Quote from Forum Archives on March 3, 2008, 2:05 pm

Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

 

SERIES: THE WAY OUT OF THE MESS #4/7

 

IT DOESN’T TAKE LONG

March 2, 2008

 

 

Text: Exodus 16:1-15

 

 

In a New York Times article entitled “Cubs' Baker Knows How Quickly Cheers Can Turn to Boos,” William C. Rhoden Top of Form

compares a bygone era of fan adoration for professional athletes with today’s environment.  “Three years ago, [Dusty] Baker was the hero in San Francisco, taking the Giants to the World Series in 2002.  But the organization soured on Baker, and he walked into Chicago as the conquering hero.  In 2003, the Cubs were five outs from a World Series appearance and wound up losing.  Last year, the Cubs collapsed down the stretch, and Baker took the heat.  ‘It's a new world,’ Baker said before last night's game.  ‘I remember watching a Yankees game last year and they booed Derek Jeter; that was unheard of.’  Baker has been a manager since 1993, and he played for 19 seasons.  Were there any players who were never booed, who were always beyond reproach?  ‘Hank Aaron and Mark McGwire,’ Baker said.  Had ESPN existed in the 1950's and 1960's, Hank Aaron would have been booed.  We would have found something.  Trust me.  And since he retired, McGwire has been assailed, the legend the news media created being ripped apart amid allegations of steroid use.”  (New York Times online, June 18, 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/06/18/sports/baseball/18rhoden.html)

 

Using professional sports as a metaphor for society in general, it does not take long to go from first to worst.  Or for yesterday’s hero to become today’s bum.  Of course, maybe part of the reason is where else can a normal guy go and get to boo at millionaires?  But the point is still made that it doesn’t take long for the human spirit to forget the triumphs of the past, not matter how recent, and focus on the hardships of the present.

 

Sports is one thing – even professional sports – but a relationship with God is an entirely different matter.  At least, we would think it should be an entirely different matter.  Unfortunately, the legacy of the Hebrew people – God’s chosen people – demonstrates that it is not always a different matter.  And they also demonstrate that it doesn’t take long for the praises to stop and the grumbling to begin.

 

Probably everyone, or at least almost everyone, here is familiar with the deliverance of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt.  Called by God, Moses returns to Egypt from where he was exiled.  He demands, in the name of God, that Pharaoh release the Israelites.  After Pharaoh’s refusal, God strikes the land with a series of ten plagues.  Following the tenth terrifying plague – the death of the firstborn son in each Egyptian family – Pharaoh relented and released the Israelites.  Shortly afterward, though, he had a change of heart.  The Egyptian army was sent out to recapture their former slaves, who were now trapped on the banks of the Red Sea.  Seeing their predicament, they forgot about the miracle of the ten plagues they had so recently witnessed.  “They were terrified and cried out to the Lord.  They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?  What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?  Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’?  It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!’” (Exodus 14:10-12)  It didn’t take long.

 

We know, of course, that the Israelites did not die there at the edge of the Red Sea.  Neither were they recaptured by the Egyptian army.  No, they crossed safely through the separated waters of the sea, while the pursuing army was covered and drowned.  On the other side of the sea, the Israelites praised the Lord in verse as they sang about God hurling “the horse and its rider into the sea.” (Exodus 15:1)

 

All of these Israelites were eyewitnesses of their deliverance.  They were eyewitnesses of the ten plagues.  They were eyewitnesses of God’s cloud in day and pillar of fire at night to guide them.  They were eyewitnesses of walking between the waters on dry land.  They were eyewitnesses of the destruction of the mighty army that pursued them.  Now they faced the journey to the land that God promised them.  Even though they have a wilderness to cross to reach the Promised Land, how do we expect them to respond?  Why, of course, with trust and faith in God who has already so mightily saved them; with joy and praise to God for delivering them from the bondage of slavery in Egypt; with the certainty that God will continue to have their deliverance in mind.  That is how we might expect them to respond; that would be logical.

 

People are not always logical, though – especially when the mob mentality takes hold.  The Israelites took their eyes off of God and placed them on the hardships, both real and imagined, before them.  On “the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt,” the Israelite community was at it again.  “In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.  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.’” (Exodus 16:2-3) It didn’t take long.

 

As detached observers, we can afford to be objective about this.  The Israelites sound absolutely childish.  They sound no different than the child who has a new toy in the car out in the store parking lot, but is throwing a fit inside the store’s toy aisle because he can’t have something he sees and now wants.  We know full well and good that the Israelites did not have it easy in Egypt.  They did not “sit around pots of meat and [eat] all the food [they] wanted.”  Exodus 2:23-25: “During that long period, the king of Egypt died.  The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God.  God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob.  So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.”  After Moses returned to Egypt and had his first audience before Pharaoh to demand the release of the Israelites, Pharaoh worked the Israelites harder.  We learn from Exodus 5:14 that “the Israelite foremen appointed by Pharaoh’s slave drivers were beaten and were asked, ‘Why didn’t you meet your quota of bricks yesterday or today, as before?’”  No, life was no picnic for the Israelites in Egypt.

