One inescapable reality is that we are all a product of influence. How we dress and talk, our likes and dislikes, the places we visit and the things we do may all have been sown to us through the influence of others. Of course, we also influence others one way or another. In our previous meditation we had mentioned that the people murmured and God’s judgment descended upon them. It is instructive to note that a small unit of people influenced them to that lustful state. “Now the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving; so the children of Israel also wept again and said: “Who will give us meat to eat?” (Numbers 11:4 NKJV).

Influencers that would bring back our taste for the old life will work a ruin someday. The people that we blend with never leave us the same. This is why we cannot enter any relationship casually.

Who were this mixed multitude by the way? They are described variously as “foreigners” (GNT), “riffraff” (MSG), “the rabble” (ESV). I think they were a group of people who loved what the God of Israel could do but were not willing to subject their carnal appetites to His Lordship. They had enough grace to leave Egypt but refused to take extra grace to get Egypt out of them. Paul was wary of the kind influence that his spiritual children in Galatia were subjecting themselves to. Some people were trying to recreate an appeal for the law from which they had been set free. Influencers that would bring back our taste for the old life will work a ruin someday. The people that we blend with never leave us the same. This is why we cannot enter any relationship casually.