 Hey, man, keep your place there in Exodus chapter 16. We're going to be looking at this story and kind of how it applies to the children of Israel and how it applies to us. In Exodus chapter 16, look down at verse number one and let's look at what's happening here. So this is Exodus. Of course, this is just after they've come out of the land of Egypt. God had done these great miracles through the ten plagues. He destroyed Pharaoh and his army. Of course, he did this massive miracle of parting the Red Sea and saving the children of Israel, saving them from Pharaoh and his army. Look down at verse number 16. We're going to go back to Exodus 15 in just a minute, but this has just happened. This has just happened that they've been freed from the slavery and the bondage in Egypt. In verse number one, the Bible says, and they took their journey from Elam and all the congregation of the children of Israel came under the wilderness of Zin, which is between Elam and Sinai, on the 15th day of the second month after they're departing out of the land of Egypt. We're talking about days or just a couple weeks after, a few weeks after the incident at the Red Sea. Look at verse number two. It says in the whole congregation of the children of Israel, look at this word, murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, I have that word underlined in my Bible, and the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we'd have 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. So obviously they were getting hungry, they didn't have food, and they were complaining, they were murmuring, the Bible says, I shouldn't say the word complaining, they were murmuring against Moses and Aaron, against the men that were leading them out of the wilderness, through the direction of the Lord, then said the Lord unto Moses first for, Behold I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law or know. And as you came to pass on the sixth day that they shall prepare which they bring in, it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. And Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, at even, then ye shall know that the Lord hath brought you out from the land of Egypt, and in the morning, then ye shall see the glory of the Lord, for that he hath heard your murmurings, there it is again, against the Lord, and what are we that ye murmur again against us. So what is happening here is the children of Israel, the people of the nation are murmuring against Moses and Aaron. So they're not going to Moses and Aaron and asking, you know, they're not asking questions. They're not asking, you know, what are we going to do about food? You know, we've got all these people here. They're not asking for solutions. They're murmuring against them. So they're, you know, it's, I mean, the murmuring started pretty early here in the first couple of weeks after they left, you know, they're complaining. They're saying, you know, look, we had plenty of food. We had plenty of food. When we were in Egypt, we were in slavery. We were, you know, we didn't have any lack of food or anything there. We were sitting by pots and we had plenty to eat and here we have nothing. They're murmuring against the leadership here that is, you know, following the direction of the Lord. Go back to verse number or go back to chapter 15. You say, well, that's pretty bad. It started, you know, it started weeks after they got out. It's even worse than you think. Go back to Exodus chapter 15 and look at verse 22. Look what the Bible says here. So Exodus 15, like literally the parting of the Red Sea has just happened, like a couple of days ago. So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea and they went out into the wilderness of Shur and they went three days into the wilderness and found no water. So it does make sense that they would want water first. I mean, if you remember the, if you ever heard of the rule of three, you know, you can last, you know, what is it, three minutes without air? You can last three days without water and you can last three weeks without food, right? It comes to, you know, common sense that they would complain about no water first or murmur. I keep using the word complain. I don't mean to use that word yet, that they would murmur about water first, all right? And they came to Mara and they could not drink the waters of Mara for they were bitter. Therefore, the name of it was called Mara. What does it mean by bitter? It means, you know, it was not water they could drink. It was stale water, you know, you don't want to, if you ever come to a pond that doesn't have a, you know, an inlet and an outlet and it's just this stale slew we used to call them in North Dakota. You don't want to, like, put your face down and drink that water. You know, you're going to probably get very sick, right? And the people murmured again against Moses saying, what shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. So the Lord fixed the waters. There he made for them a statute and an ordinance and there he proved them and said, if thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord that God and will do that which is right in his sight and will give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians for I am the Lord that healeth thee. And there they came to Elam where