In The Wilderness: Craving a Great Craving

Been through to the book of Numbers in the Old Testament, chapter 11. And as is our custom, we will read God's word aloud together. We're reading verses one through 15 that's in your bulletin or on the screen behind me. Let's join our voices together.

Now the people began complaining openly before the Lord about hardship. When the Lord heard, his anger burned and fire from the Lord blazed among them and consumed the outskirts of the camp. Then the people cried out to Moses, and he prayed to the Lord, and the fire died down. So that place was named Taberah because the Lord's fire had blazed among them. The Riffraff among them had a strong craving for other food. The Israelites wept again and said, who will feed us meat? We remember the free fish we ate in Egypt, along with the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. But now our appetite is gone, and there's nothing to look at but this manna. The manna resembled coriander seed, and its appearance was like that of bedellium. The people walked around it and gathered it. They ground it into a pair of grinding stones or crushed it in a mortar, then boiled it in a cooking pot and shaped it into cakes. It tasted like pastry cooked with the finest oil. When the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall with it. Moses heard the people, family after family, weeping at the entrance of their tents. The Lord was very angry, and Moses was also provoked. So Moses asked the Lord, why have you brought such trouble on your servant? Why are you angry with me, and why do you burden me with all these people? Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth so you could tell me, carry them at your breast as a mother carries a baby to the land you swore to give their ancestors? Where can I get meat to give all these people? For they are weeping at me, saying, give us meat to eat. I can't carry all these people by myself. They are too much for me. If you're going to treat me like this, please kill me right now if I have found favor with you, and don't let me see my misery anymore. — Numbers 11:1-15

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Complaining Is Normal

Complaining. You know, complaining is super normal. This is normal for us. A writer named Paul Tripp puts it this way:

Isn't it amazing that we can stand in front of a closet full of clothes and say, I have nothing to wear. We can stand in front of a fridge or a pantry full of food and say, there's nothing in here to eat. Isn't it amazing that we have these schedules that are filled with lots of good activities and options for us and we're complaining because we're so busy.

Complaining is just sort of normal to us.

Complaining Is a Choice

But complaining is also a choice and we don't always see this. Let me tell you a story. Out west one day, a cowboy is driving down the road in his pickup truck, and he's got in the back of his pickup truck his trusty dog, and pulled behind the pickup truck is his horse in his horse trailer. He takes a curve way too fast on a dirt road, and there's a horrible accident.

State troopers show up at the scene. The trooper can tell this is a disaster. He goes up to the horse trailer—he's an animal lover and he can tell this horse is not going to make it. He pulls out his service revolver and puts the horse out of his misery. He keeps walking around and finally finds the dog, who's also seriously injured and not going to make it. Again, he pulls out his service revolver and puts the dog out of his misery.

He keeps looking around for the driver and yells for the driver of the vehicle. Of course, the cowboy is beat up with several broken bones and ribs. But when the state trooper comes over the edge of the hill and sees him—the state trooper is carrying a smoking revolver—and the state trooper says, "Well, how are you? Are you okay?" The cowboy answers, "Never better. All okay right here."

I say that because complaining is a choice. We don't feel like it's a choice. It comes up out of us, right? But it's a choice.

Here's the funny thing: we complain about complainers. I grew up in a small town in East Tennessee, and there was this woman in our community who was known as the complainer. When she would call the house, whoever answered it would always roll their eyes because we knew what was coming. We hate complainers. We don't like complainers even as we're blind to that in ourselves.

And of course, we also know complaining doesn't fix anything. I think it was Mark Twain who said:

Don't complain and talk about your problems because 80% of the people you talk to don't care. The other 20% think you deserved them anyway.

It doesn't make anything better. It doesn't fix problems. It doesn't make family reunions any shorter or meetings go away. It doesn't help with traffic jams.

But this passage shows us something we don't see often about complaining or grumbling or self-pity—that it's also toxic to us. It damages us. There's something about it that's bad for us. It's like pollution in the waters of your heart. It'll kill you.

So I want to look today at this under three headings. First, the pandemic of complaining or self-pity. God's nose—yes, you heard me right, God's nose—and the ironic pathway to hope.

The Pandemic of Self-Pity

Now, what I know is that you know a lot more about contagion, infection, virus, and pandemic than if I had preached this sermon three years ago. You are very familiar with this and you very much understand how viruses work—that they spread, that they bring infection, that they're dangerous.

And this virus of complaint starts very innocuously in this passage. If you read the first verses here, verse four says literally in Hebrew, "they craved a great craving." And like so many things that start small, they don't stay small.

