Filled or Empty Series #4: Filled with Complaints

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#4  Filled or Empty of Series

Filled with complaints

  You will find in chapter 14 of Exodus the account of the miraculous way that God brought deliverance through the Red sea. In chapter 15 you will find the song that Moses and the people sang to the Lord. What a glorious time of celebration and praise. Then they traveled on and three days later instead of praise we hear complaining about no water. God took care of that for them and on they went.

Then in Chapter 16 we find the Israelites in quite a state. It has been about a month and a half since they left the bondage of Egypt and now the horrors of the bondage is starting to dim and they have lost their vision of the Promised Land. This was taking too long. Maybe what they had wasn't so bad. The here and now was beginning to feel intolerable so the complaining began in earnest.

There are plenty of situations in scripture that deal with being filled or being empty that have really good life lessons for us and quite honestly I wanted to skip this one about being filled with murmuring and complaining and jump ahead to the next one, but God slowed me down and showed me some things in my own life and guided me not to skip over this.

When I read this section of scripture, I can't help but wonder; did it not occur to any of these complainers to suggest a prayer meeting about the problems that came up? I mean come on. What on earth happened to their faith? Did they not have one speck of faith that the God who had done all those things in Egypt and parted the Red Sea could still meet their needs?

It is so easy to think these people were crazy. They were witness to some of the greatest miracles of all times and yet they were saying "we should have stayed where we were." Really? Back into bondage? Back to slavery? Back to where the ruler's population control program meant your boy children were thrown into the river. Really? Go back? What a bunch of whiners.


Exodus 16: 1-10The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”
6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, “In the evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?” 8 Moses also said, “You will know that it was the Lord when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord.”
9 Then Moses told Aaron, “Say to the entire Israelite community, ‘Come before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling.’”
10 While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud. NIV


I imagine their lack of faith irritated the almighty. It irritates me and I don't even know those people. Hebrews 11:6 says that without faith it is impossible to please God. Ok, now I have to get real. I don't know those whiners but I do know the one I see in the mirror every day. I told you God didn't want me to skip this one. He knows I need this reminder.

I have to admit that often I complain instead of pray. It seems so innocent, like....I wish this situation would be different, or I wish that person would stop being....whatever. I wish things would happen faster. I wish our leaders would do things differently. I wish this or that for this person or that person. (I am putting this all mildly of course.)

I have to ask myself, do I just wish things were different or do I have a little prayer meeting and pray and ask God to change things that need to change. Do I pray believing that He cares about the situations around me, and do I pray believing He can change things?

Complaining and whining is kind of the opposite of faith and it is offensive to God. Dear Lord, help me to be strong in my faith and diligent in my prayer life trusting You.

Those folks that left Egypt and got discouraged, lost faith, and lost sight of what God had already done. Think for a minute what He has done for us. He delivered us from bondage. He parted the waters of death making a path to our Promised Land. Jesus is our bread of life supplied daily for us and He is in us a fountain springing up. How do I forget these things even for a moment and lapse into times of worry and fretting and complaining?

We all (me mostly) need to remember what God has done for us and trust Him every day.

Filled or Empty Series #3:Filled with Israelites

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Filled and Emptied and Filled 

