This message is one of the Times Square
Church pulpit series.
It was recorded in the sanctuary of Times
Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
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I love the thought of that song, if
God said it, I believe it.
And he's going to put us to the
test of that today, because today my message
is called, The Graves of Lust.
The Graves of Lust.
And the Holy Ghost is going to take
a shovel out.
And he's going to dig a grave.
And he's going to ask for a response.
And if God said it, do we believe
it?
Because he wants a mighty deliverance in his
body today.
God is present in our midst.
And when he is present, he comes with
power.
He's walking these aisles.
He is among us because we preach Christ
crucified.
Because we preach that Jesus Christ is the
Son of God.
And there is no way to salvation except
through Jesus Christ.
And when we stand on that truth, we
become invincible.
And the gates of hell cannot prevail.
And darkness cannot hold back the light.
And when we begin to preach on that
truth, Jesus Christ becomes glorified in our midst.
And he delivers his people.
Hallelujah.
I feel a witness in my spirit today.
All day, it's going to be a delivering
day.
That God is building into his people a
belief and trust in him.
That if he said it, I'll believe it.
And we will see something we've never seen
and known in our lives before, in our
families before.
It's time.
And so many in this house have known
his delivering hand.
And he's just taking layer upon layer off
our eyes and off our spirit.
We're finding out he uses us in spite
of ourselves.
And he can use us in situations we
don't think we're equipped.
We don't think we can do it.
But he comes through.
And there's something coming, rising up in us.
That God, you're not hindered by me.
We're understanding something.
That the kingdom of God is going forth
to those that believe him.
And so today, God is saying, I'm taking
a shovel out and I'm going to dig
a grave.
And it's called the grave of lust.
If you would turn with me, please, to
Numbers 11.
That's the fourth book in the Old Testament
for those that are new among us.
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, chapter 11.
Now, when I talk about the sin of
lust, I'm not talking only and exclusively about
sexual lust.
Lust, when you look up all kinds of
biblical definitions, have some very surprising meanings to
it.
But lust really is what we're talking about
is when there's an intense desire and longing
for something.
And that what happens is that in this
longing for it, our minds get twisted.
That's a definition of lust, twisted.
And we believe that really the fulfillment of
that, if we get this intense longing, it
will satisfy us.
And that's a falsehood.
And yet we, the human heart and you
and I, we will persist in it.
And the Bible says that we become stubborn
and hardened.
And in other words, it has a gripping
power.
We can know things and yet not be
released from lust.
We can be so, end up with a
longing in our heart that displaces a longing
that should be for God alone, who is
our deliverer from lust.
And so it can be a longing to
be married.
It can be a longing for money.
It can be a longing for prestige.
It can be a longing for beauty.
It can be a longing to be something,
houses, land, whatever.
But it's something that grows in us.
And that when our minds are at rest,
our spirit, our minds go to that thing.
And it's growing in us and it has
a captivating force.
Now, one thing that we understand about lust,
it can be about good things, not good
things, lawful things, unlawful things.
But one thing about lust we're going to
learn today is that lust in itself is
not usually, is not the root problem.
That lust is like the branch off a
tree.
It is not really the root.
It is not really the problem.
It is not the issue.
That there is always something deeper.
But also today, the Holy Spirit is going
to show us is that the fruit of
lust and what it is capable of doing
is terrifying.
It's not a sin that we can play
with lightly.
It has a destructive power.
It has a captivating power.
It has a blinding power that God says
the only appropriate response to that is the
Holy Ghost says, I need to dig it
a grave.
It needs to be put to death in
my life, in your life.
Now, this sin is common to all.
We can sit there and we can think,
now, I wish so and so was here.
But I tell you that this sin is
common to man.
It's not common to man.
It's common to man.
Because we are using this larger definition of
an intense longing for something that's displacing even
our love and our commitment to God.
Now, this, the way that the Holy Spirit
gave me this experience, this teaching was out
of the book of Numbers.
And when we're going to look into one
chapter in the book of Numbers, we're going
to see a snapshot.
We're going to see an incident that happened
in chapter 11 that's going to shine a
light, an understanding light on what I'm trying
to say today.
And the reason why it's going to be
so clear is we're going to put it
in context of what's happening in Numbers 11.
You see, the children of Israel have been
taken out of Egypt.
And even though this is common to many,
there are so many new believers in our
midst that I just want to visit this
for one minute.
But when God delivered his children, the children
of Israel, children of Israel out of Egypt,
Egypt is a type of the world in
sin.
And so he brought them out of bondage
and out of darkness, and he brought them
out of the chains and the depravity of
a life that was going to have them
serve as slaves all their lives, never know
freedom in spiritual sense, never know what it
is to be loved, never known what it
is to have an inheritance.
And he was going to, and then they
die an unknown death, working all their life
for another master, never anything of their own
to call.
And God was taking his people and that
spiritual type of what it is to live
unredeemed, unforgiven.
And they were brought out of Egypt and
into freedom by Moses, a deliverer who is
a type many times of Christ.
Now, the interesting thing is that God had
a destination.
He wasn't just taking them out of bondage.
He was taking them into the promised land.
The reason why God saved us and brought
us out of sin is to take us
into something, into the promised land.
Where we begin, where we have a strong
faith and confidence in our God.
And because he begins to build that into
us, because we begin to know who he
is, we begin to experience him in love
and in forgiveness.
We begin to know his greatness.
And we begin to able to do exploits.
