“Grumbling, or Gratitude? (Numbers 11-12)", Will DuVal | 3/9/25
Numbers 11-12 | 3/9/25 | Will DuVal
This morning we’re talking about GRUMBLING. And as I was preparing for this message, I tried to make a LIST this week, I just took one DAY actually, of all the times I caught myself GRUMBLING:
So Thursday morning, I woke up early, at 5:40, to go play basketball. And immediately, before my feet even hit the GROUND, I was grumbling. “It’s too EARLY. I’m TIRED.”
I step outside, it’s 35 degrees; feels like 18. “Isn’t it MARCH? UGH!!”
I drive to the gym, complaining about the POTHOLES up and down 141 that they STILL haven’t fixed; “Why do I even pay taxes? Where’s ELON when you NEED him?”
I get there; didn’t play well. I got stuck on a team with this guy who’s probably the worst player there, and yet he keeps jacking up threes from the volleyball line like he’s Steph Curry…
Get back home, and gripe at Bo and Elijah for playing too loudly and waking Ellery up.
Get into work, and the cleaners have somehow managed to lock me out of my own OFFICE.
Mid-morning, I drive out to Liberty High to speak for their FCA club - 200 teenagers - and it reminds me of how much I MISS student ministry, so I grumble about my job…
That’s all before 10am! I stopped the list cuz it was already too CONVICTING, and I’m sure I even MISSED a few complaints.
Maybe my list resonates with some of you, who share the spiritual gift of CRITICISM. One of the HARDEST commands in ALL of Scripture HAS to be Philippians 2:14 - “Do all things without grumbling or arguing” (arguing is really just interpersonal grumbling).
So what’s the ALTERNATIVE? How do we combat grumbling? With gratitude!
“THANK YOU, God, that you woke me up yet another day.”
“THANK YOU for roads to drive on…”
“For BASKETBALL...”
“For my beautiful, boisterous kids…”
“For cleaners… for an OFFICE…”
“That I HAVE a job to even grumble about!”
As 1 Thessalonians 5:18 puts it, in perhaps the SECOND toughest command in the Bible: “give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
But PARENTS - like me - of young children: you can’t escape grumbling, can you?
“Are we THERE yet?”.
“Ugh! I don’t WANNA eat that!”.
“No! I don’t WANNA help you!”.
As it turns out, all three of THOSE complaints are voiced this morning in Numbers ch11 by GOD’S (adult) children, the Israelites! They’ve barely left Mt. Sinai, just 3 days into their journey to the Promised Land, but they’re already whining, “Are we there yet?”. God graciously feeds them with “bread from heaven” (Ex 16:4), but they complain, “Oh that we had MEAT to eat! We’re SICK of this manna!” (Num 11:4-6). Even Moses gets so fed up with them that he tells God “I am DONE helping you lead these people!”
But this morning, we’re gonna learn from Israel’s (negative) example, as we seek to grow in our own gratefulness for God’s gifts. Even the ones that don’t FEEL like gifts, in the present. My friend Brad Wos, who is actually visiting here with us this morning, talks about God giving him the GIFT of leukemia years ago. Do we trust that God is TRULY “working all things together for our good” (Rom 8:28)? That it’s ALL a GIFT!
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Israel lodges 5 different complaints here, and with EACH, we are faced with a question: will we, like them, see our circumstances as an opportunity to GRUMBLE, or to be GRATEFUL for GOD’S work in our life, even in ways that challenge and GROW us - SANCTIFY us - to make us more like CHRIST.
Would you stand with me… (SCRIPTURE: Num 11-12)
“And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp. 2 Then the people cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down. 3 So the name of that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the Lord burned among them.
4 Now the rabble that was among them had a strong craving. And the people of Israel also wept again and said, “Oh that we had meat to eat! 5 We remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. 6 But now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.”
7 Now the manna was like coriander seed, and its appearance like that of bdellium. 8 The people went about and gathered it and ground it in handmills or beat it in mortars and boiled it in pots and made cakes of it. And the taste of it was like the taste of cakes baked with oil. 9 When the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell with it.
10 Moses heard the people weeping throughout their clans, everyone at the door of his tent. And the anger of the Lord blazed hotly, and Moses was displeased. 11 Moses said to the Lord, “Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? 12 Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,’ to the land that you swore to give their fathers? 13 Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me and say, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’ 14 I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. 15 If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness.”
