What Was Wrong With Those People?

How ridiculous was the attitude of the Israelite people at times? It seems that most of the time when I refer to them in my preaching or teaching it has to be from the standpoint of not doing what they did. They were continually misbehaving, abandoning God, complaining to Moses, and generally causing a lot of problems. They regularly forgot the blessings God had previously provided and did not trust Him to provide for them in the future. Their attitude got them into more trouble throughout their history than practically any people in all history.

In reading through Exodus again recently I came across one of the most striking examples of the Israelites’ lack of faith. In Exodus 14 Moses had just within the last chapter finally been able to get the people out of Egypt where they had been mistreated in some of the most savage and brutal ways man has ever devised. However, it was literally no more than a day (in all likelihood) since they had left Egypt and:

“When Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians, marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord. And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness” (Exodus 14:10-12).

WHAT? How could they possibly have been so short-sighted as to already have forgotten just how horrendous their lives in Egypt were? Such accounts, and many more that could be mentioned, so characterized the children of Israel that now thousands of years later they are still one of our prime examples of those with hard heads and stiff necks. However, I also often pause to reflect on how many occasions I might be guilty of the same. We regularly sing hymns like “Count Your Many Blessings,” and while it is not the case that we need to literally count our blessings, we should constantly remind ourselves of just how blessed we are. And to whom can we attribute those blessings? “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). Yet we still rebel at times and sin. Why? Have we become as shortsighted as the Israelites? The answer, sometimes, must be “YES!” While we need to continue to study and warn ourselves and others about the mistakes of the Israelites, perhaps we also need to evaluate our own lives as stringently as we do theirs and consider that while we ask, “What was wrong with those people,” that sometimes we might need to ask, “What is the matter with us?”