Moses 12 THOU SHALT NOT BELLY-ACHE
Exodus 15:22-19:1
16:7
“He (God) has heard your murmurings against the Lord. For who are we (Moses and Aaron) that you can murmur against us.
Psalm 106:25
“They grumbled in their tents and did not obey the Lord.”
Numbers 11:11-15
“Moses heard the people crying in their tents (over having no meat to eat).. and the Lord’s anger blazed. .And Moses said to the Lord,’ Why have you dealt so harshly with your servant. Why do you lay the burden of all these people on me? Did I give birth to them….The burden is too heavy for me…If you are going to treat me like this, kill me right now..so I won’t keep looking at my wretchedness.’”
A young man joined a monastic order and committed to their vow of complete silence. He could say two words every five years.
After the first five years he came out, said, “Bed hard!” and returned to his cell. After ten years he came out, said “Cell cold!” and returned to his cell. He came out after the fifteenth years and said, “Food bad!” and returned to his cell. He came out after the twentieth year and said, “I quit!”
The Council, hearing this, said. “That doesn’t surprise us; all you’ve done since you’ve been here is gripe, gripe, gripe.”
The story of Israel’s 40 wilderness years is gripe, gripe, gripe. (Ex. 16:7; Nu. 14:2; 17:5, etc). The King James calls it MURMURING, because of the sound it made from two million dissatisfied people - “MUR-MUR-MUR-MUR.”
THE SCENES
God could have said to Israel in the wilderness, “All you’ve done since you left Egypt is gripe, gripe, gripe.” Sadder still, He could say to us who reap the benefits of His Son’s sacrifice, “All you’ve done since I gave My Son for you is gripe, gripe, gripe.”
The Israelites were barely out of Egypt when Pharaoh came after them. The people didn’t take this problem in prayer to the mighty God of the ten plagues who brought them out; they said to Moses, “Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us out in this desert to die?” (Ex. 14:11). The murmuring began.
That sarcastic griping set the tone for the next forty years. God delivered them from Pharaoh that day, but before the waters of the Red Sea died down they griped because the water at Mara was bitter (Ex. 15:22-27).
They griped again because they had no food (16:1-26). After God gave them Manna, they griped because they were thirsty (17:1-7).
In every case God met their need but it did not make them turn to prayer when the next need arose. Human nature being what it is - they’d rather complain.
A year at Sinai, getting to know God and promising to serve Him didn’t change them one bit. Our text shows the first thing Israel did when they left Sinai was to take up their old habit of whining.
A couple of days into the desert they began to complain, first about the desert hardships itself (11:1-3) and then about the diet of manna (11:4-10A). They were sick and tired of eating the same old stuff. This is when Moses, the once mighty Warrior in Egypt, had had enough and lashed out at God and asked Him to kill him.
Years later we see the complaining spirit alive and well as they griped about the lack of water at Kadesh (Nu. 20:1-13) and finally about the Lord’s battle plans for taking Canaan (Nu. 21:4-8). Far too many of us make complaining a way of life.
Nothing goes right with the folks you meet
Who make their home on Complaining Street
If they had no troubles, there is no doubt
They’d grumble about nothing to grumble about.
THE SERIOUSNESS
1. Complaining is Injurious (Numbers 11)
To the Home
. A wife said to her husband, “Honey you didn’t say anything about the supper.” “Why?” he answered, “was there something wrong with it?” This is no small, insignificant, trifling, sin. It destroys homes. A wife said to her husband, “Honey you didn’t say anything about the big supper I made tonight.” He said, “Why? Was there something wrong with it?” Think of how much this wounded her soul and cut a tiny piece out of her love for that man.
Do you want to destroy your home? It’s easy. Husbands - just start complaining about everything your wife does and how she does it. Wives, do the same to your husband. Parents - gripe to your kids. Kids - gripe to your parents. Nothing will kill love and create disharmony faster than a critical spirit and chronic complaining.
To The Church
Complaining, with the anger and the wounds criticism inside of it creates will destroy a church quicker than anything else. At the bottom of every church split you will find two things- people criticizing something they don’t like and doing it with anger.
The Pastor
It takes the heart right out of a Pastor. After listening day and night to the incessant mur-mur-murmuring against him and God Pastor Moses lashed out at God and asked Him to let him die. (Numbers 11).
A preacher I met in the 1960’s had a strange story about one time he resigned from a church. He was about to enter the sanctuary with a visiting evangelist. A little boy came up, pulled on his coat and said, “Preacher. There ain’t no toilet paper in the rest room.”
That week, when the revival ended, the preacher turned in his resignation, saying he just couldn’t take it anymore. Now one little boy didn’t drive that preacher to despair but a whole host of nagging little things. That was the last of many straws.
