Exodus 16:3 “And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Maybe not on such a grand scale, but aren’t we guilty of forgetting and complaining ourselves? The Lord had just delivered the Children of Israel from slavish bondage with a mighty show of His Sovereign Power, he had moved the Egyptians to give them great wealth as they were leaving, and he had opened the Red Sea to allow them to escape and He had closed it again upon the Egyptian army. Yet, they moaned, “Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt”! As I sit here this morning, in the comfort and security of my home drinking my third cup of very good coffee, it seems that they should have remembered how the Lord had just delivered them and that they should have had faith (great confidence) that He would deliver them again. But, they were human beings with human weaknesses and they could not see how they could sustain themselves in the barren desert that they were presently in. It is easy to criticize Israel for their weaknesses and sin and forget that we are humans too. Like Israel, we often measure our outcomes against our own natural abilities and forget that we “can do all things” in God’s service “through Christ which strengtheneth” us (Philippians 4:13). We should not expect to enjoy the blessings of the Lord and not suffer or endure hardships as well! Paul puts it this way, “For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;” (Philippians 1:29). It is in the times of severe hardships, pain, fear, despair, loneliness, sufferings, etc. when we have the greatest opportunity to “shew” our “faith by” our “works” (James 2:18). Shouldn’t we consider that Christ is worth and worthy of our suffering such things for His sake (Corinthians 12:10) and shouldn’t we “count it all joy when” we “fall into divers temptations” (James 1:2) and shouldn’t we “stand still” (Exodus 14:13) and “be still” (Psalms 46:10) and remember that it is God “Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us” (II Corinthians 1:10)?