16 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. 17 And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone. 18 And say to the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat, for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord, saying, “Who will give us meat to eat? For it was better for us in Egypt.” Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat. 19 You shall not eat just one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, 20 but a whole month, until it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him, saying, “Why did we come out of Egypt?”’” 21 But Moses said, “The people among whom I am number six hundred thousand on foot, and you have said, ‘I will give them meat, that they may eat a whole month!’ 22 Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, and be enough for them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together for them, and be enough for them?” 23 And the Lord said to Moses, “Is the Lord's hand shortened? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not.”
24 So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord. And he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent. 25 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it.
26 Now two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. 27 And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” 28 And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” 29 But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!” 30 And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.
31 Then a wind from the Lord sprang up, and it brought quail from the sea and let them fall beside the camp, about a day's journey on this side and a day's journey on the other side, around the camp, and about two cubits above the ground. 32 And the people rose all that day and all night and all the next day, and gathered the quail. Those who gathered least gathered ten homers. And they spread them out for themselves all around the camp. 33 While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord struck down the people with a very great plague. 34 Therefore the name of that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had the craving. 35 From Kibroth-hattaavah the people journeyed to Hazeroth, and they remained at Hazeroth.
[Chapter12 now: verse1] Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman. 2 And they said, “Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the Lord heard it. 3 Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth. 4 And suddenly the Lord said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” And the three of them came out. 5 And the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward. 6 And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream. 7 Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house. 8 With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?” 9 And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed.
10 When the cloud removed from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, like snow. And Aaron turned toward Miriam, and behold, she was leprous. 11 And Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, do not punish us because we have done foolishly and have sinned. 12 Let her not be as one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes out of his mother's womb.” 13 And Moses cried to the Lord, “O God, please heal her—please.” 14 But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, should she not be shamed seven days? Let her be shut outside the camp seven days, and after that she may be brought in again.” 15 So Miriam was shut outside the camp seven days, and the people did not set out on the march till Miriam was brought in again. 16 After that the people set out from Hazeroth, and camped in the wilderness of Paran.” [This is the word of God…]
5 grumblings... OR 5 occasions for GRATITUDE:
#1) We can complain about our PROBLEMS, OR be grateful for God’s PURIFYING. (11:1-3)
Ch11 opens with history repeating itself. Back in Exodus 15, just 3 days after they had PRAISED God for his deliverance from Egypt, Israel was already complaining in the wilderness (Ex 15:22-27). Now, just 3 days after leaving Sinai (Num 10:33), Israel is grumbling again. (Wiersbe, 266)
It’s unclear exactly why; v1 just says “misfortunes”, PROBLEMS. What IS clear is God’s RESPONSE: “his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned… and consumed them”.
God HATES grumbling. And his punishment here reminds me of James ch3’s warning about our words: “How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire… and [is ITSELF] set on fire by hell.” A grumbling tongue comes from the pit of HELL.
It is TELLING that the fire of the Lord “consumed some outlying parts of the camp”; that’s probably where the grumbling started. And isn’t it TRUE that the farther we get away from GOD, the WORSE our grumbling gets? Remember, God was at the CENTER of the camp. And when God stays at the center of our LIVES, He has a way of keeping our problems in perspective. But the farther we drift, the bigger and badder our problems seem.
So where does Israel TURN, with their now much BIGGER problem, this ever-spreading FIRE of the Lord? V2: “Then the people cried out to Moses”, God’s appointed mediator, his INTERCESSOR, on their behalf.
See, God is holy, the NT says “God IS a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29). He is SO holy, in fact, he poses an existential threat to SINFUL people like you and me. So God’s SOLUTION for restoring RELATIONSHIP with his people was to raise up MEDIATORS, GO-betweens - priests and prophets.
Like MOSES, who “prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down” (v2). He interceded for them.
So let me just ask you: do YOU know where to turn, before YOU are judged, and rightfully condemned, for your grumbling?
Hebrews 7 assures us that “[Jesus Christ] holds his priesthood permanently… to save… those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for [us].” (vv24-25)
Romans 8:34 “Who is to condemn [us]? Christ Jesus… died [and] was raised [and] is now at the right hand of God… interceding for us.”
And 1 John 2:1 “if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins” - propitiation is a fancy word that means WRATH-ABSORBER: We sin; God HATES and PUNISHES sin; but Jesus TOOK that wrath and punishment FOR us, on the cross.
As our ADVOCATE, our MEDIATOR, our INTERCESSOR.
And friends: if you have ever so much as GRUMBLED, you better make sure that you have a defense attorney on permanent retainer.
