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If you have your Bibles with you today, I invite you to turn to Exodus 16. Our scripture reading is also in the bulletin, and it will be on the screens. At the conclusion of the scripture reading, you'll notice in the bulletin on page 8, that I will say, this is the word of the Lord. And please respond then with one voice, thanks be to God. And say it with a thankful heart. Thankful that we have God's word. Now hear the word of the Lord. They set out from Elim and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai on the 15th day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the people of Israel said to them, would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full. For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily. So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel at evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt and In the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord because he has heard your grumbling against the Lord For what are we? that you grumble against us and Moses said when the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full because the Lord has heard your Grumbling that you grumble against him What are we? Your grumbling is not against us, but against the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, come near before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling. And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. And the Lord said to Moses, I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, at twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the Lord your God. In the evening, quail came up and covered the camp. And in the morning, dew lay around the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, what is this? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, it is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded. Gather of each of you as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Yes, this is the word of God. The grass withers and the flowers of the field fade away. But this is the word of God and God's word stands forever. We join me as we pray and ask the Lord's blessing on the preaching and reading and hearing of the word of God. Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, we bow before you in reverence and awe because you're worthy of our worship and our obedience and You're worthy of our lives. You're worthy of our submission to your will and your word because you made us and all things. You are our creator. You are the one in whom we live and move and have our being. You are our sustainer. You are the one who has given us life and breath and health and strength every single day. Every stitch of clothing we've ever owned is by your grace to us. Every meal has been a gift of your mercy. Oh Lord, in the quietness of this hour, even as we hear rain overhead, we remember that you are the God who is our rock and our fortress and our deliverer in a day of trouble. Lord, we don't know what this week holds for us and our friends and neighbors in this state as a storm is approaching, but we do praise you that you reign over all things and you will watch over and guard us. You'll protect us. Ultimately, no harm can come to our soul, no matter how fierce the storm. Our lives are hidden in your hand and no one can snatch them out of it. Lord, we do pray for every single family here, every person. You know our needs, our struggles. You know our worries and our fears. You even know our grumbling. You know, Lord, our ways. You know our thoughts before we think them and our words before we say them. You know our sins and the motives behind them. Oh, Lord, have mercy on us as we've already prayed. Wash and cleanse us today. Purify us and raise us up from this service to a more grateful, obedient walk with you. Bless now the reading of this word and the hearing of it and now the preaching of your word. May Christ be here shepherding his flock. We pray all this in Jesus' name, amen. When I was in late elementary school, one of my favorite series of books to check out from the library were books in a series called We Were There, the We Were There series. In those books, children my age, late elementary school, were placed in historical settings. And as a kid, you could then imagine what it would have been like. I remember some of the titles. We were there on the Nautilus. We were there at Pearl Harbor. We were there at the Boston Tea Party. So you got to learn about history while imagining yourself there as a kid observing all these things. For me, those books made history very real. And they would make me think about how I would have responded to those historical situations. Well, that's exactly why the Lord gives these narratives of the Old Testament as we've been going through the book of Exodus. These were real people. going through real life experiences, so you and I can picture ourselves there, or so we can relate our present situation with theirs. As we heard this morning, the Apostle Paul wrote in the New Testament, as he wrote to Christians in Corinth, this very same thing. These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. Yes, all of these Old Testament narratives point ahead to Christ. They are redemptive. That is the historical