Perhaps we would open our Bibles again today at 1 Corinthians 10. While you are looking for that passage, perhaps I should tell you that, in connection with the remarks I made yesterday about my daughter’s experience in Princes Street, the last time I told it we were besieged afterwards with the question, “Did she find the bag?” It is happening again, so let me tell you that she did.
It was not really relevant to my message yesterday; that is why I did not tell you. It was in the police station, and when we phoned the next day, we got it back. So you may relax now and forget about that.
Let us read this passage then, 1 Corinthians 10. By way of introduction again, in case there are perhaps some here today who were not here yesterday, we will read the first thirteen verses.
I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud,
and that they all passed through the sea.
They were all baptised into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
They all ate the same spiritual food
and drank the same spiritual drink;
for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them;
their bodies were scattered over the desert.Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.
Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written:
“The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.”We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died.
We should not test the Lord, as some of them did and were killed by snakes.
And do not grumble, as some of them did and were killed by the destroying angel.These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfilment of the ages has come.
So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you do not fall.
No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.
But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.
Let us pray for a moment.
Our Father, we submit ourselves now to Your Word—not to the speaker, but to Your Word and to Your Holy Spirit—that, in the speaking and in the hearing, we may be instructed by God Himself. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Again, just to recount very briefly, the apostle tells us here that the people of Israel travelling through the desert were all under the cloud. They were people who were close to God. They had been baptised into Moses. They all ate the same spiritual food, and they drank water from the rock, which was Christ Jesus.
Nevertheless, he says, God was not pleased with most of them, and the consequences of His displeasure were extremely serious. They are to be examples for us and warnings.
We are all, I believe—I am sure most of us will be—believers in Jesus Christ, born again by His Holy Spirit, sealed by Him, baptised, most of us, I think, into Christ, and regularly taking the bread and the wine, feeding on Christ. Perhaps, possibly, I think most of us are sincere and earnest Christians who have come here because of our desire to know the Lord better.
Paul does not want us to be ignorant of these particular things that he mentions here. Of course, there are many other things to which he wants to draw our attention, but there are four things here that particularly displeased the Lord:
I imagine you may have been wondering which one I was going to take next. The answer is: do not grumble.
“Do not grumble,” the apostle says, “as some of them did, and were killed by the destroying angel.” You will notice that these four problems were dealt with by equal severity. One cannot really distinguish between them; and if we were to attempt to do so, we would have to recognise that to be dealt with by the destroying angel was perhaps the worst of all.
Some were dealt with by plagues; some were bitten by snakes. But those who grumbled were killed by the destroying angel. So this would appear to be quite a serious matter.
It may have occurred to you that such a simple thing as grumbling was relatively trivial. Let me assure you this afternoon that it is not so. This is a very serious matter in the sight of God, and it is also, I think it is true to say, very widespread among God’s people—including myself.
The Greek word is gongysmos. Our own words, grumbling and murmuring, have an unpleasant sound as well, do they not? Complaining, whispering, and arguing—they are all the same kind of thing. It seems, as I say, to be quite a serious issue, and something to which we ought to pay very close attention.
In Jude, verse 14—perhaps you would look at Jude with me, the second-last book in the New Testament—Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about certain men:
“See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of His holy ones
to judge everyone
and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way,
and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”
“These men are grumblers and fault-finders.” These men are grumblers and fault-finders. We really need to look at this issue of grumbling.
I want you to turn with me today to Numbers 14 and to keep this chapter before you as we think about this question. We will read some verses from Numbers 14, beginning with verse 1.
That night all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud.
All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert!
Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword?
Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?”And they said to each other, “We should choose another leader and go back to Egypt.”
Then Moses and Aaron fell face down in front of the whole Israelite assembly gathered there.
Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had explored the land, tore their clothes and said to the entire Israelite assembly, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good.
If the Lord is pleased with us, He will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us.
Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.”
But the whole assembly talked about stoning them.
Then the glory of the Lord appeared at the Tent of Meeting to all the Israelites.
The Lord said to Moses, “How long will these people treat Me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in Me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them?
I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them, and I will make you into a nation greater and stronger than they.”
It is a great chapter, but I will read a few verses further on, from verse 17. We remind ourselves—and I am sorry that we have to, as I said yesterday, talk about God being angry—but it is here.
“Now may the Lord’s strength be displayed, just as You have declared:
‘The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion.’”
Let us remind ourselves that God is not readily or easily angered.
Then verse 26:
The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “How long will this wicked community grumble against Me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites.
So tell them, ‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will do to you the very things I heard you say:
In this desert your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who was counted in the census and who has grumbled against Me.
Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.’”
And verse 36:
So the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it—these men responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the Lord.
Of the men who went to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived.
What sort of things did they grumble about? Well, they grumbled about the bitterness of the water. I think it probably was rather bitter.