When our boys were young, this was one of their favorite bedtime stories: A Fish Out of Water by Helen Geisel, one of the Doctor Seuss books. It's the story about a little boy who goes to the pet store to buy a fish. He buys a fish from Mr. Karp. You can tell where this is going already, right? Mr. Karp sells him the fish. The boy is then given instructions about the fish. Mr. Karp says, "Here's the food," and then says this:

Never feed him a lot, just so much and no more. Never more than a spot or something may happen. You never know what.

The boy takes the fish home, names it Otto, and begins to feed the fish. He looks at the fish and he's filled with compassion, and it's like, "It's not going to hurt to give it just a little more, and a little more, and a little more." The story is about how the fish keeps growing and he can't find large enough containers. First it's fishbowl to pot, and then it's the bathtub, and then the water is overflowing the house. You can read the rest of the story. But complaining is like that fish. It's like COVID-19. It starts small. It doesn't seem dangerous. It quickly takes over.

And that's why we're going to get tested this morning. This is the first of seven testing episodes in the book of Numbers, and we're not going to look at all of them in depth, but testing is a major theme. So it's right for us to get tested this morning. I've got five tests for you if you have the virus of complaining and grumbling and self-pity.

First is the contact tracing test. You remember this one? This is when you were in proximity to somebody who has the virus. You could even get an app on your phone that told you this. You could get it from someone else. And that's what we see happen in this account.

First, we see—and I hope you like the language of this version of the Bible—the riffraff. Others call it in other versions the rabble. What this is referring to are non-Hebrews who left Egypt with the people of Israel. That's what's being referred to. This kind of mixed mass of people who were not worshipers of Yahweh, not Israelites ethnically, but like, "Hey, this is my ticket out of Egypt." And they left with them, and that's where the great craving begins. That's where the complaining starts. It starts with these people, but then it quickly infects the rest of the company, the rest of the group.

In verse five, it spreads to the Israelites. And then verse 10 pictures for us this kind of pitiful scene: You're walking through the camp and everybody is standing at the door of their tent looking for somebody to complain to. They're whining and complaining. They're looking for anybody that'll listen to their problems. And finally, of course, this spreads also to Moses himself.

Did you hear what Moses says to God? "These aren't my kids. I didn't conceive them. I didn't bear them. I'm not called to take care. Why are you troubling me with these people?" And that's what's fascinating about this: in the space of five verses, Moses says "I" and "me" over 20 times. Me, me, me. I, I, I. Complaining is all focusing on himself. It's all about me. Instead of taking his burden to God and saying, "God, what are you going to do about this?" he says, "What do you think I'm supposed to do about this?"

Now, sociologists have a name for what happens in this. In studies that have been done with office space, among military, in college dorms, they have a name for a phenomenon that happens when one complaint spreads very quickly. It's called the bad apple syndrome. I am not kidding about this. It's called the bad apple syndrome, and they've studied this. Forbes Magazine put out this study or discussed the work of Robert Spieloski, professor of neurology at Stanford University.

He measured the effect of complaints, listening to complaints on a person's mental health and the mental health of an organization and found like this is really actually dangerous to us. It kills brain cells when we listen to other people complain. It really is toxic. But the question for us today is, are we infected? Are we infected by other people? Have we heard complaint and become complainers?

The God Gossip Test

The God gossip test. Now this entire chapter of the book of Numbers is, and we'll read the rest of it next week. This is sort of a part A, part B sermon. It functions in something called a chiasm in Hebrew. Chiasm is just a fancy word for what every kid does when they cut out a heart out of paper. They take a piece of paper, they fold it in half, and we train them to cut half a heart out and you open up and you have a mirror image. Hebrew does this all the time. And this is Hebrew readers listening to this would say, "Oh, I know what's going on." The first half of the passage, the second half of the passage mirror one another. And it's the part in the middle that's being focused on. It's sort of the main idea.

Well, the middle point of this passage is in verse 20. We didn't read this. We'll read it next week, but it says this:

You have rejected the Lord. — Numbers 11:20

That's sort of the summary of everything that's going on with all this complaint. Their complaints, in other words, are not about the food, they're about God. They're not about the wilderness, they're about God. They're not about the long journey, they're about God. They're not about life in the desert and changing baby's diapers in the desert, they're about God. All of these things are about God who has failed them. God, not the wilderness. God, not the desert. They're sick of God.