there were twelve wells of water and three score and ten palm trees and they encamped thereby the water. So all that to say this, the murmuring started within days, okay? And they did ask Moses, you know, what are we going to do about water? But they asked in an accusatory way. That's what the murmuring is. It was just, you know, why did you bring us here with no water? And they're accusing the leadership. So that's the first point that I really want to make. But the title of the sermon this morning is going to be about the subject of complaining in general. Just complaining. All right. Turn to Numbers chapter 11. This is actually the verse of the week is Numbers chapter 11 and verse number one. So we see that the murmuring started very early for the children of Israel. And the first point I want to make about complaining is that complaining most of the time starts quietly. It starts quietly. That's why you see this word come up in Exodus 15 and Exodus chapter 16 called murmuring. But look at Numbers chapter 11. So we see the Exodus, you know, Exodus is about, you know, the children of Israel escaping Egypt and then we go into the book of Numbers where Numbers really talks about, you know, 40 years in the wilderness. And by the way, you know, this is not to give away the point of the sermon, but they didn't have to be in the wilderness for 40 years. That wasn't something that was certain. Okay. That's something that came about because of the actions of the children of Israel. So the first point about complaining this morning is that it starts quietly, but it can turn into a way of life. Turn to Numbers chapter 11 if you're there. Look down at verse number one. So it started immediately and quietly with the children of Israel through murmurings where they're, you know, it finally did get to Moses and Aaron. But by murmurings, what the Bible is implying there is that the people were murmuring amongst themselves and, you know, talking about all this behind, you know, behind the backs of the leadership. And they were murmuring about this problem. And when they came to Moses and Aaron, it was this accusatory, you know, why did you bring us here just to kill us kind of thing? Look at verse number one of Numbers chapter 11. The Bible says this. It says that when the people complained, now they're just straight up complaining. Now it's just like it's a way of life. This is who they are. They're not murmuring anymore. They just complain. They're just complaining people. But look at what the Bible says. When the people complain, it displeased the Lord. And the Lord heard it and his anger was kindled and the fire of the Lord burnt among them and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp. And the people cried unto Moses. And when Moses prayed unto the Lord, the fire was quenched. So look, this complaining, you know, angers the Lord. And we're going to get to that in just a minute. But look at verse number three. It says, he called the name of the place to Barah because the fire of the Lord burnt among them. And the mixed multitude was among them fell elusting. And the children of Israel also wept again and said, who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish and we remember which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions and the garlic. But now our soul is dried away and there is nothing at all besides this manna before our eyes. So now you see how this has developed into straight up complaining in Exodus chapter 16, we see God implement the manna. He implements this structure of how he's going to feed the children of Israel. They're going to go out and they have to gather only what they can eat in one day, except for the day before the Sabbath. Then, you know, God performs this miracle where he doesn't allow it to rot and it will, they can gather two days' worth so they don't have to go out and work on the Sabbath day. But again, here, now they're sick of the manna. Now they're sick of the manna and they want, they want some steak. They want some meat. They want some more variety. And then what do they do? They immediately talk back about Egypt on how the variety that they had in Egypt. We had fish in Egypt. We had all these things in Egypt. And, you know, now all we have is this manna. So they're just complaining. They're just ratcheting up their murmurings and they're ratcheting up their demands from the Lord. So really the first point that I really want to make here on just straight up complaining look down at verse number 14. Look down at verse number 14. You see these people complaining. Look at Moses' reaction to the complaints of the children of Israel. He says, I am not able to bear all these people alone because it is too heavy for me. So the first point I want to make is that complaining vexes everyone that hears it. Vexing, you know, it's not just you complaining, complaining affects everyone that hears complaining. Look at verse four. He says, I am not able to bear this. This is Moses. And look what he says in verse 15. You say, how does it vex him? Look at how much it vexes him here. If thou dealeth thus with me, kill me, I pray, thee out of hand, if I have found favor in thy sight and let me not see my wretchedness. Moses is so vexed by the complaining. Yes, it angers the Lord, but Moses is so vexed by the