And we are long to give the glory
to God and God becomes real to us
and those that our lives touch.
And God is calling his people into a
promised land.
But in between the deliverance from Egypt and
the promised land was a place called the
wilderness of sin.
In other words, God knew that a people
just released from bondage, even though the chains
were off them physically, were still bound, they
still have a slave mentality.
And they were not yet fit to face
the giants that would face him that bar
the entrance to the promised land.
God was going to prepare and ready a
people.
He was going to reveal himself to them.
He was going to show them their heart.
And then they were going to be a
prepared people.
And he was going to bring them to
the entrance of the promised land with everything
they needed to enter in and to live
victoriously in Christ.
Now, the interesting thing about that story in
the wilderness story is that God brought, led
his people through the wilderness of sin.
And he taught them many lessons.
He provided for them.
He brought water out of a rock.
He put shoes on their feet that never
wore out.
He provided bread from heaven.
He took them to the mountain.
He gave them the Ten Commandments.
And he was teaching them lessons all the
time to prepare them for the entrance into
the promised land.
But we find out in a few chapters
after Numbers 11 that that group got to
the promised land and could not enter in.
And what happened was that God turned them
back into the wilderness to wander 40 years.
In other words, the lesson that God was
teaching them that they needed to know in
Numbers 11, so few grasped.
And you see, it's a very strategic thing
what God is teaching us in Numbers 11
because they needed to know this lesson.
They needed to have this understanding because it
was a critical key lesson for them to
know experientially, for them to understand in their
mind because it was critical to bring them
into the promised land.
They couldn't get in without it.
They wouldn't be able to enter and conquer
and keep that land without that.
And so we have now, we are going
to zoom in and look at these people
in this lesson.
And there are people yet not repelled from
the promised land.
There are still people in learning mode.
And I pray that we're going to be
too.
Would you pray with me?
Father, I thank you for a living word.
Now, Lord, I just pray, oh God, that
you would come and teach this.
Lord, I pray that you would come in
great delivering power.
Lord, I trust you.
I believe you that your word spoken under
the power of your Holy Spirit is able
to push back every darkness in our life
and release us from chains.
Lord, you're bringing us into the promised land.
And I thank you, Lord, that today I
ask you now to come.
I say, set me aside for my own
wisdom and understanding.
Lord, I lean on you as you lead
your people forward in this truth.
Lord, we'll give you all the praise and
all the glory in Jesus' name.
In Numbers chapter 11, there is a story
in the first few verses of when the
people, after being given the Ten Commandments, they're
now encamped and the scripture tells us they
began to complain.
And it said it displeased the Lord when
he heard it and his anger was kindled.
And the scripture says the fire of the
Lord burned among them and consumed them that
were in the uttermost parts of the camp.
And the Lord had brought a swift judgment
against a complaining spirit.
And in bringing judgment against a complaining spirit,
he says in verse 3, and he called
the name of the place Taborah because the
fire of the Lord burnt among them.
And this is teaching us that God is
saying that a complaining and a murmuring spirit
brings a fire into us, a burning.
And the Lord sees it for what it
is.
That complaining, a deeply embedded complaining, is really
a deep discontent with God and what he
is doing in our lives at that moment.
Trust me, they did not like the wilderness
of sin.
They didn't understand what God was doing.
They had to go on a day-by
-day leading by him.
And when they received the promise of deliverance,
I'm sure many of them thought they were
going to march right into the promised land.
But God knew what he was doing and
God had a plan.
But because now that they were in this
wilderness, there is a complaining, a deeply embedded
discontent and non-understanding of what God was
doing.
And the Bible tells us that this place
where he judged them for that complaining, he
named it Taborah.
And that means a place of burning, a
burning.
And he says, those that will doubt me,
those that will not deal with the deep
discontent in their heart and won't come to
me, but will turn and murmur and complain
and set an attitude in their heart that
all I can do is judge it.
I can't be merciful to you because you
have a mindset.
He's telling us there's a mindset there that
shuts out intervention by me by any other
way but judgment.
And the wise in heart, I believe, saw
this and understood it.
And now it sets the stage for what
happened in verse 4.
It says, in the mixed multitude that was
among them fell a lusting and the children
of Israel also wept again and said, who
shall give us flesh to eat?
And now, God, there is a new thing
rising up in the camp.
God has judged those that have been complaining
on the most severest of those complaining, but
now something else breaks out into the camp.
First, it's like the people absolutely blinded to
all that God has offered them thus far
because all they can see is what he
hasn't done.
And now the scripture tells us that the
people fell a lusting, but the interesting thing
is there's a mixed multitude that started this
lusting.
And a mixed multitude was really a group
of people that were not fully Hebrews that
came out with them.
And it's a type of people who are
not of Hebrew descent.
In our day, it's a type of people
that may be in the church that they
profess Christ, but they don't possess him.
They're in the church, but they have not
entered into him.
And so this mixed multitude fell a lusting.
They started longing and craving for things that
they felt were not that they needed, that
they didn't have.
And this mixed multitude represents so many times
the world and they're always craving for flesh.
That's what their cry went out.
Give us flesh.
That's all the world understands.
We want more flesh.
We want things that make us feel good.
We want things that make us look good.
And we're going to lay our lives down
for it.
And we're going to become slaves to it.
And we're going to live our lives to
be known, to be beautiful, to be prosperous.
We'll give everything we have.
We'll sacrifice our children.
Just give me what I want.
And the world, this worldly type now begins
infecting the church.
