Freedom is Better than Free

READING FOR STUDY GUIDE: Numbers 11: 4-6

Text: Numbers 11: 1-35

Thesis: As we recognize and celebrate the birthday of God’s servant, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, it is important to maintain clarity regarding God’s plan for God’s people a world that has substituted what is free for real freedom.

1. Numbers 11: 4-6 –“…remember…we ate in Egypt at no costs…
   1. Egypt of the Old Testament represents for the Christian a place of bondage, slavery, and servitude to the enemies of God by God’s people.
   2. What was “free” was given to keep the Hebrew people in bondage.
   3. The rabble desired to have the food of Egypt that was “free” over the fruit of the Promise, which is God’s “Freedom.”
      1. Exodus 12: 38 – The rabble represents those who were not of God’s people but came along with God’s people.
      2. Numbers 11: 1-3 – God’s anger burned against them.
      3. They incited God’s people to crave things other than what God had for His people.
   4. The enemy will always present a cheap counterfeit to distract us from God’s best, “The will of the Father for His people.”

Describe some counterfeits God’s people are encouraged to want other than God and what His Word expresses He wants for us.

2. Numbers 11: 4-6 – “…we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”
   1. Manna represents God’s divine supply and provision for His people on while on their journey to the Promised Land.
   2. The Hebrew people asserted “their right” to have something other than God’s divine supply and provision and God gave them over to their choice.
   3. Matthew 4: 1-11 – The central citadel for the Devil’s attack on us and on Jesus is “my right to myself.”
      1. “I should be free to choose for myself what I want!”
      2. Romans 6: 15-18 – Satan works through selfishness on my part. This robs us of our freedom puts us back in bondage.

List and describe the ways selfishness has affected the world we live in. Be sure to state what God wanted for us instead.

3. John 8: 31-36 – “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

   1. Beware of any proposition that presents deliverance, freedom, or justice that is external or resides outside the individual beneficiary. Such propositions are often counterfeits for true freedom that comes only from with in.
   2. Romans 12: 2 – There must be transformation for there to be freedom.
      1. Transformation means change.
      2. Change costs the beneficiary.
   3. Matthew 16: 21 – Jesus paid the costs for our freedom
      1. Romans 5: 9-11 – Christ works in us that we may receive reconciliation.
         1. Reconciliation means “change.”
         2. There is a change in relationship because our trespasses are not counted against us.
      2. God changes us from enemies to family.
      3. From slavery to freedom.

Write in your own words the difference between things that are free vs. the freedom that was purchased through the blood of Jesus Christ.