 

But that did not keep them from throwing their tantrum and erroneously reminiscing how much better life was in the not-so-long-ago good old days.  It did not keep them from grumbling against Moses and Aaron – meaning that their grumbling was actually directed against God.  It did not keep them from blaming their Deliverer for the difficulties, challenges and problems they faced.  But they had just witnessed and experienced some of the most tremendous miracles recorded in the history of mankind.  How could they ignore them?  How could they experience first-hand the miracles that led to their release from bondage and their survival but then turn around and grumble against their Miracle-giver and Deliverer?

 

In all honesty, when faced by these Biblical accounts, I am nearly stumped.  Each and every time they faced a life-threatening adversity, they were delivered by the compassionate hand of God Almighty.  Yet every time they faced an adversity – lack of water or food, the amount of time it took Moses to return from Mt. Sinai, the presence of vast enemies in the Promised Land, what have you – the Israelite assembly grumbled against God.  They cowered and grumbled as if they had never before seen a miracle, much less multiple miracles of gargantuan proportion!  And it never took them long to go from praise to complaint.  What were they thinking?

 

The problem was that they weren’t thinking.  They did not think of God’s deliverance.  They did not think of God’s strong arm.  They did not think of God’s provision for them.  But they did think of themselves.  It all stems back to the same source as the sin of Joseph’s brothers and the sin of Cain: the disobedience of Adam and Eve.  It stems back to their jealousy and their covetousness and their lies and their broken relationship with God.  The Israelite assembly suffered the same affliction of all of their ancestors and, like them, they broke faith with their Redeemer, and it never took long.

 

Anyone who honestly reads Scripture sees this played out time and again.  On the day that Jesus entered Jerusalem, he was welcomed by a crowd who shouted, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Luke 19:38)  In less than a week, another crowd, probably containing some of the same people, shouted, “Crucify him!  Crucify him!” (Luke 23:21)  It doesn’t take long.

 

It does not end there.  The Israelite’s affliction is also our affliction.  I could stand here this morning and list example after example of Christians who praise God on Sunday and then grumble against God before the end of the week.  I don’t even have to leave my own life to give some examples of this sad phenomenon.  I am as riddled with inconsistency as were the Israelites.  I am not alone in this sad phenomenon.  And just like the Israelites, it doesn’t take long.

 

Commenting on this trait, Our Daily Bread devotional author Albert Lee writes, “If we're honest, we would have to admit that we sometimes complain when God isn't coming through for us the way we want.  We accuse Him of being absent or disinterested.  But when our heart is concerned with God's purposes rather than our own, we will be patient and trust Him to provide all that we need.  Then we won't develop the bad habit of complaining.”  The poem included in that devotional reminds us clearly of the solution:

 

Those Christians who with thankful hearts

Praise God throughout the day

Won't tend to grumble and complain

When things don't go their way. — Branon

(Albert Lee, “A Bad Habit,” Our Daily Bread, 9/16/2003)

 

The Israelites were in a mess, and we are in a mess.  We are in a mess because we harden our hearts and disobey God.  We forget His deliverance and dwell on our own narrow desires.  In spite of this, God gives us the way out of this mess.  In spite of their grumbling, God delivered His children of Israel from slavery, from recapture, from dehydration, and from starvation.  In spite of our grumbling, He delivers us from the death our sin brings.  We cross the wilderness of death into the Promised Land of eternal life when we remember our A, B, C.  Admit to God that you are a sinner and repent, meaning turn away from sin.  Believe that Jesus is God’s Son and accept God’s gift of forgiveness and removal of sin.  Confess your faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.

 

We are in a mess, but the Lord has saved us from it.  This is our daily praise.  Being grateful is not an easy habit to get into; but it is a spiritual discipline to practice.  Being thankful to God and praising Him for His deliverance places our focus in the right direction.  God has delivered us from the bondage of sin and death.  Through His own sacrifice, we are no longer eternally separated from Him.  He has delivered us; He has reconciled us.  Let us not forget what the Lord has done for us.  With practice, it doesn’t take long to be grateful.

 

Rev. Charles A. Layne

First Baptist Church

PO Box 515

170 W. Broadway

Bunker Hill, IN 46914

765-689-7987

bhfbc@bhfirstbaptist.com

www.bhfirstbaptist.com

 

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