complaining of these people that he's like, Lord, just kill me. Take me home. Take me, you know, take me to heaven. I mean, he's not joking. He's serious. He's literally saying, this is upsetting me to a degree, Lord, that, you know, maybe just, I just want to go to heaven now. Complaining vexes everyone that hears it. And look, I mean, here's the thing, just like applying it to us, people that complain, people that complain, they will vex everyone around them. They will vex everyone around them and the smart people, the smart people, some people will allow themselves to stay and just be vexed and not understand what's happening, but the smart people that are hearing complaints, they will remove themselves from that situation. Why? Because they don't want to be vexed. They understand that complaining will vex them as well, and so, I mean, that's, for you, if you're hearing complaining, don't be around it, because it will vex you. It will affect you. And the second thing is, is if you're going to be a complainer, understand that people are not going to want to be around you. So, I mean, that's kind of, I mean, because people don't like being upset. People don't like being upset. Many people won't even realize this until later. They'll just be like, I don't know what it is, but every single time I'm around this person, I'm just upset all the time. I don't feel good about myself or any of the situations that I'm in or whatever when I'm around this person. So, many people might not even understand why they are removing themselves from certain people, but all the same, they'll just be like, I don't feel good when I'm there, so I'm not going to be there. So, don't be a complainer because you'll be standing by yourself a lot if you are somebody that complains. Moses wanted to die from being around people like this. The second point is this. Go to Psalm, chapter 106. So, first of all, understand that complaining, it vexes everyone, including the person complaining, by the way. I mean, somebody that complains all the time, are they happy? Somebody that's just constantly complaining, are they, think about somebody that you know because you definitely know somebody, whether it's somebody in the world you work with or whatever, hopefully not any of your friends, but I mean, hopefully nobody that you're around just complains all the time, but we all know people like this, they're not happy people. People that complain about everything. So, look, it vexes everyone. It vexes everyone. The second thing is this, look down at Psalm, chapter 106 and Numbers, chapter 11 and verse number one, literally says it. The second thing is complaining, and this is a really important one for us personally, complaining angers the Lord. The Lord was judging the children of Israel and sending fire down upon them because they kept complaining. He had been dealing with this at this point for years from these people. It's just the demands and the complaints against the Lord because, look, when you're complaining against the leadership that the Lord put in place, you're complaining against the Lord and it makes the Lord angry. Look at Psalm 106 verse 13. Look at Psalm 106 verse 13. And you could apply this to anything, but look, it says they soon forgot his works. I mean, that's exactly what you see in Exodus 15 and Exodus 16. How soon? Within a day or two. They waited not for his counsel, but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted God in the desert. And he gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul. Just saying, no, he gave them what they wanted. He was like, no, no, no, you're gonna spend some time out here. You want food? Here's some food. 40 years from your complaints, from your murmurings against me. I mean, just think about it. You think about it, like, like, I mean, it's easy for us to Monday morning quarterback this one, I get that. But just think about it for a second. The Lord literally just performs this extraordinary miracle of parting the Red Sea. Look, he parted the sea. Okay, it wasn't like they found a shallow spot and walked across like all the apologetics and oh, there's a land bridge. This is only a foot deep or what? No, he parted the waters and then he brought the waters down upon Pharaoh and his entire army. If it was a land bridge, how come the army, you know, couldn't just like stay on the land bridge? Or they just, the Lord parted the waters. There was walls of water. He did this. They walked through the sea with walls of water on both sides. They saw this. And within days, they thought, I mean, what were they thinking? That, oh, God did this wonderful miracle, there's no way he can provide for us. He's just gonna lead us out here just to die. That's literally what they said to Moses in chapter 16, that God's gonna just let us die out here. Talk about a lack of faith. God's like, I just saved you through this extraordinary miracle that you all saw. Now I'm just gonna let you all starve. I'm just gonna let you all die of thirst. It's exactly what they thought though. People are fickle. You do something great for people and they forget within hours. Look at Jude chapter one in verse number 16. Jude chapter one, look at verse number 16. Look, complaining, angers the Lord. We don't wanna be anywhere near it. Jude is talking about these wicked