And it says that the focus on the
temporal and the earthly and the selfish and
the sensual started to infect the people, God's
people that had a residue of complaining.
And they began to focus and they began
to long and cry for the exact same
things.
And here we have a cry, beloved, that
they asked for quail.
Now we have to understand that when we
read the whole Exodus story, that God gave
the children of Israel all that they needed
to make the journey across the wilderness of
sin.
He gave them water.
He gave them food and shelter.
He gave them food and the food that
he gave them was manna.
And the manna is symbolized.
As many of you know, that's a daily
provision.
It came from heaven.
It's not a food that's manufactured that you
naturally found occurring in the wilderness of sin.
It came down daily from heaven, manufactured in
heaven and brought down to symbolize to them
on a daily basis.
You are a chosen people.
There's no people on the face of the
earth eat what you eat.
There's no people that partake what you partake
of.
And it's a type of spiritual food.
And it's an invitation to say that I
have called you out of worldly appetites and
fleshly appetites because I'm going to feed you
spiritual food.
I'm going to give you what others don't
have.
And I'm going to develop in you a
taste for the spiritual.
And when you get for a taste for
the spiritual and you begin to understand and
discern what is good for you and what
it is that that you begin to partake
of me and you get an understanding, no
one else on the face of the earth
does.
So God gave them food and water and
shelter and a daily provision of manna.
But he also gave them the Exodus 16
quail.
Scripture tells us he gave them quail.
It doesn't tell us how often, but he
understood there was a love of protein among
his body.
And he gave them quail.
Now, the interesting thing here is that when
a cry came out from this mixed multitude,
they began to infect the children of Israel.
And it was like they became blind to
where their real sustenance lies.
That they enjoyed quail when God sent it,
but that their real sustenance, their real life,
depended on the spiritual food, on the manna.
They grew tired of it.
Because the lusting that was in the mixed
multitude around them began to infect them, but
they had an open door because previously that
deep discontent with what God was doing in
their lives at that moment and where God
was leading them was making them especially vulnerable.
And now we have a place where all
the people began to cry, we need quail.
We need flesh.
We don't want just a spiritual diet.
Lord, that's boring.
God, you've saved us for an abundant life.
And Lord, we'd like to be able now,
we want what we want.
And we don't see one thing wrong with
quail.
We know you give quail.
You've blessed quail.
So we just want more of it.
And so there begins this cry, God, we
don't want a measured amount.
We want an unlimited supply.
But beloved, it's such a type of a
lusting because when a lust gets a hold
of us, we begin to think that we
have to have it governed in order to
be happy and satisfied.
We can have man all around for us
to collect, but we're not satisfied with it
because we're developing an earthly appetite.
And the Scripture tells us in verse 6
that when the children of Israel infected by
this spirit of lust came, they began to
cry, but now our soul is dried away
and there is nothing at all besides this
manna before our eyes.
And this was the cry of their hearts.
And this is what was beginning to be
said.
And it was gathering strength in the camp
of Israel.
And there was really a very pro-quail
movement.
And there were many that could rationalize it
and say, God gives it.
We just need more of it.
And God wants to give it to us.
And so this pro-quail movement begins to
bear the underside, begins to show the belly
of what it really is.
And it's saying, God, our soul is dried
away.
You don't understand what we need.
Manna is not all that, God, we're human,
you know.
And God, we need more.
We want this.
We want that.
And our soul is dried away.
God, this is getting boring.
Lord, my life is so narrow.
Those to the left and the right seem
to be able to have so much more.
There seems to be a feasting in their
camp.
And there is a deep discontent.
And it's a burning.
It's a burning.
And I'll tell you something.
One thing I know about fire.
If it's inside you, there's a longing to
put it out.
And this lusting, this quail looked like the
answer to put the fire out.
We're going to put out the deep discontent
with the quail.
We're going to convince ourselves God wants us
to have abundance of quail.
He wants us to have all the flesh.
He wants us to have it all.
And it's going to put the fire out.
And I'm going to feel good.
And I'm not going to be so discontent
anymore.
And I don't have to look at the
deep issues of why I'm discontent.
And God, I don't have to have a
face and face encounter of you to find
out why.
What I can do is say, God, I'm
convinced in your word.
You love me to have quail.
And I'm going to begin to cry for
it because my soul is dried out.
I need something more than man.
I want something more than you've given.
And they said, you know, all we have
is this man.
Beloved, what does this story mean for us
today?
What is God trying to tell us through
this story today?
Well, an interesting thing is that when I
looked up the word quail and when I
looked it up, I saw that quail, the
quail that God sent, that word was a
very interesting word.
And it's a word that means to be
tranquil, secure and successful.
It's also a word that means happy, to
prosper and to be in safety.
And beloved, God sent quail in measured amounts
to a people who are traveling through a
place.
God sent measured amounts of what it would
take for them to feel secure in him,
to sense a purpose, to prosper, to be
in safety.
But he sent it in the amount that
he knew that they wouldn't camp there, that
they would press through, that somehow he had
not called them to live in the wilderness
of sin.
It's a place we travel through.
He was preparing a people to bring them
to the entrance of the promised land where
they knew him and they could do exploits
for him, where your life, the call in
your life and the destiny of your life
is realized and it's not realized in the
wilderness of sin.
He knew he had something for them that
all the generations would sing of them and
tell of what they did.
And beloved, that's the call on your life
and mine.
