Are You Tempted to Leave Jesus?
Do you ever regret that God saved you?
Israel did.
They spent generations crying out to God for liberation. Then they finally heard God command Pharaoh to let his people go and watched as he sent ten plagues of persuasion. In jubilee, they traveled through the Red Sea to Mount Sinai, where they covenanted themselves to their Redeemer. Here we expect the happily-ever-after to begin. Instead, we see Israel come down from her high tower, walk past the slain dragon, and start objecting to her King, distrusting him, regretting that he had come for her at all. All this at the beginning of the honeymoon.
One complaint follows another. She doesn’t have water; she grumbles. She doesn’t have food; she grumbles. She doesn’t have the right kind of food; she grumbles. More than that, she weeps. She has an unshakable, intense desire for meat, not Wonderbread. Was she really saved from slavery to become a vegetarian?
That’s when she begins to remember.
The people of Israel also wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.” (Numbers 11:4–6)
Her last relationship was abusive, but at least she was well fed. She misses those days — the ones before God came to her rescue. Moses and the Lord hear “the people weeping throughout their clans, everyone at the door of his tent. And the anger of the Lord blazed hotly, and Moses was displeased” (Numbers 11:10). The people question aloud, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was better for us in Egypt” (Numbers 11:18).
Israel is inconsolable. Moses is overwhelmed. The Lord is hotly offended.
They want meat? They will have it. God promises: You shall have it “until it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him, saying, ‘Why did we come out of Egypt?’” (Numbers 11:20).
The Lord causes a great wind to blow quail into the camp. All day, all night, and all the next day, they collect vast amounts of the bird. “While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord struck down the people with a very great plague” (Numbers 11:33). They rejected the Lord for food. Some would only take a few bites before judged. The graveyard is named “Kibroth-hattaavah,” The Grave of Cravings.
The Apostate’s Hunger
Let us learn from these people, “that we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Corinthians 10:6). How did so many of them fall so soon from the mountaintop of salvation? We can trace the steps of descent into apostasy.
1. Grow bored with daily bread.
I remember a man who walked away from his profession of faith because he did not know what to do with his Friday nights. He could only endure so many board games and Bible studies — where was the excitement? He admitted to being unenthralled by the lives of the Christians around him. This life seemed rather bland, manna-like — where was the meat? Where were the onions?
Many who walk away from Christ begin by growing bored with daily bread. Some unbelievers insist that if God would show them some sign, they would believe. Israel saw signs every morning, and the effect wasn’t belief but boredom. Bread appearing with the dew again? Does the Divine plan to diversify his menu? Can we get some seafood or hamburgers added to the rotation?
“He is our portion; we need no other. He is our God; we want no other. He is our life; we have no other.”
So too professing believers near and far grow tempted to despise the ordinary means of grace. Feasting upon God’s miracle word every morning — again? How many times must I travel through the Bible, go to church, take the Lord’s Supper, or put my legs to sleep while praying? Those in danger of falling away come to silently despise that which sustains them in this world. Seldom do they wake up and refuse God and his word at once — rather, they yawningly neglect this great salvation day by day, tiring of that which fascinates the angels.
2. Long for worldly meat.
Next, the restless heart hungers for more, for different. At first, they simply wanted to be free from the old slavery. Sin left them empty and confused. The more they indulged, the less pleasure they received. They discovered the cheat. They wanted a new country, a new life, a better way.
Christianity becomes that next way. They hear of Christ and receive the word with joy — they believe, This is it. But as they travel with him, they notice his path is narrower than expected, more uphill than desired. Their carnal friends won’t follow. Prayer goes (seemingly) unheard. And what do these Bible verses mean, anyway? They glance back at life in Egypt — absence makes the heart grow fonder. Yes, it held death and captivity and other miseries, but then again, Egypt provided some perks. What about those melons and onions and garlic?
What happened? Perhaps they wanted freedom from Egypt, but not on God’s terms. Their plan: Get freedom from their harsh worldly master and figure the rest out later. So they signed up for Christianity to make their felt-unhappiness disappear. And it did for a time. But then this new Master doesn’t provide all they want as they want it when they want it. They don’t really relish holiness or the church or this God. Or something bad happens in his service. Or something happens to a loved one. They start to fixate on their perceived lack and compare it to their former life or the lives of former friends. Lost are the memories of cruelty and plagues and grateful songs sung by the Red Sea. Visions of steak occupy their thoughts.
Was not Egypt better than this?
3. Give grumbling a place.
Once daily bread is despised and old thrills remembered, grumbling begins. The eye fixates on what it wants, not all it has; on all it demands, not all it needs. And so the heart sickens with discontent. They miss Egypt. Like a husband being told that his wife misses an old boyfriend, the Lord rightly calls it rejecting him.
Satan’s favorite songs are the grumblings of the saints. Once his bondage is preferred to the Lord’s freedom, he will have the victory known by moans and mutterings, criticisms and cavils. From one degree of ingratitude to another. First the water, then the food, then the kind of food. The dissatisfaction goes public. They grow harder to please. Every disappointment seems to echo. Satan’s fallen world is preferred to God’s heaven. An apostate is born.
Where Else Would We Go?
Are you tempted to regret God’s salvation? More pointedly, are you tempted to forsake Christ?
It is even more egregious for those on this side of the cross to long for Egypt. We do not turn from the covenant made at Sinai; we turn from the covenant made at the cross. We turn from Christ. Can you see him there, bleeding for your transgressions, suffering for your sins, and conceive of a reason to leave him? Should we tire of partaking of the Bread of Life broken for us — tire of remembering him, living for him, longing for him?
Should other meats captivate our palate? Should we begin to grumble about this great salvation purchased at the very cost of the blood of Jesus? Is he not enough for us? Is there something missing from God’s blessings in Christ that could make us turn back? If he’s already proved his love by giving his Son, will he not also with him graciously give us all things? He offers fullness of joy and forever pleasures; could you do better elsewhere?
Should we leave Christ because we don’t know what to do on Friday nights? Should we leave Christ because we haven’t yet found a spouse? Should we leave Christ because our family does not approve of him, or our friends no longer invite us to their parties? Should we leave Christ because we are ashamed to speak of him to our neighbors? Should we leave Christ because following him is dangerous? Should we leave Christ and return to the vomit-stained life he rescued us from? Should we look at the cross and regret that he came to deliver us from this passing world? Many have. The cemetery has only grown in the centuries since those first cravers of Israel despised the Lord’s salvation and fell through deadly discontent.
No. Let us resolve — God keeping us! — not to give up Christ for anything this world can offer. We have considered the cost, and we’ll pick up our cross and follow him wherever he leads. We know in whom we have believed. We consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us. We ask, “Where else shall we go?” He has the words of eternal life — he is eternal life.
He is our portion; we need no other. He is our God; we want no other. He is our life; we have no other.
