Don’t  Grumble!

    My Bible reading this morning was from the book of Numbers chapter 16, and was the story of how these two men were complaining bitterly about Moses and Aaron, and how they could be far better leaders if they only had the chance!      Moses heard this and was very upset. Not only Moses heard their rantings, but the whole lot of the people did too. So he did what he always did when confronted with a problem he couldn’t deal with….he took it to the Lord. He felt the Lord had to deal with this one as it was beyond him. So he told them to each bring their offering of incense in their hand and come before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle the next morning.     

    They did this, and as many people as could, crowded around to see what was going to happen. God appeared before them all in the cloud of glory, and spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, “Separate yourself from these people so I can destroy them in a moment!”     But Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the Lord, and said, “Oh no! Will You be angry with ALL the people because of these two men’s complaining?”

“Tell all the people to get away from these two men and those with them”, God said. So the people moved away hastily from them while the two men and their families stood defiant before the Cloud. Moses said to the people, “God is going to deal with these people….if they die an ordinary death, then He has not sent me to be your leader. But if there is an earthquake and they are destroyed, then you will understand that it’s not me they have rejected but it is God Himself!”     He had hardly finished telling them this when there was a great rumbling sound and the ground began to move. The people all backed off in terror while the others still stood their ground. But worse was to come. Not only did the ground shake, but a great split opened up in front of their eyes, and these men and everything they owned fell into it. There was another shake and the ground closed up again and all was quiet.

     It is hard to visualise this scene….one can imagine the people  talking about this for days afterwards! But there were others who also had their offerings of incense in their hands all standing around watching what was happening. They had no business to be handling the incense, that job was only for the priests to do and they all knew that. They were just as guilty as the two leaders had been.

     While they were trying to catch their breath, there suddenly appeared a fire coming out from the Cloud that God was in. It was much quicker than a man could run, and there were two hundred and fifty of them that died with that. God then told the priest to pick up the censers that were being held by these people, and take them away.  

We might ask ourselves why are these stories recorded for us to read today?  We have no concept of the seriousness of sin. We are so surrounded by it, that we don’t even realise when we sin! These two men who started this complaining had no idea of where it was going to lead.      God hasn’t changed. He is still pure and holy today, just as He was then. Our complaints against things we can’t change, are still classed as sin in God’s sight. How often we fall into this trap! But there is one thing that we can do about it, we can realise and admit this, and ask forgiveness.  We are told that if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from it all. (1 John 1:9). Don’t keep putting it off!