God has something for us that's so beyond
what we could understand if we keep saying,
God, I'll go your way and I, Lord,
the issues that I have, the deep discontent,
I'm going to bring it to my loving
Father, an all-powerful God.
I'm going to say, God, you're committed to
bring me through the wilderness of sin into
the promised land.
And if there's areas right now where my
life is narrow because you've narrowed it, if
I'm discontent, if I'm not happy with what
I'm about, God, where I sense that you
had promised me so much and I seem
to live in so little, God, I'm going
to trust you with it.
The measured amounts of security and safety and
prosperity and happiness, Lord, is exactly what I
need to keep me moving through the wilderness
of sin, to keep growing into you, into
a trust, into a dependence where I can
face every enemy that awaits me and I
look away from myself and I look to
you and, Lord, you bring us into the
promised land.
You bring us into the victory.
You are victory.
But these people couldn't see that.
They weren't ready for that lesson because God
said, I'm going after something in you that
you need to see and you need to
recognize before I can bring you in.
And so God gave a measured amount of
that security and success of prosperity and safety
in order to keep them moving when he
says move.
Now, the quail that they were crying for
is another word and it's a word that
means the idea of sluggishness.
And they began to cry for something that
was going to give them sluggishness and make
them heavy.
And it's a picture of a quail that
is fat and slow in flight from weight.
And what they're asking is, God, we want
what we want in our terms.
We know it'll make us happy.
We will be the happiest people crossing the
wilderness of sin if you will just give
us as much flesh as we want.
God, we'll sing your praises and we'll sing
your testimony and we will move through the
wilderness of sin.
And believe me, when we eat all this
fatted quail, it's not going to make us
sluggish.
God, when we want what we want and
we begin to long for it and we
get mad at you when you won't supply
it, God, it won't make us heavy and
dull in spiritual things, we promise you.
We can eat all the quail we want.
And God is saying, when you begin to
long and lust for things, he says your
focus will turn off me, a lean dependence
on me that we can travel through this
place fast.
And he says you're going to get sluggish
and bored and dull.
You're going to partake of this quail and
all of a sudden your appetite for me
and your appetite for spiritual things is going
to diminish.
You're going to be full from something else.
It's going to make you sluggish and dull.
You're going to get impatient with the preaching.
There's going to be certain types you like
and certain things you don't.
There's going to be things that I don't
want to hear and things that I will
gladly hear.
What we don't understand is that our appetite
for what God says will nourish you and
take you through the wilderness of sin, the
manna you're losing your taste for.
You're beginning to despise it.
You're beginning to say, I'm tired of it.
You're beginning to say, I know better.
I need the flesh.
I need the quail.
Now, beloved, God knows that when we get
something, we are lusting for, we are craving
for, it will never satisfy us.
He knows that's the very ingredient.
As much as complaining and discontent is a
fire, lust is double the fire.
You see, you know you're dealing with lust
because when you get what you want, it
never satisfies.
There always has to be more.
Always has to be more.
There is never a satisfaction.
There's never a sense of peace.
There's never a sense of well-being.
Just fatter, heavier, sluggish, sicker.
All the while saying, I am in the
camp of Israel.
And they were.
Now, what was God's response to a people
that fell a lusting like the mixed multitude?
What was God's response when he looked down
at his people?
And they look like a little flock to
him.
And he sent a shepherd before him.
And he wants to take this flock right
through this place with all its entrapments, with
all their lack of understanding, with the little
bit of trust that they have, because they've
just come out of slavery.
What's God's response to a people like that?
And the scripture tells us in verse 10,
then Moses heard the people weep throughout their
families.
Every man in the door of his tent
and the anger of the Lord was kindled
greatly.
And Moses also was displeased.
And these subsequent scriptures begin to tell us
how Moses began to say he had been
so patient with these people, but it was
like something about this afflicted him greatly.
He could understand the cry for water.
He could understand the cry for food.
He could understand the need for shelter.
But there was something about this cry, this
lusting for quail, that even he, he begins
to say to God, these people, and they're
constant complaining, and the fruit of all this
complaining and discontent is bearing in their life.
God, I know you.
I've met you face to face.
And Lord, I know it is your glory
to be merciful, to be long-suffering, to
be a father with us.
But I also know that you visit the
iniquity upon rebellious children.
And God, I can't deal with them anymore.
And he says, just kill me.
Kill me.
Take me out of here.
I don't want to be an arbitrator, because
I explain.
I try to tell them what you tell
me.
And they are stubborn-hearted.
And they feel they know better.
Moses says, kill me and take me out
of here.
In verse 16, And the Lord said unto
Moses, Gather unto me seventy men of the
elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be
elders of the people, and officers over them,
and bring them under the tabernacle of the
congregation, that they may stand there with thee.
And I will come down and will talk
with thee there.
And I will take of the Spirit which
is upon thee, and I will put it
upon them.
And they shall bear the burden of the
people with thee.
Thou shalt bear it not thyself alone.
When I read this and I began to
meditate, and I said, God, your remedy when
your people fall a-lusting, and a greater
anointing.
Lord, your remedy when we, your people, grow
sluggish, when we grow disinterested, when we grow
bored, when we grow tired.
Lord, I thought you were going to wipe
them all out.
I thought you were setting up something for
another spiry servant or a plague.
But your initial response was I'm going to
send a greater anointing.
God is saying in the last days there's
going to be a people given to be
lovers of pleasures and lovers of self.
They're going to be given into a wholehearted
pursuit of laying down their life for vanity.
