Every goodly provision vital to the survival and growth of man is guaranteed and delivered in full by the sustaining grace of God. The surety of abundance fills man physically and spiritually, yet he is destitute and insatiable. He gnashes his teeth in defiance of his blessings and brings woeful detriment unto himself, gripped by the ruinous yearnings of moral decay.

Deprivation in the wilderness humbled and embittered Israel, for whom pleasurable sustenance became a point of contention in the book of Numbers. Lust-stricken, they scorned the manna with which they were sustained during their plight and vocalized their complaints in Numbers 11 and 21:5. Their transgression provoked God to wrath, and pestilence overcame Israel. For their iniquities, he wrought against them plague and the punishing fangs of fiery serpents as they consumed the flesh for which they pined.

The grace of God delivered man from darkness, through sin, and thence unto glory, but travailing did not reseed his soul with temperance nor satiate his riotous appetite. The fall of man is ongoing yet and without conclusion. He has pursued his lusts to condemnation; he bears the drunken mark of carnality, damned by the works of flesh. He woes, reels, and staggers in the darkness of iniquity, giddily intoxicated by sinful gratification. Appetite scourges man, consumption diseases him, and devastation besets him as though again stricken with plague and the fangs of serpents.

Man has divorced himself from that which is virtuous and departed from the goodly provisions of God in mind, body, and spirit. Devoid of sustenance, an unnatural diet of iniquity sustains his temple. The sour grapes borne of his sin set his teeth on edge. He arrogantly drinks the wine of his own corruption and interfaces with the venom of asps and poison of dragons for gratification. His wicked intemperance overcomes him, and he invites his own ruin.