazing. Let's just be honest. Again, I'm not for the slavery side of it, but people with common sense do understand you can lose your country by not protecting your country. Now, they did not do the right way. but you can lose that which you have without protecting it. So they unfortunately do it through a very horrible means of slavery. And they put them in bondage. And no matter how big the children of Israel grew, they were able to control them because of a power issue. And by the way, just like you train, how do you train a full grown elephant that a little bitty rope and a stake in the ground can hold it? You do it from an infant and it fights and it struggles and it fights and it struggles and it hurts itself trying to get free from the rope or the chain and that stake that's in the ground and it cannot get free. And it comes to a point of full submission and it gives over its will and it becomes convinced I will never be able to be free. So it grows up into a full grown elephant. That thing could literally just move a leg and pop that rope or that chain, move a leg and rip that stake out of the ground. It doesn't take much power from a full grown elephant to remove itself from a little bitty thing holding it. And yet as a baby it was convinced, it's impossible, I'm just not ever gonna try again. By the way, that's how Satan does us as well when it comes to sin. He gets you in in the early stages. He gets you bound in the early stages of those things that you are convinced now, I cannot beat, I cannot get past, I cannot overcome. And the reason you are at a point where as a child of God, you have the strength and ability with Christ to overcome and break the bonds of addictions or whatever it is, we convince ourselves it's impossible. It can't be done. I've tried and tried and tried and tried and tried. Well, here's the question. Did you try with Christ helping or did you try in the flesh? That's the thing. You try in the flesh, try in the flesh, try in the flesh, you become convinced it's impossible. And then when you actually do have the ability through Christ to handle it, all of a sudden you're convinced to never even try. That's how Satan works. The children of Israel were convinced they could never be free, but God freed them through His mighty power. Come to the Red Sea, the Red Sea parts. They see the whole thing happen. They walk through on dry ground. which is a miracle in itself. You have that much water, been there for that long, move, and overnight the ground dries up. It's not even murky, it's not muddy. I mean, you're not even walking through with a little bit of a doughy fill on top. It is solid dry. Think about this. The last person in line walked across the same dry ground as the first person in line. Y'all ever notice how there are some places where you go and it looks dry and it looks solid? Now, run a whole bunch of cattle across that area and let them completely stomp and tear it up. If there's any moisture down below, it will turn into a mud pit before you get all the cattle across. Doesn't matter if it looked dry prior, so much weight, so much movement, so much pressure, and it will turn it into a mud pit. And yet the children of Israel, millions of them and their cattle and all they had went across on dry ground and it was just as dry for the last person as it was for the first person. With only one night of breeze blowing across it. Now that's crazy. Unless, of course, you account that God can do all things. They've seen it all. And not only that, they get to the other side and here comes Pharaoh. Imagine their fear when Pharaoh's, oh, Pharaoh's crossing. He's gonna get us now. We've been safe up to this point, but now we're doomed. And then all of a sudden, the water closes and drowns them. Chapter 15. gives us an account of that happening all the way, I'm not gonna read it, but from verse one all the way up to verse 21, they are shouting and they are singing and they are skipping and dancing around because God has been so good. He has delivered us. We are free. He has destroyed Pharaoh. Mighty Pharaoh is now dead, and his armies are gone. Their strength is over. Look how God can come through. And boy, they're excited, and they're singing, and they're worshiping and praising God. They're having a good old-fashioned hoedown. Let's get this thing, woo-hoo, let's get this celebration going. And before chapter 15 ends, we are given the first of their forgetfulness. Look at verse number 22 with me. Now get this, understand, This is a picture. This is a time. The picture of the freedom from Egypt is the release and the freedom from the bondage of sin. It is a picture of salvation. Going through the Red Sea is a picture of following Christ in that open declaration in baptism that we have been covered by the blood. We have been covered. It is not the Red Sea that delivered them. They were already delivered. The Red Sea was a ceiling of knowledge that this has happened. They belong to God. And therefore they go through as a picture of following in baptism after salvation. Now they are on the other side of the Red Sea, which means Egypt is on that side, old life, old me, old man, and I'm now on this side, new life, new me, new man in Christ. So