When people think of what is the worst of sins, few think of something like pride, but perhaps even less think of the great evil of grumbling. We have one book of the Bible which stands firm against grumbling and sets it out as a very wicked act against God. Grumbling is a vile and wicked act against God which He hates, and yet it seems to be practiced with scarcely a thought about it.
Exodus 16:6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the sons of Israel, “At evening you will know that the LORD has brought you out of the land of Egypt; 7 and in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD, for He hears your grumblings against the LORD; and what are we, that you grumble against us?” 8 Moses said, “This will happen when the LORD gives you meat to eat in the evening, and bread to the full in the morning; for the LORD hears your grumblings which you grumble against Him. And what are we? Your grumblings are not against us but against the LORD.”
Numbers 14:28 “Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the LORD, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will surely do to you; 29 your corpses will fall in this wilderness, even all your numbered men, according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me.
When people grumble about things and other people, many times (most if not virtually all) the grumbling is in reality directly against the first Cause of all things. Grumbling is the opposite of contentment, humility, and a meek spirit before the Lord. When people grumble, they usually think that they are greater than they are, that they deserve something that they are not getting, or perhaps that things are just going against them and they have done nothing to deserve what is happening to them. People will say that they don’t mean anything by what they are saying, but the Lord hears what is said by both the mouth and the heart.
Grumbling is a heart that is not content with what God has ordained in His perfect wisdom and holy plan from all eternity. The people that God brought out of Egypt gave themselves to grumbling very quickly, but they grumbled against Moses. But Moses was the man that God had brought out and set as their leader and Moses was simply doing what God had commanded him. When the people grumbled against Moses, therefore, in reality they were grumbling against God.
Ephesians 1: 9 He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him…11 also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will,
Isaiah 46:10 Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, ‘My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure’; 11 Calling a bird of prey from the east, The man of My purpose from a far country. Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass. I have planned it, surely I will do it.
If men could get the true sovereignty of God into their heads and hearts, it would help them to see the great evil of grumbling. Humility and contentment are so lacking in our day and part of that is because of the great shift from being God-centered to being man-centered. Instead of praying for His will to be done and for men to be changed and turned from self to please God, men pray for God to change and do what they want. God is seen as one who answers the prayers of men if they have faith, which in reality changes God (in the minds of men) into One that is supposed to do what they want if only they can believe it. But God has ordained all things from eternity and men are the ones who must have changed hearts in order to bow before the eternal and thrice Holy One. Men should not pray for God to change, but for their own hearts to be changed so that they would not grumble.
It is in light of the eternal God who in perfect wisdom and knowledge has ordained all things from eternity that grumbling should be viewed. This grumbling is so great that the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6) has the antidote to it. We should pray for His name to be glorified, His kingdom to come, and His will to be done. We should be content with how God does those things to the glory of His own name. That would be contentment and not grumbling.
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