The Terrible Mercy of a Granted Wish Text: Psalm 106:13-15
Introduction: Spiritual Amnesia
There is a spiritual condition that is far more deadly than any physical ailment, and it is the native condition of fallen man. That condition is a hard-hearted, stiff-necked, determined forgetfulness. It is a kind of spiritual amnesia. We see it on full display in the history of Israel, which Psalm 106 lays out for us with unflinching honesty. This psalm is a national confession of sin, a long and sorry catalogue of rebellion. But it is not just their story; it is ours. We are them. Israel in the wilderness is a mirror, and if we look closely, we will see our own faces staring back at us.
Just before our text, the psalmist recounts the glorious triumph at the Red Sea. The waters covered their enemies; not one was left. And what was the response? "Then they believed His words; they sang His praise" (v. 12). There was a moment of clarity, a flash of faith, a burst of worship on the far shore of their deliverance. They saw the mighty hand of God, and for a brief, shining moment, they believed. They sang. But it did not last. The memory of the miracle had a shorter shelf life than the manna that would soon rot. The gratitude evaporated like the morning dew in the Sinai sun.
This is the perpetual problem of the human heart. We are quick to cry out in trouble, quick to rejoice in deliverance, and quicker still to forget the God who delivered us. We want the gifts, but not the Giver. We want the rescue, but not the Rescuer. We want His blessings, but we do not want His counsel. And as this passage demonstrates with terrifying clarity, one of the most severe judgments God can visit upon a people is to give them exactly what their sinful hearts demand.
We live in a therapeutic age that assumes all our desires are basically good and that the goal of life is to have them fulfilled. Our culture is built on the foundation of expressive individualism, the unquestioned dogma that you must follow your heart. But the Bible warns us that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. To follow your heart is to follow a blind, raving lunatic off a cliff. What happens when a rebellious people, having just seen the mighty works of God, decide they know better than Him? What happens when they refuse to wait for His timing and instead give themselves over to their belly-gods? This passage shows us. God grants their request, and it becomes their ruin.
The Text
They quickly forgot His works;
They did not wait for His counsel,
But craved intensely in the wilderness,
And put God to the test in the wasteland.
So He gave them their request,
But sent a wasting disease against their lives.
(Psalm 106:13-15 LSB)
Hasty Forgetfulness (v. 13a)
The first step in this downward spiral is a failure of memory.
"They quickly forgot His works;" (Psalm 106:13a)
The Hebrew here says they "made haste, they forgot." It was not a slow, gradual fade. It was a sprint into ingratitude. One moment they are singing the praises of Yahweh on the banks of the sea, watching the corpses of their enemies wash ashore. The next moment, a mere three days later (Exodus 15:22), they are grumbling about bitter water. The memory of the greatest act of salvation in their history was not potent enough to sustain them for seventy-two hours.
This is not a simple intellectual lapse, like forgetting where you put your keys. Biblical memory is not about passive recollection; it is about active trust. To "remember" God's works is to live in the present reality of who He is and what He has done. It is to let His past faithfulness define your present confidence. To "forget" His works is to treat them as irrelevant data points, historical trivia with no bearing on your current circumstances. It is to say, "Yes, God split the Red Sea, but what has He done for me in the last five minutes?"
This is the essence of unbelief. Unbelief is not the absence of evidence; it is the refusal to connect the dots. God had given them a mountain of evidence. He had dismantled the entire pantheon of Egypt with ten plagues, and then He had drowned the most powerful army on earth in a watery grave. He had given them every reason to trust Him for their next drink of water. But their hearts were governed by their stomachs and their circumstances, not by the character of their God. And when we forget God's works, we are left with only two options: trusting in ourselves or despairing. Israel did both.
Impulsive Impatience (v. 13b)
This forgetfulness immediately gives birth to its ugly twin: impatience.
"They did not wait for His counsel," (Psalm 106:13b LSB)
Because they had forgotten what God had done, they had no interest in what He was about to do. They refused to wait for His plan to unfold. God's counsel includes not only His will but also His timing. And His timing is always perfect. But faith is required to wait for it. Faith says, "God has a plan. He has proven Himself faithful. I will trust His schedule." Impatience says, "My needs are ultimate, and they must be met now, on my terms."
They did not want a counselor; they wanted a cosmic vending machine. They wanted God to dispense blessings according to their immediate demands. This is the spirit of our age. We want instant gratification. We despise process. We hate waiting. We want the crown without the cross, the harvest without the plowing, and the promised land without the wilderness. But the wilderness is where God tests and trains His people. It is where He teaches them to live by His word and not by bread alone. By refusing to wait for His counsel, they were refusing the very training that would have prepared them for their inheritance.