They grumbled about the lack of food, and perhaps there was not, in fact, a great deal of it at the time. It was not a trivial complaint, in other words—neither of these things was.
They grumbled about the kind of food supplied to them. In Numbers 21:5, they spoke against God and against Moses and said:
“Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert?
There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”
“We detest this miserable food.” So they complained about the kind of food and the quantity of food there was.
They complained about the dangers to which they thought they were likely to be subjected. Of course, there was justification for that. They were going to have to fight; they were going to have to defend themselves.
“Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword?
Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?”
They complained about their elders. “All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron,” it says in verse 2. “If only we had died in Egypt!” And they said to each other, “We should choose another leader”—a better one—and see if they could do better for us, perhaps going back to Egypt.
So they grumbled about all kinds of things. Many of them were perhaps not particularly comfortable experiences, and perhaps you might say, “Well, they had reason to complain.”
What sort of things do you grumble about? Do you grumble about the weather? Of course, that is a conversational thing, in a way. We do, do we not?
Sometimes about our food too. I was fourteen when the war broke out, and we had very severe rationing in our country. You got a little bit of butter, about that size, for a week. We carved it up into little sections for each day. There was a little bit of sugar in a bowl, and we would spoon it out carefully to make it last for the week.
My father would never allow us to complain about the food.
You sometimes complain about the neighbours, do you not? The noise they make; the intrusion on our privacy. Do you ever complain about the government? We sometimes feel sorry for your president, and I hope you feel sorry for our prime minister too.
I heard of something—I do not know whether it is in your country or ours—called a grumbleometer. Do you know the sort of thing? Perhaps we should all have one in our homes.
A very popular thing to complain about in our country is doctors and hospitals. They are really targets for people who want to grumble and complain. I do not know whether it is a popular sport here or not, but we certainly suffer from it in our country.
Sometimes we grumble about our status in the world. Remember, the disciples did that. In Luke 9:46, an argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest.
I do not suppose there are many here who want to be the greatest, but we do not want to be left out either. We do not want to be the lowest. We want somehow or other to keep even with other people; and if things do not go that way, then we think about it inside, and we grumble a little.
We complain if our rights are interfered with. We read in Acts 6:1 that, as the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.
Westerners particularly feel very strongly about personal rights—things that we feel we are entitled to: entitled to at home, entitled to at work, and even entitled to in the church.
Have you ever complained about your elders in your assembly? We want leaders who will do what we want, do we not? Who will see things the way we see them and, if necessary, get us out of trouble.
We complain, I am afraid, sometimes—and not infrequently—about what God has done or allowed in our Christian experience and our human experience. “Why did God allow that to happen?” we say.
But, of course, the truth is that all grumbling is ultimately against God. All grumbling finds its way back to the Lord, and that is something that we should lodge clearly in our minds this afternoon. All our grumbling finds its way back to Him.
Who is responsible for our living conditions? Who gives us our food? We say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” We all join hands around the table and thank the Lord for the food; then, when it comes onto the table, we say, “Yuck!”
Sometimes we do something rather strange, do we not? We thank Him for it. I noticed in visiting Denmark some years ago that the Scandinavians—and if there are any here, they will correct me—frequently give thanks after the meal. Maybe that is a safer idea.
Who makes the weather? I would like living in Scotland. Well, it is very nice there some of the time. It rains a lot. It snowed in June.
Maybe you would prefer to live in the Sudan. I stayed for two and a half years in the army there. They had things called sandstorms. Because of the heat—the heat often went up to 118 or 120 degrees in the shade—it was so warm at night that I used to sleep on a hospital veranda.
Every now and again, while I was starting to sleep, a sandstorm would creep up. Before I knew where I was, my ears, nose, and eyes were full of it. The bed was covered with it; it was down inside my pyjamas; and I was extremely uncomfortable. I had to rush inside and get out of it. It just came rolling across. I do not think you have many sandstorms in Richmond, anyway.
Who put us next to these neighbours? Do you think that God gave you the house in which you are living? Most of us do. We believe that God put us there and gave us that house. Did He not know about the neighbours? Did He not know the next neighbours who were moving in a year’s time?
Who placed you in this country? Would you rather have been born in Rwanda? Albania? North Korea? Or Japan, where earthquakes come and destroy a large part of a city? Or Hong Kong?
There are many places where medicine and medical treatment are not readily available. The truth is that in every country there are good things and bad things, but God put you where you are. If you have a grumble about that, then your grumble will be reaching His ears.
Who do you work for? Think about that one for a minute.
In Matthew 20:11, Jesus told a parable which includes this statement: “When they received their pay, they began to grumble against the landowner.”
The apostle Paul tells us:
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,
since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.
It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
If you work, and if I work, for Him and complain about a salary, then I am complaining, I am murmuring, I am grumbling against Him. You see why this is so serious. You think of grumbling as a trivial thing, unimportant. We all do it. We all do it.