redemptive revelation to us. It points ahead to the greater Moses and a greater deliverance that Jesus gives us. In fact, Jesus himself said that the prophets and kings, like Moses of the Old Testament, longed to see the things that you see but never saw them. They longed to see how all of this would fit together. That's not the only thing we see, though, in the scriptures of the Old Testament. We see that these things are warnings for us as we go through our lives. Each scene, each event in the wilderness, the Lord deals with a different issue in their lives that we might examine our lives today. And so, first of all, we pick up the story as the journey begins again. The journey begins again. Verse one, they set out from Elim and all the congregation of Israel came to the wilderness of sin. The whole Israelite community set out again. This is the story of life in this present world. This is the story of the church. That which is going on in Exodus is true history, but it's filled with meaning. It reveals truth that God wants you to know. It's a picture for us. This is symbolic of our lives here on earth. It reflects what life is all about. In that, life is a journey. Life is a journey. It's a pilgrimage. We are wanderers. and pilgrims here in this present world. In fact, back in 1678, John Bunyan captured that so perfectly in his allegory, his story called Pilgrim's Progress. I'm sure some of you have read that. It's an allegory about the journey from this world to that which is to come. In fact, the main character in the story is named Pilgrim. It was wildly popular when it came out. And for a long time, it was second only to the Bible in popularity and sales. We are pilgrims here. We're not yet in heaven. We're not yet in the promised land. We're in the wilderness right now. And we too are wandering through terrain that is often bleak. We're trusting in God's leading. We're following his word. We don't have a pillar of cloud and fire, but we do have the word of God and the Holy Spirit. And sometimes we are on a great spiritual mountain, the mountaintop, like the Israelites were there on the shore of the Red Sea when the Egyptians were all lying there dead. Things were great. They were singing and dancing. Life is beautiful. And sometimes we're just like that. Life is beautiful. Life is good. The Egyptians of your past are long gone. And then it hits you again. This world is not heaven. We're in a desert right now. I'm in a desert. We're in the wilderness and you face another trial, another reality check. And you see again, this present world is under a curse. Sometimes the trials that come to us concern the very basic, vital matters of life, like water, as we saw in the last chapter in Exodus 15, like what happened at Marah. Sometimes our trials concern just very basic things like family, or work, or finances, or your health, or your car, or your church. or an insult or a misunderstanding. But remember how God brought them relief back at Marah by his grace. God showed Moses a piece of wood and he told him to throw it in the water. That wood was symbolic. The water became sweet. It's a beautiful picture of the wood of the cross. How Christ sweetens even the most bitter cup in life. His death and resurrection sweetens every trial you go through. Know that Christ died for my sins. This is not empty. Christ rose again from the dead. He will raise my body again from the dead. And then the Lord brought them to abundant waters, as we saw towards the end of chapter 15. He brought them to Elim. He brought them to an oasis, a place of rest, a refuge, a retreat, and they were refreshed. They actually spent a few weeks there at Elim. Chapter 15, verse 27 says, there were 12 springs and 70 palm trees, and they camped near the water. Now their time at Elim didn't last forever. It wasn't their final destination. The Lord gave them a taste of the promised land, a taste of their final destination, but this wasn't their final home. They had not yet arrived and the Lord had so much to teach them. And so they set out and the difficult journey begins again. Again, this whole idea that life is a journey through the desert, that this stage of life right now we're in, that's so important to grasp. It's vital for you to understand. Again, remember 1 Corinthians 10, these things happen to them as examples and written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. It's vital that you understand that. that this is the wilderness. Because so often Christians can get confused. Somewhere we get the wrong idea that all will go smooth if we're a Christian. That blessed by God means or equals no problems, no heartaches, no troubles, no challenges. But that's completely incorrect. completely incorrect. We live in a world full of sin and sickness and disease and death and pain and sorrow and traffic tickets. I got a traffic ticket yesterday. That's why it's on my mind. Someone had asked me just a couple weeks ago, when was the last time you got a traffic ticket? Oh, it's been more than 30 years. I can't remember the last time. I had that same guy with me giving him a ride here. He said, oh, no. Saw the lights in the background. I had not come to a full and complete stop. Were you right turn on red? And there was a sign that said no right turn on red. I