Whipping A Whiney Spirit

Whipping A Whiney Spirit — Part V

A Lil’ Change Won’t Kill Ya!

Numbers 14th Chapter

²⁶The LORD said to Moses and Aaron: ²⁷"How
long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints
of these grumbling Israelites. ²⁸So tell them, `As surely as
I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: ²⁹In
this desert your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who
was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me.

The last symptom of a whiney spirit we are going to discuss
is regression.  Regression is defined as
a return to the former, usually a worse condition.  In other words, when we regress, we go back or desire to go back
to doing things the way we used to do them. 
However, in many cases that "good ol’" way really wasn’t that
good.

Some of the best biblical examples of people with regression
are the children of Israel.  If we go
back to Exodus 13:17, we see that Pharaoh let the Israelites go.  This was preceded by 10 plagues from God upon
Egypt.  So the children of Israel truly
saw God perform on their behalf; however, before they were in the wilderness
"good"—almost as soon as they left Egypt— they began to
complain.  Exodus 14th chapter reads:

            ¹⁰As
Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians,
marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD.  ¹¹They 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?  ¹²Didn’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!"

They had just gotten "sprung," but when it got
"hot" they wanted out.  They
did not remember what God had done to the Egyptians 10 times on their behalf.  They did not remember that after leaving
Egypt the Lord also guided them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of
fire by night.  Instead, they chose to
"regress."  Now after all of
this, what did God do?  Save them by
parting the Red Sea.

So the Israelites learned their lesson, right?  Wrong!! 
That whiney spirit rose up again in the Desert of Sin.  Exodus 16th chapter reads:

            ¹The
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. ²In the desert the whole community
grumbled against Moses and Aaron. ³The 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."

Again, here are the children of Israel talking about dying
in the wilderness.  Yet, one more time a
patient God shows up and comes to their rescue by feeding them manna and quail
in the wilderness.   Now let’s go to our
text.

Numbers 14th Chapter

            ²⁶The
LORD said to Moses and Aaron: ²⁷"How long will this
wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these
grumbling Israelites. ²⁸So tell them, `As surely as I live,
declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: ²⁹In
this desert your bodies will fall—every one of you twenty years old or more who
was counted in the census and who has grumbled against me.

Before we go deeper into the text I want to ask you what
killed the Israelites?  Well, the first
thing we want to point out is that it was not "change."  They had been in the desert, and God had
provided for them in the desert.  What
killed them was their ATTITUDE toward change. 
From the very beginning they were complaining that they were brought out
to the desert to die, and God was constantly showing them, "NO YOU WERE
NOT."  I hope you caught that.  Showing them!! Not just telling them, even
though that alone should have been more than enough. 

So finally, He gave them what they had been
prophesying.  Look at the 28th verse as
he tells Moses and Aaron to tell the Israelites, "As surely as I live,
declares the LORD, I will do to you the very things I heard you say."  This wasn’t what the Lord said; these are
the things they were saying.  They kept
saying, "have we been brought here to die?," so the Lord did just
that, even though all along He had been trying to give them something quite
different.

Now let’s get on the "real" here.  Too often we don’t want the Lord to WORK
things out.  We want Him to just do it
in one single stroke.  But by working it
out, He gets the glory, and you get anointed by Him.  If we go back to Exodus 13:17, we see that God didn’t lead the
Israelites on the short cut through Philistine.  Instead, He took them through the desert.  Why? 
Because too often the short cut leads to destruction.  If you don’t believe me, I’ll give you two
examples — DEBT & TROUBLE!!!!!  Both
of them are easy to get in and very hard to get out of.   For the Israelites there was the
possibility of war if they took the short cut. 
God noted in the 17th verse, "If they face war, they might change
their minds and return to Egypt."

Not only that, but God made them take a second detour.  In Exodus 14th chapter the Lord tells Moses,

            "²Tell
the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the
sea.  They are to encamp by the sea,
directly opposite Baal Zephon. ³Pharoah will think, ‘The
Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the
desert.’ ⁴And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will
pursue them.  BUT I WILL GAIN GLORY FOR
MYSELF through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am
the Lord."

If you feel you are on a roller coaster ride of deliverance,
stop feeling that way.  God’s working it
out for you. Just be patient.  Your
deliverance is in your worship and not your whining.  It didn’t take us one day to get into all the debt and trouble we
are in.  It took constant seeds of
debt.  It took constant seeds of living
contrary to the word of God.  But that’s
alright because we are coming out of the desert.  You might not be delivered yet, but if God gave you the vision,
then honey, the provision is coming.  If
you’re in the wilderness, don’t fret and don’t doubt you are coming out!!!  The only thing that can kill you in the
wilderness is your attitude toward the wilderness, not the wilderness itself.  If God has given you the vision of yourself
in a "wealthy place," then know that God doesn’t desire for you to
die in the wilderness.  Your wealthy
place is closer than you think!!!

Change Can’t Kill You, But Your Attitude Toward It Can!!!