it's a picture of a brand new Christian. By the way, someone who gets saved out of a rough, if they've had any experience in life, they get saved a little bit later on in life and a little bit older. They have things to regret. They see what God brought them out of to what God has brought them to. Most of the time, what you have is someone who is very excited and very ready, whoop, let's get this thing started. Man, this feels good. I am so glad to be out of that junk. Let's go. Right? They typically are hungry. They typically are thirsty. They just give, give. I can't get enough. Now here's the problem. As we said, it is a picture of, as they cross over to the other side of the Red Sea, it is a picture of a brand new child of God who has just put their faith in Jesus Christ. Okay? That is a very volatile timeframe. in an individual's life. Why? Because they are eager, they are excited, boy, everything just emotional high, emotional high. But it doesn't take very much, emotional low, emotional low. I don't even take it anymore. Okay, they get so, it's kind of like getting hopped up on sugar. You get so much sugar, you're bouncing around like Tigger. The most wonderful thing about Tinker is... I'm not gonna do that, okay. But they're bouncing around, they're excited, they're excited, but here's the thing, it doesn't take much to knock the legs out. because they're excited, they're happy, they wanna serve God, but they're not grounded in things to help them handle the waves of life and handle the winds of life and handle the disappointments of life. And they're excited, but their excitement is to a degree an emotional state. And if y'all ever noticed, your emotions can deceive you and stab you in the back. Now watch. They're excited, it's wonderful. And three days, three days after crossing the Red Sea, we come to a picture of what's happening here. In verse number 22. So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea and they went out into the wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. What? What are we gonna do now? Kinda like Don Knotts. Oh, what are we gonna do? I don't know what we're gonna do. And so here it is, all excited now. Now here's the thing. The Bible tells us that we are to add to our faith and we are to grow in grace. when your faith, like a mustard seed of faith, not very big, not very stout, it's almost barely noticeable, it's there, but you put that faith, that mustard seed in the ground, there's not much there. It's got a lot of growing to do to not get washed away by things. It's there, it exists, But it's really small. It's not faith that moves mountains. It's not faith that's founded on no matter what happens, I can walk with God regardless. It's not that kind of faith. It was the faith to trust in Christ, and I'm on the other side of the Red Sea. I know where I am. I haven't got a clue what I'm doing. All right? Three days out, and they can't find water. Verse number 23 says, and when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter, therefore the name of it was Marah. That's a Captain Obvious statement right there, okay? It was called Marah because, well, it's bitter, therefore the name. Marah means bitter. They come to a place where they find water. Water! Somebody reaches down. We can't drink this! We're doomed! Okay, y'all ever met that kind of Christian? You ever met that person? We're following God. We're following God. Let's go. We can take on anything. We're gonna die! I mean, roller coaster. They're the ones you gotta put a leash on, figuratively, because they'll run off without you, all excited, and then they'll run off and leave you when things get tough. Either way, you're trying to hold them in. Don't run off ahead and don't run away. Just hold on. You're gonna be okay. Why? They haven't walked with God very long. Their faith hasn't grown. They're just in. Now you can picture yourself in some ways, and by the way, if we're not careful, we often act like we're all the way back at that point in life and we've been saved for years. Now watch. They get to Marah, verse number 25, no, verse number 24, and the people murmured against Moses, saying, what shall we drink? Now, oh, I gotta move fast, my soul. The people start, just like everything with us, there is a progression of movement. When you start going down in your attitude and mindset and actions, there is a progression down. Here is the progression. Here, the Bible tells us, and the people murmured against Moses saying, here's what they said, what shall we drink? And that's as far as we're here. At this point, all they're doing is, What's gonna happen to us? Moses, what are we gonna drink? How are you gonna fix this problem? Okay, now that's as far as they go at this point. But they add to their murmuring later. Verse 25, and he cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet, There he made for them a statue and an ordinance. And there he proved them and said, if thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God. Do y'all see the prerequisite to God's provision and blessings? If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee. Now, there's a Jehovah, the Jehovah names of God, we dealt with that before, I'm not gonna go