So I want to give a time out. I don't want you to mistake what I'm saying to you this morning. I'm not urging and saying, "Hey, the real point of this is don't complain, be happy." There's something, you know, keep it on this positive, keep it on the sunny side. Toxic positivity is as dangerous as complaint, as grumbling. Toxic positivity is the belief that no matter what the circumstances are, God says, put a smile on it. Just be happy with this. Christians are really good about doing this to one another, Kleenexing one another. You know what you do when you Kleenex somebody? They're upset and they're crying and we Kleenex them because we're like, "I don't know what to do with your tears. Here you go, please stop." And we're really good at this in the Christian community. Put a Jesus bow on top of it.

There's a phrase that Christians add to a lot of things. "Well, at least." You ever "well, at least" somebody or been "well, at least" by somebody else. So somebody says to you, "My child is not walking with the Lord right now." Well, at least you have a child. "You know, my job is incredibly stressful." Well, at least you have a job. "I'm facing kidney failure." Well, at least you have two kidneys. Do you all get how ridiculous this is? We do this all the time.

I'm not advocating some kind of Kleenex theology, toxic positivity, keep it on the bright side. The opposite of complaining isn't positivity. Rather, here's the problem: they're talking to everybody about God but God. They're complaining to everybody else about God but God. Here's how you know that you're infected. Your complaints are not really about life, they're about God. God gossip.

The Good Old Days Test

Test number three, the good old days test, also known as the uncle Rico test. Remember the good old days, remembering when things were better back then. I mean, do you hear the ridiculous talk the Hebrews are saying to one another?

Who will feed us meat? We remember the free fish we ate in Egypt, along with cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. — Numbers 11:4-5

What a fascinating statement: the free fish. I mean, obviously forgetting, well, you were enslaved. You didn't have a choice about anything. Remember the bricks without straw thing. All of this, they're forgetting. I mean, one commentator says this is the best example in the Bible of selective memory. We remember things the way we want to remember them.

And before we make fun of the Hebrews or we think this is ridiculous, I just want to remind you how much we do that as well. It was just a couple years ago, we were complaining about a pandemic when we lost lots of freedoms, lots of the opportunities we had to travel, move around, be with people. And yet what I hear now is this sort of reverse pandemic complaining. "Remember when we had time to take walks? Remember when we got into baking bread, wasn't that awesome? Remember when we had all that free time?" Of course, forgetting that no, we complained bitterly during that time about what was happening during the pandemic.

You know, humans are adept at idealizing the past. This is why I call it the uncle Rico, from Napoleon Dynamite.

Uncle Rico is now a grown man, but all his glory days were playing high school football. He's like, "You know, back then, I bet I could take this football and throw it over a mountain. Those were the good old days." And when we do that, we not only idealize a golden past, but we also distort our view of the present. We distort and we forget God's promises for the future. And this is not just like, oh, a bad attitude. This is spiritual treason. God is not showing up. God has not shown up. God will not show up. We can't trust Him. I mean, absurd—they want to go back. They want to go back to that great comfortable time they had in slavery. You know, what about us in our complaining? Is there something about that that idealizes a past golden era and therefore forgets where God is in the present.

Test Number Four: The Forgotten Miracle Test

So the people begin to ask another ludicrous question: "Who will feed us?" Of course, forgetting that as we read in this passage, God is the one who's actively feeding them right now. And of course, this is bound up in manna that God provided. God is actively sustaining them. Now manna is a word in Hebrew that just functions sort of like a literal translation of this. You seen this candy bar before? Whatchamacallit? That's kind of what manna means in Hebrew. It means, "What is it?" Nobody knew what to call it, and it's the substance that is not naturally occurring.

So a lot of Bible scholars have looked and tried to say, "Well, what naturalistic explanation can we give for manna?" Well, there's an insect that secretes this kind of thing in the desert on the ground—maybe there's a lot of that and that's what manna was. But I mean, one, ew. But number two, the whole point of manna is that nothing like this had been seen before. This is whatchamacallit. They're like, "We don't know what to do with all of this whatchamacallit that's on the ground."

Now, I want you to think about this name. If you substitute the word "manna" for every place in this passage, if you substitute the word "miracle" for manna, I want you to hear how this passage reads. Listen to what they say:

There's nothing but all this miracle to look at. Miracle resembled coriander seed and miracle's appearance was like that of bedellium. The people walked around and gathered miracle. They ground miracle on a pair of grinding stones, crushed miracle in a mortar. They boiled miracle in a cooking pot and shaped miracle into cakes. Miracle tasted like pastry cooked with the finest oil. When the dew settled on the ground at camp at night, miracle would fall with it.