We can complain about our problems, OR we can let God PURIFY us through them. That’s how He WANTS to use them - to REFINE us. The “fire of the Lord” here is kind of a cruel IRONY; in 1 Peter 1, God says, “you have been grieved by various trials [PROBLEMS] so that the tested genuineness of your FAITH—more precious than gold which perishes when it is tested by FIRE—may be found to result in praise… at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (vv6-7).
In other words, our FAITH - our radical dependency on the Lord - is like GOLD in God’s eyes. But to PURIFY gold, you have to put it through the “refiner’s fire” to burn away the DROSS, our DOUBT. Isaiah 48:10, God declares: “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.” God says, “This is why I GRIEVE you with various trials - because the more PURE your FAITH is, the more PRAISE your FATHER gets, when we lean on Him, trust in Him, hope for NOTHING ELSE, but HIM.
Suffering can make us BITTER… or BETTER; it can cause grumbling… or GROWTH. And it all hinges on whether we run FROM the Lord, or TO Him, in our pain.
#2) We can complain about PRIVATION, or be grateful for God’s PROVISION. (11:4-9, 18-23, 31-35)
“Privation” means “lacking the usual comforts… of life” (dictionary.com). Like MEAT!
V4: “Now the rabble” - stop there; who’s that? Duguid explains (149): “This is the mixed multitude of all nationalities who came out of Egypt WITH God’s people but had never fully assimilated and taken on Israel’s values and standards… One of the challenges Israel faced was balancing on the one hand their calling to incorporate Gentiles into the community of faith (as with Hobab (last week) in ch10) with the danger on the other hand that such people would… end up leading Israel astray. That REMAINS a challenge for the church [today], doesn’t it? We certainly cannot cut ourselves OFF from those who most need the gospel - Jesus came to call the sick, not the healthy (Matt 9:12)... Yet at the same time, we need to… be on our guard against the spiritual diseases that can so easily infiltrate and infect us. In particular, the communicable disease of grumbling.”
1 Corinthians 15:33 warns “Bad company CORRUPTS good character”. If you spend lots of time around grumblers, don’t be surprised when they start to wear OFF on you. And by the way, if they’re really “rabble” folks, then we shouldn’t be surprised WHEN they grumble - they don’t HAVE the eternal gratitude that WE now do, having been SAVED from our SIN! They can’t be grateful, like WE can, for the hope - the blessed assurance - as we wander through this present wilderness, that one day we’ll enter the PROMISED Land that will make all this wilderness WORTH it - they can’t be grateful for that.
Again, that doesn’t mean we just stick to our holy huddles. It MEANS we need to display gratitude - you wanna be a good WITNESS for CHRIST? Be GRATEFUL, don’t grumble, and you’ll stick out like a sore thumb these days, in a GOOD way!
V4: “‘Oh that we had meat to eat!’ But all we got is this UGLY, boring, bland MANNA.” Notice how the narrator challenges all THREE of those assertions, in turn in vv7-9 (Duguid, 150): It WASN’T ugly; it looked like bdellium, a precious resin found in the Garden of Eden (Gen 2:12)! Manna wasn’t BORING either; you could GRIND it, boil it, bake it; Duguid quips: “An ancient cooking magazine could have produced an issue entitled “365 Ways to Cook Manna!” And it wasn’t BLAND; it tasted like “cakes baked with oil”, and a hint of HONEY (Ex 16:31). Like a KRISPY KREME DONUT! Except it contained all the necessary nutrients for a well-balanced diet. A HEALTHY donut!
But instead of THANKING him for it, Israel reminisced about the “good old days”; “remember the fish we ate in Egypt that cost nothing”.
Nothing but their FREEDOM! Their blood, sweat and tears for 400 years as Pharaoh’s SLAVES! The MANNA is what TRULY costs them nothing; it’s the REAL picture of GRACE - God’s free GIFT, they don’t DESERVE.
But once again, this is what we DO, isn’t it, when we grumble: We romanticize the past, we demonize the present, and we BRUSH aside the FUTURE - we forget and IGNORE all God’s promises.
We quit looking AHEAD, and we look BACK instead.
“Remember when we were first DATING, and everything was so EXCITING…” - Yeah, because you didn’t know from one week to the next if she was gonna come to her senses and DUMP you! Grumbling overlooks the wonderful SECURITY and stability of the present for the thrill of the past.
“Remember life before KIDS…” - we are such complainers, we’ll even disparage the BIGGEST blessings in our lives.