types of people, but look at what it says. Two words that it describes, you know, false prophets, reprobates. Look what it says. It says these are murmurers, verse 16. Complainers walking after their own lusts and their mouth speaking great swelling words, having immense persons in admiration because of advantages. Look, murmuring and complaining is giving into your own lust. I mean, look, it affects everyone, but here's the thing you have to understand. Complaining affects everybody. Everyone has the inherent desire and the ability to complain. Here's why. It's just like, it's a perfect example of sin. Because sin, and you just remember Acts chapter one, verse 18, when it's talking about Judas. What does it say? When Judas, he went out and he sold out Jesus. Acts one, 18 says that he got the reward of iniquity. He got the money. Right up front, when he sold out Jesus, he got the money. What was the end of Judas, though? The end of Judas was, he went and he tried to give the money back and they ended up just going and just committing suicide and killing himself. But there was an initial reward. It's a perfect example, Acts one, 18, when it talks about the reward of iniquity. It's a perfect example of sin. Because most all sin is this way. There is an initial reward. Complaining is the same way. When you are complaining, it feels good at the time. It feels good at the time to give into your flesh and to do that complaining. It might feel good at the time, but it'll always leave you feeling worse. There is never a time when you complain yourself or you listen to complaining where you walk away from that and you feel better about the situation. You could get that reward of iniquity at first and be a complainer, be listening to a complainer, be joining in on the complaints. But the point is is that it will always leave you feeling worse than when you went into it in the first place. And look, it angers the Lord. So I'm gonna give you two things, two categories of complaints this morning. All that is a point of introduction. Complaining vexes everyone and it angers the Lord. So the point of the sermon this morning is that you should never complain. You should never complain. You say, well, about what? Well, I'm gonna give you two types of things, two categories that kind of encompass all complaints. I'm gonna give you two categories that people complain about. And you could say one is worse than the other, but basically they're both bad. So just think about this in your own life. Think about this when you're applying this this morning. I'm gonna give you two categories of areas that people complain commonly. The two categories are this. The first one is this. So first of all, all in the context of you should never complain. The first thing people complain about, the first category is they complain about, and this one is really bad. But they complain about things that they can change. That's the first thing that people complain about. You know, it's complaining about something that you can change is extra pitiful. If you look back at Exodus chapter 16 or numbers, chapter number 11 or Exodus chapter, I think it's Exodus 15, list the actual number. But there was 600,000 footmen. There was 600,000 men in that group of people that were considered people that were capable that could go out to fight. Let me think about that. 600,000 men from the age of 20 to say 60 or 70. 600,000. There was nobody that could, they couldn't send out riders in every direction and see if they could find some water. They didn't even attempt. They couldn't sit down and say, hey, Moses, you know, we'd like to send out, you know, 20 people in these different directions and see what we can find and they can come back in a few hours. Look, they couldn't sign. I mean, they're complaining about something that they could have offered solutions for. The same thing with the food just a few days later. This is somebody that is complaining about their job. You know, about what they do, you know, for a living or whatever, it's like, okay, well, if you're not good at it, just get better at it instead of complaining about it. If you don't like it, don't do it. Find something else to do. But complaining about something that you can change is extra pitiful. But look, it feels good in the moment. It's like a drug. It feels good to complain at that moment, but it does nothing except make you miserable and make all the people around you miserable as well. I mean, Moses, again, Moses literally wanted to kill himself because of listening to this stuff. I mean, but here's the mechanics of it. Here's the mechanics of why it makes you miserable is because this first category of complaining about things that you can change, when you're complaining about things that you can change, you know what you're not doing? Fixing the problem. When you're complaining about things that you can do something about, you're wasting time not fixing the problem. So you go and you complain and complain and complain, and you have the power to fix that issue, that situation or whatever it is, and instead of fixing it, you spend all this time complaining, and then you get out of the complaint session and you still have the same problem. You've done nothing to fix it. That's why it makes you miserable. Now you're even more miserable