Do you get the point? They're looking for what they think God's provision should be. And God has provided so much for them. One commentator I read on this said, "Okay, so this is sweet. It bakes into a pastry and you use oil, tastes like really good oil. That sounds like donuts. This is like Homer Simpson's dream—this kind of provision that's laid out for them on the ground."

One sign that you have the virus of complaint, of self-pity, of grumbling is like the people here: you're forgetting the things that God has provided while you're searching for the ways that you think God should have provided. You're missing what's right in front of you—the God who has given you—while you're looking for the ways that you think God should have provided. Are you looking at the wrong miracle? Are you infected?

The No Bones Test

Last test. This is called the no bones test. Now, it's named after a serious condition in my family that has appeared in a number of my children. We call it "bones" and "no bones." So this is bones. This is no bones. Bones, no bones. What it's describing is what happens with children where they sort of crumple under "I didn't get what I want" and all my strength is gone. And that's what we see in this passage.

Our appetite is gone. Literally, our strength is dried up. Our life is wasting away.

No bones, right? And what they're saying is that somehow God hasn't given what we want, so we have no strength to do anything anymore. And Moses is the worst example of no bones. Did you hear the extreme language at the end of this passage?

Kill me now.

I mean, kill me now? That's an absurd statement. But again, this is us. This is us when we're like, "Why does it even matter? There's something about complaining which is a preamble to apathy. Like, why should I get out of bed in the morning? Does it even matter?"

Do you see how this develops in us when our complaining leads to no bones? So do you have the test, or do you have the infection? These are the five tests of the infection—this virus of complaining. And yet this passage doesn't leave us with just diagnosis. It actually gives us good news. And more good news.

So I want to ask you this morning, would you rather have first in the preaching outline, the good news or the more good news? Okay, I'll just go with good news then.

The Nose of God

Here's the good news of the passage and it goes right like this: the nose of God. Now I'm talking about this kind of nose, like the one on your face. And yes, I'm just throwing this out there to keep you engaged in the sermon. But the nose of God is an idiom in Hebrew. And the idiom goes like this: his nose was hot. That's how Hebrew describes anger. And I love that phrase because that's what it feels like to get a sunburn on our face, isn't it? Your nose is hot, it's irritating. It's something you want to get rid of.

So what we see in this passage, even though it's potentially confusing, is God's anger toward their complaint. And this is actually good news. Let me show you this.

So let's address the confusion part first. Is this petty? Is this God stomping His foot and being like, "I'm going to show you. You want something to cry about? Now I'm going to give you something to cry about"? Is this God being reactive or rash? No. There's something deeper that's going on here. This is God's response that's in proportion to the danger of the sin of complaint, the destructive nature of their sin.

God knows that there's a pandemic sweeping through camp, that everybody's got it, and He alone knows this is destructive to them. His anger is an outworking of His love. This is what we see in a good mom in our families, right? A good mom gets angry about what she knows is destructive among her children: "Don't treat your sister that way. That's destructive."

His anger is in response to their refusal to honestly engage in relationship with Him. To bring their cries, their pain, their confusion to Him. We know this because the Bible is filled—I mean the Psalms in particular are filled with all these voices of emotion being directed to the Lord. Anger, sadness, confusion, even self-pity.

Lord, I don't know what to do. I don't understand Your ways. How long?

All those phrases that are in your Bible where people come to the Lord, that seems to be invited by God. But that's not what's going on here.

The Israelites, when they complain about God, their minds are made up. "We are done with the Lord. We're going back to Egypt. We're done with God and His promises." They choose to abandon God and reject relationship with Him and return to their comfortable enslavement. They remember those days.

God's Holiness and Wrath

So what happens? We read here in the passage, the fire blazes out and the place that this is going to be called later on just means burning—Taberah. We don't like hearing about this. God's fire blazes out in the camp. This is a picture of God's wrath. And yet I want to make sure you understand what's going on here.

This is not God annoyed with and disgusted with humans. He's not just "I'm done with you." Rather, this is a picture again of how His holiness works. God is holy, holy, holy, and human sin cannot be together. I've said this before: it's not that God is disgusted with these terrible whining people. It's that God's holiness is like fire and water. They can't coexist in the same place. And His fire burns out against His people. His blaze destroys the outskirts of the camp. They appeal to Moses and Moses intercedes and the fire goes away.