It is not for the people of God, for the children of God, and especially for those here who have come because they want to love Him, serve Him, and please Him. Grumbling is a very serious issue.
What about our elders? Who put them there? Did God give us these elders? The Word of God says:
“Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you,
who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you.
Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work.”
I could go on and on like this, I am sure—and we do go on and on, do we not? All kinds of things that we grumble about. Most of it is inside. It is an internal thing. We do not always express our grumble; the grumbler grumbles inside.
But is murmuring and grumbling really a secret? We read here in Numbers 14:2 that all the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron. It was against the leaders that they grumbled, saying, “If only we had died in Egypt or in the desert. What does the Lord think He is doing, bringing us here?”
They grumbled against Moses and Aaron. Then the glory of the Lord appeared in the Tent of Meeting to all the Israelites—not just to Moses. The glory of the Lord, the cloud and fire, appeared at the Tent of Meeting to all the Israelites. And the Lord said to Moses:
“How long will these people treat Me with contempt?”
What a thing to say. “How long will these people treat Me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in Me?” “Well, I am only complaining a little bit about the food.” No, it is a much more serious matter than that. They are treating the living God with contempt, and He felt it.
They were criticising the young people too—maybe we do a certain amount of that. Joshua and Caleb, God’s young people. And God answered them: “I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites.”
Remember that when we grumble and complain, God hears. If we are believers and are walking with Him day by day, if the presence of God means something real to you, will He not hear when you grumble?
If you really believe that, as you go about day by day, His presence is with you—and you want that, I want it, and you experience it—what does He feel when we grumble about something that He has provided for us?
The Pharisees grumbled about the disciples. “The Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to His disciples, ‘Why do You eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’” And Jesus answered them:
“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”
They complained to the disciples, but Jesus answered them. God hears and knows what is going on in our hearts and lives. Is that a surprising thing? Not really. We believe in the presence of God with us, day by day and night by night.
I mentioned yesterday the occasion when Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife—or because he had married a Cushite. They said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?” And the Lord heard this.
There is a marvellous verse in Ezekiel 11:5. This is what it says in the New International Version:
“This is what the Lord says: That is what you are saying, O house of Israel,
but I know what is going through your mind.”
That is what you are saying, but I know what is going through your mind.
“The Word of God is living and active. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight.
Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.”
I do not want you to think of this as an oppressive kind of condemnation message. But I am trying to share with you what I believe could be a matter of the most serious importance for us as believers, because of the effect it has upon the Lord whom we love. That is why it is so important.
Jesus knew what people were thinking. In Luke 5:22, “Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, ‘Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?’” The Pharisees were critical of the statements and actions of Jesus, simply thinking about it, and He heard.
Other people also get to hear our grumbles, especially if we express them. Innocent people get caught up in our murmuring and complaining, and sometimes we can become responsible for a whole group of complainers. That is an unpleasant thing to happen.
You read in verse 36 of this chapter: “The men Moses had sent to explore the land returned and made the whole community grumble.” They made them grumble. They were the initiators of the grumble which spread through the people.
Remember always that God hears and knows what we think.
When God hears grumbling, how does He feel about it? Well, I have read to you the phrase which says, “How long will these people treat Me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in Me?”
Not to trust Him is offensive to Him and deeply touching. “In all their affliction He was afflicted.” Our God, brothers and sisters, is sensitive beyond our understanding. We have clues to it in Scripture.
“We have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.”
We have a High Priest who is touched with our infirmities. He is deeply sensitive. “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.”
A number of years ago, when our son, who is a doctor, was going to Kenya to do missionary work, he would have been around thirty at the time. I took him to the bus station. In fact, he was only going out for six weeks at that point to do some language study; a few months later he was leaving to live in Kenya and work in a hospital in a place called Kijabe.
I took him to the bus station to get the bus down to London and then the flight to Nairobi. As we went into Edinburgh, I drove him and we talked. We had such a good time of fellowship and friendship. He is such a friend to his parents, and we had a lovely time of fellowship and chatting as we went into the bus station.
Then we waited, got the tickets, and waited for the bus. Again, we talked together and drank a cup of tea together. He got on the bus, and as I waved to him as he went away, I got in my car, but I could not see to drive because of tears coming down.
No, he was only away for a few weeks, but I felt it so deeply. We love him so much. You all have that experience.
Once I had composed myself, I sat there by the pavement in the car and said to the Lord, “Why is it that You have made us so vulnerable in a world which is so uncertain, so threatening? Anything could happen to our son as he goes off to Central Africa. Why have You made us so vulnerable, so sensitive in this way, so that we suffer like this?”
“Why did You not make us,” I remember saying, “like the fish in the Arctic Sea, who are made to resist the cold? They do not feel it. Could You not have made us that way, so that we would not be so sensitive?”