into that right now. but I'm the Lord that healeth thee. In other words, I can protect your health. Nothing health-wise can touch you or me that God does not either himself send or himself allow. He is the God who protects the health. He oversees the health. He determines your health. Now listen, and by the way, if you're not going through great health things, it doesn't mean that you've done awful with God. No, God either sends it or he allows it, but he's always got a purpose for either. And it's not always judgment. But watch, in this moment, the Bible does not say that Moses rebuked the people. It does not say that God rebuked the people. This is the first circumstance since they've been delivered and come on the other side of the Red Sea, is the first circumstance they've hit a major hardship and they're not strong enough to just faith it. They don't know how to faith it. Not fake, faith. Trust God. They're just now learning how to trust God. And so you don't see, you don't see them accusing a whole bunch. They're just saying, what are we gonna do? You don't see Moses saying, you sorry, no good, rotten individual. He does that later. You don't see God saying, stand back, I'm gonna wipe them out. They're no good, they're rebellious. You don't see that. This first scenario, you just see Moses going to God, and God saying, take a branch, throw it in, I'm gonna heal it, and I'm going to place this as a testimony to the people to show them, I can provide their need, and here is the command you will give. If they will follow, and they will hearken, and they will give ear, and they will listen. If they will follow me, I will provide and take care of them, but then he makes this promise as well. I will not bring upon them the plagues that were brought upon Egypt. Do you know what that means? That means that God, in order to get his people's attention, is willing to bring them through the same type things he made Egypt suffer. He's willing to go that far to get the attention of those he loves that need to get right. But he says, I won't do it if they'll just follow me and not forsake me. And he goes on in verse number 27, and they came to Elam, where were 12 wells of water and three score and 10 palm trees, and they encamped there by the waters. Marah was God proving, you can trust me, here is enough for the moment. Even from that which seems bitter, I can make it sweet. It's enough for the moment, my grace is sufficient. And then as they pass on, they come to a place that is abundant with water. and there's no question what we're gonna drink. There's no question how it's, it's been provided. God said in the lean times, my grace is enough, trust me, I can prove myself to you. And then I can also bless you abundantly if you'll follow me. Now, from that we have the second scenario. That is the waters of Mara, three days. I'm gonna give you this one. You know, I might stop with this one and we'll pick it back up tonight. but six days out. Three days out, Marah. Six days out, you now have chapter 16 here, verse one through seven. Six days from the Red Sea. And it says, and they took their journey from Elam, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came into the wilderness of sin. How appropriate. Matter of fact, there is debate over what the wilderness of sin is because there was no specific place called the wilderness of sin per se. They have different names for the area. It's more of a general area of understanding. But there's different mentalities of where the positionings could be in some aspects. But I'm not gonna go into all that this morning. Because it's way too confusing and it honestly doesn't matter. What does matter is they're six days out from the Red Sea crossing. And it says, it does say that it's between Elam and Sinai. and on the 15th day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt. Now, again, it might seem confusing. You're saying six days? This is the 15th day of the second month. Yeah, I didn't even go into the timeframe. It took the distance from Egypt to the Red Sea. That wasn't a single day of travel. Okay? And there has been, there's a whole calendar that you can find that shows you, and it has been a good bit of time, but from the Red Sea crossing to this point has been six days. Okay? And so here they are, at least according to common knowledge and information that I can find that is backed up by multiple sources, okay? So if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. I'm just trusting what is seen and what is being read here, okay? So six days out, here we are. It says verse number two, and the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. Now that's nothing new. Three days ago, they did the same thing. but their attitude has increased. You ready? And the children of Israel said unto them, now the first time they said unto Moses, what shall we drink? This time it's recorded, the children of Israel said unto them, would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt. Now it's not just, what are we going to eat? Now it's, I wish I had just died in Egypt. Well, that's depressing. Now watch, here's why. They do what we do. If you're not careful, If you lived a life and maybe got into adulthood before