The Essence of Sin

Numbers 11:1-9, 18-20, 31-35

March 16, 2003

            Let’s pray.

            What is sin?  Sin is a word often used in the church, although perhaps less often today than in other periods of church history.  As much as the word is used, are we able to give a biblically sound explanation of what sin is?  In grade school I learned a catechism, and one of the questions was, “What is sin?”  And the answer to this question was, “Sin is the transgression of the law of God.”  Now to a third-grader that means very little, and to most thirty year olds that means very little because to understand the meaning of the phrase “the transgression of the law of God” you have to understand what the law of God is and what its purpose is.  And most people do not understand the law of God.  If you ask the average person about the law of God and the commandments of God, he will usually respond with a statement of an external nature, such as, “Don’t murder.  Don’t steal.  Don’t commit adultery.”  The law of God is viewed by most people as a list of rules, behaviors we are to exhibit in our relationships. 

            Charles Spurgeon, a 19^th century British pastor, realized this widespread misunderstanding was perilous to the souls of his congregation, so concerning sin he said this: “If sin consisted only in dishonesty, in lying, in swearing, in drunkenness, many of you might plead not guilty, and it might go well with you; but if the sin which will bring upon you the punishment of hell be a neglect of God, a want of love to Him, then where are you?”  Many people perhaps could plead not guilty to sins that are seen as big sins.  But what if the question was not about how you act toward other men, or what you do on the outside that people see?  What if the question is: What is your heart like toward God and His Son Jesus Christ?  How much do you prize Christ?

            Sin may be manifested different ways and in varying degrees externally, but every manifestation of sin, from a little white lie to serial murder, stems from a heart that does not value the glory of God more than anything and everything else that exists.  Sin is, in its essence, loving something or someone, or many things and many people, more than you love God.  All of sin comes down to this one issue in the heart of man.  The essence of sin is prizing, treasuring, valuing, desiring, wanting, longing for, loving anyone or anything more than God, including things that aren’t real that you devise in your own mind and imagination.  Sin is loving God less than you love something else, even your own family, even your own life.  That is my proposition to you this morning.  Sin is prizing and valuing and loving anything more than you prize and value and love God and all that He is for us in Christ.  That is the point that God is trying to make in this passage from Numbers.

            Here in Numbers God has recorded a historical event in the nation of Israel to teach us how to please Him and to be obedient to Him and not fall into sin and unbelief.  In fact, all of the Old Testament is given for our instruction so that we will avoid sin and unbelief.  I say that because that is what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10.  Look at it with me.  1 Corinthians 10:1.  Paul writes, For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.  Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.  What’s he saying?  He’s simply saying that all those who came out of Egypt with Moses saw the miracles and wonders of God and drank from Christ and tasted His glory and goodness and mercy and deliverance, and yet with most of them God was not pleased, and we know He was not pleased because He killed many of them in the wilderness and allowed enough time to pass so that all the rest, except for Joshua and Caleb, would die before entering the promised land.  Why did God do this?  Why were they laid low?  And why does Paul want us to know this?  He tells us in verse 6.  He says, Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved.  The history of Israel in the Old Testament is written as an example for us so that we will not crave evil things, so that we will not desire and lust after things that are wicked and sinful and evil.  Paul continues in verse 7, Do not be idolaters.  What is an idolater?  An idolater is someone who worships someone or something that is not God Almighty as revealed in the Bible.  An idolater is someone who values someone or something more than God in Jesus.  The people of Israel were idolaters, and if you read the Old Testament you will find them in exile, in plagues, in peril, in wars, eating their own children, all because they were idolaters.  And Paul says, “I want you to know about Israel so that you won’t desire evil things like they did.  They were idolaters, so take notice, and don’t be idolaters like them.”  The Old Testament is full of examples for us to help us not be idolaters.  Idolatry is sin, and, I believe we could also say that all sin is basically, in its essence, idolatry.  It is having another god before the true and living God.  If you read the rest of 1 Corinthians 10, which I urge you to do this afternoon some time, you will notice that Paul appears to have Numbers 11 in mind at various points as he exhorts us to not give in to sin as Israel did.

In Numbers 11 we see the essence of sin played out in the nation of Israel.  This chapter gives us a vivid, striking illustration of what sin truly is.  The story basically consists of two different events, both of which involve the people of Israel complaining and God responding in judgment.  Let’s start with the first complaint. 