Notice the connection. Forgetting God's works leads to ignoring God's counsel. If you don't have a robust theology of God's past faithfulness, you will have no patience for His future plans. You will take matters into your own hands. You will lean on your own understanding. And that is a recipe for disaster.
Insatiable Craving (v. 14)
Having rejected God's memory and God's counsel, they are now ruled by their appetites.
"But craved intensely in the wilderness, And put God to the test in the wasteland." (Psalm 106:14 LSB)
The Hebrew says they "lusted a lust." This is not simple hunger. This is an idolatrous, all-consuming desire. The story is found in Numbers 11. They had manna, the bread of heaven, but they grew tired of it. They remembered the fish, the cucumbers, the melons, and the leeks of Egypt. They romanticized their slavery because their bellies were rumbling. They wanted meat. Their craving was not just for food; it was a craving for Egypt. It was a rejection of God's provision and a desire to return to the house of bondage, so long as the food was good.
When our desires are not governed by God's Word, they become tyrants. A legitimate desire for food, when detached from gratitude and submission to God, becomes gluttony. A legitimate desire for companionship becomes lust. A legitimate desire for rest becomes sloth. Israel's craving was idolatry because it placed their bodily appetite on the throne that belongs to God alone. They were willing to trade their glorious freedom for a pot of Egyptian stew.
And in doing this, they "put God to the test." This is not a sincere seeking of God's will. This is a hostile, demanding challenge. It is to stand before the Almighty and say, "Prove yourself. Meet my demands, or I will no longer believe in you." It is to treat God like a defendant in the courtroom of your own desires. They were testing God's power and His patience, questioning whether He was really with them or able to provide for them in the wasteland. This is a profound insult to the Creator of the universe, and it is a sin He takes very seriously.
A Terrible Answer (v. 15)
And so we come to the terrifying conclusion. God responds. He answers their prayer.
"So He gave them their request, But sent a wasting disease against their lives." (Psalm 106:15 LSB)
This is one of the most frightening verses in all of Scripture. Be careful what you ask for, especially when you ask for it with a clenched fist instead of a bowed head. God gave them their request. He answered their prayer. The sky grew dark with quail. They fell around the camp for miles in every direction. The people gathered them greedily, gorging themselves. They got exactly what they craved.
And with it, He sent "a wasting disease against their lives." The Hebrew says He sent "leanness into their soul." While their bellies were full of meat, their souls were becoming thin, withered, and starved. This is a divine judgment. God sometimes punishes us by giving us precisely what our sinful hearts desire. He gives us over to our lusts, and lets us experience the bitter fruit. He lets the alcoholic have his bottle, the adulterer have his affair, and the materialist have his wealth, and in the getting of it, their souls shrivel up and die.
The quail became a plague. While the meat was still in their mouths, God struck them down (Numbers 11:33). The place was named Kibroth-hattaavah, which means "the graves of craving." Their answered prayer became their tombstone. This is a terrible mercy. It is a severe grace. God was teaching them, and us, that a life lived in service to our appetites is a life that ends in death. A full stomach and a lean soul is a fool's bargain. It is better to hunger in the will of God than to feast in rebellion against Him.
Conclusion: The Bread of Heaven
This entire episode is a dark and twisted parody of the Gospel. Israel rejected the bread from heaven, the manna, and lusted after the flesh that perishes. And in getting that flesh, they found death.
Centuries later, another crowd stood before Jesus, the day after He had fed five thousand of them. Their bellies were full, and they wanted more. They wanted a king who would keep the free bread coming. And Jesus said to them, "Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life... I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst" (John 6:27, 35).
He offered them Himself, the true bread from heaven. He offered them His flesh, given for the life of the world. And like their fathers in the wilderness, they grumbled. They did not want God's provision; they wanted their own. They did not want the bread of life; they wanted the leeks of Egypt.
The lesson for us is stark. Do not forget His works. Remember your baptism. Remember the cross, that ultimate Red Sea deliverance where our true enemy was drowned. Do not grow impatient with His counsel. Wait on the Lord. Trust His timing, even in the wilderness seasons of your life. Do not be ruled by your cravings. Do not test the Lord by demanding that He conform to your desires. Instead, ask Him to conform your desires to His will.
And feast on the true bread. Feed your soul on Christ. For it is possible to have everything this world has to offer and still have a lean and starving soul. But it is also possible to have nothing that this world values, and yet, in Christ, to possess all things. He is the only request that, when granted, brings not a wasting disease, but everlasting life.