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… The last thing that most people would desire is a grave, and yet how often does desire conduct to death! We will notice several manifestations of irregular and destructive desire, and, in conclusion, show how desire may be directed and chastened. I. There is UNSEASONABLE DESIRE. The desire of the people for flesh was not unnatural, not illegal in itself, but it was unseasonable. This is a common fault of ours, to desire legitimate things in times and places which are not convenient. 1. There is the impatience of youth. The course of life with many in these times reminds us of the days when we were lads, and when in the early morning we went a distance to school, taking our dinner with us; then appetite was keen, and it was no unusual thing to devour our dinner on the way to school, starving for the rest of the day. It is thus with thousands of infatuated ones a little later on; in the greediness of their heart they devour and waste their portion in the morning of life, and then starve through the long tedious day, or else go down to a premature grave. I say to my young brethren, wait, rein in your desires, move slowly, and every joy of life shall be yours in turn. "Haste is of the devil," is a saying in the East popularly ascribed to Mahomet himself. We may accept the saying in the matter before us; let youth be moderate, deliberate, avoiding all feverishness, drawing slowly on the resources of life. 2. There is the eagerness, of manhood. We should do little in life without intensity, but there are times when we may with advantage take in sail, and give ourselves time for rest and reflection. It is certainly unseasonable to bring our business life in any shape into the Lord's Day. It is also unseasonable to allow worldly cares and ambitions to invade those spaces which are so necessary for our domestic and intellectual life. God grants us spaces for rest and thought in the home, in the chamber; and it is exhaustive, indeed, when our overweening worldliness excludes the possibilities of solitary and social life. Some men fill their annual holidays with anxieties until they are no holidays at all. And there are days of personal affliction, of domestic sorrows, of national calamity, when it is our solemn duty to pause in the race for riches and think of life's larger meaning. 3. There is the greed of age. Old men often come to the grave sooner than they need because they will not let the world go. They cling to ambition, although it wastes their strength and peace; they cling to business, they are pushing, grasping, hoarding as ever, although such application fast saps a life already tottering; they cling to pleasure, they will still wear the wreath of roses on their white hair, although to them it is the most fatal wreath of all. II. There is IMMODERATE DESIRE. We may pursue a right object with inordinate appetite. The Israelites were not content with the simple, pearly, wholesome food God gave them — they wanted something more piquant. They got what they wanted — and a grave. In all generations how many fall the same way. 1. There is the immoderateness of our literature. We must feast on the romantic, the sensational, the morbid, the exaggerated. Out of this excess of imaginative literature come great evils. The reading public live in a world of fancy, sentiment, passion; and this feverish unreality in the hours of retirement gives birth to much of that practical immoderation which is the curse of our age. I do not say abandon this literature of romance; but I do say restrain and chasten your imagination, for be sure this habit of wild dreaming is at the root of much of that general intemperance of life which hurries many to the grave. 2. There is the immoderation of our style of living. A writer was finding fault the other day with the present style of gardening. He complained that we have rooted up the old fragrant flowers — lavender, pinks, marigolds, mignonette, and gone in for crude patches of red and blue and yellow; that we have swept away sweet shrubs and bits of lawn for the sake of violet ribbon-borders and vulgar carpet-bedding. But does not our Italian gardening largely reflect our social life? Are we not often found renouncing sweet, simple methods of living for a showy, ostentatious style which brings with it little joy? 3. There is the immoderateness of our appetite. Thousands are digging their grave with their teeth, and scooping it out with their glass. 4. There is the immoderateness of business. Immoderation in other directions often drives men to unnatural eagerness in business. In haste to be rich they pierce themselves through with many sorrows. (1) How fatal all this immoderation is to health! We fret for money, drinking blood out of a golden basin; we are anxious to be great, and the path of glory leads to the grave; we are mad to seize the flowers of pleasure, and find the flowers of the churchyard. (2) How fatal is all this immoderation to happiness I There are thousands of successful merchants who after immense toil and sacrifice have secured wealth and position, and now they are distressed to find they have no power to eat what cost so much to get together. They have whatsoever their soul desireth, but they cannot taste any sweetness in it. Moderation is the secret of all life. Our health, our happiness, our character, our destiny, are bound up with self-restraint. Live with circumspection, live slowly, live by line and square, and you shall realise life at its best here, and then the life everlasting. III. There is ILLEGAL DESIRE. Fixing our eye on forbidden things and lusting after them. How beautiful they seem, how desirable! and yet they eat as doth a canker. They lead to a premature grave. "The wicked do not live out half their days." They lead to a dishonoured grave (Ecclesiastes 8:10). They lead to a hopeless grave. Such awake to shame and everlasting contempt. Do not hide it from yourselves for an hour that death is the price of touching forbidden things. Are you tempted by unlawful pleasure? see the skeleton behind the flowers. By unlawful gain? see the field of blood behind the pieces of silver. By unlawful greatness? see the shroud wrapped up in the purple. By unlawful indulgence? see that at the devil's banquet the sexton is head waiter. Lust when it hath conceived bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished will have finished you. This is the dismal eternal order; and no secrecy, no strength, no skill on your part can disturb the programme or avert the penalty. Wherein, then, lies our safety? In reducing all desire to a minimum? Some of our sceptical writers counsel this. but it is not the philosophy of Christianity. The infinity of desire is a grand characteristic of our nature which it is no part of our duty to destroy. Christianity leaves intact our boundless desire, whilst it teaches us moderation in all worldly things. It does this by fixing our attention on our inner life. It assures us that the deep, final satisfaction is not in our senses, but in our spirit; that we find the full and ultimate delight of life as our inner self grows in truth anal goodness and love. It does this by fixing our hope on the heavenly life. The pilgrim is not likely to be too deeply engrossed about the tent curtains, tent pegs, tent cords. Think much of that greater life, and you shall not think overmuch about things which perish in the using. (W. L. Watkinson.) 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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