Well anyway they flunked the test, look at this. So Numbers, Chapter 14: So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, they wept all night. I've done that - and then all the children of Israel complained. I've done that. [Laughter] The whole congregation said: if only we'd died in the land of Egypt! We should have died in the land of Egypt! We should have died in this wilderness! Why has the Lord - why Lord have you brought us into this land to fall by the sword, and our wives and children should be victims? Better to go back to Egypt? So they said: let's select a leader, we'll return to Egypt. Notice here there's a number of things of people flunking the test. There are all the signs they're flunking and the first sign is weeping, full of self-pity, why me? We've all done that too, have a pity party, and you're the only one there. [Laughter] It's a grand party, goes on - sometimes it can go on for days. Heaviness, depression, sad, poor me, and it's really bad, no one notices how bad it is for me. Why don't you all notice? You don't care, all that kind of stuff. It's all part of it - and complaining. So of course a sign you're flunking is when you're complaining.
Complaining is usually a statement of unbelief, that I don't believe God works all things together for my good, so I'll complain. So complaining is a big problem, complaining, negative talk. Complaining - and who'd they complain against? We've got to find someone to blame, so you find someone's who's visible; you look like you're a leader, I'll complain about you! It's your fault. You brought us here. It was all your idea, sat there in the back of the wilderness, dreamed up this whole idea to get us to where we are now. Look at the mess we're in. You! That's what people do. You're flunking, blaming others. See, you've got to find someone to blame when you're going through a hard time. You're flunking. When you blame someone else, you lose total power, because someone else is holding the responsibility for your life. Don't blame anyone else, just reach out to God and find out how to step up, and what you can do to make the thing different - but blaming, you're flunking. See? You'll have to repeat it again.
Victim mindset, notice our children and our wives will be all victims. Actually they had a total victim mentality. They lived like slaves, and God wanted them to become mighty men of faith that could take a land; but to move from being slaves, thinking victim thinking, blaming, mindsets of self pity and angry, and blaming this and that, He had to shift that stuff out of them, to get them saying: God is with us, we can do it! We'll take that land! We'll slay those giants! How do you get it out of you? Well not by someone laying hands on you. You've got to go through a bit of tough time, and you then choose, as you see what comes up, to respond to the word of God, the word of God. That's why you've got to be in the word, otherwise you'll have very little substance. You'll live out of feelings. So there it is.
Then finally they rebelled and left. Let's get another leader. [Laughs] We don't like this leader. We'll leave, and we'll go back to Egypt. Now putting it simply, what it means is, people stop coming to church. We go down and have time in the pub instead. They're never happy down there either, because actually they've been overthrown in the wilderness, so they're not happy there. They're full of offence and hurt. They've been overthrown in the wilderness. God would help them get up, but it requires repenting of the unbelief, and letting go the disappointment, all the stuff that got into the heart. Over the years I've seen people get all kinds of things in their heart, all kinds of perceptions, and they often got things wrong, they had partial information, they never really found out what was going on. They just assumed and judged, all kinds of things - end up then out in the dark, in the cold, and angry and bitter, and still blaming someone else. There it is, it's all there: flunk! Flunk!