Of being filled in their spirit, sickened by
another spirit, by an ungodly spirit that's going
to get into them.
Unless they're going to overtake them.
But still they're your people.
And God is saying my remedy for that
sluggishness in the last hour is a greater
anointing.
He says this is what's going to overcome
this spirit.
And he says I want you to go
through the people.
And I want you to find 70 of
them that were elders and officers.
And elders are the old, literally the old
men and women.
It speaks of people that have some maturity
and an understanding.
And the officers were people who from every
different level of society were to come.
And these 70, the old, and those that
represented every level of society, every class.
There were 70 of them chosen.
In other words, it was the common men
and women.
God says what is my remedy for my
people?
He says you've looked to Moses.
And you feel like that kind of thing
that goes on between God and Moses is
for him alone.
But he says my remedy for this last
time, if you can hear it.
He says I'm going to take common men
and women.
Those that have an honest and sincere heart
for me.
Those that have been blinded up to this
point of how deadly the lusting and the
longing for other things.
Trying to say God, it's legitimate.
God, you understand.
God, it's not really lust.
That's how I provide for my family.
You want me to better myself.
This absorption with the mirror.
This thing to be married.
This thing, whatever the list is.
Right down to pornography.
God, you understand my weakness.
But God's saying in this last hour of
time, I know how deep it is.
And he's saying but those that are sincere.
And there's a cry rising in you because
my spirit is upon you.
That you want freedom.
He says I'm going to spirit it around.
It's not just going to be the Moses
type.
But I'm going to take the common among
you.
And I'm going to call you.
And he says the same anointing I put
on Moses.
I'm going to put on the common man
and woman.
He says those that have a heart towards
me.
I'm going to astonish you in my mercy.
He says I'm going to put an anointing
on you.
If you'll turn to me.
If you will learn to hate this thing.
If you will admit the sluggishness and the
death that creeps upon us.
Because of longings.
Because of lust.
The fire is still not put out.
He says my only remedy is my anointing.
Is my power and my presence.
It's the blood that puts it out.
And so that's what he did.
They brought these 70.
And he says you come to the tabernacle.
And I'm going to speak with you Moses.
And he says when I speak to you.
Then the anointing I have on you is
going to rest on these 70.
But an interesting thing.
Is that when the 70 gathered round.
Two stayed back the scripture says.
Two stayed back in the camp.
And it says in verse 26.
That Eldad and Medad.
And the spirit rested upon them.
And they were of them that were written.
But went not out into the tabernacle.
But they prophesied in the camp.
And now here there.
These are two men.
And they are ones that have a heart.
A sincere heart.
They're one of the chosen ones.
That God's able to rouse from that slumber.
And speak and take the scales off their
eyes.
And begin to see what this lusting.
And this deep thing in the camp.
This deep discontent is bringing them.
And instead of at the tabernacle.
They're through and they're in the.
They're still in the camp.
And they begin to prophesy.
And that word is they begin to speak
the word of the Lord.
And the scripture tells us.
That when the spirit rested on these 70
individuals.
That they cease not from prophesying.
But because these two were not at the
tabernacle.
And they remained in the camp.
The same thing happened.
And they began to speak out in the
camp.
And they began to speak of what God
was about to do.
And in verse 18 and 20.
Starting in verse 18.
And say thou unto the people.
Sanctify yourselves against tomorrow.
This is what they're saying.
And you shall eat flesh.
For ye have wept in the ears of
the Lord.
Saying who shall give us flesh to eat.
For it is well with us in Egypt.
Therefore the Lord will give you flesh.
And ye shall eat.
You shall not eat one day.
Nor two days.
Nor five days.
Neither 10 days.
Nor 20 days.
But even a whole month.
Until it come out at your nostrils.
And it be loathsome unto you.
Because that ye have despised the Lord which
is among you.
And have wept before him saying.
Why came we forth out of Egypt?
And these men now with an understanding heart.
Is beginning to say.
God is going to give you desires.
Your desires.
But it's not going to satisfy you.
It's going to revolt many.
And it's going to show.
What the inward working of what lust does.
It begins to make you so fat.
So heavy.
So disgusting.
And that you're going to see this quail.
You're going to get your heart's desire.
But when you begin to feed on it.
It's going to run out your nostrils.
And you're not going to eat it.
But one or two days.
But you're going to eat it.
Till you are sickened.
Until you are disgusted.
And he began to say.
And there's a judgment coming with it.
And beloved I believe that those.
That could be perked in heart.
Those that began to understand.
God is not playing with our lives.
In this wilderness of sin.
That the scales began to fall off their
eyes.
And began to say.
God you are God.
And everything you do is for a purpose.
Everything you do in my life.
Every battle that I face.
Everything that is working deeply within me.
You see.
And these men are now speaking.
What they are thinking in their hearts.
And God is prophesying through these men.
And those that with ears to hear.
I believe are pricked.
And I believe that as they looked at
these men.
Common men and women.
Men with no special credentials to preach.
Men and women that didn't seem like leaders
an hour before.
But in their heart.
There was something rising up.
And they didn't want to live like they
were living.
They didn't want to be partaking of what
they were partaking.
They didn't want that feeding anymore.
All of a sudden the Spirit of God
was rousing them.
And manna began to look to them good
again.
Manna began with that longing for this true
spiritual feeding.
And they looked at them.
And there would be some in the camp
that would say, Where did they get this?
And they began to say, The Spirit of
the Lord on us can be on you.
He can put that anointing.