I was not really expecting an answer, but an answer came just like that. I could not say whether a voice spoke to me, but something came—just the words. I will never forget them for the rest of my life. The words came into my mind: “I made you like Myself.”
Think about it. That is the reason. We are made in the image of God, and that is what He is like, only much more so.
We do not want to hurt Him, but we do, sadly, do so by grumbling about the situations and conditions that He has permitted us to experience.
Then, I am afraid, it is also true that He becomes angry. I said this yesterday also: “Do not grumble, as some of them did and were killed by the destroying angel.”
In Numbers 11:1:
“Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord, and when He heard them His anger was aroused.
Then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.”
They were hardships. I am not suggesting that our complaints, in human terms, are not justified. They were hardships; they were suffering hardships. But when Miriam and Aaron muttered about Moses and the Lord heard, we read that He was very angry—very angry.
I remind you that God is not easily angered. He is patient, long-suffering, kind, and gentle with us. But there can be times when Scripture makes it clear that God can be angry.
Well, what should we do instead of murmuring? I think the prescription is going to be very similar to yesterday’s, if you were here.
The first thing is to be thankful. Never forget to be thankful for all the good things that God has given you, and even just the things that God has given you. It reduces grumbling considerably.
Never forget, any day, to give thanks to God for all the good things that He has given you—for all of them.
I will tell you a story. I do not know whether it is absolutely authentic. It was recounted to me, and maybe there is an American version of it; I am not sure. But this is a Scottish one.
It was about a Scottish boy who fell into the River Ness in Inverness—a beautiful, fast-flowing river. He fell into the water, and a man who was passing immediately leapt into the water at risk of his life. He caught the boy and dragged him ashore.
By this time, a crowd had gathered. They attended to the boy and called an ambulance. In the meantime, the rescuer quietly slipped away and went home to change his clothes.
The next day, the father of the boy, who had not been there at the time, discovered where this rescuer stayed. He made his way to the house and knocked on the door. When the rescuer opened the door, the father said to him, “Are you the gentleman who rescued my son from the river yesterday?”
He said, “Yes, I am, actually.”
The next thing the father said was a question: “Where is his cap?”
Well, can you believe it? I do not know whether it is true, but it tells us a lesson. We come to God often not just to say thank You, but to ask for something that He left out. It is a kind of grumble, is it not? A kind of complaint.
I have heard that there are those who recommend that we should request things from God specifically: that we should ask Him for a car—not just a car, but a red one. God gave you a car, and it was not red. Would you go back to Him about that?
It is so important for us to thank God for the things that He has given us, without limits to our thankfulness: for family and friends, and how much these mean to us; for the ordinary daily things; quite apart from the great gifts of salvation, grace, the Word, and all the wonderful things that we experience when we are here and at all times.
Thank Him for a rainproof house, central heating. Do you ever thank Him for that? Is there a breakfast? Look around you. Say, “Lord, thank You that the rain is not coming in. Thank You for the warm bed I slept in last night and the blankets.”
Do we give You thanks for these things? Of course we do. Do you thank Him regularly for these things? Thank Him for peace and tranquillity. Thank Him for stable government. These things are great blessings from God, and we should not grumble about them. We should be thanking Him constantly.
That is a way by which we can reduce grumbling: if we are constantly giving thanks to God for all His goodness to us, then perhaps we will not grumble so often.
The second thing is that we should talk honestly with Him about our frustration. Do not mutter. You used to say that in school, did you not? People would say, “Do not mutter. Speak up. Tell me what it is you want.”
Do not say it under your breath. Talk to Him. He loves to have us come and talk to Him about things. That is different from grumbling, and it is different from making constant demands and unreasonable demands on Him. He loves us to come and talk to Him.
Go and tell Him that the job you have is really very difficult to manage. Maybe He will give you another one. Tell Him that the house you have is really not suitable for your family, and honestly, you really need another one, if you do.
Maybe He will get your salary right. Maybe He will give you a better job. Maybe He will help you to win a competition. But He wants us to come to Him and talk to Him if we are unhappy about things—not to murmur, not to complain, not to mutter and grumble.
“I will yet be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.” He is waiting. He wants to do something for us, but He is waiting for the people who are going to come and ask Him. He loves to do things for us. He loves to provide for us.
Ask Him. Talk to Him. How about it? But do not be fault-finding or complaining.
If there is no change, no better offer from Him, then the third thing is that we should ask Him to make us more contented.
Some soldiers spoke to Jesus in Luke 3:14 and asked Him, “What should we do?” He replied:
“Do not extort money and do not accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”
That is what Jesus said: “Be content with your pay.” The apostle Paul, of course, tells us something about learning to be content. In Philippians 4:11–13:
“I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.
I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry,
whether living in plenty or in