CRITICS

Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.-1 Cor.10:10   One of the most aggravating things in life is putting up with those who put you down. I’m talking about cronic complainers, people who can’t seem to make it through the day without finding fault and murmuring about something. It’s not quiet so bad when you’re not the target, but when the criticism is directed toward you it really gets tough to deal with.   I’ve heard all that stuff about learning from your enemies and I’ll admit there is some truth to it, but most of the time we are in no mood to be taught. I realize that there is usually a measure of truth in the complaints of our critics, and it would be good if we listened, but we usually don’t see it.   However, there’s something that I’ve noticed. More often than not the critic is on his way down rather than on his way up. Critics are usually worse than the people they criticize. After being a pastor for forty years I’ve noticed that our biggest critics have either dropped out of church or are in a liberal church. It doesn’t take a genuis to see what the problem was. The critic became the casuality!   This ought to serve as a warning to us when we’re tempted to murmur and complain. Before we point out the faults of others we need to think about our own. We need to examine ourself in the light of God’s word, confessing every sin. If we do that we will do a lot less complaining about others.