FREEDOM! “We wanna go back to EGYPT…”. How many of us, be honest, even find ourselves reminiscing about life before CHRIST? Our old “life” of SLAVERY?
“Remember how much FUN we used to have, PARTYING…” - Not really; cuz you blacked out. All you REALLY remember is waking up the next morning face down in the TOILET. Lotta fun.
Skip ahead to v18; God says: “You want MEAT? Oh, I’ll GIVE you meat…” - sometimes that’s how God punishes us. C.S. Lewis described Hell as God giving sinners exactly what they want: ”life” apart from HIM, which is of course no “LIFE” at all. Be careful what you ASK for.
“You’re gonna eat MEAT alright… til it comes out your NOSES!”.
Moses asks: “But God - HOW? There’s 2 to 3 million PEOPLE out here; even with all the fish in the SEA… it’s IMPOSSIBLE!”
God’s reply: ““Is the Lord's hand shortened? Now watch THIS…” (v23)
“God, our marriage is OVER; how could it POSSIBLY be salvaged?”
“God, I have battled this addiction, this illness, this family dysfunction, this TRAUMA from my past, for YEARS; how could it POSSIBLY get healed”
“God, I have prayed for this person, and witnessed to them for DECADES. But there’s not a harder heart OUT there! How could they POSSIBLY be SAVED?”
““Is the Lord's hand shortened? WATCH THIS…”
In ISRAEL’s case here, the miracle wasn’t nearly as life-giving as they’d hoped: Quail stacked 3 ft high for a few MILES in every DIRECTION. “Those who gathered least gathered” over a 100 GALLONS worth.
Isn’t that a perfect picture of GREED, the insatiable desire for MORE? How you gonna eat 100 pounds of quail, on your own?
Well, it’s a moot point, because before they could even swallow the first BITE, “While the meat was yet between their teeth… the anger of the Lord was kindled [AGAIN]... and He struck them down with a very great plague.”
There’s another VERSE conspicuously absent here between vv32 and 33: “Then all Israel STOPPED their gathering and started the GRATITUDE, THANKING God for his gracious and PROFUSE provision of the quail they had WHINED for…”
No; NO grace or gratitude; they just grabbed and grubbed.
How about US? Do we thank God before every bite? Or take His provision for granted?
“So the name of that place was [appropriately] called Kibroth-hattaavah”, which means “graves of GLUTTONY”.
Here’s what it boils down to, Church: we can be GRATEFUL for what we DO have, or we can GRUMBLE over what we DON’T have.
We fight complaining with CONTENTMENT.
Hebrews 13:5 “be content with what you have”.
1 Timothy 6: “godliness with contentment is great gain… It is through this craving [for more & more & MORE!] that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (vv6,10). Don’t end up in a “grave of GLUTTONY”; be CONTENT - be GRATEFUL! - for God’s PROVISION.
#3) We can complain about our RESPONSIBILITIES, or be grateful for God’s RECRUITMENT. (11:10-17)
What is MOSES’ reaction to all this complaining?
COMPLAINING! “Moses heard the people weeping… and Moses was displeased [and] said to the Lord, “Why have you dealt ill with your servant? …that you lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive [them]? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them’...”
Moses says, “They’re not MINE” - ever pull THAT one? “Guess what YOUR SON did today…”.
“Hold on; I’m pretty sure YOU had something to do with him as WELL…”
But when the going gets tough, the not-so-tough will shirk responsibility. And yet the IRONY here is, as much as Moses ostensibly wants to REMOVE himself from the picture, “in his five verses of complaint, in the Hebrew, Moses refers to himself no fewer than TWENTY TIMES!” (Duguid ,151). “I, me, I, I, me…” - it’s ALL about Moses! I guess even the most “humble man on the face of the earth” has his moments, huh? Even MOSES knew how to throw a good PITY party - “God, if you’re gonna treat me like this, just kill me at once”! “Woe is ME!”
Grumbling looks inward, at SELF; faith looks UPWARD, to GOD.
Moses moans, “I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me.” (v14). But was he ever MEANT to carry them alone? What did God promise Moses when he first CALLED him, at the burning bush? “I have come down to deliver [my people] out of [Egypt] and to bring them… to a good land” (3:8). “I’LL carry them, Moses; you’re just my MESSENGER.”
And when Moses objected, “But who am I to lead them…”, God replied, “But I will be with you” (3:12). Don’t worry- I’LL lead them, Moses.
