Don’t you just love being around negative, griping people?  (In case, you can’t see it I have my tongue fully in my cheek).

You could be having a fully alive morning and then meet someone whose very presence seems to put a damper on it. You walk through the door into your office or a meeting and immediately you can tell “that person” is in the room.  The joviality and ease of the room is missing. Or worse, you may already be in the room, laughing and having a nice relaxing moment with colleagues and then “that person” walks in and it seems like something has sucked out all the air in the room. Gone is the joviality. Gone is the ease of conversation. Gone is the sense of anticipation of a good and productive meeting.

I’m not very tolerant of negative, griping people. I avoid them like a plague if possible. I hate to admit that I will sometimes take the long way around rather than come face to face with a “Debby Downer” or a “Frowning Fred.” Neither of them seem to have a good thing to say and seem to only cling and hang on with helpless rambling.

Numbers 16-17 is one of those passages of Scripture which makes perfect sense and we can relate to. Several of the men (Levites) decided they didn’t quite like Moses and Aaron’s leadership. They couldn’t understand why they had to listen to and do what Moses said. So they rebelled. Bad thing to do. Moses was God’s appointed leader and to take this approach was not going to turn out well for them. Long story short: it didn’t. The earth swallowed them up. Even after that show-and-tell, the very next morning they began muttering against Moses and Aaron again. What is wrong with those people? They just had a vivid demonstration of God’s judgment as He reacted to their rebellion and now they are at it again. Needless to say, it did not turn out well for them either.

There are several lessons to be learned in these two chapters. One is the stupidity of complaining against God’s work. Perhaps the most prominent is that God’s grace is seen as Aaron stands between those being destroyed and those kept alive by his actions. It is a great picture of a future time when someone who would be on a hill called Calvary and He would stand in the gap and take God’s judgment for sin on His shoulders.

Now THAT is amazing grace!