than when you started complaining in the first place. Now here's a little bit more complicated one. Another thing people complain about is things that they can't change. This is somebody who's maybe, you know, not in a leadership position. Things that are something that just, you know, somebody that gets in a situation where something just happened to them. Something bad just happened to them, and they can't change it. And it's bad. It cost you something. It's affecting you in a negative way. It's happened. And you can't change, you can't go back in time and fix the fact that this has happened to you. I'm gonna give you an example of this. I'm gonna give you an example of when I complained and I shouldn't have in my life. And I interviewed my wife for this story. And I think I might've told some of you this story before, but this is an interesting story. There was a time back in, so in North Dakota, in North Dakota, in springtime, we don't have spring. What we used to call it was mud season. It was a season of mud where all the snow would begin to melt and it was mud season. Then it would thaw and then it would freeze again and then you would think, oh, all the mud's almost gone and then it would snow again and there'd be a huge blizzard and then there'd be more mud and more mud. And if you live on a farm, it's not only mud, but it's mud and manure season. And you go into the feed lot and it is just, it's just sloppy, muddy, just stinky manure is what it is. And you're like, that's life. And I was in a situation one summer, we had a lot of animals, we had a lot of sheep and I had gotten one of the main tractors that I used to feed the animals stuck in the mud, basically stuck in the manure. And it was a skidster. If you've ever gotten a skidster stuck in the mud, you know, it is impossible if you don't have heavy machinery to get it out of there. And there's only way to hook it up is to crawl underneath the thing and get it on, you know, somebody that knows what I'm talking about is laughing and you gotta get underneath it. So what are you doing? You're crawling in wet, sloppy manure is what you're doing. And so I got one of the tractors stuck in the mud and I got, okay, I'm gonna pull it out. So I got another tractor and then I got that tractor stuck in the mud. And now I got two tractors chained together, buried up to the axles in wet, sloppy manure. And I'm underneath these things, hooking them up with chains, trying to get them out. And then I got another tractor and I got that tractor stuck in the mud. Now I got three machines stuck in the manure. And I got one big tractor that I think can pull these things out and it won't start. And I can't get it started. And at this time, I've been working on this for hours. I am completely covered, nearly head to toe in manure and my wife walks out of the house. And she walks out of the house and she walks out to the feedlot and she said, how's it going? And I remember I had a Leatherman in my hand. And I took the Leatherman and I threw it as far as I could throw it into the trees. I think I threw it all the way over the tree rows. And I just said, I mean, I wasn't mad at my wife. I just said, I got all these tractors stuck in the manure, I said everything. I mean, I'm pretty sure I said some other things, but I was just like, everything I own is either buried in manure and the rest of the stuff that I own is complete junk and won't even start. And it's like, you know, how do you think it's going? And I did some complaining at that moment. And look, the things happened that happened. And I complained to my wife in that moment. I mean, here I was, I was pretty stressed out. I had hungry animals. I had, you know, all these machines that would either wouldn't start or had bad batteries or were stuck in manure. I was tired, I was worn out. And I mean, I was at the, what I felt like at the moment, I was at the end of my rope at that point. I'll always remember that moment. I'll always, and it's the funny thing is somebody found that Leatherman years later. Now I have it as a souvenir. It sat in the trees for years. But you know what complaining did in that moment? It made everything worse in that moment. And look, it wasted time. It wasted time as well. It wasted time when I should have just been regathering my thoughts and coming up with a different plan and figuring out a way to move forward in this situation. Because guess what? None of those tractors are still stuck in the mud. They're all out. The one that wouldn't start, it started a couple of days later. None of those things were permanent problems. All complaining did was vex me and vex my wife. And I asked my wife, and I'd never really asked her this before, but I asked her when I was preparing for this sermon, I said to her, you know, because at the time we did not have a great easy life at this time. I had just taken over my grandpa's farm. There was a lot of things that I was working on at the same time. I was rebuilding things, starting a new business. It was, you know, winter came, weather would come, all these things. There was a lot of things that were weighing down upon me at that time. And I just kind of got to this point where I kind of wish my wife had not walked out of the house at that time. And I wish that when she did walk out of the house