“Quick to Blame!” – FBC Morning Light (2/3/2025)

Well, good morning to you. Today I'd like to encourage you with a few thoughts from the book of Exodus, chapter 17. But start off by just asking this question. Have you ever noticed how quickly we tend to look for someone to blame when we're going through a time of affliction, when something bad happens?

I mean, think for a couple of weeks ago, we had these terrible, terrible wildfires in California, Los Angeles area, destroyed thousands of homes and took many lives. And shortly after that devastation began, then the blame started to come out.

People blaming the governor, people blaming the mayor, people blaming the fire department, all kinds of blame that was being pronounced that caused, that was a result or the consequence of those people's behavior that ended up having this terrible devastation.

Well, I'm not suggesting for a minute that there wasn't blame to go around and plenty of it. But what I observed is that rather than approaching that disaster from the standpoint of, is there something God's trying to teach us, or whatever, that right away, very quickly, we run to blame.

But that's pretty typical of us, isn't it? And that can happen in our own personal lives when something bad happens, we want to look for somebody to blame. I lose my job, and so I want to blame the boss, or I want to blame a co-worker, I want to blame the economy, I want to blame the government, I want to, whatever.

The Israelites Complain for Water at Rephidim

Well, we see that tendency very profoundly in Exodus 17. To this point, the children of Israel have come out of the land of Egypt, God miraculously brought them out through that Red Sea experience, and shortly after they got out on the other side, they ended up in a place where the water wasn't fit to drink, it was horrible.

I imagine it as being sulfuric or something, it was just nasty. And God graciously performed a miracle, and that bitter water became sweet. Shortly thereafter, they got to a place where they ran out of food, they didn't have anything to eat, and they complained again, and God graciously provided food for them, quail and this manna from heaven, and that manna was promised to be there providing for their nutrition until they entered into the promised land.

Well, now in chapter 17, we read that the whole congregation of the children of Israel, they set out on their journey from the wilderness of sin, according to the commandment of the Lord, and they camped in Rephidim.

Okay, but here's the problem. There was no water for the people to drink. All right, so what do we do? What do we do? Do we go to prayer? We start having prayer meetings and praying for the Lord to provide water, to give us direction, should we move somewhere else?

What do we do? What do we do? We look for someone to blame, and that's exactly what the people did. It says, therefore the people contended with Moses, and they said to Moses, give us water that we may drink.

It's like, okay, well, let me just open my spigot here on my backpack, and right? Well, Moses said to them, why do you contend with me? Why do you tempt the Lord, put the Lord to the test? So notice how quickly the people in this serious situation, they needed water.

You can't live without it, but they very quickly turned to blame, blaming Moses. Like, what are you doing to us? In fact, it goes on in verse 3 to say, the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses and said, why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?

This is your fault, Moses. This is your fault. If you wouldn't have brought us up out of Egypt, we'd have plenty of water to drink, and yet here we are, dying of thirst. So Moses cried out to the Lord.

Moses did what all of the congregation of Israel should have done, cry out to the Lord, and again, the Lord graciously provided. In mercy, he provided, and the way he provided was, he told Moses, take your staff, go to a rock, hit the rock, and water will come out.

That's exactly what happened, and Moses did that in the sight of all the elders of Israel, and they ended up naming the place, they named the place Masah and Meribah. Why would Moses name the place Masah and Meribah?

Well, Masah is a Hebrew word that means tempted, because the people put the Lord to the test, and Meribah means contention. They contended with Moses and with the Lord. Well, I want to challenge us to be careful in this regard.

You're going through something difficult right now, maybe some adversity, some terrible disaster in life. Well, I can sympathize with that, and I trust that God will be gracious to you and bring you out of that, but be careful that you don't immediately start looking for someone to blame for all of your problems.

Start with the Lord. Start with the Lord. Go before the Lord, and ask the Lord to deal with the situation. Ask the Lord to provide the need. Ask the Lord to deal with that person or that set of circumstances that has brought about this crisis in your life, but start with the Lord in faith and trust and dependence, not in accusation or in contention or in blaming.

That's the challenge I get from this passage. I hope it encourages you today. Our Father and our God, we do thank you for this challenge from your word today, and use it in our lives, we ask in Jesus' name and for his sake.

Amen. All right. Listen, have a good rest of your day, and I trust the Lord will bless you in it.