And when Moses STILL protested, “I don’t TALK good…” (4:10), God said, “I will be with your mouth”! (4:12)
You don’t have to be TALENTED; just TRUSTING. Not a LEADER so much as a LEANER; “Lean on me, when you’re not strong…”
And yet Moses still wanted to DODGE all responsibility. When he was all out of excuses, what was his final plea? “Oh Lord, please send someone else”! (Ex 4:13). Now in Numbers 11 it’s “please just KILL me; put me out of my MISERY!”
Here’s the thing: did God NEED Moses to help? Does He need US TODAY, to help lead people out of slavery to SIN, and into God’s HEAVENLY Promised Land? True or False: God could part the clouds right now, announce the good news about Jesus simultaneously to all 7,189 people groups / “ethnes” that are STILL unreached with the gospel after 2,000 years of us failing to answer the call, shirking responsibility, like Moses; God could FINISH the “Great Commission” on his own this afternoon if he wanted to - True or False?
So why DOESN’T he? Why recruit US, if we just slow him down? Why recruit MOSES? A man who “didn’t TALK good”, to be his MOUTHpiece?
Two reasons: 1) For HIS glory, and 2) for OUR GOOD. 1) Because God gets even more GLORY, by proving he can EVEN work through vessels as imperfect as US; and 2) Because he LOVES us. And he knows it is a BLESSING to be able to share Jesus with others. It was a PRIVILEGE for Moses to LEAD God’s people. God didn’t NEED him. I don’t NEED my kids help make breakfast in the morning; they slow me down. But I LET them help, because I LOVE them. They get the blessing of knowing they contributed. And knowing Dad TRUSTS us that much.Church: do we realize we’ve been entrusted with the weightiest responsibility in the UNIVERSE! The GOSPEL! “The power of God for the SALVATION” of the lost (Rom 1:16). The only ticket to HEAVEN - and our pockets are FILLED with them. Imagine visiting a famine-ravaged country, people STARVING all around you, and your pockets are FILLED with an infinite supply of MANNA! Church: that’s US! Let’s give it AWAY! What a blessing that we GET to! What good NEWS we get to share!
What a blessing… AND a responsibility. If we DON’T share, who else WILL?
What other responsibilities are we guilty of GRUMBLING about? Let’s be GRATEFUL instead, that God USES us, to serve others.
Bob Kopeny points out: “At least Moses is complaining in the right direction: to GOD.” Moses takes his complaint straight up the ladder to the One who can actually DO something about it. “The wise know where to bring their Whys (“W-H-Y-S”).” (“Curing Complaining” sermon)
“WHY, God?” Philippians 4:6 - “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer… with thanksgiving [there it IS…] let your requests be made known to [WHOM?] to God.”
And instead of BLASTING Moses, God BLESSES him. He ANSWERS Moses’ request for extra shoulders to bear the burden of leadership: “the Lord… took some of the Spirit that was on [Moses] and put it on the seventy elders” (11:25).
But it was actually seventy-TWO, because Eldad & Medad in v26 didn’t get INVITED to the tent, and yet the Spirit rested on THEM as WELL. And who complains THIS time?
V28: “And Joshua… the assistant of Moses… said, “My lord Moses, stop them.”” Duguid notes (154): “Joshua understood the implications: if the Spirit could descend on anyone anywhere, then Moses’ unique role as prophetic mediator might be compromised. Such a sharing of the Spirit that was in Moses necessarily diminished Moses. It is no coincidence that from this moment forward in the book of Numbers, the question of Moses’ leadership of the people became an issue”.
“Moses, if TOO many people share the Spirit, you won’t be SPECIAL anymore!” - isn’t the CONTRAST here, with complaint #3 so ironic? The grass is TRULY always greener, isn’t it?
You have TOO much responsibility? “God, share the load!”
So God shares the load - “Well, not THAT much!” I still wanna be SPECIAL!
But not Moses. He PROVES his meekness here, by rebuking Joshua: ““Are you jealous for my sake? Would that ALL the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them ALL!”” (v29).
Did you catch the prophetic foreshadowing there? Of Acts 2, and Pentecost? When God SHARED his Spirit with ALL his people and “divided tongues as of fire… rested on each one of them” (2:3) and Peter explained: “this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: “‘In the last days… God declares, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (2:16-17).