you gave your life to Christ, and got saved and surrendered everything over to Him, and you had a life of living some things in sin, and it was destroying you, and it was causing and wreaking havoc in your life, and then you got saved and God brought you on this side of it, old man gone, new man alive, And then later on life gets tough in this new life with Christ and things get kind of hard. All of a sudden Satan reminds you of some of the parties you used to go to. Of some of the friends that you used to have. You know those great buddies that get you slapped drunk and then leave you passed out for people to make fun of while they go home. Oh, but man, we had a great time. What'd you do? I don't remember. But I know it was great. It had to be great. My head's killing me. That's not great. That's not, but here's the thing. Satan will remind you of some of the highlights that you enjoyed. And he'll paint a picture of the past that is skewed with reality. And you'll be thinking and looking back and saying, Man, it really wasn't so bad. Man, back there, I had this, and I did these things that were fun, and I wasn't in jail or nothing. Now, skewed picture of the past. Watch what they do. Here it is. Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the flesh pots. And when we did eat bread to the full, for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. They're looking back at Egypt thinking they ate like kings. They didn't eat like kings. They ate whatever they can get their hands on. They were slaves. They didn't eat like Pharaoh. They got the crumbs that fell from Pharaoh's table. They ate like dogs. Now listen. When they look back, they highlight some of the high moments when they might have had a good meal. They might have had a celebration. You know, all of Egypt was celebrating, and everybody was feeling real philanthropic. And so they just, hey, here, y'all take this, kill and eat, y'all have a good time, we're having a blast as well. Moments, moments. of slight enjoyment, and yet on this side of the Red Sea, all of a sudden, they hit a hardship, they hit a tough area, and all of a sudden, they look back and say, oh man, we missed the flash pots. Oh, we missed the bread. My stomach. It didn't used to growl like this. Yeah, it did. You were so hungry you didn't know what eating really was. But now you're looking back and you're remembering things in a very skewed and different way before God delivered you. Because Satan paints a beautiful picture but it only goes surface deep. If you get beneath the surface, it crumbles because it's rotten. And we convince ourselves it would have been better to just stay in my miserable life than to be here having to trust God through the hard times. That's where they're at. They're only six days from the Red Sea. Verse two and three, they're murmuring. Then you go down to verse 14 through verse number 20, and they start hoarding. And then you go to verse 22 through 28, and they show a whole bunch of doubting. Now watch, I'm just gonna show you this, because I don't have time to go through it, I gotta stop. The murmuring was, you brought us here to kill us. Would have been better. We miss the flesh pots. We miss the bread. We miss what we think we remember about Egypt being slaves. We would rather go back and be slaves than to be here. I have to trust God and we're hungry. Now watch. Why did you, Moses, why did you bring us out here to kill us? Are you enjoying this, Moses? Now watch. And Moses goes to God, talks to God, and he says in verse number seven there, in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of the Lord, for that he heareth your murmurings against the Lord. And what are we that ye murmur against us? Moses reminds them, you're pointing a finger at me, but it's not me you're angry with, you're angry with God. It's not me you can't trust, it's God you're not trusting. And that's the problem. Now watch. Goes over, God provides them quail. I'm just gonna tell you, read it for yourself. God provides them quail and they eat meat. Hey. I guarantee you they had a better meal right then than they ever had in Egypt. They're eating meat, quail, so much quail, it was everywhere. Them birds didn't know where they were going, they just decided, hey look, that looks like a good landing spot, let's land right there. To their death. Because you got hungry people and all they saw, forget quail, it looks like steak to me, let's grab it. And they fix the quail, they have meat, and then that's that evening. Then the next morning, God sends for the first time with the dew, he sends a little fleck, a little speck of something that stays behind after the dew leaves. And they look and say, oh, manna. By the way, the word manna means what is it? They had no clue, they had never seen it. And they look and say, manna, and so now we know it's manna. Take it, put it together, very small. They had to gather a whole lot, but there was enough for everybody. They gathered a whole lot, they mixed it together, and they made a bread that was sweet to the taste. It was wonderful, but God gave them instructions, and God told them that you're to take only what you need for today. Do not hold off and gather more than you need and