Complaints in the desert
Numbers 11:
Good Morning church- Glad you have joined us and hope the Lord will minister to you in a powerful way.
Please turn with me to the OT book of Numbers Chapter 11.
Our text takes us to where we have all been at times and where we have had to listen to someone else..
It is complaining!
WE will see that the Nation of Israel is complaining to God about how bad they have it.
How about it … we want to be compassionate but sometimes we would just like to tell someone that we are tired of hearing the only thing out of their mouth is complaining.
You look at their lives and you can see that some of the things they are complaining about are things that they have brought on themselves by bad decisions and missed opportunities.
You have heard their story so many times and you have tried to help them but they just won’t listen.
If you cannot think of someone like that…Maybe you are that person,
You would have to admit at times that you should have listened to the advice that was given.
Gossipers…those that love to talk about others.
Complainers…nothing is ever right
Hard heads, stubborn people, distracted people who can’t focus for very long
Those who are spiritually deaf, those that have to learn everything the hard way
Pushy people in the world… but complainers are the ones that get on your last nerve. They are the ones that you try to get away from.
We at times don’t know what to do with people like that- Now imagine your God and you have a whole nation, a whole world of people like that- makes me glad that God has patience with us, that He is willing to explain and re-explain the plan He has for our lives .
Let’s Pray-
Numbers 11:1-15 Read from bible -New King James
Background-
The first generation of Israelites came out of the desert of Sinai as an organized group of people under the provision of God’s presence- cloud by day and fire by night.
In time they became a group of people following Moses and became a group of murmuring and complaining people.
Complaining about their hardships in the wilderness
Lack of meat to eat
Prompted Moses the leader to start complaining about the burden God had put on him for the people.
God gets tired of hearing them complain and he sends fire to the outskirts of the camp-
Moses intercedes for the people and God stops the fire.
Some scholars believe it was at the edge of camp that the gossiping and turmoil was most rampant and God put a stop to it for the moment.
This was the same group of millions of people who were imprisoned by the Egyptians and forced to hard labor and very poor living ways.
400 years slaves… set free by the power of God!
There is no other way to explain it other than God did a miracle and set them free under Moses and set them back on track as being God’s people.
We know the story unique plagues, the battle between Pharaoh and the stuttering Moses.
The great exit from Egypt where Pharaoh changed his mind after letting them go then went back after Israel and pursued them.
At the Red Sea God provided a miracle by parting the sea and the Israelites crossed on dry land and as Egyptians crossed were swallowed up by the sea collapsing on them.
The Egyptian army was no more…the end.
They are in the wilderness on the other side of that miracle complaining about food and water and how things are being done by Moses and everyone is having a moment.
You ever have a moment?
That time you feel like you are in the wilderness wondering if God has still got you?
If He cares what is going on in your life?
If He is still going to provide for you?
We all have been there but we cannot stay there…not if we want God to move.
(V4) says “The Ramble among them had a strong craving”
The word Babel- means to be confused, numerous ideas all thrown together that don’t make sense. And when we babble, people don’t understand.
Today we see the word rabble- “rabble was a greedy desire to gather.”
Non-Israelites had gathered with the people of God as they left Egypt and had gathered on the outskirt of the city and were causing trouble.
They were the people pushing to cause dissention and making people more at unrest.
Know anyone like that?
The Israelites complained and then Moses their leader complained. Why did God respond positive to Moses and negatively to the rest of the people? Because the people complained to each other and nothing was accomplished. Moses took his complaint to God, who can solve any problem.
Many of us get good at complaining to each other. We need to take our complaints or problems to the Lord the one who can do something about it.
God brought them out of Egypt but Egypt was not brought out of them.
Exodus 20:2-
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”
Exodus 6:6
“Therefore tell the Israelites: 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians and deliver you from their bondage. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.”
Deuteronomy 5:6
“I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.”
The Lord very clearly said that He would bring them out of Egypt, but they had not allowed the Lord to bring Egypt out of their lives.
Here’s what I mean by that-
The Lord brings us out of our trouble and we forget what He has done for us-
The parting of the Red Sea was in their rear view mirror but it should not have been forgotten.
All the times we were given an escape and saw His hand in our lives.
We need to realize that what He has brought us out of is not a place we should desire to go back too.
Fresh starts only work when we are not wanting to go back where He has delivered us from.
Whatever your Egypt is has to stay in your rearview mirror not your front windshield.
Your past appears better at times but really all you miss is being comfortable-change is not comfortable. It is challenging.
