MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 16:1-3
MURMURINGS
We find the Israelites now in a very important and interesting stage of their great journey between Elim and Sinai; the former the place of joyous rest, and the latter the place of stern law. This period of their march is marked by much ingratitude, and by the abundant mercy of God. The Israelites are murmuring for want of bread. We observe—
I. That people will murmur immediately after the happiest experiences of life. The children of Israel had left Elim as the last stage of their march; they had only just left the wells of water and the three score and ten palm trees, and yet immediately after this they commence to murmur against the servant of God. And so it is with men in our own time, they will murmur after the richest mercies have been permitted to them.
1. The murmurings of Israel were general. The complaint seems to have been expressed by the princes of the people as well as by the people themselves. The elders murmured. We should certainly have thought that they would not have been guilty of such conduct,—they ought to have known better, and ought to have set the people a better example. They ought to have helped Moses in this perplexity. The best men, and the most useful, are sometimes given to the sin of complaining against the Divine providence of daily life. The lack of temporal resource awakens them to discontent; man is very sensitive on the side of his physical nature.
2. The murmurings of Israel were ungrateful. The Israelites had just seen the goodness and severity of God in their own deliverance and in the destruction of the Egyptians. The wrecked army ought to have made them afraid of murmuring against the Author of such desolation: their own safety ought to have banished all thought of distrust from their minds. But the judgments and mercies of life do not deter men from discontent; the most afflicted and the most wealthy alike share this unholy sentiment. Even after the bitter has been made sweet, the soul will indulge ungenerous thoughts of God. What ingratitude for a son to murmur against his father, for a scholar to murmur against his teacher, and for a slave to murmur against his benevolent emancipator; yet this is but a faint emblem of the vast ingratitude men show to God day by day. How soon the mercy of God is forgotten; we soon forget our Red Sea deliverances,—the mercies of the night are forgotten in the morning. If we forget the Divine mercy to us, we shall be sure to indulge a murmuring spirit.
3. The murmurings of Israel were inconsiderate. The Israelites did not think that they were in a condition of life in which they should expect some hardship. They were only freed slaves travelling in a wilderness. Their hope was in the future, in the promised Canaan. And so all the murmurings of men should be silenced by the fact that this life is probationary, and that it is only preparatory to another, in which every real need will be eternally supplied. Discontent is an evidence that we centre our thoughts too much on this world. How inconsiderate are men in their murmurings; some want bread, some want rain, some want gold, and others want social position, as though it would be well for each to have that which he desired. Want is a salutary discipline. If we were considerate of the providence of God, of the discipline of life, and of the welfare of others, there would be much less grumbling in the world.
4. The murmurings of Israel were Divinely regarded. God heard the murmurings of Israel and sent them food. It would have been better if prayer had done the work which seems to have been accomplished by discontent. God sees the discontent of the soul. He sometimes answers its cry in anger, and sometimes in compassion. How mercifully He bears with the murmurings of men!
II. That people will murmur against those who are rendering them the greatest service. The Israelites thus murmured against these two ministers of God. These men of God had only a little time ago brought them out of bend-age, and given them a freedom in which they greatly rejoiced. And ministers have often to contend with murmuring congregations. The things regarded as joys at first are afterwards by discontent turned into sorrows. At first conversion is welcomed as a great blessing, but when the difficulties of the wilderness are experienced, then the soul commences to murmur at the truth which set it free. Men often grumble at the agencies which have given them freedom. They think more of secondary agencies than they ought, they think more of Moses and Aaron than of the God whose servants they are. This is cruel and foolish, for the secondary agents are in need of bread quite as much as the multitude they lead, and cannot produce it without Divine warrant.
1. Thus the conduct of Israel was unreasonable.
2. This conduct of Israel was cruel and culpable.
3. This conduct of Israel is often repeated in the world now. And thus discontented people often murmur at those who do not deserve it; they often murmur to those who can render them no assistance; they often act as though there were no God to help them; and they present a sad spectacle of weakness to those who behold them in this unhappy mood.
(1.) They are unmindful of happy memories—of freedom from slavery.
(2.) They are unmindful of helpful service—Moses and Aaron had aided them in their march.