thought, oh, he's going to let me off. I didn't say that I work in the chaplain's office at the jail. I didn't want to say that. I thought, he'll probably just give me a warning. Came back, $261 ticket. I felt nauseous. The car was spinning. I don't want to drive home. I don't want to drive again. I just felt awful. And I had just told this fella who came here to help clean the church. I just told him, yeah, I haven't had a ticket in years, in months, in years, years, it's over 30 years. We're in the desert right now. Things don't go like we want them to. It's painful sometimes. We live in a world full of sin and sometimes it's our own sin, right? We live in a world under the curse of God. We're not in the land of promise yet. We're not in the new heavens and the new earth. We're in the wilderness, and it's a land filled with bitter springs and Mara's water, and it can come in all kinds and styles of cups and goblets of bitterness. And yes, by God's grace, we're in a land that is spotted with occasional springs of grace, like Aleem, times of sweetness. But we can't stay in Elim forever in the oasis. We've got a difficult journey ahead. It says on the 15th day of the second month after they come out of Egypt, they left. One month after they left Egypt, they move on to another stage of the journey. And in Mara, it says in verse 25 that the Lord tested them. Well, had they learned what God was testing them? That he would provide for them? That he was able to do anything? Well, secondly, we come now to the next hurdle in the road, the next hurdle on the road to the promised land. Verse two, the desert, the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, in the desert. So what's the next hurdle? Well, an unhappy, grumbling, murmuring community. I don't know if you kids know what grousing means. My dad used to say that all the time. Quit your grousing. Or quit your bellyaching. In fact, I thought about entitling this sermon, God's Grace to Grousers. Or God's Bounty to Bellyachers. I settled on God's Grace to Unhappy People. You think about this. The very same people that had seen God's mighty hand in the plagues of Egypt. The very same people who had been led by the Lord, passing by the Egyptians as they buried their firstborn, knowing that they'd been spared. Those who had followed the pillar in the cloud. Those who'd been miraculously delivered through the Red Sea, walking on dry ground. Those who had seen the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. Those who had tasted God's grace and relief at Mara just a few weeks before, where the water was turned sweet by that wood. The very same people now grumbled against the Lord. And not just a few of them, it was the whole congregation, the whole community, it was unanimous. It's interesting, seven or eight times in 10 verses, grumbling is mentioned in one form or another. This was Israel's reoccurring sin, grumbling, complaining, grousing, murmuring. So what were they grumbling about? Well, let's look at their complaint. Verse three. First of all, they say, would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in Egypt, for you have brought us into this wilderness. Now, a couple of things. They say, you, Moses, took us out of Egypt. What? I thought it was the Lord who brought them out. You really think Moses and Aaron did this without the Lord's consent? Kind of makes you wonder how they thought the miracles of the past month had happened. The plagues, the pillar of cloud and fire, the parting of the Red Sea, the closing of the Red Sea, the bitter water turned sweet. And that comment also implies that they would have preferred death in Egypt to the deliverance God had given them if only we had died in Egypt. In other words, they're saying if we'd only never been saved And they're repudiating their relationship with God. They're wishing Pharaoh and the Egyptians were still their masters. And the second part of their complaint is, they say, there we ate bread to the full. We sat around pots of meat and had all the food we wanted. It's interesting how it goes back to food. They're saying, in essence, at least back in Egypt, if we had died there, we would have had a full, we would have died on a full stomach. What in the world? They have a warped view of reality, a warped view of life in Egypt, thinking that was the good old days. They're exaggerating life in Egypt. This is one of those cases of the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Back when they were slaves, they wanted out of Egypt. They cried for deliverance. And now that they're on the other side, they want to go back. They have selective memory, just like we do. Forgetting the whips and the brutality of the Egyptians, the cruel treatment to life as slaves. Recalling a few good meals as though that was the daily menu for them. Psalm 78 says the real issue is God tested. They tested God in their hearts by demanding food that they crave. Don't you see? They're just like us. They remember the good stuff of the past and they forget the bitter crying. They talked about how much good food they had, exaggerating it like we were sitting around pots full of meat every day. They made it sound like living in Egypt was going to an all-you-can-eat country buffet every night. And then they exaggerate the present