Ex 16:2+3, And the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the sons of Israel said to them, "Would that we had died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." 
	In our reading this morning, I was struck with that sense of how little humanity has changed over the centuries. We have a people who were in dire need of salvation. They were being physically and emotionally and spiritually persecuted, kept in bondage simply because of their heritage. They were so numerous that Pharaoh considered them a threat to his kingdom so he enslaved them as a population of people and made them work under bitter conditions. What food they had, they had to provide for themselves or starve and this after endless hours of toil and drudgery building the storage cities of the Pharaoh, or whatever their taskmasters appointed.
	When they asked to go to worship God, Pharaoh absolutely refused their request. He would first accede, then harden his heart and refuse to allow them the freedom to worship God Almighty. 
	As a direct result of this foul treatment, God worked through the manifested plagues to release His people from slavery. When they were freed, they went forth from Egypt with as much treasure as they could carry. They were liberated from slavery and the recipients of all the wealth of Egypt as they set forth to the Promised Land. Not only that, but God was the One Who directly lead them by the pillar of cloud during the day and the pillar of fire during the night. Then, when the chariots of Pharaoh tried to overtake them, God parted the Red Sea, allowing them to cross on dry land, while closing the waters upon the Egyptian army pursuing them. 
	This was a people who had seen first hand the salvation of God, over and over and over again, and yet their memories failed them when they faced any new trial or situation. As was evident at the banks of the Red Sea, after having just been liberated from the Egyptians due to the 10th plague of death brought on by God, they still cried out in panic and despair fear as the Egyptian army approached. Ex 14:11+12. Ex 14:11+12, Then they said to Moses, "Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt? "Is this not the word that we spoke to you in Egypt, saying, 'Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians'? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness." 
This people forgot that they were being lead forth by the very God Who had full control over all the elements of nature as evidenced in the first 9 plagues. Then, when Pharaoh still refused to let His people go, The Lord God Almighty, had smitten every firstborn throughout the entire realm of Egypt thus manifesting His supreme Sovereignty over the full domain of humanity. These freed ones completely ignored this truth of the Omnipotence of God and fully despaired at the banks of the Red Sea. 
	We will spend a little time, looking at what was in the heart of this people as it reflects, in all sadness and reality, what can be very true in our hearts and minds as we often muddle through the trials and situations of this age. How much is it in us that causes us to only concentrate on what we do not have and dwell on the pessimistic, downbeat, and depressing aspects? We almost gloat in the fact of our being worse off now than ever before! How much do we tend to forget the goodness and the grace and the power and the deliverance of God in our personal lives whenever we face a new trial?  Most often we have the innate tendency to lose ourselves in depression and panic. 
I hope that you will bear with me because this is a frightful journey upon which we embark when we fail to constantly remind ourselves and remember and celebrate the Lord God Almighty: Our Redeemer, Our Savior, and Our Provider. It is far too easy to forget His goodness and rather bemoan our seeming hopelessness in fear and desperation. 
	Our morning’s passage takes place, once again, after the Lord God had just drowned the army of Pharaoh, displaying once more, the full strength and might of His Own Right Hand ruling and overruling for the very salvation of this Chosen people. And it is almost immediately that we read of their ingratitude and their grumbling giving voice to their self-centered and miserable hearts of dissatisfaction in the goodness of the Lord. 
Reiterating this mornings text, verses 2+3, And the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the sons of Israel said to them, "Would that we had died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."
	How quickly the gruel and the crusts of their captivity became the imagined pots full of meat and bread of overflowing quantity and quality. Their memories were extremely selective in failing to call to mind all the heartache and the despair with which they had cried out to God to save them. It was because of their torment and their tribulation that God chose Moses to deliver them, as so recorded earlier in this book, Ex 3:7+8. Ex 3:7+8, And the Lord said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. 
	All the deliverance and the great promises of God were quickly discarded when this people found themselves in hunger. They were more concerned about their current situation than thanking the Lord for His great deliverance and counting on Him to sustain them just as He had freed them. They grumbled and they complained and they bemoaned their current situation rather than seeking after God with that confident assurance that He, Who had delivered them and lead them this far, would make every provision in His grace and mercy for them. 
Ex 16:6-9. Ex 16:6-9, 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; 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?" And 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." Then Moses said to Aaron, "Say to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, 'Come near before the Lord, for He has heard your grumblings.'" 