(3.) They are unmindful of happy destiny—they were being led to Canaan. Yet they murmured at the men who were thus befriending them. We are not to interpret our life work by the murmurings of others. Discontented people do not know their true friends.
III. That people when murmuring often manifest a degrading inclination of soul. “Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, and when we did eat bread to the full” (Exodus 16:3). As though they had said, We care not for our deliverance out of Egyptian bondage, we are no better even under His guidance than we were under the rule of Pharaoh.
1. Thus the Israelites were blind to the advantages of their new condition of life. They thought that they had not bettered their condition by exchanging Egypt for the wilderness. They measured their welfare by their temporal circumstances; they could not see through these a sublime improvement in their method of life. How many men measure their success in life by the condition of their flesh-pots. They prefer well-filled flesh-pots and slavery to hanger and freedom. And often is it thus with the Christian; he is rendered sad by the difficulties of the wilderness-path to heaven. He experiences longings after the old life of the soul. Then there were times of enjoyment. Then food was abundant. There were not all these constant difficulties which are now realised. True, sin was a hard service, and at times was followed by severe mental anguish, but it was soon appeased and removed, and thus the young Christian is tempted in gloomy mood to think the present incomparable to the past. He sees not the worth of moral freedom. He sees not the glory of being led by God. He sees not the shield by which he is protected. He sees not the splendid destiny awaiting him. If he saw these things as he ought, neither a temporary trial, nor the flesh-pots of his sinful life, would lead him to cast a longing look to the past. Satan often tempts the soul to apostacy, by presenting the past life of sin in all its attractiveness, and by magnifying the difficulties of the Christian journey.
2. Thus the Israelites were in danger of a degrading and cowardly retreat to their old condition of life. If they had returned to Egypt, how degrading and cowardly would have been their conduct. What an utter lack of confidence would they have shown in the Supreme Being. And if men, who have once entered into the freedom of the Christian life, return to their old habits, they will indeed degrade their manhood, and beat a cowardly retreat, which will gladden hell, and which will awaken the ridicule of the world. God has provided for the pure soul something better than the flesh-pots of its old life. Some men always make the past brighter than the present; they love the flesh-pots.
IV. That people when murmuring often anticipate evils which never will happen. “For ye have brought us forth into the wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (Exodus 16:3). Here was unbelief on the part of Israel. They had no more trust in God than to suppose that He was making all these deliverances for them simply to lead them to a grave. Truly God does not save men to destroy them. When men are converted it is that they may be made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light, and not that they may perish ultimately in their sins. Here was hopelessness on the part of Israel. The Divine help they had received in the past should have made them hopeful in the moment of trial. Men want to be more hopeful in their spiritual life than to imagine that they are going to die in this way; they have everything to inspire hope. And thus many murmuring Christians anticipate perils they will never experience; a murmuring spirit fills life with fictitious evils, it will dig graves in the most fragrant gardens. LESSONS:—
1. Let us have more respect for the joys of the Christian life than to murmur at its sorrows.
2. Let us be too grateful to the helpers of our spiritual life than to grumble at them.
3. Let us never cast a degrading look at the fancied joys of the old life of the soul.
4. Let us look to God rather than to our difficulties.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exodus 16:1. Comfortable stations in this life God will have His Church to leave (Matthew 17:4.)
Dreadful and barren deserts does God appoint for His Church, instead of better places, for trial.
The saddest deserts are but the way of the Church into the mountain of God.
The days of the travel and redemption of the Church are punctually remembered by God.
Exodus 16:2-3. Multitudes of sinners are usually stirring up all to murmur upon changes.
Wilderness trials put unbelievers in the visible Church to the test.
God and His ministers suffer all indignities from unbelieving sinners.
Unbelieving sinners are ready to imprecate destruction on themselves in time of temptation.
