God’s grace to complainers (Numbers 20:1-13)

She looked at me in anger and said, ‘you don’t care about us.’  She gave me a real dressing down.  I didn’t know what to say, but for the next few months (actually for the next couple of years) I went over that conversation again and again.  Mostly I defended myself.  But the greatest sting of criticism is where we know there is at least some truth in it.  I know that at times I do not care enough for people. 

It came to an end when she wrote me a letter of apology.  She was so kind and gracious, because when I tried to explain that I too was at fault she explained that her apology was unconditional.  She was not insisting I meet her halfway.  Her initial words may have been harsh, but she had allowed God reshape her heart.  My heart had simply ruminated.  Grace had softened her, but I had not let grace shape me.

This morning we are looking at how God responds to complaint.  Of course, he has not done anything wrong.  While there are times that God responds to his complaining people with acts of discipline, here he simply responds with immense kindness.  This is a challenge for us when we are on the receiving end of criticism.

What you should do when people complain

‘Now there was no water for the congregation.  And they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.  And the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord!  Why have you brought the assembly of the LORD into the wilderness, that we might die here, both we and our cattle?  And why have you made us come out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place?  It is not place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink”’ (2-5).

Their complaint is so unfair!  They have forgotten that Egypt was a place of slavery.  They had had cried out in great suffering and God had rescued them.  Besides, it wasn’t Moses who had brought them into the wilderness, it was God.  The reason they were still in the wilderness was that they had refused to trust God and let him lead them into Canaan.  They might not have figs or vines or pomegranates, but that was their fault.  The twelve spies had brought figs and pomegranates back from the Promised Land, along a vine so great that it took two men to carry it on a pole, but they refused to trust God to bless them!

Moses and Aaron did what we should do when people complain against us—they prayed!  When you can’t ever please your parents, bring it to God.  When that workmate is a faultfinder, bring it to God.  When your spouse never seems pleased, bring it to God.  When your children think you are the worst, bring it to God.  ‘Lord, I don’t know what to do.  Help me!  They are saying things that hurt.  Please keep my heart from bitterness.  Give me wisdom.’

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water.  So, you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle’ (8-9).

God is so kind!  The people’s complaint against Moses and Aaron was really a complaint against him.  They were implying that he could not be trusted, and that he had let them down.  Yet he blesses them.  God does not treat us as our sins deserve but according to his loving kindness.

What you shouldn’t do when people complain

Forty years earlier the people had also complained about lack of water and God gave them water from a rock (Exod. 17:1-7).  God had already described himself as their rock (Gen. 49:24), so the symbolism was clear.  It’s even clearer for us, for the apostle Paul tells us that the rock was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4).  In Exodus Moses had been commanded to strike the rock and water came gushing out.  ‘In that awesome picture of grace, the Lord was willing to be struck himself instead of his rebellious people, so that they might receive life-giving water’ (Duguid).  Jesus takes the punishment we deserve so that we might be blessed in him.

God was wanting to treat the people with undeserved kindness, Moses was not!  He speaks to them harshly.  ‘Hear now, you rebels’ (10a).  James tells us that ‘human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires’ (James 1:20).  He not only acts as their judge, he is thinking of himself as their savior. ‘… shall we bring water from the rock?’ (10b).  He is not the one who can make water gush from the rock, only God can do that. 

It’s tragic to see Moses act so proudly, for we have already been told that he was the humblest man on the earth (12:3).  To be on the receiving end of complaint is a real test for our hearts.  If we simply respond with self-justification we will become proud.  ‘Who are they to speak about me like that?’  God had shown these people such kindness and had done them no wrong.  Yet he responds to them with even more kindness.  May we seek to show the kindness of God to those who complain about us.

God’s grace poured out over our critical spirit

What a lovely picture it would have been if Moses had obeyed God’s command!  Moses only would have spoken and God would have delivered.  With Moses striking the rock there was the danger that Moses and his staff would get the glory.  You see the other ‘gods’ of that region could be manipulated by sorcerers and diviners.  But if Moses had simply spoken to the rock no one could have thought that this was God’s doing.

Despite the people complaining, and Moses disobeying, there was abundant grace.  I had never before thought of what that word ‘gush’ implied.  Here is water for six-hundred thousand fighting men and their families and their livestock.  This is not a well down the back garden, this is a mighty waterfall.  ‘Behold, what manner of love the father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God’ (1 John 3:1).  Where sin increased grace increased all the more (Romans 5:20).  There is more mercy in God that sin in us.

Moses’s disobedience was serious.  Remember that in the pervious incident with water from the rock Moses had been told him that, ‘I will stand there before you on the rock’ (Ex. 17:6).  Hitting the rock may have been an expression of great anger directed at God.  Be careful that your frustration with God’s people does not turn into frustration with God.  Many people have turned away from God’s church because of their frustration with God’s people.

Moses is disciplined for his disobedience.  He will not now enter the Promised Land.  I think we feel this is unfair because we believe God owes Moses.  After all Moses had put up with these complaining people for forty years of ministry.  But God does not owe us anything.  You see even the best things we do are stained with that terrible sin of pride and self-congratulation.  Jesus said that at the end of our day we should simply say, ‘we are unworthy servants who have only done our duty’ (Luke 17:10).

Yet grace does win in the life of Moses.  I remember being moved when a famous preacher that I got to listen to told us that Moses did indeed enter the Promised Land.  Remember the transfiguration.  Jesus is standing in the Promised Land revealing the beauty of his holiness, and who is there with him?  Moses and Elijah.  What Moses could not do because of his sin, he could experience because of Jesus.  Better still, there is a Promised Land that awaits all those who have entrusted themselves to God’s forgiving and transforming grace.  We will share that land with the risen Jesus, with Moses, and with all those who look forward to his appearing.  He calls you to step into the gushing grace that can cleanse us to the uttermost.

Conclusion

‘These are the waters of Meribah, where the people of Israel quarreled with the LORD, and through them he showed himself holy’ (13).

There are two places that were named Meribah in the Old Testament.  They are the two places where God brought water from the rock.  Meribah means ‘quarrelling’.  The people were complaining against Moses, and really criticizing God.  In both cases God responds to their complaints with waters of blessing.  He showed himself holy (or different than us) by how he responded to their criticism. 

When was the last time you complained?  Both criticism and complaint are expressions of our dissatisfaction.  Maybe, like Moses, you looked at those you live with and judged them: ‘you rebels!’  ‘You are not treating me as I deserve!’  Like the people of Israel, you may be angry about your circumstances.  Behind our criticism and complaints can be an attitude of, ‘I deserve better’ or ‘I know better’.  We think we have been let down by others, or even by God himself.

So, how do we change?

We change as grace teaches us that God has truly been good to us!  Remember that the rock is Christ.  If you have been swallowed up by the love of Jesus then God does not treat you as your sins deserve but according to his loving kindness.  Jesus is God’s assurance that he is good to his people—for he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? (Rom. 8:32).

So, we ask God for the grace to respond to complainers with the kindness God has shown us.  We try not to complain by trusting God even when our circumstances test us.  We ask God for the grace to see the cross and sing of his goodness.