Consider this

“The whole Israelite community… grumbled against Moses and Aaron… ‘He (the Lord) has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us? You are not grumbling against us, but against the Lord’… ‘Come before the Lord, for he has heard your grumbling’…The Lord said to Moses, ’I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites’” (Selected portions of Exodus 16:1-12). When I read that passage for the first time this past week, I knew I had an easy sermon to preach. All I had to do was focus on two facts: First, these people were being led and blessed by God. Second, in spite of their blessings, they still found reasons to complain. Compare them to us, we live in one of the most prosperous countries in the world and yet the coffee shops are full of gripers, and this sermon was going to write itself. There was just one problem. The more I read the passage, the clearer it became that “grumbling” was not their real problem. They did not have an “attit...

If a picture is worth a thousand words, maybe sixty-two words that give you a picture are worth something too. When God rescued his people from Egypt, we read, “By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people” (Exodus 13:21-22). I like the picture of God always being in front of them. They were not alone. Night and day, God was guiding their path and protecting them along the way. There was no guessing. They simply followed and went where God wanted them to go. What if that were said of us? What would our lives look like if we could truly say that we were being “led by God”? I have a hunch that we would end up looking a lot like Jesus. Think about the way he lived. What was his agenda? What would his appointment book or his “to do li...

In Isaiah 36, enemies of God’s people send them a series of messages designed to discourage them. Read over this list and see if you have ever heard Satan whispering these things in your ear. Lie #1: You are weak and helpless (Isaiah 36:4-6). That is good one. If Satan can make us believe this, if he can take away our hope, then we will quit before we even start. Why try if nothing will get better, right? Lie #2: God will not or cannot help you (verse 7). The two pronged approach here is to question God’s ability (“Sure he did all that stuff in the Bible, but this is ‘real life’”) and his disposition (“God is not going to help you after what you have done”). If Satan can make us think that God is either ineffective or that he is mad at us, we lose the very strength that we need. Lie #3: It is good to compromise (Verses 8-10). This works well for Satan because if we modify our beliefs enough, it is as good as giving them up completely. We feel faithful and yet we...

Just off the bay in Newport, Oregon stands the “Yaquina Bay Lighthouse”. Believed to be the oldest building in town, it is certainly one of the prettiest (Google it if you are interested). It is also happens to be the only lighthouse on the Oregon coast that has the light attached to the Keeper’s house. One other thing about the “Yaquina Bay Lighthouse” that makes it interesting is that it was shut down after only three years of service. It was built in 1871 and it was decommissioned in 1873. Why? Did they have a fire? No. Did a storm damage the lighthouse? No. Did they decide that they did not need a lighthouse? No. In fact, it was shut down because the light could not be seen. More accurately, the light could not be seen by ships that were travelling south down the coast. The headlands just north of the bay stuck out into the ocean in such a way that they blocked the sightlines and made the lighthouse ineffective. To remedy the situation, the original lighthous...