The First Complaint (v. 1)

            The first complaint is in verse 1.  We read, Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord.  Stop right there.  This statement in and of itself deserves an entire sermon.  What did we just read?  The people of Israel became like people who complain of adversity, or evil, or hardship, in the hearing of the Lord.  I find this statement striking because the Israelites had literally nothing to complain about.  They had free food everyday that they did not have to work for.  They had water whenever they needed it.  They had the very presence of God with them leading them.  They had quality shoes and clothing that did not wear out.  And they complained of adversity!  And this in light of what they just left in Egypt, which was adversity in its truest sense.  Yet they complain of adversity.  They were seeing miracles daily.  They had just been delivered from slavery.  They had received the law of God.  They had one of the wisest and most godly leaders in history who spoke with God face to face.  What in the world are they complaining about?  Adversity?

            The cause of the people’s complaint is not yet revealed.  It is almost as if this story is a precursor or preview of the greater complaint that is about to come.  For whatever reason, the people were complaining about hardship, and they felt as if they were enduring unjust suffering at the hand of the Lord. 

The First Response (vv. 1-3)

            The response of God is expected.  And when the Lord heard it, His anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.  God responds to the people’s complaint in judgment.  The Lord heard the complaint, and His response was to send fire into the camp. 

            But even in judgment we see the mercy of God.  Notice, the fire does not burn in the center of the camp.  The fire burned in the outskirts, or the very edge of the camp.  It was not where the people would have been.  and there is no indication that the fire killed anyone.  It appears that this fire judgment was a warning from the Lord.  Yet it was a stern warning, for the people realized that this fire could not be put out by water or fire extinguishers.  Because they knew this was the fire of the Lord, which could only be put out by the Lord Himself, we see in verse 2 that the people therefore cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord and the fire died out.  The people came to Moses in great alarm and asked him to pray to the Lord to stop the fire.  Moses heeded their request, and upon his prayer the fire died down and eventually died out. 

            Then we read in verse three that this event was traumatic enough to create a memorial to it for remembrance.  Verse three says, So the name of that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the Lord burned among them.  The people named the ground that they were on burning, which is what Taberah means, so that they would remember the plague of fire that broke out among them.  They realized their sin to some degree, and for whatever reason they decided to rename this place so that they would not soon forget what they had done and how the Lord had responded. 

            It is this small story that introduces the larger context of chapter 11.  This story is a precursor to what comes starting in verse 4.  In verse 4 we see the second complaint by the people of Israel. 

The Second Complaint (vv. 4-9)

            The second complaint.  Look at verse 4.  We read, The rabble who were among them had greedy desires; and also the sons of Israel wept again and said, “Who will give us meat to eat?  We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our appetite is gone.  There is nothing at all to look at except this manna. 

            In this paragraph we have two different groups described.  One is called the rabble.  These were probably people who had left Egypt with the Israelites, but they were not Israelites.  Perhaps they had seen the plagues in Egypt and came to believe in Israel’s God in some way.  Perhaps they heard the promises to Israel and wanted in on the riches and the land.  Or perhaps they just wanted to travel and decided to leave Egypt with this group.  Whatever the case, the rabble was among the Israelites, and they had greedy desires.  In the Hebrew that is literally translated they desired with desire or they lusted a lust.  The idea is this: the rabble, these non-Israelites began to feel a strong, deep craving.  The Hebrew word for desires is almost always used in a negative context.  They had desires that were evil in some way.  These desires were contrary to the will of God.

            We also see that this group called the rabble impacted the sons of Israel.  They also felt a strong craving.  Their craving drove them to weep again before the Lord.  Here they were being led by God Himself through this desert to the promised land, eating food from heaven, drinking water, seeing the power and majesty of Christ everyday before their very eyes, and their response is weeping before the Lord.  Something rose up inside them that produced evil desires.  And these desires drove them along with the rabble to weeping.  Although the fires of judgment had barely died out, the Israelites immediately resumed their complaining.  As soon as the fires of judgment is gone, the complaining returns.

