Numbers 11:31-35 And there went forth a wind from the LORD, and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp… I. THERE ARE PERPETUAL RESURRECTIONS OF EASILY BESETTING SINS. 1. The side from which the temptation came to them (vers. 4-6). This mixed multitude corresponds precisely to the troop of disorderly passions and appetites, with which we suffer ourselves to march through the desert of life. Passions, desires, ever mad for indulgence, and reckless, scornful of Divine law. 2. The special season when the easily besetting sin rose up and again made them its slave. It is a fact which all close students of human character must have observed, that there is a back-water of temptation, if I may so speak, which is more deadly than its direct assaults. You may fight hard against a temptation, and fight victoriously. You may beat it off, and then, when, weary with the conflict, you suffer the strain of vigilance to relax, it shall steal in and easily master the citadel, which lately it spent all its force in vain to win. Beware of your best moments, as well as of your worst; or rather the moments which succeed the best. They are the most perilous of all. II. There comes a point in the history of the indulgence of besetting sins, when GOD CEASES TO STRIVE WITH US AND FOR US AGAINST THEM, AND LETS THEM. HAVE THEIR WAY. 1. God has great patience with the weaknesses and sins of the flesh. But it is a dreadful mistake to suppose that therefore He thinks lightly of them. He regards them as sins that must be conquered, and, no matter by what sharp discipline, extirpated and killed. He knows that, if tolerated, they become the most deadly of spiritual evils, and rot body and spirit together in hell. 2. Hence all the severer discipline by which the Lord seeks to purge them, the various agencies by which He fights with us and for us against their tyrannous power. What is life but one long discipline of God for the cleansing of the flesh? Are not the after-pains of departed sensual joys among its chief stings and thorns? 3. Left alone by God. God does not curse us; He leaves us to ourselves; that is curse enough, and from that curse what arm can save us! We will have it, and we shall have it. We leap through all the barriers which He has raised around us to limit us, yea, though they be rings of blazing fire, we will through them and indulge our lust; and in a moment He sweeps them all out of our path — perhaps roses spring to beguile, where flames so lately blazed to warn. III. THE END OF THAT WAY IS, INEVITABLY AND SPEEDILY, A GRAVE. The grave of lust is one of the most awful of the inscriptions on the headstones of the great cemetery, the world. In how many do we now search in vain for fruits whose flowers once bloomed there; for generous emotions, swift responses to the appeals of sorrow, unselfish ministries, and stern integrity? How many have learnt now to laugh at emotions which once had a holy beauty in their sight; to fence skilfully with appeals which once would have thrilled to the very core of their hearts; to grasp at advantages which once they would have passed with a scornful anathema, and to clutch at the gold which was once the glad instrument of diffusing benefits around! Yes! there are graves enough around us — graves of passion, graves of self-will, graves of lust. Beware, young men; young women, beware! Beware! for the dead things buried in these graves will not lie quiet; they stir and start, and ever and anon come forth in their ghastly shrouds and scare you at your feasts. No ghosts so sure to haunt their graves as the ghosts of immolated faculties and violated vows. The memories which haunt the worn-out worldling's bed of impotence or lust are the true avengers of Heaven. The brain loses power to repel them, but retains power to fashion them. Once it could drive away thoughts and memories; now it can only retain them, and fix them in a horrid permanent session on their thrones. (J. B. Brown, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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