An anointing to break off the sluggishness can
be yours also.
I know that they must have said in
Psalm 81, 12.
Where the scripture says, So I gave them
up to their own heart's lust.
And they walked in their own counsel.
They began to say, You walked...
We walked in our own counsel.
We thought we understood.
And so now we've been given over so
longing and crying for that which we thought
would satisfy.
But God says in Psalm 81, I would
have soon subdued your enemies.
My heart is not that you're overtaken.
My heart is not that you're given to
this lust.
He said, I would have soon subdued your
enemies.
I would have fed you with the finest
of wheat.
But as these men were speaking the word
of God, the scripture tells us that the
wind of God began to blow.
And the scripture in the Psalms tells us
it was an east wind and a south
wind began to blow.
And into that camp came an innumerable amount
of quail.
Scripture says that it was on either side
of the camp.
It was a day's journey.
The quail was in such a radius that
it was a day's journey to the east
and the west.
It was miles wide and it was knee
deep.
And these quail began to drop out of
the sky.
It rained quail.
And the scripture tells us that the people
went out.
Can't believe their good fortune.
All that we've longed for, all that we
want, all that will make us happy.
All that God thank you for answering that
prayer.
The scripture says they went out and they
began and the least among them brought back
10 homers, 10 basketfuls.
But the scripture tells us in verse 33,
and while the flesh was yet between their
teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of
the Lord was kindled against the people.
And the Lord smote the people with a
very great plague.
And he called the name of that place
Kibrat HaTava because there they buried the people
that lusted.
And there were a people stubborn hearted.
That when the spirit of the Lord came
upon their peers, when the word of God
was preached, when their own heart tried to
convict them, their lust would quench it all
down.
And they would run out.
They would grab that quail and they began
to eat and they eat just like God
said would happen.
Then in their insatiable craving, they would gorge
themselves till it ran out of their nostrils
and God judged them.
And it said that those that partook, unheeding,
turning their back on every call of God,
on every word he had for them, that
this is your problem and this is the
judgment it will bring.
They went ahead and gave themselves up to
their heart's desire.
Scripture says a plague came and then they
were killed in the plague.
And then they were buried.
The people that lusted.
But the camp moved on.
And there were people that moved with it.
And the Holy Spirit quickened me.
And he said the very fact that there
were people that moved on meant that there
were people that were not buried, people of
lust that were buried, but there were people
there who buried their lust.
There were people died there because they gave
into it.
They were hard hearted, twisted in their thinking
and could not be reproved by the Holy
Spirit.
And they died there.
But the name of that place, Kibrat HaTaba
means the graves of the lust.
And that means that there was a group
of people there that God's Spirit could convict
and speak to.
And he began to speak hope to them.
He said, I'm going to send an anointing
and I'm going to release you from that
lust if you will turn to me.
I will come against that sluggishness in you.
Every time you begin in this journey to
feel that sluggishness and that heaviness where we've
consumed of the world and it's made us
heavy and dull and we don't want spiritual
feeding anymore.
He says, you turn to me because I
provided for an anointing and it's yours for
the taking.
It's yours for the asking.
It's provided for you because that's the only
thing will overcome it.
And so there are people that heard that
word.
There were people there that saw that anointing
on their peers.
And they were provoked.
And the scales were taken off their eyes
and they saw what an unbridled lust and
ungoverned passion.
A longing for things and even good things.
Even the good quail, even the things but
it became such an obsession to them.
It replaced their love and devotion that made
them angry and discontent with God.
And yet God said, I'm going to be
merciful to you.
I'm going to be merciful to you.
And I'm going to send my anointing.
And there were people there that rose up
and what went into the grave was their
lust.
Not them.
What went into the graves in that place,
the graves of lust, was everything they'd been
dealing with.
Everything they were ashamed about.
Everything that had captivated them for so long.
Things that had got a hold of them
because deep down that complaining and distrust was
at the bottom of things.
God was able to speak to them.
He said, I'm taking you to a place
far grander than this wilderness of sin.
Will you trust me?
He said, I understand what's captivated you in
a place, in a hard place.
He said, I understand the burning in you
and you thought substituting manna for something that
you wanted would put that burning out.
He says, I understand it all.
But now it's your turn to understand.
Will you choose the anointing I will send
to release you?
Because I call this place a graveyard for
lust.
And beloved, in Psalm 105 verse 40, there's
a scripture that says, the people asked and
he brought quails and satisfied them with the
bread of life.
The people asked and he brought quails.
You know, in Exodus 16, he understood the
cry for meat and food.
There's legitimate things that we want.
There are legitimate things.
He has a father he's happy to provide.
He says, I'm going to give you quail.
I'll give you what you need.
Don't worry.
I love you.
I'm your father.
I know what you need.
But will you trust me with the amount?
Will you trust me in the timing?
Will you trust me in the measure?
I give it to you.
He says, I'll give you the quail.
He brought them quail.
They asked for it.
But he said he satisfied them with the
bread of life.
They would never be satisfied with quail.
We're never to be satisfied with the things
of the flesh.
He says, I've called you for the promised
land.
I don't want you knocking around the wilderness
of sin, overcome by your enemies.
Always giving into the flesh.
Always overcome by that.
Always your testimony being put into the ground.
I'm going to satisfy you, he says, with
the bread of life.
With spiritual food.
And you know that it says in John
6, Jesus said, I am the living bread
which came down from heaven.
That manna was a type that everyone who
came to Christ, Jesus said, I will be
your living bread.
