Month: November 2023

Digging in Deeper: Exodus 17:5-7

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“The Lord answered Moses, ‘Go on ahead of the people and take some of the elders of Israel with you. Take the staff you struck the Nile with in your hand and go. I am going to stand there in front of you on the rock at Horeb; when you hit the rock, water will come out of it and the people will drink.’ Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel. He named the place Massah and Meribah because the Israelites complained, and because they tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord among us or not?'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Think for a minute about a really positive experience you had a long time ago. I’m talking about one in which you learned a good and important lesson that has stuck with you over generations. Those are good things both to have and to remember. But not all of the experiences we have that stick with us are good. Sometimes it is something bad we did that has shaped our outlook for the rest of our lives. That’s what happened to Israel here. This may not seem like such a big deal, but it shows back up at both the halfway point and near the end of the Scriptures to remind us not to do it. Let’s talk about what they did, how God responded, and what it might mean for us.

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Digging in Deeper: Exodus 17:1-4

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“The entire Israelite community left the Wilderness of Sin, moving from one place to the next according to the Lord’s command. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So the people complained to Moses, ‘Give us water to drink.’ ‘Why are you complaining to me?’ Moses replied to them. ‘Why are you testing the Lord?’ But the people thirsted there for water and grumbled against Moses. They said, ‘Why did you ever bring us up from Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?’ Then Moses cried out to the Lord, ‘What should I do with these people? In a little while they will stone me!'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

I remember going to music stores when I was in high school that were absolutely filled with CDs, the latest technology. There were rows and rows and stacks and stacks of them. It was glorious. Now, in an ironic time jump, records outsell CDs, and it’s not close. I haven’t bought a record from this generation yet, but I listened to plenty of them from their first go-round. I’m not sure if they still break like they used to, but in the past, records would occasionally get a snag in them that would cause them to stick in one spot and repeat the same phrase over and over again. That’s where we get the phrase, “like a broken record.” I say all of that to ask this: Have you ever been around someone who was like a broken record? Israel was. Let’s talk about how, why, and why perhaps we’re not so different.

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Morning Musing: Exodus 16:35-36

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“The Israelites ate manna for forty years, until they came to an inhabited land. They ate manna until they reached the border of the land of Canaan. (They used a measure called an omer, which held two quarts.)” (CSB – Read the chapter)

It is amazing how fast things change. I was talking with a friend the other day about that. As he was buying a drink from a vending machine using only his smart watch, he observed that if you had told him six years ago he would be able to do something like that, he would have laughed at you. And he’s a pretty young guy. We develop incredible and new things and get rid of old ones at a breathtaking pace. The thought of something happening consistently for a long time is increasingly becoming an odd one to us. Yet the God we serve is patient in His faithfulness. As we wrap up Exodus 16 today, let’s talk about how we see that here, and why it matters so much for us today.

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Is Hell Real?

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That’s a very good question, and one we are going to wrestle with together today as we wrap up our teaching series, Confident in the Face of Hard Questions. A significant percentage of the country believes in Heaven. A significant percentage of the country, on the other hand, don’t believe in Hell. They can’t imagine that they’ve done anything sufficiently wrong to warrant their being set on fire and burned for all eternity. Yet while the imagery of Hell we find in the Scriptures is certainly uncomfortable, uncomfortable language doesn’t make the doctrine itself false. Let’s struggle through this question and see how the existence of Hell, far from making God a tyrant, actually elevates His love and justice even further.

Is Hell Real?

Almost 20 years ago, former Vice President Al Gore released a documentary movie about climate change whose title introduced a phrase into the public lexicon that has never left since. The film was called, An Inconvenient Truth. The idea was that Gore was presenting the public with a whole bunch of information about the state of the climate that was true even if we didn’t want it to be. Whether you happen to agree with anything he said or not, the movie undeniably made a huge impact on western culture. (It also made Gore exceedingly wealthy.) Also, whether you happen to agree with his position on that particular issue or not, it is nonetheless the case that there are some things that are true whether or not we want them to be true. 

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Morning Musing: Romans 5:8

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“But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
(CSB – Read the chapter)

I occasionally get things wrong. Okay, let’s be more honest than that. Occasionally I blow it. Okay, fine, scratch that “occasionally.” I screw up a lot. Sometimes this happens in ways that are small and insignificant. Others are big and bold. Some of these are public where anyone can see them. A whole lot more are things known only to my heart and mind and borne by my soul alone. No matter what form or fashion these happen to take, though, one thing is consistent throughout: God’s love never changes or wavers. Today, I am grateful for this unbelievable truth.

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