But here's what's hopeful for us to see about the fire of God. God will not allow the sin in us to destroy us nor will He allow the sin in us to destroy His purposes for us. This is so hopeful.

One of the most encouraging parts in reading the whole book of Numbers is over and over and over—how committed God is to His people.

The Structure of the Five Books

So I said earlier in the series that the first five books of the Bible are like a big sandwich and they're written like a sandwich. If you picture the two pieces of bread on the end and the meat in the middle and the condiments on either side of that: Genesis is one piece of bread, Deuteronomy is the other piece of bread. Leviticus, the part about God and his holiness, is the meat in the middle. We went over that a couple years ago. But these other two books—Exodus and this book of Numbers—are condiments and they mirror one another. They show us things about who God is and what God's up to.

The theme of Exodus is this: God will deliver His people from their enemies. Those people are outside of us who want to destroy us. God is equal to the task of saving them from those external threats.

The book of Numbers is this: God is equal to the task of saving His people from the enemies on the inside of us—ourselves, our own hearts.

This is why God's anger is hopeful. Jesus at the cross takes on the fire of God's wrath. All of that is consumed in Christ and all that's left for us is the fire of God's refinement. Over and over this image is held up for us in the Bible.

The refiner's fire, God taking us and heating us up that He might bend us and mold us and purify us into conformity to Jesus. Now that still involves fire and fire is still scary and fire is still hot. I don't mean to imply like this is really comfortable and great. But what is God up to? He is up to the good news of conforming you to the image of His Son. Conforming me to the image of His Son. Though the hardships come and the trials come in our lives, God is up to changing you to be more like Jesus. That's good news. That's good news part one.

Here's the second piece of good news. God also provides a very ironic pathway to hope. God provides a very ironic pathway to hope. Lament is the word in the Bible for this ironic pathway to hope.

The Invitation to Lament

Now here's where this sermon is gonna take a weird turn. Because probably several of you are like, yeah, I know what you're gonna talk about today. Complaining is bad. God's wrath on sin. Okay, I got that. But here's the curveball of the Bible. God is not like, hey, stuff it down toxic positivity, grin and bear it. There's an invitation given to us over and over in Scripture to come to God and lament.

Lament has two parts. And I want you to really think about this. Lament has two parts. The first is this: bringing ourselves to God, going straight to God. There's an entire book of the Bible that's filled with laments. We read from it from our call to worship this morning. The book of Lamentations, the weeping prophet Jeremiah, he's spilling his guts to the Lord. He comes and cries out to the Lord and that very fact alone—there's a whole book of the Bible for this—should give us a lot of pause.

One writer Chuck DeGroote says this: imagine having God's permission to just get it all out. Bring it all out, all the tears, all the anger, all the confusion, all the "God, where are you? God, how could you?" All of the sadness to bring all of that and to process that before Him. That's the invitation of Scripture. Bring it to the Lord.

Lament doesn't complain about God, turn away from God—it goes to God. Lament is a search for God. It's saying, I need Jesus. I need the man of sorrows. I need that suffering servant that I read about in Isaiah chapter 53. I need that Jesus right now. I need Him and I need the God of the flesh in my life today.

Here's why lament is the ironic pathway to hope. Chuck DeGroat again says this: because lament contains in itself the possibility of hope, restored desire and a changed heart. At its heart, lament is a search for God. It's not a search for answers. It's not a search for getting your problem fixed. It's a search for God in the middle of the dark place. It's: I'm in a cave and I know you're here somewhere. It's really dark. I don't know how to get out of here. I don't know what's gonna happen. I need you.

That's the first part. Lament is to go to God. Second, lament is not to give up on God, but to trust God with our pain, to bring it to Him.

On the surface, complaint and lament look very similar. You're talking about your hardships. You're talking about your sufferings. You're talking about the things that are confusing you. You're talking about the ways you're angry. But whereas complaint says, "God, I'm done with you," lament takes all of that to the Lord, all of our pain to the Lord. In lament, we trust God with our deepest sufferings and fears.

This is why Moses, he's just a smidge better than the other people, right? The Israelites in mass are like, we're done with God. We're not talking to God. Moses at least is talking to God, but at the same time, he's like, I'm done with God. He's talking to God, but he's complaining and they look very similar. But to lament is to cry out to God and take all of our pain to Him and say, "How long?" It's to remind God of His character and His promises. It's not to give up on Him. It's even to argue with Him. This is what you've said. Why is this the way my wife looks right now?

