The unreasonableness of discontent.
The people of Israel experience now the second trial that has come upon them since the passage of the Red Sea. First, they had nothing which they could drink (Exodus 15:24); now they are afraid that they will soon have nothing to eat. They have consumed their dough (Exodus 12:39), their grain, their flour; many of them have consumed, or lost, their beasts. The land around them produces little or nothing that is edible; no settled inhabitants show themselves from whom they may purchase food. If there are Egyptian store-houses in the district, they are shut against the enemies of Egypt. So the Israelites, one and all, begin to despair and murmur. How irrational their conduct! The unreasonableness of discontent is shown—
I. IN DISTRUSTING GOD'S POWER OF DELIVERANCE, WHEN WE HAVE SEEN FREQUENT INSTANCES OF IT. The Israelites had been brought out of Egypt "by a mighty hand"—delivered through means of a series of wonderful miracles. They had escaped the pursuit of Pharaoh by having a path made for them through the waters of the Red Sea. They had witnessed the destruction of Pharaoh's choicest warriors by the return of the waves on either side. They had very recently thought themselves on the point of perishing with thirst; and then by the simplest possible means God had made the bitter water sweet and agreeable. Now, they had found themselves fallen into a new difficulty. They had no bread, and foresaw a time when all their food would be exhausted. They were not really, if the rich imparted of their superfluous cattle to the poor, in any immediate danger. Yet, instead of bearing the trial, and doing the best they could under the circumstances, they began to murmur and wish themselves dead. They did not reflect upon the past; they did not use it as a standard by which to estimate the future. They acted exactly as they might naturally have done, had they had no previous evidence of God's power to deliver. And so it is to this day in human life frequently. We do not witness miracles, but we witness signal deliverances of various kinds—an enemy defeated at the moment that he seemed about to carry all before him—the independence of a nation saved when it appeared to be lost-drought succeeded by copious rains—overmuch rain followed by a glorious month for harvest. Yet, each time that a calamity threatens, we despond; we forget all the past; we distrust God's mercy; we murmur; we wish, or say we wish, that we had died before the trial came.
II. IN CONTRASTING ALL THE DISADVANTAGES OF OUR PRESENT POSITION, WITHOUT ITS COMPENSATING ADVANTAGES, WITH ALL THE ADVANTAGES, AND NONE OF THE DISADVANTAGES, OF SOME PREVIOUS ONE. The Israelites, fearing starvation, thought of nothing but the delight of sitting by the flesh-pots of Egypt, and eating bread to the full. They omitted to reflect on their severe toils day after day, on the misery of feeling they were slaves, on the murder of their children by one tyrant, and the requirement of impossible tasks by another, on the rudeness to which they were daily exposed, and the blows which were hourly showered on them. They omitted equally to consider what they had gained by quitting Egypt—the consciousness of freedom, the full liberty of worshipping God after their conscience, the constant society of their families, the bracing air of the Desert, the perpetual evidence of God's presence and providential care in the sight of the pillar of the cloud and of fire, which accompanied them. And men still act much the same. Oh! for the delights of boyhood, they exclaim, forgetting all its drawbacks. Oh! for the time when I occupied that position, which I unwisely gave up (because I hated it). The present situation is always the worst conceivable—its ills are magnified, its good points overlooked, thought nothing of Again, how unreasonable! The allegorical tale which tells of a pilgrim who wished to change his cross, and after trying a hundred others, found that the original one alone fitted him, is applicable to such cases, and should teach us a lesson of content.
III. IN ITS VENTING ITSELF TOO OFTEN ON THE WRONG PERSON. Moses and Aaron were not to blame for the situation in which the Israelites found themselves. They had done nothing but obey God from first to last. God had commanded the exodus—God had led the way—God had forbidden the short route along the shore to the country of the Philistines, and had brought them into the "wilderness of the Red Sea," and that desolate part of it called "the wilderness of Sin." Moses and Aaron were but his mouthpieces. Yet the Israelites murmured against them. Truly did Moses respond—"What are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against the LORD." And so are all murmurings. Men are but God's instruments; and, in whatsoever difficulty we find ourselves, it is God who has placed us there. Murmuring against men is altogether foolish and vain. We should take our grief straight to God; we should address him, not with murmuring, but with prayer. We should entreat him to remove our burthen, or to give us strength to bear it, We should place all in his hands.
HOMILIES BY J. ORR