Dr. Criswell said not too many preachers are like Jonah and get swallowed by whales, but a whole lot of them get nibbled to death by minnows
The Psychology
Most pastors, if asked what the hardest part of being a pastor is, would say it is walking through the horrible valleys of unbelievable pain with people in the pews that he loves. Your pain in transferred to your pastor and he hurts with you; cries with you and bleeds with you. He dies a little every time he goes into a valley like this.
Christian psychologists agree but go on to say that going immediately, in their duties, from these horrible places to happy places like weddings or church parties, isn’t natural and takes a toll on their emotional and physical health.
I don’t know about this. I’ll take their word for it. But I do know what gets to me. It is to go from someone who is deeply hurting, to someone who is not and hearing them complain about the thermostat, where we park the bus or how they don’t like to walk 200 feet from their class to the sanctuary. This is like pouring gasoline onto a fire
We want to say, “If you’d go with me one day to a nursing home and see people who cannot clean themselves or to a children’s hospital ward and see tubes sticking out of little heads you’d know what a real problem is. And you wouldn’t be griping about nothing.”
We don’t do it, of course. We want to keep our jobs. So we suppress our anger. We try to be a nice and it just eats away at us until, like Moses, we burn out and pray to die.
This is the root cause of most severe bouts of depression. Many psychologists today actually define depression as “Anger turned inward”.
2) Complaining Is Infectious (11:10)
When Israel left Egypt a “mixed multitude” (Ex. 12:38) left with them and were probably slaves from other countries. At any rate they stirred up Israel against the manna until their discontent spread to every tent.
Complaining spreads like gangrene. That is why God says one of the six things He hates is the person who sows discord among brothers (Prov. 6)
I had a man in one of my churches who was an expert in infecting people with his bitter spirit. At a class party or other gathering he would move from person to person and say something like this, “Don’t you think ____ sings too many solos?”
When the person doesn’t disagree they take it as a “Yes” and move on to another person, and another, and so on. I knew about it but lived with it until he brought me a list of grievances about our Minister of Music - things he and “a lot of others” (??) were concerned about.
Two I remember were, “He is too heavy and he sings too many solos.” (I would bet a thousand dollars if I was a betting man that somewhere in America that same week another group was telling their Pastor that the Minister of Music is too skinny and needs to sin more solos.)
I asked him who was upset like him and he said (As people like this always do) , “I’d rather not say.” I asked him if he had gone in love to talk and pray with the staff member and he said, “No!” I suggested that he do that. Of course he didn’t because he was a man with a bitter spirit always looking for something to gripe about.
I have pastored now for 31 years and have faced all kinds of people and problems, but that man came closer to splitting our church and driving me out of the ministry than all the other people and problems put together.
THE SALVATION
1. Look at Your Blessings
For me this little poem says it all:
Today, upon a bus, I saw a girl with golden hair
I envied her, and wished I was that fair
When suddenly she rose to leave, I saw her
hobble down the aisle,
She had one leg and but what a
Sweet, sweet smile
Oh, God forgive me when I whine, I have two legs the world is mine.
And then I stopped to buy some sweets
The boy who sold them had such charm
I talked with him, he seemed so glad,
If I were late would do no harm.
And as I left he said to me, “I thank you sir,
you’ve been so kind.
It’s nice to talk to folks you see”
He said “I’m blind.”
Oh God, forgive me when I whine, I have two
eyes! The world is mine.
Later walking down the street, I saw a child
with eyes of blue,
He stood and watched the others play,
It seemed he knew not what to do
I stopped a moment then I said,
“Why don’t you join the others there?”
He looked ahead without a word, and then
I knew, he could not hear.
Oh God, forgive me when I whine, I have two
ears, the world is mine.
With legs to take me where I go
With eyes to see the sunset’s glow
With ears to hear what I would know
Oh God, forgive me when I wine, I’m blessed
indeed, the world is mine.
– Author Unknown
2. Look at Your Lord (Heb. 12:1-3)
The Bible says, “Look to Jesus the author and finisher of your faith..who endured the cross..and the shame” (Heb. 12)
Our supreme example of victory over complaining is the blood stained Son of God who fought His way through the forces of hell, ended up on the wood of Rome, and never whimpered, whined, or complained.
How insulting it is to Him and to Christianity when we act like whimpering little cry babies because we don’t get our way. The greatest blessing in the entire Bible is found in Numbers at the close of the wilderness years. The priests, in worship, blessed the people with these words:
“The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.” (6:24-25)
Belly-aching cry babies dishonor God and insult Jesus by always looking at what God does not give them instead of what He does.
On a lighter side:
As you travel on this pathway
Let this be your goal
Keep your eye upon the donut
And not upon the whole.
