Whipping A Whiney Spirit – Part II
"Clear Communication With God"
Luke 19th Chapter
1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A
man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was
wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he
could not, because of the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a
sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. 5 When
Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come
down immediately. I must stay at your house today." 6 So he
came down at once and welcomed him gladly. 7 All the people saw this
and began to mutter, "He has gone to be the guest of a `sinner.’ " 8
But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord! Here and now I
give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of
anything, I will pay back four times the amount." 9 Jesus said
to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is
a son of Abraham.
Last week we took a look at the first of two definitions of whining. The
first definition defined whining as an expression of negative feelings,
especially of dissatisfaction or resentment. This week we take a look at the
second definition which consists of four words: Murmur, Grumble, Grouch, and
Whimper. Now let’s look at our text and then we will go back to the definition.
Our text comes from a passage of scripture that many of us have heard
before. It’s about a man named Zacchaeus. He wasn’t a popular fellow being that
he was a chief tax collector. Now if you think tax collectors aren’t popular
today, you should know that they really weren’t popular back in these times.
Well Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus and climbed a tree to do so. When Jesus got
to where Zacchaeus was He told him, "come down immediately. I must stay at
your house today." So Zacchaeus came down at once and gladly welcomed the
Saviour.
This was truly an opportunity of a lifetime. To have Jesus come to your home
and fellowship with you. All of God’s children should have been happy for
Brother Zacchaeus; however, that was not the case. Now let’s really focus on
the seventh verse which states, "ALL the people saw this and began to
mutter, "He (Jesus) has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’" Wait a
minute!! First, who were these people? They were followers of Jesus. Were all
of them saved? Probably not. Were some of them saved? Probably so. But the
thing we really need to take note of is the word ALL in the seventh verse. This
tells us that every person in that crowd said the same thing, yet how could
this be? There wasn’t a guy with a megaphone saying, "One, two, three,
let’s all say this together: ‘He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’
One-Two-Three…….." However this word from God tells us that they did.
How So?
Well the 7th verse said that they ALL muttered the same thing. To clearly
explain this let’s look back at the definitions of whining:
- To
Murmur – "To make a low, unclear and sound usually in the throat
cavity" - To
Grumble – "To mutter in a surly way" - To
Grouch – "To sulk" - To
Whimper – "To make low, whining, broken sounds, as in crying"
From a crowd of people we should be able to clearly say that each of these
definitions of whining was probably covered and covered well. I’m sure there
were many that (1) murmured – said a few things under their breath, (2)
grumbled – grunted and growled (3) grouched – stood around with their eyes
crossed (4) whimpered – saying "I thought you (sniff, sniff) would go home
with me Jesus (sniff, sniff). Yet, through all of these forms of communcation
our writer, Luke, was able to look into the spirit realm and see them as saying
the same thing too: "He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’" How
so? Because it’s truly a matter of what’s in your innermost being – your
spirit. As these people spoke what was deep within, even though they might not
have understood each other, their disapproval was clear and concise to God.
So why did the crowd have a "whiney spirit?" Because they didn’t
know the end from the beginning. In other words, they didn’t know that Jesus had
to bless Zacchaeus with his presence to get him saved and into the kingdom of
God. They should have realized that Jesus, who was, is and always shall be God,
was too wise to make a mistake. He knew exactly what it took to get Zacchaeus
saved. Whereas many in the crowd would get saved simply by following Jesus and
others by getting healed, this man Zacchaeus needed some extra attention.
Therefore, if God decides to do something extra in someone’s life, we all
should be praising Him instead of murmuring, grumbling, grouching and
whimpering because to tell it like it T-I-IS, GOD KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING!
