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The events of chapter 11 took place in perhaps their second year of wandering in the wilderness. The chapter begins with a hint of a problem, “The people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord.”

Adversity has tested the faith of many people. Jesus gave a parable that the word of God being sown in the hearts of men was like a farmer sowing seed on various types of soils. Some seed fell on the hard path. When anyone is hard of heart the word of God cannot take root and the enemy comes and snatches away what has been sown.

Other seed was sown on rocky places. This is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; but it has no firm root in his heart and when affliction or adversity arises, he is offended and immediately falls away.

Adversity has shipwrecked the faith of many people, yet God expected them to walk through the wilderness with endurance; to be thankful they had been set free from oppression and slavery in Egypt; that He had provided miraculously for them in bringing water to quench their thirst and manna to sustain them on the way.

God wants us to endure as well. This is a troubled world, filled with adversity. Don’t allow your faith to be shipwrecked. Instead, strengthen your faith in the storm and know that God will use these things in your life.

The cause of their complaint had to do with food. They grew tired of manna and began weeping saying, “Who will give us meat to eat?”

What was it that God expected? He expected them to endure in the wilderness by having faith, by being thankful for what God had done, and by looking to what God had in store for them. He was taking them through the wilderness to get to the land of promise. He is taking them somewhere. Stand firm, be faithful and don’t complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord.

There is a lot of personal application in this story. Israel being set free from their slavery in Egypt is a picture of our being set free from the world. This story is also a picture of those who find themselves discontent and complain of adversity. Let’s read the story and learn from their mistakes.

I. Master the Wilderness

It’s not that God expected them to defeat the desert, to somehow reduce the heat, or to make the desert green. He expected them to master the wilderness in the sense that the wilderness would not master them.

Illus – Pastor Shawn and I were in Africa last year and I was struck by what I saw in the believers there. They have learned to suffer well.

Israel had God; and God promised that His presence would go with them. He would be with them and His presence would be enough.

The desert heat would always be there. It’s dry. It’s hot. It’s difficult. It’s irritating. The flesh stands ready to complain; but you must master it. You must learn to master the wilderness, or it will master you.

They will not be ready for a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of abundant blessing, until they have learned to master the wilderness. It’s only when you learn that God is with you in the wilderness, that you are ready for a land flowing with milk and honey.

His Presence is the key to suffering well. His Presence is also the key to being content with abundance.

Illus – I had friends growing up who had every advantage. They had wealthy parents, they lived in a nice home, there was peace in their house. Their parents did not fight. They were nurtured and encouraged along the way. This is very helpful, no doubt, but somewhere along the way they are going to have to learn how to suffer and to suffer well.

Others, like me, lived in poverty, had an abusive, alcoholic father, who lived in dysfunction and chaos. But suffering itself does not teach how to suffer well. Such hardships have shipwrecked many lives.

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