God’s most gracious acts are changed by the wicked to be their destruction.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Elim-Sinai! Exodus 16:1. The scene of the miracles of quails and manna was strikingly appropriate. Professor Palmer in his Desert of the Exodus gives a vivid description of the scene and sufferings. Familiar as we had grown with desert scenes, we were not prepared for such utter and oppressive desolation as this. As far as the eye could reach, there stretched a dull, flat, sandy waste—unrelieved by any green or living thing. The next morning he and his friends again set out, passing over a tract of sand equally dreary with that of the day before. It was, however, covered with a sombre carpet of hard, black flints; thus affording a firmer foothold for the pedestrian. But alike on the sand as on the rock, the sun shone with a fierce glare—scorching and blistering their hands and faces. Such no doubt was the experience of Israel. And such is the Christian’s life-path. Believers journey along bare sandy wastes, or bleak rocky plains; with the burning sun of worldly persecution. No wonder they were weak, those Israel hosts. The Lord pitieth His children. He pitied Israel, when, as the Psalmist says, hungry and thirsty their soul fainted in them.
Divine Ways! Exodus 16:1. We learn lessons ofttimes when the head is low; just as, when the sun is set, the stars come out in their blessed beauty, and darkness shows us worlds of light we never saw by day. In the glad summer time, when the leaves are on the trees, we go into the woodlands, and we sport among their branches. They arch over us, hiding from us the other world, and causing us to revel in the beauty and blessedness of this. But the blasts of winter come and scatter the leaves; then the light of heaven comes in between, to remind us that our sufficiency is of God. No doubt during the five or six weeks after the Red Sea Triumph, the host had gradually been losing sight of God—slowly but too surely forgetting their entire dependence upon heaven. So the supplies run short, and Israel is reminded that man lives not by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Such are the ways of God in the Christian life. We begin to forget our dependence on the great Deliverer; so He arres’s our sources of sustenance—stays the flowing channels of grace—stops the sunshine in the heavens—and strips our trees of their bright green and glossy foliage. Then we remember what helpless creatures we are, and are reminded that our sufficiency is of God.
“With shattered pride, and prostrate heart,
We seek the sad-forgotten God.”
—Cook.
Human Murmurs! Exodus 16:2. It has been suggested that murmuring must have been a malady characteristic of the Hebrew people, or else a disease peculiar to the desert. They were always murmuring. And such is man! The noxious weed—the root of bitterness, with its cleaving burrs and envenomed spines, has not become a fossil-flora. It is still only too prevalent. Of an Englishman, the foreigner says that it is his nature to grumble, and he himself claims it as his prerogative. Alas! it is man’s propensity. As Dr. Todd tells of the farmer, he murmured when the rain fell because it would injure the wheat—and when the sun shone because it would damage the rye—and when the air was cold because it would nip the grass. He thought himself the one especial target at whose prosperity and peace Nature was bent on a perpetual flight of arrowy shafts. So Israel! And so man! He forgets not only that others feel the pointed barb, but also that there is a design in it all. Moreover, murmuring never travels alone. He is an invader followed by a molley host of plunderers. As Thomas Brooks puts it, murmuring is a sin that breeds and brings forth many sins at once; and so doth the River Nile bring forth many crocodiles, and the scorpion many serpents. On the edge of some plantations we read a notice:—“Mantraps and spring-guns! “Murmuring and peevish discontent is such a tangled thicket, closely set with guns and snares. So Israel found to his cost:—“Unto whom I sware in my wrath, that they should not enter into my rest.” Christians should be the last to murmur.
“As brooks, and torrents, rivers, all
Increase the gulf in which they fall,
Such thoughts, by gathering up the rills
Of lesser griefs, spread real ills;
And with their gloomy shades conceal
The landmarks hope would else reveal.”
—Dinnies.
Backslidings! Exodus 16:3. Watching the golden eagle, as he basks in the noon’s broad-light—balances with motionless wings in the high vault of heaven—or rushes forth like the thunderbolt to meet the clouds on the pathway of the blast, can you conceive that he would give up his free and joyous life to drag out a weary bondage in a narrow and stifling eage? Would not that kingly bird—that cloud-cleaving bird—prefer death to slavery. Foolish Israel! They longed to give up their freedom for the foul bondage of Egypt. How often God’s spiritual Israel are thus tempted to go back to the serfdom of sin!—
“Shall I back to Egypt go,
To my flesh corruption sow!
No, with sin I cannot dwell;
Sin is worse then death and hell.”
—Wesley.