The Lord provides but it is not a provision that was designed to last forever-
The manna described… coriander seed that looked like gum resin. They gathered it and had to grind it, mill it, beat it, boil it make cakes of it and it taste was like cakes in oil- yummy! Don’t that sound like a special meal prepared by a chef
The Lord sustained them but He did not want them to get use to that- this was not a BBQ where you cook the best to impress your company. This is the Lord having His people in the wilderness getting from slavery to the promise land and it was a stepping stone not a place of permanent residents.
Wilderness lasted longer because they were in rebellion.
Wilderness is sometimes a painful place and the faster you learn the lesson or move back into the will of God will determine the length of time.
Jesus chose the wilderness, (Luke 4) because he knew that, while being alone and tempted, there was strength and authority to be gained by being alone with His Father. No matter how isolated you may feel today, God wants to come into your desert, be near you, speak to you.
Wilderness Season:
A time of spiritual, emotional, or financial drought, that could be paired with intensified temptation and/or spiritual attack. Not always indicative of sin, but often a period of God-ordained testing.
A “wilderness experience” is usually thought of as a tough time in which a believer endures discomfort and trials. The pleasant things of life are unable to be enjoyed, or they may be absent altogether, and one feels a lack of encouragement.
A “wilderness experience” is often linked to a “mountaintop experience”; that is, the struggle follows a success of some kind. The period of trial comes on the heels of a period of accomplishment or achievement.
Others who can be said to have had a “wilderness experience” include the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19:1–9); the apostle Paul (Galatians 1:17–18); and, of course, the patriarch Job.
Jesus also had a “wilderness experience.” After Jesus’ baptism, “at once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan” (Mark 1:12–13).
Jesus’ experience teaches us some important facts: 1) it is not a sin to be tempted; 2) it is God’s will that times to allow testing to come our way—Jesus was “full of the Holy Spirit” when He went into the wilderness (Luke 4:1); and 3) we are never without God’s grace.
In a “wilderness experience,” a believer may struggle simply to survive from day to day. Financial, material, physical, or emotional burdens may press on him.
The flesh cries out for relief.
The believer is forced to wait on the Lord, find God’s peace and joy in the midst of trouble, and through it all mature in his walk with Christ.
Paul offers this encouragement for those who “have this treasure in jars of clay”: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body” (2 Corinthians 4:7–10).
The reason for these trials, Paul says, is “to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (verse 7).
The wilderness is an unpleasant place, fleshly speaking.
We naturally want prosperity, health, and easy going.
But the same God who created the garden also created the wilderness.
There will be times of trial and pressure. Our faith will be tested. But the God of grace will meet us even in the wilderness.
Missionary Amy Carmichael knew this truth: “Bare heights of loneliness . . . a wilderness whose burning winds sweep over glowing sands, what are they to HIM? Even there He can refresh us, even there He can renew us.”
Why are there times when God seems silent? Absent in a believer’s life?
In answering this question, one is reminded of Elijah and his flight from Queen Jezebel. Elijah was a man of God whom God used to do some mighty things. However, when word reached him that Jezebel had threatened his life, he ran (1 Kings chapter 19). Elijah prayed to the LORD and in effect complained about how he was being treated: “He replied, ‘I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty.
Woe is me….
The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too’” (1 Kings 19:10).
The LORD'S answer to Elijah is thrilling: “The Lord said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’ Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper” (1 Kings 19:11-12).
We see in this passage of Scripture that what Elijah thought was not true. Elijah thought God was silent and that he was the only one left. God was not only “not silent,” but He had an army waiting in the wings so that Elijah was not alone: “Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him” (1 Kings 19:18).
In our walk as born-again believers, it may seem that God is silent, but God is never silent. What looks like silence and inactivity to us is God allowing us the opportunity to listen to “the still small voice” and to see the provisions that He has made for us by faith.
God is involved in every area of a believer's life--the very hairs on our heads are numbered (Mark 10:30; Luke 12:7). However, there are times when we have to walk in obedience to the light that God has given us before He sheds more light on our path, because in this age of grace God speaks to us through His Word.
“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it’” (Isaiah 55:8-11).
The Greek word translated “complainer” means literally “one who is discontented with his lot in life.” It is akin to the word grumbler. Complaining is certainly not a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and, in fact, is detrimental to the peace, joy, and patience that come from the Spirit. For the Christian, complaining is destructive and debilitating personally and only serves to make our witness to the world more difficult. Who, for instance, would be attracted to a religion whose adherents are dissatisfied with life and who continually grumble and complain?
How do I stop complaining biblically?
The Bible says, "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life." (Phili Prayer-
