Bread in the Wilderness

Teresa Poucher

  I know God is speaking, yet I have not heard Him lately.  Why is that I ask myself?  Perhaps I’m distracted, or maybe I have something in my life that isn’t pleasing to God.  

 

As I heard chapter 21 of the book of Numbers read to me, I was pricked in my heart. Israel was wandering in the wilderness. We read in verse 3 they had just won a battle through God’s intervention. Then we read in verse 5, “And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, neither is there any water; and our soul loatheth this light bread.”

 

  What? No water, no bread?  God had miraculously provided for them daily.  Now they are saying they were sick of this bread.  If that wasn’t a slap in the face, they called the manna “light bread.” According to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon, the definition of “light” is “contemptible, worthless.”  Can I say they angered God?  God sent fiery serpents, and many people died.  

 

  Then, they came pleading to Moses, “We sinned against you and God.”  As he had done so many times, Moses interceded with God, and God instructed him to make a brazen serpent.  If the people were bit, they were to look at the brazen serpent.  The creature that would kill them would now cure them, much like Jesus on the cross.  

 

“Just as Moses lifted up the [bronze] serpent in the desert [on a pole], so must the Son of Man be lifted up [on the cross],so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life [after physical death, and will actually live forever].” (John 3:14-15 AMP)

 

  I wonder how many people in the wilderness refused to look at the brazen serpent, acknowledging their sin and need.

 

  Is it because I have been fussing about my life instead of thanking Him for his mercy and provision that I haven’t heard his voice?  Yes, I repented and looked to him for his mercy and grace. 

 

“And his disciples say unto him, Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude?” (Matthew 15:33)

 

“For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” “And Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life…’” (John 6:33,35

Oh, this bread, how sweet it is