	This shows something about the Character and the Divine nature of God. Even as the people, whom He had rescued, were grumbling and complaining against Him and His servants, God chose to feed them with the bread of Heaven that would sustain them year after year after year. He provided manna throughout the wilderness in abundance for His people despite their accusations and their lack of trust and their hardness of heart and their self-centered and accusatory and rebellious nature. As much as God showed them grace and mercy and love in His guidance and sustaining power, they still grumbled and complained and argued that their lives were better before He intervened than at this point in their existence. 
	Over and over and over again, they made it very clear and evident that they thought they deserved more than what they were receiving from the wondrous Hand of God in operation. They were never satisfied. They were never grateful. They were never trusting. They were never looking away from their own situation to what God was doing for and through them. They were so self-consumed that they failed to see just how much God manifested Himself and His power and His love for them. 
	It got to the point that Moses, as God’s servant in their midst, was in fear of what they might do to him in their discontentment and grumbling attitudes as we read in the next chapter. Ex 17:2-4, Ex 17:2-4, Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water that we may drink." And Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?" But the people thirsted there for water; and they grumbled against Moses and said, "Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, "What shall I do to this people? A little more and they will stone me." 
	In Numbers, there is even more detail given as to the manner in which this ungrateful and vicious human nature was so evident in the Children of Israel, even to the point of the rejection of the manna which sustained them. They were complaining that the food of God’s miraculous provision was less to be desired than the meager rations of their imaginations that they had eaten in Egypt. Num 11:1-6. Num 11:1-6, Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord; and when the Lord heard it, His anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. The people therefore cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord, and the fire died out. So the name of that place was called Taberah, because the fire of the Lord burned among them. And the rabble who were among them had greedy desires; and also the sons of Israel wept again and said, "Who will give us meat to eat? "We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna." 
	Over and over again, despite the miraculous provisioning of the Lord for these, His people, they kept harping and grumbling that it would have been better if they had died in their slavery than to be wandering under the guidance of the Lord. They ever had their minds and their hearts set on the deception that things were far better in Egypt than in their present circumstances, having to utterly rely on the Lord for even the water that they drank. Num 14:2+3. Num 14:2+3, And all the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! "And why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?" 
	They were incessant in their constant complaining and moaning and groaning before the Lord, despite the fact that the Lord would consistently provide. Num 20:2-5. Num 20:2-5, And there was no water for the congregation; and they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron. The people thus contended with Moses and spoke, saying, "If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord! "Why then have you brought the Lord's assembly into this wilderness, for us and our beasts to die here? "And why have you made us come up from Egypt, to bring us in to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink." 
	 Their complete disrespect to God and for His provision and their insistence that the slavery and the graves of Egypt were more desirable than the plans and purposes of God finally brought forth the severity of response that is recorded in Num 21:5-9. Num 21:5-9, And the people spoke against God and Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food." And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. So the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you; intercede with the Lord, that He may remove the serpents from us." And Moses interceded for the people. Then the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a standard; and it shall come about, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, he shall live." And Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on the standard; and it came about, that if a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived. 
	Even in this fiery trial, the Lord made provision for those who would obey and look to the bronze serpent held aloft by Moses. This was but one of the means by which God caused the people to cry out to Him for their deliverance, just as they had for their release from slavery. But even this miraculous manifestation of the guarding and healing provision of the Lord was not sufficient to quiet their grumbling and their complaining and cause them to find complete satisfaction in the working power of God, as we will see, in two weeks, Lord willing. 
	In the mean while, please let this example of dissatisfaction and grumbling and complaining and disregard for the mighty working of God not be something that characterizes you and me. Let us ask the Lord to root out every aspect of disrespect and discontentment and disregard that we may hold for Who He is and what He has done. Let us together encourage each other to seek to honor Him and to praise Him and to offer Him all thanksgiving with absolute reverence because He is the Lord God Almighty. So be it!
And the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the sons of Israel said to them, "Would that we had died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger." Amen. 

			

This morning’s benediction is Ps 92:1+2. It is good to give thanks to the Lord, And to sing praises to Thy name, O Most High; To declare Thy lovingkindness in the morning, And Thy faithfulness by night… Amen.