And by God’s grace, and the empowering of His Holy SPIRIT, we too, believers today, have each been given a GIFT, a “manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Cor 12:7). We are to USE our gifts to edify - to bless - one another, the Church. So you can see how SILLY and SELF-SABOTAGING it is when we complain or feel threatened by OTHERS’ giftedness; you’re REALLY saying, “God, don’t bless ME through them.”
NO! “Would that ALL of the Lord’s people could PREACH”; I might get to take a day off every once in a while. We might plant a church, instead of sinking all this money into a building expansion.
Are you a JOSHUA, or a MOSES? Threatened, or thankful? Do we grumble when God shares his gifts, or are we grateful?
Lastly, and related, #5) We can complain about being in SECOND PLACE, or we can be grateful for God’s SERVANT-SHEPHERD, who leads us. (12:1-16)
Ch12, v1: “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married”. Did they have a legitimate complaint?
Perhaps; the SECOND half of v1 CONFIRMS for us: “...for Moses had [in FACT] married a Cushite woman.” Was he supposed to? Well we haven’t heard that his FIRST wife, Zipporah, died. So this is potentially yet ANOTHER case of polygamy (cf. Abraham, Jacob, etc.). But regardless, Moses is inter-marrying with a NON-Israelite. Now you could argue that God hadn’t given them the command yet NOT to intermarry until Deuteronomy 7:3, 39 years later, but he HAD warned them back in Exodus 34 (vv14-16), of the dangers of intermarriage and being led astray from worshipping the one true God.
But the point is… Did Miriam and Aaron go speak TO Moses about it? V1 said they “spoke against Moses”. Behind his back. How often is the difference between unproductive grumbling GOSSIP and effective confrontation simply a matter of who we’re engaging? In Matthew 18, JESUS instructs us, if we’ve got a problem with someone: ““If your brother sins against you, go and [GRUMBLE against him to anyone who will LISTEN? No! Go and] tell him his fault, between you and him alone. ” (v15)
If we had more time, we’d discuss how the Cushite wife was just a SMOKE screen for Miriam and Aaron’s ENVY, as they make painfully obvious in v2: “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?””. And we could spend a whole other SERMON, in addition to “grumbling GENERALLY”, on the poison of grumbling born SPECIFICALLY out of ENVY.
Duguid points out (161): “Our assessment that someone else’s situation is better than ours [is often] flawed. In the last chapter Moses would quite happily have given Miriam and Aaron not only a share of his authority, but ALL of it! He might well have said to them, “Take these people, please! Be my guest, YOU lead them!” …In fact, we might be surprised how often the very people whom we envy would actually envy US as well. That is because envy downplays everything that is positive about OUR situation and emphasizes the negative, while doing the OPPOSITE about the other person’s situation. Married people envy the freedom of single people, while those who are single envy the connectedness of families. Those with important and demanding jobs envy the lighter load of those with a simpler schedule, while those who feel stuck in a rut envy the significance of doing a job that really seems to matter.” The grass truly is always greener, isn’t it?
If we had more time, we’d look closer at v3: “Now the man Moses was very meek” – and especially at its CONTEXT, and the fact that Moses doesn’t ANSWER Miriam and Aaron’s complaint, does he? Duguid notes (162): “Moses KNEW who he was before God; so he didn’t feel the need to [defend himself]. A servant doesn’t feel the need to fight for the right to bear a towel.”
We could talk about v8, and the difference between God speaking to some in “dreams” and “visions” and “riddles”, but to MOSES “face to face”, literally, “mouth to mouth”.
Or the IRONY in God’s punishment of Miriam (Duguid, 164): “She grumbled about the Cushite, a woman of darker skin… from Ethiopia, so God turned HER skin as white as snow.”
And let’s not miss the takeaway from vv14-16: that even when God DOES forgive our sin, it doesn’t mean we’re completely free of the CONSEQUENCES of that sin. Miriam STILL had to wait outside the camp for a week. And our sin has consequences for the entire COMMUNITY too; the Israelites had to delay their journey to wait for Miriam. As 1 Corinthians 5 says: “A little leaven leavens the whole lump”; sin SPREADS and has far-reaching consequences.
But in CLOSING, we need to come back to where we started with the very FIRST complaint, in ch11, v2: what do we DO, when we find ourselves inevitably GUILTY of grumbling? Where do MIRIAM and AARON turn? V11: “And Aaron said to Moses”; and v13: “”And Moses cried to the Lord, “O God, please heal her”.” You GO, to the INTERCESSOR.
And praise God, we have an even BETTERmediator today; “if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.He is the propitiation for our sins”. Let’s pray…