that I wouldn't have had the reaction that I had at that time. It was a moment of weakness that I showed in my life. And I asked my wife, I said, just recently I asked her for this sermon. I said, how did that make you feel? Do you remember that? She said, oh yeah, I remember that. So first of all, that memory is tattooed in her mind. She will never forget that day, that very moment. I said, how did you feel when that happened? When you saw that happen? And look, I was so, I was at such a point where my wife just, she turned around and she walked back in the house. There was a hay bale there and I just, I threw my leatherman in the trees and I sat down in the hay bale and I was just like, I was worn out, I was worn out. And I asked my wife, I said, I said, how did that make you feel? And she said, this is exactly what she said. She said, I felt like if he's broken, what chance do we have? That is what you need to understand about complaints. That is what you need to understand that complaining can do to people, especially people that are in leadership that are complaining. Especially someone who is leading a family in complaints. In leadership, it's never a good idea. In your anybody's life, it's never a good idea. In leadership, it will damage even more people than just yourself. Because what leadership does, or what complaining in leadership does is it shows a lack of control of the situation. And what you need, and people say, well, I just like to vent. I just like to vent to my, I like to just go, you know, I go to work and I go home and I vent to my wife. I like to vent to my wife. But what you need to understand is that venting, first of all, venting is complaining. And venting to people that you are leading will demonstrate, look, they may vent right along with you. But you have to understand that in the case of your wife and your family and your children, they are not as strong as you. So your venting will damage them. Your venting will harm them. That's why it's been said, you know, I've heard it said in leadership, you know, classes and philosophies, complaints should go up, never down. And look, go back to Numbers chapter 11. At least Moses complained up. At least Moses, when he complained, he's like, Moses was venting to the Lord. Moses was complaining to the Lord. It would have been better, but look, biblically the answer is this, biblically complaints should never go anywhere. Only solutions should be offered. Only questions should be asked. So Moses got in the flesh too, but at least Moses just complained up. He just went to the Lord and complained up. At least he didn't go to the people and say, yeah, I don't know what the Lord's doing. Because he would have damaged the people beyond repair if he would have done something like that. Look at verse number 11, it says, and Moses said unto the Lord, wherefore hath thou afflicted thy servant? He's complaining, but at least he's complaining up. Look, Moses is a man, he's not perfect. Moses is a man, he gets in the flesh, he's complaining to the Lord, and wherefore hath I not found favor in thy sight that thou laest all the burden of this people upon me? Have I conceived all these people? Have I begotten them that thou shouldst say unto me, carry them in thy bosom? As a nursing father, beareth a second child unto the land that thou swears unto their fathers? It's kind of like, kind of makes you cringe a little bit when you realize he's talking to God. Because what's he doing? He's complaining, he's complaining to the Lord. He's complaining to the Lord about the Lord's decision to put him in charge. He's complaining to the Lord about the Lord deciding to make him responsible for leading these people. He's like, these aren't my people. Why did you do this? He's complaining to God, but at least he's complaining up and not down. He says, I am not able to bear all these people along because it's too heavy for me. That's not so much a complaint. That's a, I need help, Lord. That's where he should have started. That's where he should have started. He should have left the other things out. And then he just says, I can't take it anymore. Just kill me. He asked God to kill him, as we already looked at. But look, it would have been better for Moses to just ask God for help, as he did in verse number 14. Or it would have been even better to just offer solutions to the Lord. And say, hey, but at least he did his complaining upwards and not downwards. So just remember that complaints, you should never complain, but if you complain down, you will damage and destroy the people below you. But folks, there's a reason God put the husband, the man in charge of the family. You're supposed to be stronger than her. You're supposed to be stronger than your wife. And look, it is hardwired. I don't care what the world says. It is hardwired into a wife to want to have someone that is gonna take care of things. So when she sees the husband falling apart, that is going to stress out. That is going to make anxiety set in to a wife. Because if ye's broken, what chance do we have? If he can't handle this, what are the odds that we're gonna make it to? Because he's stronger, or at least he's supposed to be stronger than me. Her perspective is to follow you. That's the wife's, that is the world wants to deny everything natural