            They wept and complained for two reasons.  One reason is because they had a faulty memory.  They asked, Who will give us meat to eat?  This is a direct assault on God Himself.  The question is a basic statement of unbelief.  They were in a predicament of helplessness in the wilderness, and rather than turning to God and praying for meat, they question God and ask who will give us meat to eat as if God was not strong enough to do it!  They forgot the wonder and power of God.  Their memory also failed them in regard to Egypt.  Suddenly Egypt, the place of their bondage, slavery, and servitude, looked like paradise to them.  They longed for the fish which they ate for free.  If you read Exodus, you will quickly discover and understand that the Israelites did not eat anything for free.  They were slaves without any rights or privileges, and they were mistreated and in bondage.  Whatever they ate came at great cost to them.  But suddenly their past bondage to Pharaoh looked like a paradise lost.  They close their complaint with this dramatic statement: but now our appetite is gone.  The word for appetite literally means soul or life.  Looking back at Egypt they failed to remember the misery, and their faulty memories created a strong desire in them, so strong that it made them feel as if their very souls had died and their life was dried up and withered.  The Israelites lusted after evil things, and they had faulty memories.

            Not only, though, did they fail to remember the past correctly, they also failed to recognize the present as it really was.  They said, There is nothing at all to look at except this manna.  What was manna?  And why were they so tired of it?  Moses is clear in verses 7-9 that manna was good food.  Manna was not something distasteful.  There was no legitimate reason for the Israelites to complain.  It tasted like coriander seed, which, whatever it really was, was certainly meant to be a positive comparison.  The point is that it was tasty.  It was good, and it was something that was desirable.  Not only was it tasty, it also looked good.  Its appearance was like that of bdellium.  The word bdellium is most likely describing a pearl or something that resembles a pearl.  It was pleasing to look at, and it was delicious to eat.  There was nothing objectionable about manna.  It wasn’t as if God had given them dried up crackers to eat.  Not only that, but it was also versatile, and the Israelites were able to make cakes out of it and cook it in a variety of ways.  They did not have to have the same thing everyday.  In verse 8 we read, its taste was as the taste of cakes baked with oil.  Moses wrote that to inform us as readers that it was moist, delicious food.  It wasn’t dry.  Cakes baked with oil were a delicacy.  Oil was a valuable commodity, and the manna tasted like cakes that were baked using this important ingredient.  Finally, they received the manna without cost and without work.  When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall with it.  This is key, because the reader of this book in Moses’ day would have read Genesis 3:19.  Genesis 3:19 is the curse after man’s sin, and in that verse God curses man by saying, By the sweat of your face you will eat bread.  The curse was that man would have to work for food, but God took care of Israel and in a sense reversed the curse for them.  They did not have to work for bread.  They received food directly from the hand of God and not by the sweat of their faces.  In fact, it was so easy to get manna that a child could have found his own meals.  All they had to do was go outside in the morning and pick it up!  This is similar to the Garden of Eden where all Adam and Eve had to do was go to the trees and pick the fruit.  No work.  No cost.  No hardship.  Free food without the slightest bit of effort!  But to Israel, this was not enough.  They complained, they grumbled against God, and not only this, they said that they were better off as slaves in Egypt!  Israel failed to recognize the reality of the present.  They failed to remember the past.  And they showed their hearts were full of sin and idolatry.  And God saw their idolatry, and He responded.  Look down to verse 18.  Here we see the response of God.

The Second Reponse (vv. 18-20, 31-35)

            God is here talking to Moses, and God tells Moses in verse 18, Say to the people, “Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat.”  So God responds by telling Moses to command the people to make themselves holy.  The people were to consecrate themselves.  They were to set themselves apart for God.  I see in this command the overwhelming mercy of God.  It seems to me that God is giving these people a chance to recognize their sin.  He is telling them to sit down, examine themselves, and cleanse themselves from their sin and be prepared to have a feast from the Lord.  God here warns the people and gives them a day to recognize how they have sinned against the Lord. 

            After giving the people a chance to recognize their sin, God basically restates their complaint.  He says in verse 18, You have wept in the ears of the Lord, saying, “Oh that someone would give us meat to eat!  For we were well-off in Egypt.”  Now this translation is not very good at this point.  The translators have taken some liberty with the Hebrew here, and the verse would better read, You have wept in the ears of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat?  For it was to our advantage to be in Egypt!”  This is important for two reasons.  First, it must be understood that the complaint of the Israelites was a questioning of the power and goodness of God.  They asked the question, “Who will give us meat to eat?”  But not only did they question the power of God, but they said that they were better off before they came out of Egypt.  They do not merely state that they were well-off in Egypt, as the translation suggests.  They say that they were better-off in Egypt.  “Life was better for us there,” the Israelites cry.  “Oh who will provide meat for us out here in this wilderness?  Who will give us what we want?  We were better off in Egypt in slavery and bondage than out here in this wilderness with manna and freedom!” 

