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Technorati“And all the congregation cried out with a loud voice, and they wept that night. All the Israelites grumbled and deplored their situation accusing Moses and Aaron, to the whole congregation said, ‘Would that we had died in Egypt!’”
Numbers 14: 1, 2
Amplified Bible
EXPLORATION
“The Mayhem Caused by Murmuring”
“Murmuring is wasted breath, and fretting is wasted time.”
C. H. Spurgeon
What problems have I faced that caused me to “murmur?”
“Nothing ousts the sense of God’s presence so thoroughly as the soul’s dialogue with itself – when these are grumblings and grievances.”
Friedrich Von Hügel
INSPIRATION
“Those who have known what it is to be freed from great mental distress and brought out again into light and joy by God, lose all desire to pass judgment and bear grudges.”
Ladislaus Boros
Last week, I received a catalog in the mail designed for gourmet cooks. This catalog was filled with every gadget imaginable. But there was one item that really caught my eye. It was a sign that, according to the description, was to be hung in the kitchen. This sign looked like a road construction sign and it had the words: “No WHINING ALLOWED!”
As I have read the book of Numbers, I think this sign would have made a great gift for Moses. He needed to hang it on the door of his tent for everyone to see, because there are nearly 25 times in the children of Israel’s journey from Egypt to Canaan that the Biblical record tells us “all the people murmured.” They were a bunch of whiners. Nearly every time you hear of them grumbling and accusing, their comments were directed toward God, and His servant Moses. If you are wondering why, in a study on women of the Bible, we’re taking a look today at what God said about murmuring, it is because the Bible makes it crystal clear that it wasn’t just the men who succumbed to grumbling. The women were right along side joining in the commotion. In fact, in the case of Moses’ family, his own sister Miriam led the chorus of family grumblers against Moses.
I know from practical experience, growing up in my parent’s home as a child, if I wanted my parent’s patience to wear thin, all I had to do was whine! While the Scripture makes it clear that God is patient, kind, and long-suffering, to hear your children murmur against you and your child Moses, and to hear these ungrateful people, who had been miraculously delivered from years of Egyptian tyranny, say they wished they had died in Egypt became too much for our gracious God. Lest you think God took His “out-of-control” anger out on the children of Israel, I would like to offer this thought. When the children of Israel told God, “We wish we had died in Egypt,” they were actually saying, “We want Pharaoh’s leadership rather than Yours.” So God gave these murmurers the desire of their hearts. He gave them what they asked for – the removal of His protection -- and disaster followed. For when by the words of our own mouth, we defiantly ask for God to get out of our lives, He will reluctantly comply with our demand. But without God’s protecting guidance, the children of Israel immediately found out how dangerous it was to murmur against God and His servant Moses.
To help us better understand the destructive force murmuring has, I went to the Hebrew translation and found out that the word murmur has a wide-variety of uses. But there are three that I want to explore in more detail:
USAGE #1: The word murmur can mean obstinate. When I hear the word “obstinate,” I am reminded of my horse “Patches” who hated to have a bit in her mouth and further refused to move when her bridle was on. I had to drag the horse around. That horse was obstinate – period. When she planted her feet, you got the point, very fast, that nobody was going anywhere, and that leads me to usage #2 of the word murmur. Continue »