I bring you to hard places so that
you realize how hungry you are for me.
I bring you through the dry places where
you're bored.
Where sometimes that's the hardest thing to endure.
When we understand or seem to know it
all.
When God takes us through that long desert,
there's a time in our walk, it seems
like we go through a desert.
Nothing exciting, nothing new.
Just one foot in front of the other.
A very dangerous time.
But he said, I'll be the bread of
heaven to you.
I will be the bread of heaven to
you.
If we have a taste for quail, we
need to cry out and say, God, you
said you would be living bread.
God, I'm eating, I'm partaking of death and
it's beginning to show in me.
Beginning to appear the way I think and
what's coming out of my mouth.
And God says, I'll be living bread to
you.
Take away, push away the death of that
flesh and the quail.
Push it away.
He says, if any man will eat of
this bread, he shall live forevermore.
He says, the day that I save you,
it'll start life.
And it will be everlasting life and never
ending life.
Right through.
God says that when you feed on me,
when Jesus says, I'm going to show myself
to you in your lonely times, in your
bored times, if you'll turn to me.
Beloved, so many times we miss out on
what Jesus wants to be to us because
we turn to the quail.
We, it doesn't even enter our heads to
turn to him, to partake of him.
And God says that if any man will
partake of me, he shall have life forevermore.
Hallelujah.
Finally, God took this group of people to
the entrance of the promised land.
They were a prepared people.
God had brought them through all kinds of
lessons that he provides in miraculous ways.
He subdued enemies.
He gave them the law.
He began to show them their heart.
He showed them the destruction of what's that
can happen in their life when it starts
with a very small thing, complaining.
And a burning about lusting.
And these people, God had been handpicking the
lessons.
He'd been handpicking the teaching.
And now we brought this people to the
entrance of the promised land and they were
prepared.
But beloved, when they stood there and they
sent spies and they said for 40 days,
they searched out the promised land and they
were amazed at what they saw.
And they couldn't believe how abundant was the
fruit and how rich it was.
A land of milk and honey, a land
that was rich.
And it was everything and more that they
thought it could be that they thought it
would be.
But you know the story that was inhabited
by giants.
Now that shouldn't surprise us.
Any promised land, any land worth fighting for
is going to be protected.
The enemy does not want the people of
God into the promised land and easy access.
Of course, it's going to be giants there.
But they had learned, they had been taught
by God lessons.
But beloved, were they going to act upon
it?
They were prepared people.
But when they sent the spies in to
look what they saw with their eyes, turned
10 out of the 12 away, but there
were two.
And I tell you something, beloved, that they
had began from this lesson of the lusting.
I'm convinced they began to feed on that
man has never before.
Their eyes were opened and they began to
eat of that spiritual food.
They got a taste for the spiritual.
And as they began eating that living bread
and every day coming and saying, thank you,
Lord, for my salvation.
I thank you for this living food.
I thank you.
I live in a new place with a
new mind and a new spirit.
And I'm going to feed that life that
you've given me with this spiritual food, manna,
your life in me and your word.
That went to Joshua and Caleb came back
to the report with the report.
And they heard the other spies.
They interrupted them and they said, stop.
We can go in now.
God has prepared this place.
They said, there are bread for us.
There are bread for us.
They've been feeding on the right bread and
they had eyes and they had vision.
They had faith.
They had trust.
That's the promised land.
They had been feeding.
They pushed away the quail and because they
had partaken of Jesus, the bread of life,
they saw the impossible as possible.
And they said, they're bred for us.
We've been feasting on you, Jesus, and our
enemies are bred for us.
There are nothing.
They can't stand before us because they had
heard the lesson of lasting.
They understood.
They're going to push away the flesh and
the quail and the man of the spiritual
food.
The life of Christ is what they desired.
And when they came to the promised land,
every giant did not intimidate them.
Beloved.
That is our call.
That is our destiny.
We are to look whatever hell throws us
in the face and say, that is bread
for us.
I've been eating a higher bread, the bread
from heaven.
And I can see what you are.
You're to be consumed by me.
I'm not to be consumed by you.
They learned the lesson.
Those two learned the lesson.
The sad thing is they were a prepared
people at the gates of the promised land.
They didn't act on what they had been
taught.
We can hear today that.
God bless me.
Sister Teresa.
But beloved, there's a cry coming in me.
God, I want to live this.
I want to partake of this.
Jesus, I thank you that from this time
forward, there is an anointing waiting on me
when I feel sluggish and heavy and bored.
There is an anointing.
At my asking.
When there are lusts and there are longings
that want to take over my heart and
supplant you, Jesus, there is an anointing.
And I don't have to fall every time
now to the enemy's ploy.
I don't have to fall at his feet
because there's an anointing.
God is taking the scales off his church's
eyes.
But beloved, let's not be like the majority
that got to the promised land and could
recite the lesson and never lived it.
Could talk about the manna, but never partook
it.
There is an anointing for our deliverance from
lust and sluggishness if we want it in
Christ.
Hallelujah.
Would you stand with me?
Jesus, the
altar call is simple today.
And that is, Lord, I'm coming by faith
to receive that anointing.
I'm coming by faith to receive that anointing
from this sluggishness that wants to take me
over.
And that anointing that will allow me to
push away the flesh.
Push away my feeding from the flesh in
all its forms.
Lord, I've heard you today.
And I thank you, I've got a new
beginning in you.
And that this anointing, all the days of
my life, right through, right into the promised
land, and this anointing will abide on me.