condition. They say, we're starving. We're going to die. You're going to kill us with hunger. Now, that complaint just isn't true. They say they're starving, but in the next chapter, they complain that their livestock need water to drink. They still have flocks and herds with them. They're not starving, they're just exaggerating. Now, it is true that God had promised he would take them to a land flowing with milk and honey, and they probably wanted to keep their flocks and herds for when they got there, but they're not on the brink of starvation. They just want what's coming later right now. And then they make this absurd charge against their spiritual leaders. This is ridiculous. You brought us out to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Really? They're accusing them of false motives. They take their present situation and attribute the worst motives to their leaders. This is Moses and Aaron who've risked their lives to bring them out of Egypt. These are the men who've stuck their neck out for them and they accuse them of deceiving them or playing some cruel trick on them. Accusing them of not caring about their situation would have been bad enough, but they accuse them of not keeping them alive, of wanting to kill them, of attempted homicide. of deliberately wanting to kill them all. We know what you're up to, Moses. You can't pull the wool over our eyes. We figured you out. The gig is up, Moses. You want us dead. That's ludicrous. Especially when it follows such an amazing rescue there at the Red Sea. It's amazing that they would have the audacity to suggest that Moses and Aaron had evil intentions all along. They just want to watch them all die. You know what, there's something even more amazing in this story. Something even more amazing, more astounding than the complaint, which is not ultimately a complaint against Moses, it's a complaint against God. That which is even more amazing is how God responds. That's our third point, the Lord's answer. Verse 11, I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Did you see that? How did the Lord respond? I have heard the grumbling. Four times there in just a few verses, the Lord mentions hearing their grumbling. Verse seven, Moses and Aaron said all the people of Israel, the Israelites, in the morning you'll see the glory of the Lord for he has heard your grumbling. Verse eight, You'll see the glory of the Lord because he has heard your grumbling against him. Verse nine, tell the people of Israel to come before the Lord for he has heard your grumbling. Verse 11, God says, I have heard your grumbling. What's the point? God hears it. He sees, he knows their cry. He knows your cry. He's not deaf. He heard their cry in Egypt. He hears their grumbling in the desert. And the second part of the Lord's answer begins there in verse four. I am about to rain bread from heaven. I will rain down, what? Judgment. Against their grumbling. No. Discipline. I will rain down discipline against a grumbling people. Nope. I will rain down water from heaven for 40 days and 40 nights. Nope. Fire and brimstone I'll rain down like Sodom and Gomorrah. Nope. I'll rain down plagues like I did in Egypt. Actually the same word is used for all of those events. The Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord rained hail down on the land of Egypt. the history of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph would have been part of their spiritual life already, stories told from generation to generation. You might say, well, grumbling doesn't compare to those great sins. It's just a little sin compared to the sodomites. Well, think about it for a minute. In their murmuring, in their grumbling, they're rejecting the Lord's faithful servants. In their grumbling and complaining, they're wishing they'd never been saved. In their grumbling and complaining, they're acting as if God's never done anything for them. In their grumbling and complaining, they're repudiating God's gracious deliverance and wishing they could go back to Egypt, to Pharaoh and slavery. They're grumbling against God's grace. Instead, the Lord says, I'll rain down bread from heaven for you, food from the sky, enough for every day. This raining down is a picture of abundance. The Lord's answer is more grace. He promises he'll give them meat in the evening. Quail will come into the camp, and bread every morning. The Lord, in essence, responds with grace. amazing grace with a purpose. Verse 12, then you will know that I am the Lord your God. And he also tests them. And we'll look at this notion of God testing them even as they received his mercy next week. But as we close, I want to make one final application. At first glance, you might think, hmm, interesting. The Lord brought them to a difficult place. They grumbled. So he gave them what they wanted. Therefore, it's okay for me to be a grump. It's okay for me to grumble. No, this story is not giving us free license to grumble. The story isn't giving us free license to grumble against God or to grumble in times of testing or to murmur or complain. No, these things happen to us as examples and were written down as warnings for us. You see, this account is to show us how bad grumbling and complaining against God really is. It's a lot easier to see this happening in someone