try to make up for what you think you want tomorrow. You gather what you need, and you eat what you need for today. Give us this day our daily bread. You take what you need for today and I'll provide again tomorrow. And a lot of them took what they thought they needed for the week. Look, there's so much here. It may not come back. Let's not trust God. Let's not believe God. Let's not follow God. Let's do it our way. Isn't that, boy, that is the way we act. God provided, but let's use what God's given in our own way. And so they gather, and I just, we're not gonna read the passages. You go back and read it. Verse 14 through verse number 20, they hoard unto themselves, and the next morning it bred worms and stank. The Bible says Moses was furious. You can't even obey God in one simple command? What is wrong with you people? He gives you quail, and then he gives you this amazing, nobody even knows what it is, bread, and you can't obey him. He proved himself two times, miraculously, because of your murmuring, and you still disobey. And so, then it comes down to verse number 28, 22 through 28, and it comes to the sixth day. And God gave specific command, because he had given them the Sabbath, the sixth day, There was to be a time frame that they were to gather all together, and they were to gather enough for the next day, which would be their Sabbath day, and therefore they're not to go out because there'll be nothing to find. I will give you, and I, God, will sustain that which you have gathered on the sixth day to provide for you on the seventh day, so you gather double. Some of them did, but then the Bible says in verse number 23 through verse number 28, that some of them went out the seventh day to gather. What is that? They're not trusting God, they're doubting again. They doubted that he would actually do anything to them if they hoard it unto themselves. And when they saw what happened to it, they're like, oops, my bad. And then God says, now I do want you to gather double for this particular day. Here's how you're gonna handle the sixth day. And they say, yeah, but we already know what happened before. We don't want that again, that really stunk. Whoo, man, it took four days to get rid of that out of the house. I'm not doing that again. And so the sixth day they didn't go out, they didn't gather twice, they just gathered for the sixth day, and the seventh day there was nothing to eat because nothing was on the ground. And Moses again rebukes them for their unbelief and refusal to follow God. Now I've gotta stop right there. Here's what I want you to understand. I will give you this passage of Scripture, and I'm gonna tie it together for this morning because I don't wanna just leave things hanging completely. We're gonna find one more time frame, we're at Rephidim, where there's a famous scenario dealing with water again. Water from the rock. But the Bible says in Matthew five, verse number six, Jesus himself speaking says, blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. If the children of Israel, after crossing the Red Sea, three days out, they were just learning what it was to put their faith in God for every aspect of their life. Six days out, they've already learned and seen once, now it's time to exercise what you've learned. And instead of exercising what they've learned, they fall back on their fleshly reactions. And they say, we were better off in Egypt. Lying to themselves instead of choosing to trust God. Why? They were more focused on the material now than the eternal and spiritual aspect of walking with God. They wanted God to fix my material problems, God, my problems in this life. I need this now and I need this now and I need this now. You've got to prove to me that being with you is better than being out there with the world. No, he doesn't. He took care of that proof when he gave you forgiveness that you didn't deserve. You've already received what you don't deserve, and you've already received the promise that he will provide, but you must faith your way through obedience. Do you trust God? By the way, the best thing you and I can do is hunger and thirst after righteousness. Lord, I'm physically hungry. but it's nothing compared to my hunger for you. Lord, I'm thirsty. There's some things in this life I feel like I'm lacking some things. Lord, I need you to come through in some very physical ways in my life, but Lord, there's nothing in this life that I thirst more for than to walk with you and to follow you. The children of Israel had kept their focus on God. They would have seen the physical taken care of in numerous miraculous ways without the, I remember back in the day when we were in Egypt, boy, the flesh pots and the this and the that. They wouldn't have murmured, complained, griped, shook their fist at God. They would say, Lord, We're yours, we're here, we're following. You promised to be faithful. I will trust you. Instead, they said, we can't see it. Therefore, something's gotta be wrong. Do you trust God? Baby Christians struggle as they are just learning how to put their faith of daily life in God. Are we still there? Or have we learned to trust Him? Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank You for Your Word.