And this anointing, when I step up to
the true call of my life, God, when
you bring me right to the very threshold,
I'm going to be looking away from me
saying, God, one more time, send that anointing.
You've been faithful through the wilderness of sin,
and you have taken off that sluggishness and
those lusts off me.
And I know what it is to have
victory.
And I rejoice in you, Jesus.
I'm not intimidated by the enemy because I'm
not looking to myself.
I'm going to run to the enemy because
Jesus, you have shown me with your anointing.
You are my victory and I go to
it.
Beloved, we hear so much exhortation and preaching
like this, but he is calling us today
to experience it, to experience it, that we
have this testimony that I have an abiding
anointing on me that I don't succumb like
the world.
Because Jesus, you went to a cross and
the fires of lust are quenched by your
blood.
Hallelujah.
I thank you, Lord, for that anointing.
Hallelujah.
Thank you, Jesus.
Hallelujah.
Those that are in the annex, if you'd
like to come and join those that are
coming that are asking the Lord for that,
which he has provided and coming expectantly coming,
knowing and I don't do it because we're
worthy of this.
God's going to give it because we need
it, because he loves us, because he provided
for it, because that's the way it's going
to work.
The lusting ends with my anointing, the power
to say no to it, the power to
ask me for cleansing, the power to go
to the root of it, the power to
look and see what is the cause of
it.
And then a trust in you, God, to
change it, to change me.
When we give him that which we long
for, the depth of our being, and we
ask Jesus to come in its place for
the first time in our lives, we are
going to know satisfaction.
Beloved, I know what it is to long
for things and had myself so convinced that
was what would make me happy.
And for sure it had to be God's
will.
But when I was honest enough, finally, after
pleading, begging, bargaining, trying to convince God that
my way was the right way, he remained
a rock in my life.
He never moved.
He never changed.
I kept coming to him and it was
like I was batting myself against this mountain.
But finally I broke.
The rock didn't break.
That's his mercy and his love.
Finally broken, he began to speak to me
and show me what was at the root
of things.
And finally, for the first time, I knew
what it was to be satisfied in Jesus.
You know, we can walk many years with
him and know what it is to be
saved, but not satisfied.
There's got to be a testimony that Jesus
satisfies.
That my discontent has been exchanged for a
content because he loves me.
He's taking me to a place.
I'm going to trust him.
What he has planned for my life is
far beyond anything I could know.
But that is a question of trust.
And those that have come forward, God does
not despise your struggle.
That's why he says, in the burning of
the longing, the only thing that puts it
out is my anointing.
That's my presence.
My presence with you.
My forgiveness.
My cleansing.
I'm going to send an anointing and you
can say no.
I'm going to send an anointing and you're
going to have power where you never had
power before and I never did.
That's the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so now we just come by faith
like we do for everything we need.
And we come by faith and we say,
Lord, I receive that anointing.
I see in your word.
That's how you dealt with it.
I'm your child.
You're taking me through the wilderness of sin.
And I'm going to receive that anointing that
you provided for this deep burning lust and
this deep discontent.
And I'm going to trust you.
You know what you're doing.
You love me.
The plan and the purpose, God, that you
were doing is perfect for me.
Good for me will be the best for
me.
My life, my family.
At this moment, many times we just have
to, by our will, say, God, I'm going
to choose to trust you.
The feelings may come later, but God, I
know you are my God and you will
not deceive me.
And so we come now, we're going to
exchange our longings.
We're going to get Christ and we're going
to be satisfied because Jesus satisfies.
Living bread, living water satisfies.
It's what we need for growth.
The other is killing us.
And so we exchange death for life.
Beloved, if that's you today, if we can
raise our hands and by faith, Lord, we
come now for that anointing that you have
provided.
Lord, those that have those deep seated longings,
that complaining and discontent, those, Lord, that are
struggling right now with the burnings deep inside.
Lord, you said you will send an anointing
for that.
It is the anointing of your blood that
cleanses and cools.
And then Lord, you say you're going to
come as we give it to you and
you're going to come as never before.
And Lord, you're going to change us.
You're going to break us free.
You're going to send that anointing to take
the sluggishness and the death off us and
the feeding in the wrong places and our
spirit being poisoned.
We're going to be able to turn things
off and turn away from things and move
in another direction, move into life, sit at
a table of spiritual food.
We're going to take up what you provided
and it's going to be life for us.
And God, our life is going to change
because we're trusting God in your mercy that
says there's an anointing for these deep seated
fires, oh God, and we thank you for
it.
And we're not going to be tricked or
deceived out of it.
For every time an ember tries to glow
up, every time the fire starts to start
again, Lord, we're going to cry out, send
your anointing, oh God.
I am your child and I thank you,
Lord, you provided for it.
And Lord, we're going to give you the
praise and the glory for a vigorous spiritual
life, not a sluggish, heavy, dull, bored, narrow
minded existence.
But God, you're going to bring us into
life.
It is, we're going to feed on you,
Jesus.
You're going to expand our minds and spirits
and we're going to partake of real life.
Oh Jesus, we thank you for that now.
As your people, we are, we are bowed
before your mercy, your mercy that says I
send an anointing for your loss and your
discontent and you set us free.
Thank you, Lord.
We go to the promised land of prepared
people and the grace to move into it
because we're going to hear you and live
this word.
Hallelujah.
Now let's praise him.
Let's praise him for this word.
Hallelujah.
This is the conclusion of the message.