Numbers 11:20 But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the LORD which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt
Recently, my wife and I were on the road in Florida and went grocery shopping, but we did something we don’t usually do. We went to a fancy grocery store. This store is only in this particular part of Florida and we go there maybe once a year. It is amazing how I can go from completely content, pleased with the content I have in my life, to discontent, meaning the content I already have is not enough. I am displeased and discontent.
This grocery store had all kinds of delicacies, dips, relishes, meats, and other things that are kind of fancy. We can’t buy much of it, but they have samples so I go around like a beggar getting all the samples I can. Basically, after thirty minutes in that store I am discontent. I am not happy with what I have. That is kind of the nature of life. There is only one source of true contentment. There is no contentment with God Himself. God has designed you that way. I think your own experience would prove that to be true.
On the other hand, there are many ways to be discontent. Let me give you three because they are illustrated in Numbers 11. The first discontentment is desire. It is wish, want, or lust. Verse 4 says, “And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?”
So, the first kind of discontentment is desire, just wanting. The thing about it is, it is a misperception. In verse 5 these people said, “We remember the fish we did eat in Egypt freely.” I laugh every time I read this because they did nothing in Egypt freely. They were slaves, yet their memory told them they were better as slaves eating fish than they were free and eating manna from heaven. They missed the cucumbers, fish, melons, onions, and garlic. They were discontent. Why? It was because the content they tried to fill their lives with was reduced to silly things like fish and onions. But God is the content of contentment. God is the source of contentment. There is only one way to be content and many ways to be discontent. Desire is one of those ways we can be discontent.
The second discontentment is fear. God’s anger was kindled. He was displeased with these people who complained, and Moses also was displeased. This displeasure led to the realization of fear. He said, “God, why have you brought us out here and how am I going to lead this people. I am not able to bear this people alone.” God did two things. He provided seventy men to help Moses in leadership, and in verse 23 He said, “Is the LORD’s hand waxed short? thou shalt see now whether my word shall come to pass unto thee or not.” This was in regard to feeding the children of Israel. Moses did not have enough to lead them or to feed them. That produced fear and discouragement. Fear is the lack of courage. It is being discouraged. There were people who lusted. God said that He was going to provide so much meat for those people through quails that it was going to be contemptible unto them because they had “despised the LORD which is among you.”
So, the desire or lust came out of not realizing the God among them. They didn’t have that content. In Moses’ case he had fear. He was displeased which led to discouragement and specifically he did not think that God was sufficient. In both cases, the desire of the multitude and the fear of Moses was a lack of a recognition of God in what they needed or even wanted.
The third example of discontentment is envy. When God provided men to help Moses lead this mass of people, there were two in particular that prophesied. They gave evidence that God had specifically placed His Spirit upon them. Verse 27 says, “And there ran a young man, and told Moses, and said, Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp.” They were showing evidence of God’s Spirit upon them. Joshua was concerned. Verse 28 says, “And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said, My lord Moses forbid them. And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the LORD’s people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!”
Some commentators question whether Moses benefited in having these seventy other men. Some believe this was the beginning of the Sanhedrin, so they call Moses to task for requiring this help. Others go so far as to think that Moses’ power was diminished because that power was transferred to these other men. I don’t believe that because envy is by nature a zero-sum gain mindset. In other words, if they have something, I don’t have it; if I have something, they can’t have it. That leads to envy, and Moses said, “Are you envying for my sake? I wish all God’s people were prophets and that God would put his Spirit upon them.”
Moses was fearful, but he was not envious. He didn’t think that if these men had power and gifting then he wouldn’t have it. We can commend Joshua for his concern, and that is one of the many reason God saw fit to make Joshua the leader of these people later. My point is that desire, fear, and envy are all different flavors of the same thing, discontentment. If you look up the word content, it is both a noun and adjective. The noun is “something contained” and the adjective is “to be pleased and satisfied with what one has and not disposed to complain.” Complain is exactly what these people had done.
So, God is the content that leads to contentment. He is the source of contentment. There are a number of ways we can be discontent, displeased, and discouraged today through our own desire, fear, and envy. In each case, the answer is not something but someone, God Himself. God is the only content that leads to contentment.