#3 in series

   Exodus 1: 1-7 says: These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt with Jacob, each with his family: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah; 3 Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin; 4 Dan and Naphtali; Gad and Asher. 5 The descendants of Jacob numbered seventy[a] in all; Joseph was already in Egypt. 6 Now Joseph and all his brothers and all that generation died, 7 and became so numerous that the land was filled with them. NIV
    Time marches on.  Generations come and go.  The generation of Joseph and his brothers came and went.  Pretty soon the land was filled with Israelites.  I’m not sure, I’m not a king you see, never have been a king and don’t hope to ever be a king, so I don’t know how kings think, but to me this seems like one of those “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” kind of things.
   But, the king in this account imagined that he had a problem or a potential one and he decided to fix it.  He decided to nip it in the bud. Nip it, nip it, nip it as Barney Fife would say.  This king did not like the land being filled with Israelites.
   It might have been wiser to have made them friends, but he chose to make them enemies.  But the almighty, sovereign, God of all wisdom had His own plan in the midst of the king’s plan.  God always has a plan in the midst of all circumstances, in your circumstances.  It is good if our plans match God’s plans.  It works out better for us that way.
   Verses 8-14: 8 Then a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.” 11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with harsh labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their harsh labor the Egyptians worked them ruthlessly. NIV
  When the king tried to remedy his “filled” problem it became even more “filled”.  So he doubled down.  I wonder if he ever once thought, “Maybe I should have left them alone.”  But no he proceeds to plan C.
Verses 15-19: 15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” 17 The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live. 18 Then the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and asked them, “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?”19 The midwives answered Pharaoh, “Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women; they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive.”NIV
  These were some gutsy midwives.  I think they must have feared God more than they feared the king. They lied to the king.  The king was asking them to preform partial birth abortions and they said no.  If you have ever wondered what God’s view on abortion is I think we can safely assume He is pro-life.
Verses 20-22: 20 So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.
22 Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.”NIV
   The king was not giving up. Population control plan D would begin.  He was getting down right crazy now.  The boy children were hunted down and cast into the river.
   On a side note, let me remind everyone right here that a Savior Redeemer was to come from this chosen group of persons, through the heritage of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and then Joseph/Israel.   God had made a promise to Abraham that all peoples on earth would be blessed through him. Genesis 12:3 NIV.   My side note is this; someone else was taking note of this plan.  Our spiritual enemy was lurking around taking notes.  Just maybe it was the enemy’s influence that caused this king to be so “threatened” by the peaceful people living among them.  “Kill the boy babies” came the evil order.  Does that have a familiar ring to it?  For Bible readers it should.  Another day, another king, these same evil words were spoken when the prophesied  Savior, Redeemer was born in Bethlehem.  King Herod gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under.
   God’s hand of provision was clearly seen in Egypt.  His intent was to provide a deliverer for the Israelites and free them from their bondage, and, in doing so He would paint a big historical picture that would point to another deliverer who would come from these delivered people and who would free mankind from the bondage of sin. This awesome God that I love so dearly is so wonderfully complex and at the same time so beautifully simple with His plan to bring me and you into his fold.
  Back to my main story, in the midst of the lunatic ruler’s demands, we have a mama who hides her boy child from the authorities.  She puts him in a basket and hides him in the reeds of the river.  The daughter of Pharaoh finds him and takes him home. “Look what I found Daddy.  Can I keep him?  Please Daddy.”
   She gets to keep him, but she has a problem, how will she feed him?  Her body was empty of sustenance and there was no Wal-Mart nearby with shelves of infant formula.  It just so happened that a girl by the river had the solution.  “I know a woman who can nurse a child,” she says.  Unknown to the Pharaoh's daughter, this woman just happened to be the child’s own mother whose body is filled with nutrition for her baby.  The child is named Moses and eventually grows up to face Pharoah and demand that he let the people go.
  According to Christian writer Glenn Miller from The Christian Think Tank, it could have been 80 years that boy babies were being killed and the total numbers could easily range from 1.2 million to 4.3 million babies put to death.  That is very sobering.
  Well, when Moses comes on the scene as a grown man in tune to what God is directing, some interesting things start to happen.  Water is turned to blood, and then frogs take over.  After the frogs come lice, then flies. (I think right about here, if I were an Egyptian, I would be saying “Can’t we vote this guy out?”)
   After the flies, then the livestock was stricken. (Only the livestock of the Egyptians though, not the livestock belonging to the Israelites.)  Then came boils on man and beast.  After that came hail, big hail mixed with fire.  After that came locusts, then darkness, a deep penetrating darkness that scripture says could even be felt. The claustrophobics went crazy with that one.
   After that was the judgment of the firstborn.  The Israelites were told to kill a lamb and put the blood over their doors.  The death angel would not stop at the homes with the blood of a lamb.  The death angel came and swept thru Egypt claiming all the firstborn sons.  Finally Pharaoh was ready to relent and freedom came.
Exodus 12:31-3631 During the night Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Up! Leave my people, you and the Israelites! Go, worship the LORD as you have requested.32 Take your flocks and herds, as you have said, and go. And also bless me.”
33 The Egyptians urged the people to hurry and leave the country. “For otherwise,” they said, “we will all die!” 34 So the people took their dough before the yeast was added, and carried it on their shoulders in kneading troughswrapped in clothing. 35 The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. 36 The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians.NIV
  Well, the land was no longer filled with Israelites.  It was now empty of them.  It was also empty of a good portion of its silver, gold and other plunder.
   Don't we all love a good story that ends well with the bad guy losing.  Well, there is so much more to this story than a foolish king getting his just rewards.  The whole exodus from the land of Egypt is a picture.  God wanted the picture to last so He told them to celebrate the Passover from then on.

   We have an enemy much like that king, actually way worse.  He holds people in bondage to sin owning them.  Jesus is our Passover lamb whose blood protects us.  We can come out of the bondage of sin and the domain of the enemy and into new life.  The best “empty” is to be empty of sin.  The best “filled” is to be filled with God’s Spirit.  For God so loved that world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 NIV