What the homeless can learn from the grumbling Israelites

By Wayne Hammel

I guess one of the more frequent responses you hear whenever you are studying the great exodus of the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt to The Promised Land is, how in the world could they become such bitter, complaining and unfaithful people after they had witnessed all the miracles God used to deliver them from bondage? I have to admit, I have thought the very same thing to myself. They were a whining and grumbling group of people. And the same could be said of all the people who witnessed the miracles of Jesus. They saw the incarnated Son of God and yet they refused to believe. And even the ones who did believe, especially Christ’s own disciples, were pretty good at complaining.

This complex near Union Gospel Mission has been donated for our use, and our men and donors have fixed it up.

So the problem of discontent runs far deeper in us than can be alleviated with the flash of miracles. It has almost become a cliche, but it is still nonetheless true, there is no greater miracle that God has ever performed than the regeneration of a single human soul. If you are saved, you can look at your life and see how God may have rescued you from a life of slavery to sin, or He may have rescued you from a thought pattern that was destructive. Even if God saved you at a young age, the miracle of an entire lifetime lived for Him instead of for yourself should be as a miracle on par with any other. It is resurrection power at work.

And yet we still whine and complain. I don’t like to jump ahead of the order that God decreed His Word should be laid out, but we have gone to these later verses in Philippians a couple of times already, and I want to look at them again this evening. Go to Philippians 4:11-13 KJV.

There are several key words in this passage, words that we will discuss in detail when we get to them in our study, but I want to look at the word learn.

Secret of Christian contentment

What has Paul learned? And bear in mind that this joy all of us want to have as believers is a participatory enterprise, right? Paul learned to be content in whatever situation God placed him. The secret of contentment and joy is not

normally learned in posh circumstances or in a comfortable and rich environment or in deprived circumstances, but in exposure to both.

Let’s suppose some of you came from a well-to-do background, and you have never lacked anything. You have never had anything you valued taken away from you. The question arises whether you would be comfortable and content if you were suddenly forced to live in poverty. On the other side, you may have come from a really poor background. Perhaps you learned to handle the uncertainty and the deprivation in godly ways. But now the question arises whether you could be content if you suddenly fell into wealth. Would it instantly corrupt you? Or would you feel so guilty with all these possessions that you could scarcely look at yourself in the mirror?

Witness the stories surrounding poor people suddenly coming into great wealth via the lottery. An unfortunate percentage of those who win huge sums from gambling on the lottery wind up broke and bankrupt, miserable and discontented. Not everyone, of course, does so; the numbers vary; but at minimum enough wind up broke, a full 30% that it ought to give us pause when we vainly imagine that sudden unworked-for wealth is the vehicle we can ride to satisfaction and contentment.