today. But that is the woman's natural inclination, is to follow her husband. And it really, that's why her comfort, her safety level, really the woman's well-being relies on it. It is depending on her trusting the leadership of her husband. Now the world would try to undo this. The world would try to undo this. The world would try to undo it in the minds of women through things like feminism. Trying to get them to willfully deny, you know, willfully teaching women to not trust their husband. That's what feminism will do. It's basically this underlying, complaining attitude to your husband. It's a terrible thing, but you can also subvert that trust for her through your complaint. And all that does is demonstrate that you have no control of the situation. So don't use your wife as this sounding board to complain about all the things that you can or maybe even the things that you can't control. Your wife needs to see that you have solutions. Your wife needs to see that, yeah, you know, maybe some things happen that were not ideal, but we're working through those things. We're working through, we're working to end these problems. We're working to get around, you know, this hump that we have been in. I mean, look at, turn to Proverbs 31. All complaining will do. It won't make you feel any better. It's not even a situation where I wanna come home and I wanna complain to my wife. And that'll make me feel better even though it stresses her out. No, it'll make you feel worse and it'll make her feel way worse. It's a lose-lose. It's a lose-lose situation. Look at the Proverbs 31 woman. Look at the virtuous woman here in the Bible. I mean, what is this woman? This woman is out there. She's getting it done. She's strong. She's hardworking. She's taking care of her family. Her husband has complete trust in her. When he's out doing what he's doing, she's just got things handled. She's got the family clothed. She's got the family, you know, in food. He worries about none of that stuff. This woman is the picture of a wife in the Bible in Proverbs 31. But look at her husband. What is he, some complaining, weakling? Look at verse 23. It says, her husband is known in the gates. When he's sitteth among the elders of the land, there's a man that has it together right there. There's a man that is empowering his wife. Yeah, she knows that her husband is a man that's got, he's out there, he's getting it done. That's what she knows about her husband. So look, folks, whether it's things you can change or dealing with things that have already happened. Complaining just delays progress. Delay solutions. That's why good leaders don't complain. They ask. Doesn't mean that if you're a leader that you have to have all the answers. Nobody has all the answers. But good leaders will just, they will ask. They will ask somebody for counsel. They will ask somebody for, you know, it's wise to ask counsel. It's wise to ask counsel. What's not wise is to follow foolish people and to not ask and to just complain. But it is wise to ask counsel. People will ask counsel. They will ask the Lord. They will, I mean, look, if you got a vent to somebody, vent to your pastor. If you got a vent about something, vent to me. It'd be better than going home and venting to your family and venting that way. Not to those that you lead, especially. Or you will cause unintended consequences. You'll cause damage that is hard to repair. But look, it's counterproductive. And here's the thing. Here's the attitude to fix this. Here's the attitude that you can have to fix complaining. You say, I like to complain about things, but here's the way you gotta look at things. And I'm gonna give you a trick this morning as we close. Let me tell you something. There will always be something to be, you know, there will always be something to complain about. Always. Complaining and somebody that complains versus somebody that doesn't complain has nothing to do with their situation. Because they're just like, just like there is always something, you know, the other side of this coin is being thankful. There is always something, I don't care what your situation is, I don't care how bad your situation is, there is always something to be thankful about. I mean, how about this? No matter what's going on with you, you could be in the worst situation, you could be being executed for your faith, and there's still, you know, that whole eternal life thing to be thankful about. There is always something in this life to be thankful about, but on the flip side of that, there is always something that you will be able to find to complain about. So here's the attitude, here's the trick I use. Here's the trick I use these days. For many years actually, there's always gonna be something. I say that all the time. Like my kids have heard me say that a billion times. There's always going to be something. Just yesterday I said it. Oh, somebody called me, bad news. Not, it's always something. It's always something. Exodus 15, what do they complain about? Water. Exodus 16, what do they complain about? Food. Numbers chapter 11, what do they complain about? Better food. There's always something to complain about. There will always be something in your life that you can find to complain about. Every minute of every day that is true. It's always