Table of Contents
Topic: Prayer of Complaints is Damnable
[DCLM Daily Manna 2 September 2019 Daily Devotional by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi]
Text: Numbers 11:31-35 (KJV)
31 And there went forth a wind from the LORD, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were a day’s journey on this side, and as it were a day’s journey on the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high upon the face of the earth.
32 And the people stood up all that day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they gathered the quails: he that gathered least gathered ten homers: and they spread them all abroad for themselves round about the camp.
33 And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague.
34 And he called the name of that place Kibrothhattaavah: because there they buried the people that lusted.
35 And the people journeyed from Kibrothhattaavah unto Hazeroth; and abode at Hazeroth.
Key Verse: “And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague” (Numbers 11:33).
MESSAGE:
One day after listening to the teaching that God is angry with the sinners continually, a little girl curiously asked why God still allows the rain He sends on the land of the righteous people to extend to the farms of the wicked. Her parents told her that the anger of God is not like the anger of man. God is longsuffering.
In our text, we see how God met the needs of His people which they requested for in the previous verses. God had preserved them through all dangers and hardship such as attacks from enemy nations, hunger, thirst and diseases. The people seemed to be oblivious of this fact as they presented their new request through murmuring and unbelief. God nevertheless proved to them that He could meet all their needs; so, He graciously provided their desired meat for them but scarcely had they finished eating it when a terrible disease broke out in their camp.
As believers, our own desire should not be the meat that perishes but the one that endures to everlasting life. We should not allow short-sightedness to make us to prefer the temporal to the eternal. Whatever we desire from God should not be presented through complaint, murmuring, regret and nagging. Rather, we should make our requests known unto God through prayer of faith and accept the outcome of the prayer with humility and implicit obedience.
Believers ought to learn from the fate that befell the Israelites in this text. We should put all our trust in God as He is abundantly able to supply all our needs at His own time because with Him, nothing is impossible.
Thought For The Day: Prayer with a background of complaints blocks access to heaven.
The Bible In One Year: Psalm 78–79