            Because of their complaint God promised to give more than enough meat.  In fact, their desire for meat would be a cause of sickness for them.  The meat would come out of their nostrils as it were and became loathsome to them.  The Hebrew word translated loasthsome literally means nausea or sickness.  The idea is that the Isrealites would have so much meat that they would be ill and sick to their stomachs.  Why?  Why would God respond this way?

            God’s responds this way because of the incredible wickedness of the people of Israel.  God responded this way, notice in verse 20, because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before Him saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?”  This is the height of sin.  Sin is, ultimately, rejecting God.  That is the very heart and essence of sin.  But the question is, How did the Israelites reject God?  Outwardly they would have professed to be God’s covenant people.  The world recognized them as the people of God, the Lord.  From all external appearances Israel and God had a relationship.  But from God’s perspective Israel had rejected Him.

            Israel had rejected God by saying, Why did we ever leave Egypt, or we were better off in Egypt.  Meat is a side issue.  Meat has nothing to do with the rejection.  God would have probably given Israel meat if they would have come to Him in faith and prayed with humble hearts asking for meat and there would have been no problem.  But the problem was that Israel valued food more than God.  Meat was more important than God.

            Why do I say that?  Because in Egypt Israel had meat but did not have the very presence of God, but in the wilderness Israel had the presence of God with no meat, and their preference, if given the choice between meat and God, was meat.  That is sin.  That is idolatry.  Israel’s attitude and Israel’s words and weeping defamed the name of God, because any outside onlooker would have seen what was happening and thought to himself, “God must not be very satisfying.  He must not be very glorious and desirable.  They have God, and they want to go back to slavery in Egypt.  They would rather have meat and slavery than God and freedom.”  The essence of sin is to trade the glory of God for something else.  Sin is valuing most something that is not most valuable.  I’ll say that again.  Sin is valuing most something that is not most valuable.  What could be more valuable than the presence of God?  What more could they have asked for?  They had the very presence of God and rejected Him in favor of bondage.

            Sin, then, is trading the glory of God for something else.  Paul talked about this in Romans 1:23 where he says that they exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image…  They traded the infinite, majestic, awesome glory of God for an idol.  They would rather have an idol than the true and living God.  That is what sin is.  Sin is valuing something other than God more than God, and that is idolatry. 

            We see this everywhere in our world today, even in the church.  What is the church supposed to be other than the people of God?  Christians are the ones who have the very presence of God.  Yet how many are not content with that!  How many want something more, and how many have evil desires and crave things that the world has to offer!  The more the church mirrors the world and becomes like the world the more we see the sin from Numbers 11 manifest in the church.  Are we content to be the people of God and to be blessed with every spiritual blessing?  Or do we want the things of the world?  In our study of 1 John in chapter 2 we were commanded to not love the world.  We were commanded to not crave evil things.  The opposite of craving evil things is craving God.  Desiring God.  The question we must ask ourselves is, “Is God enough for me?  Or does my happiness depend more on temporary, physical desires and pleasures than on the very presence of God in my life?”  If something other than God brings us maximum joy and maximum pleasure, then we crave evil things.  The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.  That means that God is your joy.  God is your happiness.  God is your strength.  If your joy, happiness, and strength is something else, then you have rejected the Lord to one degree or another. 

            When we think about the law of God, the first commandment we should remember is You shall have no other gods before Me, which is the negative way of saying, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  The Christian is someone who desires the presence of God more than he or she desires anything else because the Christian loves God more than anything else.  Anytime this order of things gets mixed up and changed, sin happens.  Every time we sin we reject the Lord, we exchange His glory for something else.  That is why Jesus had to die such a gruesome death on the cross – because sin is not just breaking a law here or there; sin is rejecting God Almighty! 