something. When I go fishing, when I go fishing with Jacob, the one who's always with me when I'm fishing, we actually have a game at this point. Because I remember I used to go fishing when I was younger. I used to go fishing with a man who will remain nameless. I would go fishing with this guy every now and then. I've not many times. But every single time we went out fishing, it was something broke and it was just nothing but just chaos and swearing. And just like this boat is such a piece of garbage. I'm a kid, I'm just like, oh, this is a lot of fun. I mean, just going crazy and I'm like, man, I hope we don't die out here on the river or whatever, the lake. I mean, this guy, we have anything under control here? Well, it was just like this thing and I was so, you know, look, I got a thing. When I go out fishing, there's always something. Jacob and I have a game at this point. It's like, what are we gonna break this time? And when something breaks, he's like, that's what it was. Well, there's the one thing. There's the one thing that broke and it's kind of a game. Like something that breaks, am I prepared for that? Do I have the part for that? Do I have something that we can use to tie that back together and we'll be driving home and be like, I always tell Jacob, what was that one thing? What did we break? He's like, oh, this thing. I was like, yeah, but we fixed it for $3 with that piece of wire or whatever. You know, sometimes maybe you break something that's a hundred bucks or a little bit more expensive but we always say that. Whenever we hit a rock with the prop or whatever, that's not a great one, but what is? There it is, found it. There's that one thing. There is always going to be something. Always. Every single minute of every single day, it will always be something. Look, this world is full of wicked people. This world is full of wicked people that hate the fact that you believe the Bible, that hate the fact that you're a Christian. Expect it, expect trouble. I mean, so you're like, you know, don't be like, oh, somebody's after me because, you know, I have biblical beliefs. Like, somebody's coming out, expect it. People are wicked, they hate the Lord. They're gonna hate you because you love the Lord. It's not like a great thing that that's gonna happen, but you know, there's always something. There's always gonna be something. And the worst thing is to get this attitude, like everything just always needs to be perfect for me or I can't be happy because you're never gonna be happy. You're just gonna complain about everything all the time. So look, expect trouble because here's the deal folks, we deserve nothing. I mean, we're all, I mean, you know, we talk about the entitlement society that's getting worse and worse and worse, but I think we're all kind of entitled today. I mean, that's where the nature of complaining comes from, we're entitled. We think, you know, we think we deserve better. We think I don't deserve this. You're not deserve the way I'm being treated here. You know, it's all about, you know, like what can everybody do for me? What can everybody do for me? I'm not getting what I'm owed. I'm not getting what I deserve. I didn't, you know, it's all about what I didn't get or you know what, who got more than me? I mean, what in the world? How could it possibly affect you if somebody got more than you? I've always been confused about that one because what does it affect you? Who gets more or who gets less? You deserve to die and go to hell. That's what we all deserve. I mean, and we already got out of that. What possibly could there be to complain about when you look at it in that perspective? I mean, really it comes down to like, what more do we expect? And that's where the Bible really differs from this prosperity message and this prosperity gospel out there is like, look, we got eternal life that we didn't deserve and there's really no other guarantees out there in this world, in this life. As a matter of fact, because of the fact that you got eternal life and then on top of that, you decided that you're gonna learn what God has for you in your life. You're gonna actually go and you're gonna do what God wants you to do in your life. People are gonna come after you just for that fact. You know, less people are gonna come after you. Less people are gonna give you trouble if you get saved and then you shut up about it. You get saved and then you don't say anything to anybody else about it. You're like, I got mine and you're just quiet. You know, you can have a lot less trouble, actually, in your life. It's kind of when it comes down to being a soul winner and going out and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, it's literally the opposite of the prosperity gospel. It's like that itself, because you're going out and you're bearing fruit is going to bring trouble to you. I'm telling you, so you're not offended and you don't complain when it happens because it's going to happen. The Bible says we should rejoice in it when it does happen. Just remember, we deserve nothing. To complain is always wrong. And it does damage to everyone that hears it. Everyone that is in your shot of it, especially our families and the people that are what? They're depending on us to be strong. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.