Tag: shur

42.l. “Wilderness” – 1. Bitter water – Grumbling

 

Exodus 15:22  Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water.  When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah.  And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”  And he cried to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the LORD made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, saying, “If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.”  Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.

 Numbers 11:1-6   And the people complained in the hearing of the LORD about their misfortunes, 

 Numbers 16:41    But on the next day all the congregation of the people of Israel grumbled 

 Numbers 14:1-4    Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night.  And all the people of Israel grumbled 

 Numbers 20:2  Now there was no water for the congregation. And they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.

 Numbers 21:5   And the people spoke against God and against Moses

 Philippians 2:14    Do all things without grumbling or disputing

 Jude 1:16    These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires;

 Psalms 78:19  They spoke against God

What is grumbling? (the action or fact of complaining in a bad-tempered way) (complain, moan, groan, gripe, criticize, whine, protest, speak out against, find fault with). 

What is at the root of this grumbling? What seeds the heart and mind to grumble? What fuels grumbling in the heart and mind? (judgmental, anger, ungraciousness, faithless, hopelessness, fearful, selfishness, self-reliant, self-worth, thankless, Satan tempted, and denying God’s sovereignty, love, presence, and power)

Speaking out, (grumbling) first originates in the mind. There is a root seed of some sort that gets time in your mind. If it is not discerned, recognized for what it is, and discarded there is ample room for it to fester and grow in importance. This sin will not be recognized. Though it is a sin it is believed to be so true that it is turned into words that come out of the mouth. Being God-honoring, humble, thankful, and faithful is not even given space in your heart or mind. They have been discarded so that there is room for this unholiness to feed and grow. 

Such is the way in far too many people who call themselves Christians. The shallowness of their commitment and faith is manifested in their lack of concern for things of God and what does and does not honor and glorify Him. In times of trials and troubles, there is no depth in their faith and love of God. They have neglected and become complacent about the Word of God. In this neglect and complacency, their understanding and knowledge of God’s grace, mercy, and love fall mightily short of having any impact on their thoughts or for that matter, their lives. The sinfulness of sin and the Holiness of God are forgotten. If we neglect His Word, how are we to recognize and know what sin is? How are we to recognize a sin seed (like the beginning thoughts leading towards grumbling) in our mind? Oh, that we would read His Word with a hunger and desire to be led on paths that honor and glorify Jesus Christ.

Here are some thoughts by JC Ryles on sin:

I believe that one of the chief wants of the Church in the nineteenth century has been, and is, clearer, fuller teaching about sin. I fear there is much mental confusion and haziness on the definition of “sin” and “sinners” Sin, in short, is that vast moral disease which affects the whole human race, of every rank, and class, and name, and nation, and people, and tongue. I say, furthermore, that “ a sin,” to speak more particularly, consists in doing, saying, thinking; or imagining, anything that is not in perfect conformity with the mind and law of God. “Of course I need not tell any one who reads his Bible with attention, that a man may break God’s law in heart and thought, when there is no overt and visible act of wickedness. There are sins of omission as well as commission, that we sin. (“leaving undone the things we ought to do,”  “ doing the things we ought not to do.” ) We may live like we don’t understand this but I fail to see any Scriptural warrant for the modern assertion that “ Sin is not sin to us until we discern it and are conscious of it”.  Every single person born carries in its heart the seeds of every kind of wickedness! You will see in it the buds and germs of deceit, evil temper, selfishness, self-will, obstinacy, greediness, envy, jealousy, passion,— which, if indulged and let alone, will shoot up with painful rapidity. We shall do well to remember, that when we make our own miserably imperfect knowledge and consciousness the measure of our sinfulness, we .are on very dangerous ground. 

36.x. “In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.”

 

 

 

Genesis 20:1   From there Abraham journeyed toward the territory of the Negeb and lived between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, “She is my sister.” And Abimelech king of Gerar sent and took Sarah. But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night and said to him, “Behold, you are a dead man because of the woman whom you have taken, for she is a man’s wife.” Now Abimelech had not approached her. So he said, “Lord, will you kill an innocent people? Did he not himself say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ In the integrity of my heart and the innocence of my hands I have done this.” Then God said to him in the dream, “Yes, I know that you have done this in the integrity of your heart, and it was I who kept you from sinning against me. Therefore I did not let you touch her. Now then, return the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, so that he will pray for you, and you shall live. But if you do not return her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.”

After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham removed from the grove of Mamre at Hebron to the south country, hardly from the same fear as that which led Lot from Zoar, but probably to seek for better pasture. Here he dwelt between Kadesh (Genesis 14:7) and Shur (Genesis 16:7), and remained for some time in Gerar, a place the name of which has been preserved in the deep and broad Wady Jurf el Gerr (i.e., torrent of Gerar) about eight miles S.S.E. of Gaza, near to which Rowland discovered the ruins of an ancient town bearing the name of Khirbet el Gerr. Here Abimelech, the Philistine king of Gerar, like Pharaoh in Egypt, took Sarah, whom Abraham had again announced to be his sister, into his harem, – not indeed because he was charmed with the beauty of the woman of 90, which was either renovated, or had not yet faded (Kurtz), but in all probability “to ally himself with Abraham, the rich nomad prince” (Delitzsch). From this danger, into which the untruthful statement of both her husband and herself had brought her, she was once more rescued by the faithfulness of the covenant God. In a dream by night God appeared to Abimelech, and threatened him with death (מת הנּך en te moriturum) on account of the woman, whom he had taken, because she was married to a husband. (Keil and Delitzsch)

Twenty years before, Abraham had acted in the same way in Egypt, and Pharaoh had rebuked him, but sent him away with large presents. We learn from this chapter, Genesis 20:13, that the false representation which twice brought them into trouble was habitual with the two; nor does Abraham ever seem conscious that he was acting in it wrongfully. To us it seems cowardly, in one who had so many men trained to battle, thus to expose his wife to danger; and to have recourse to deceit, at the very time when such abundant revelations were being made to him, also shows an apparent want of faith in God. But Holy Scripture neither represents its heroes as perfect, nor does it raise them disproportionately above the level of their own times. Its distinguishing feature rather is that it ever insists upon a perpetual progress upwards, and urges men onward to be better and holier than those that went before. Abraham was not on the same high spiritual level as a Christian ought to be who has the perfect example of Christ as his pattern, and the gift of the Holy Ghost for his aid; and the fact that God rescued him and Sarah from all danger in Egypt may have seemed to him a warrant that in future difficulties he would have the same Divine protection. (Ellicott)

It is hard for us to know the purpose of Abimelech in taking Sarah. It could have been lust or a means of alliance that was custom at the time. I think we can take from this;

  1. God is in control
  2. God is ever-present
  3. God is all powerful
  4. Guard your faith
  5. Stand firm in your faith against the customs of the culture
  6. Innocence does not mean we have not committed a sin or a wrong
  7. Praise God that we have been given the Holy Spirit to give us discernment and guide our paths