            Oh that this truth might sink deep into our souls.  How often do we think of sin in terms of rejecting God in exchange for something of lesser value?  And when we see sin this way, we see why it is so utterly sinful and wicked and inexcusable.  The reason sin is so sinful and inexcusable is because it says that God is not infinitely valuable and worthy and glorious.  Sin says that God is not better than everything else in the universe.  And sin makes trash look like a treasure, and it makes a treasure look like trash. 

            Let me give you an illustration.  Suppose you take the garbage out.  How many of you, after having dumped the trash in the dumpster, all the way back to your house or apartment look back at the trash and long for it to be back in your house and in your presence?  If someone did that we would think one of two things: either that person threw away something incredibly valuable and is pained to part with the loss, or that person is a madman who values that which is not valuable.  When we as Christians look back at sin or look at the world and long for it and desire something more than we desire God, we are essentially looking back at trash we have thrown away and longing for it as we walk back to a palace full of splendor.  And as we do that what we are saying is that we would rather have our trash than our palace.  And what if we left a beautiful palace and went and set up camp by the trash to be near what we had recently discarded?  How we would bring honor and glory to the trash and dishonor to what is in reality beautiful and worthy!  And how guilty we would be of foolishness and insanity.

            Yet this is how we so often live.  As sinners we love trash.  And we fail to accurately value what is truly worthy of our praise.  And we spend a lot of time making trash look glorious by desiring it, and making God look dishonorable by lacking desire for Him.  This was the sin of the Israelites.  This is the sin of our hearts.  This is the reason the Son of God became a man and died in our place.  His sacrifice demonstrated the infinite worth of God and the ugliness and shame of sin.

            So what was the result of Israel receiving an opportunity to repent and consecrate themselves?  We see it in verses 31-35.  Quail came from a mighty wind brought about by the Lord, and the people went out and gathered up large quantities of quail, and they demonstrated that they had not repented.  They went after that quail harder than they had ever gone after God.  They made quail look really delicious, and they made God look really distasteful.  And God judged them for it.  Verse 33.  While the meat was still between their teeth, before it was chewed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord struck the people with a very severe plague.  So the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had been greedy.  Those greedy people who desired meat more than God were killed and buried where they stood.  The wages of sin is death.  They clearly did not consecrate themselves.  They did not seek the Lord.  Their god was their stomachs, and they died for their idolatry. 

            The Bible talks about this episode in Numbers 11 several other times.  It is a major event in the Bible.  In Psalm 106:13-15 we read this about this account in Numbers: They quickly forgot His works; they did not wait for His counsel, but craved intensely in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert.  So He gave them their request, but sent a wasting disease among them.  God’s answer to the Israelites weeping was an act of judgment for their unbelief and their sin.  They did not remember God’s power; they did not wait for His timing and His word to come to pass.  In short, they did not believe God, so they were disobedient to Him.  And in so doing they made God look dishonorable and worthless in front of the nations. 

            How are we doing with making God look valuable in front of the world?  How are you doing with making God look precious and valuable to those who don’t believe?  Do they see that God is your treasure, or is there so much trash that you cling to that it’s hard to tell what you value more?  Trash doesn’t have to be inherently sinful.  There is nothing wrong with meat.  Asking for meat was not the sin of the Israelites.  Don’t misunderstand that point.  Trash is anything that is not God, and we can rightfully call it trash because in comparison to the worth of God, everything else is worthless.  If you’re holding on to anything more tightly than you hold on to God, that is sin, that is idolatry, and that dishonors God in front of the world. 

            Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones was one of the most respected doctors in England in the early twentieth century.  He was quite young, but was already tagged as one of the men who would leave a lasting mark on medical science.  Yet in his twenties he left the medical profession to become a preacher of the Word of God.  At the end of his life he once was asked if it was hard to give up so much success and so much potential for success in the medical world.  He responded, “I gave up nothing. I received everything. I count it the highest honor God can confer on any man to call him to be a herald of the gospel.”  What would we have thought of him if he had said, “It was hard because I remember the treasures of wealth and fame and prestige.  It was difficult and I longed to go back to Egypt, so to speak, many times.”  No, that answer would not have honored God. 

            As Christians we give up nothing.  We receive everything.  It is the highest honor God can confer on us to call us into His family to be His children, and to set us free from bondage to sin.  May our hearts never long to return to Egypt.  Let’s pray.

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