I mean, the irony of this entire book is we read about these people in Numbers—it's just back at the beginning of Exodus where they're enslaved in Egypt and they cry out to the Lord, right? They turn to God, they take their pain to God and what does God do? He's right there. He hears. He's moved by the suffering of His people. They got recent case history to remember God. This is how the character of God is. He has shown Himself to be mighty God, Prince of Peace, everlasting Father, wonderful counselor.

You know, in one of the most astonishing places in the Bible, we see Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before He's about to be crucified. And it's one of those moments where the curtains kind of pulled back and we see—I don't know how to say it—the psychology of the second member of the Trinity, and he's on the ground crying out to God. He's lamenting to God. He says, "Father, right?" He's turning, speaking to God about His pain.

Take this cup, this cup of suffering from me. Yet not what I will but what you will.

He's taking all of his pain to the Lord. It's an amazing thing for us to see. Jesus in the garden, doing what Israel failed to do. Instead of taking their pain to God, they complained about him. Jesus goes straight to God. Aren't you glad that the disciples didn't come to Jesus with some Kleenexes? Hey, let's sing some praise songs. Come on, Jesus. Aren't you glad that the Son of God didn't say what Moses says in this moment? Hey, these aren't my people. I didn't conceive these people. Why is this my problem? The Son of God cries out and invites us to do the same.

The Danger of Refusing to Lament

I'm going to share one more image. This is from Paul Miller who wrote A Praying Life and his book on Ruth about lament. One thing he offers is that there is a danger we don't often see: the danger of not lamenting. There is a danger to toxic positivity. There is a danger to stuff it down, to grin and bear it. When we refuse to lament and cry out to God, we end up perpetuating dishonesty or cheap solutions or a view of God that doesn't match up with all the complexities of all the stuff that you all are walking in right now. God invites us to lament. We're going to have an opportunity next month—March—as a community, midweek to come together and to practice lament, to learn more about this. This is something we need to grow in.

The Grace of God to Complainers

But one last thing I want you to notice before I close this today is the incredible grace of God to complainers like me. Because even in this passage, we're going to wrap it up next week, you'll see the other half. But even in this passage, you can see this. I mean, the people are complaining. They're not talking to God, but where is God? God is right there. He is immediate to them. When the people complain, does it drive him away? Is he like, I am so done with y'all? Does he reject them? Does he abandon them? Does their sin remove his devotion? Does their sin erase his love? Does their complaining separate them from God? No. He is right there. Even in their complaints. This is the character of God toward His people.

And it's so instructive for us to see even how this is laid out in the book of Numbers. What book am I preaching? We talked about this a few weeks ago. There's this beautiful benediction that's prayed over the people at the end of every service. We've said this a few weeks ago—Numbers 6.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up the light of His face toward you and give you peace.

Now this is said in Numbers chapter 6, before the beginning of all these testing narratives. And the tests that we see—we're just starting the first one today—are not tests for God to be able to discover what's going on with His people. They're for the people of God to be able to see where they don't trust Him. They don't really trust Him. And I think it's so instructive for us that the benediction of God, the face of God turned toward His people, is declared over them even before they start any of these things, any of these tests.

And this is scene two. We talked about this in the tabernacle. Every time they would set up the tabernacle and take it down, they would see this giant candlestick, all the lights in the middle of the tabernacle. They're shining forward on this table that's got 12 loaves on it, pictured for them the 12 tribes of Israel. God's face is ever shining on His people. Even in our complaints, even when we refuse to follow Him or trust Him.

And again, what do we learn? He's not leaving. He's not going anywhere. He's utterly gracious to complainers and grumblers and those who are infected with self-pity.

Brothers and sisters, the New Testament tells us that it is His kindness that leads us to repentance. It's not our obedience that leads to His kindness. It's not our repentance that leads to His kindness. It's not our faithfulness that leads to His kindness. It's not our always believing it or getting it right that leads to His kindness. No, God says it's His kindness that leads us to repentance. This is the kindness of God toward us, grumblers and complainers—those who are like me, who are infected this morning and know it.

God invites us to bring our whole selves to Him. Our whole selves, all of our stuff, laid at His feet and call out to Him. Would you do that?

Let's go to Him in prayer together. Father, we thank you for your word. There's nothing like your word. And even when your word, as you tell us, is like a blade that cuts, we thank you that it always cuts in order to bring healing. Lord, thank you for the way your word exposes our hearts and invites us to come to you in your grace and mercy.

Lord, we pray that we would have courage to turn to you, to bring our whole selves, all of our pain, all of our confusion, all of our doubts and fears, all of that to you. Lord, we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.