else's life than it is to see in our own life. It goes along with what Jesus says about the log and the speck in the eye. It's easy to see even the smallest sin in someone else's life, even if it's a little speck of sin, while at the same time we're searching for sin, we have this huge pole sticking out of our own eyes. This portion of God's word is given to us as a gift to be able to recognize this in ourselves. Psalm 78 gives us the reason for this. They forgot what he had done, the wonders he had shown them, but they continued to sin against him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High by demanding the food that they craved. Verse 78, yet God was merciful, forgave their iniquities, and did not destroy them. This all goes to reveal something about the nature of every sin, that it's ultimately against God. Even revealed in our text here, he has heard your grumbling against him, against the Lord, verse 7. Oh, someone else may be the immediate object of your grumbling, but ultimately the grumbling was against God and all that he had done for them in the past. And I might add this for us who are such staunch defenders of reform doctrine and the sovereignty of God, that he's absolutely in charge, that God is over all. I wouldn't dare want to be labeled an Arminian. Are you a whiner against God? Are you? When in his providence on this journey to the promised land, he brings you a season of difficulty? When he brings you out of the springs of Elim with palm trees and fresh waters and you go through the harsh realities of the wilderness again to teach you about trusting in him more and about looking to heaven as your home. Oh, we can be so stunned. Yes, God is absolutely sovereign. And then when trouble comes, we grumble. I remember a friend of mine in college, an African-American fellow from Kansas City that I, I can't even remember his name now. I remember walking along sidewalk with him after class one day, my first year of college, and he brushed his hand along some bushes and he caught a thorn. He goes, and he said, praise God. And I said, what? He goes, I praise God that. that I learned those bushes have thorns so I don't do it again and I praise God that I'm able to walk and I praise God. I mean, he just gave a whole list of things that he was thankful for instead of complaining that he poked his finger by a thorn. I thought, wow, at that time at 18, I'd never met anybody like that. There's all kinds of things we can be thankful for when we get pulled over for a speeding ticket or running through a red light a little bit too quick. I'm thankful I have a car to drive. I'm thankful I didn't hit anybody. I'm thankful I didn't cause an accident. You see, we're just like them. We receive abundant blessings. We've been rescued by the hand of the foe. We're on this pilgrimage to a better country, a heavenly one, not made with human hands. We're possessors of great promises like them, but only better. And so often in our sinful, worldly self, our sinful, worldly nature draws us down to complaining against God and his provisions for us. And instead of raining down what we deserve, he gives us more grace. Paul felt like he had to wake up the Christians in Rome saying, do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? So where are you right now as we're heading to the promised land? Well, there might be some of you still in Egypt, you know, you're slave to your sins. Sin has mastery over you still. You have no need of a redeemer. You're fine, you think. You're wrong. You need one greater than Moses to rescue you out of the kingdom of darkness and blindness and sin. Where are you? Maybe you're in a Aleem right now, enjoying a time of sweet abundance, springs of water, good things. Well, be sure and be thankful. and use this time of rest and refreshment and sweetness to prepare. Or maybe you remember a time when you were in Eileam. You were a time of sweetness, but now you're just plain unhappy with where God has you. And you find yourself often complaining, and griping and blaming and grousing. And frankly, you feel like you're about to die spiritually. You're just starving. Well, I call you today to look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, your forefathers ate manna in the desert. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry. Praise be to God for the indescribable gift of his son, how we need Christ every day. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. I call you today to look to Christ, cry out to him and walk with him. Praise be to God for the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we bow before you and pray for your blessing on our hearts from this passage of your word. Oh, Lord, that we would cry out to you more and more. Forgive us for our grumbling and complaining and griping, which is ultimately complaining against you, our great God and faithful Savior. Now prepare us for the Lord's Supper. We make our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. I would ask the elders to come forward now as we turn to the Lord's Supper.
God's Grace to Unhappy People
Series Exodus
Sermon ID | 10824242255575 |
Duration | 35:10 |
Date | |
Category | Sunday Service |
Bible Text | Exodus 16:1-12 |
Language | English |
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